If Justin Trudeau’s allegation of India’s involvement in Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s killing wasn’t enough of a bombshell, senior members of Joe Biden’s administration weighed in on the side of their long-time ally Canada and deepened speculation over the timing of Trudeau’s tirade.
In calling for greater “cooperation” and talking up the joint investigation of the case with their Canadian counterparts, the United States has put India—which Washington seemed to be actively cultivating as a democratic bulwark against international bully China—on the spot.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said they were coordinating with Canadian colleagues and allies, and that they “have been engaged directly with the Indian government as well”. US security adviser Jake Sullivan said much the same, but skirted questions on Biden’s attendance as chief guest at the next Republic Day parade. A cancellation could be read as a snub to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Is the Sullivan-Blinken prod for Delhi to “work with the Canadians on the investigation” indicative of a tilt that should worry India?
India has pushed back with vigour, describing Trudeau’s “credible allegations” without providing proof to back up the charges as “absurd”, scoffing at the Canadian leader’s contradictory legalese.
Delhi has accused Ottawa of providing shelter to Khalistani terrorists and extremists who threaten India’s security. It has urged Canada to “take prompt and effective legal action against all anti-India elements operating from their soil”. The singularly harsh messaging was followed by fresh notices for the extradition of twenty-one Canada-based Khalistanis, raids on their properties in Punjab, and shutting down visa services at its consulates and missions.
But the flood of information cited by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) does put Delhi on the mat. CBC News reported that Ottawa had “intercepts, communication between Indian officials, including Indian diplomats present in Canada”. An unnamed Canadian government source revealed their government had “amassed both human and signals intelligence in a months-long investigation”. India could hit back by calling the snooping illegal.
The charges got added credence when the US ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, said, “The intelligence did not come from Canada alone and was shared by an unnamed ally in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance,” which comprises the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
It is imperative that India tackles these allegations head-on. Nijjar, who is charged with murder and terrorism in India, was shot dead in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18 by two masked men. Have Canadian officials shared details of the getaway car or traced the killers?
While the unsubstantiated charge among the Sikh diaspora was that India was behind it, Canadian investigators cannot ignore the internecine killings that mark the fratricidal rivalry between the eight separatist groups that operate within Canada and their imprint in Indian Punjab. One case to consider is the July 2022 murder of Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was killed after Nijjar called out his links with the Modi government; Nijjar’s own elimination is put down to Malik’s followers bumping him off in revenge.
Can Trudeau provide hard evidence to the contrary? The premier of British Columbia, David Eby, has questioned the veracity of Trudeau’s charge. At the same time, CBC News has reported that Canada’s security intelligence adviser Jody Thomas conferred with India in August and September. Now Delhi must go beyond a statutory denial of the charge that Indian officials “did not deny culpability”, and tamp down on the misplaced triumphalism by some people at home.
The red flags Delhi should have noted include Trudeau’s refusal to play nice at the G20 summit, his putting the trade deal on hold, boycotting the official banquet, having a tense exchange with Modi during a 15-minute pull-aside, and his refusal to accept an offer to fly him out when his plane developed a snag.
One explanation for Trudeau’s pandering to the Khalistanis would be to ascribe it to his Liberal Party’s dependence on the influential Jagmeet Singh’s National Democratic Party for survival, and his plummeting approval ratings two years before the polls.
Another aspect that cannot be discounted is the Pakistan-backed Babbar Khalsa—one of the many Khalistan groups that drive the gun-narco-drug terror network straddling the border, with which Nijjar had strong links that were reinforced on his visits to Pakistan for arms training—working behind the scenes to thwart a strong Modi presence in Punjab.
The other prime mover behind the so-called “transnational repression”, as Blinken described the alleged extra-territorial killing, could be about China wanting to cut a rising India to size. The influence of the Canadian Chinese in Trudeau’s Liberal Party was raised by Canada’s Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, asking Trudeau to explain why he chose to malign India while not raising the arrest of two prominent Canadian businessmen in China.
Conspiracy theorists claim that attempts to sully the Modi government ahead of the 2024 election could be orchestrated by Left-leaning elements in the West, allegedly led by billionaire George Soros. But the West’s thumbs-down to a public rap on India’s knuckles at G20 in Delhi and G7 in New York signals that they are not completely rethinking India’s geopolitical re-positioning as a counterbalance to China. After all, the US wouldn’t want Khalistani terror spilling over into its territory and Canada wouldn’t want sectarian bloodshed threatening Hindu Canadians.
As Trudeau’s attempts to drive a wedge between a muscular India and the Global North go south, India would do well to ‘un-blot’ its international playbook and heed wiser counsel to engineer a course correction. Or else, see ‘Canadistan’ become a new tool in the West’s bag of dirty tricks.