New Delhi and Ottawa should restore civilised processes of resolution
The unseemly and escalating diplomatic brawl between India and Canada is a measure, on both sides, of the degree to which domestic partisan political compulsions can poison international relations, even as they undermine national interests. The two countries are now locked into a retaliatory spiral that has entangled their top leaderships, with little visible possibility of any early de-escalation.
Indeed, the latest assertions by the Canadian Police that Indian government agencies were engaged in “serious criminal activity in Canada”, in collaboration with organised criminal gangs—particularly the Lawrence Bishnoi group—have taken the confrontation to the level of farce.
Little of this has to do with the actual trajectory of the Hardeep Singh Nijjar murder case, as Canada and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would like us to believe. A parallel investigation is ongoing in the US on an attempted murder charge on another Khalistani activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, and this appears to have made far greater and concrete progress, implicating at least one Indian intelligence operative with disclosed evidence that is certainly persuasive.
Nevertheless, the public projection of the case in the US has been professional, and there is a manifest absence of the theatrics, the political posturing and the stridency that has attended the case in Canada, clearly indicating that far more is involved in the latter case than a police investigation into a crime.
Crucially, the Canadian disclosures, including Prime Minister Trudeau’s statement in Parliament on September 18, 2023, were based, on Trudeau’s own admission in his testimony in the public inquiry into foreign interference, on “intelligence” and not evidence, “at that time”. He also admits, moreover, that in the intervening period he relied substantially on inputs he received from “South Asian MPs” and by talking directly to members of the “South Asian community”, essentially the Khalistanis in the Canadian Parliament and his Cabinet, and the wider Sikh community, who were “quite insistent that it was something connected to the GoI”. Trudeau also accused Indian diplomats (the six, including the Indian High Commissioner, who were declared ‘persons of interest’ in the investigations, and who were subsequently declared persona non grata after India expelled six Canadian diplomats, including the High Commissioner) of employing “covert, clandestine and coercive measures” for information gathering.
There can be no legitimate objection to a Canadian investigation into the Nijjar killing—and possible lines of investigation must include the possibility of the involvement of Indian agents or agencies; however, a number of other credible possibilities exists, including the involvement of criminal and terrorist gangs on Canadian soil, with whom Nijjar was closely associated, and the fractious Gurudwara politics in which he was involved.
Crucially, conflating the possible role of Indian agencies and of gangsters, is disingenuous, unless backed by very credible and specific intelligence. Canada has argued that it is in possession of some such evidence, which it cannot reveal at the present stage, but which will be disclosed once the case goes to court. If that is the case, then these inflammatory revelations could also be withheld till the appropriate disclosures were possible within the Canadian legal system
It is, moreover, deeply improper, and rightly suspect, that a sitting Prime Minister should make insistent public assertions regarding an ongoing investigation, effectively prejudging the issue and exerting unlawful pressure on investigative and judicial agencies to arrive at predetermined conclusions.
Such conduct is certainly unprecedented in any comparable case of the murder of an individual who was on the country’s own ‘no fly list’, whose bank accounts had been frozen, who had been investigated for organising arms training camps for terrorists, who had entered the country illegally and was guilty of a number of fraudulent manoeuvres to secure citizenship—which he was inexplicably granted after a decade of illegal residence—and against whom a Interpol Red Corner notice had been issued on India’s request.
Equally astonishing is the fact that such a man was chosen to be honoured with a minute’s silence in the Canadian Parliament on his first death anniversary—an honour ordinarily reserved for individuals who had made exemplary contributions to the country. Further, Ottawa has repeatedly been warned about the very gangs and individuals that it now accuses New Delhi of collaborating with, and against whose principals long-pending extradition requests have been doggedly ignored.
It is necessary to understand that the entire Indo-Canadian confrontation on the Nijjar case is likely to prove deeply counter-productive, not only in terms of the damage it is doing to relations between the two countries, but also because it may drive subversive processes by criminalised elements in both countries much deeper underground, rather than helping address this growing challenge within a cooperative framework.
Each side, at present, revels in the partisan popularity its discordant postures have won in its own captive constituency. Both sides, however, are paying a heavy price for the short-term partisan gains they have sought, and this price can only rise in the foreseeable future. It is high time New Delhi and Ottawa restored civilised processes of resolution, instead of feeding an escalatory dynamic.
Ajai Sahni
Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management, South Asia Terrorism Portal
ajaisahni@gmail.com