Visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced a frosty reception when he landed in New Delhi last Saturday on a week-long official visit. There was no welcome tweet from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and a relatively junior minister received him at the airport. And unlike the Japanese, Chinese and Israeli prime ministers who had been proudly taken around the Sabarmati Ashram by Modi, Trudeau, who is here with his wife Sophie and three children, had to be content with a brief meeting with Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.
While New Delhi insisted that no protocol had been violated, the snub was apparent. The reason: Canada’s unwillingness to act against pro-Khalistani activists on its soil despite repeated requests from New Delhi. Trudeau’s vehement insistence that his government did not support separatists or terrorists of any kind fell flat when pictures surfaced of his wife and a Cabinet minister with Jaspal Atwal—a former Khalistani activist convicted of attempting to murder a Punjab minister in Canada in 1986—at an event in Mumbai on Wednesday. Atwal’s invitation to a dinner hosted by the Canadian High Commission was quickly revoked, but the damage was done. New Delhi, meanwhile, fumbled when asked how Atwal had been issued a visa, with the foreign ministry saying it would investigate, and the home ministry insisting he was not on any proscribed list.
If things weren’t bad enough, the Canadian media too went to town attacking Trudeau not just for the gaffes, but also for turning his state visit into a family vacation. “Blundering around in his overly formal Indian outfits, inviting an alleged terrorist to dinner, Trudeau made of this important trip a bad—and potentially rather costly—joke,” said the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily. It was only on Friday, the day the two sides were scheduled to hold delegation-level talks in New Delhi, that Modi put out a welcoming tweet and greeted Trudeau with a hug. But in more ways than one, it was too little, too late.