That India under its current prime minister, Narendra Modi, has big plans is not a secret. The world’s most populated nation – it recently passed the PRC for that honour – has been pushing its weight around for some time. It dominates its immediate neighbourhood and has been seeking greater influence further afield.
Within India itself the Modi regime is unabashedly Hindu nationalist. The roots of Modi’s character lie in the RSS, an extreme Hindu organisation that see the country as home to one, and only one, ethnic group. Others – the country’s Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and sundry minorities – simply must kowtow to the majority. This attitude has led to acts of violence, especially against the Muslim community where ‘cow vigilantes’ (Hindus decry the consumption of beef) and those who are convinced there is a campaign to lessen Hindu supremacy through the practice of ‘love jihad’ (the forcible conversion of Hindu women) kill without penalty.
It is true that India does face challenges on its watch from a dog’s breakfast of movements, from Maoist guerrillas in the north to jihadis, many of whom are sponsored by Pakistan, in Jammu and Kashmir. But it is the Sikh extremist threat which seems to consume the most attention, with deadly result.
The desire for an independent homeland – Khalistan – in the Punjab region is longstanding and unlikely to ebb soon. Some are willing to kill to gain this territory. Sikh terrorists were behind the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Ghandi in 1984 as well as the downing of Air India flight 125 in June of 1985, a plot hatched, planned and executed from Canada. It was, until 9/11, the single most lethal attack on civil aviation in history.
India is convinced that Canada remains a haven for Sikh terrorism. It has constantly complained to Ottawa that our nation houses those who hanker for a free Khalistan and does not seem to want to do anything about it (although Canada has long listed the International Sikh Youth Federation and Babbar Khalsa International are as terrorist entities).
As a consequence of perceived Canadian non-action, India has allegedly decided to take the matter into its own hands. The death of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Najjar in BC in 2023, as well as a similar, but foiled, plot in the US, has been blamed on Indian intelligence. There are also reports of high levels of foreign interference by India in Canada.
All this has now come to a head. India has expelled six Canadian diplomats from our High Commission in Delhi in response to a similar move by Ottawa against Indian representatives here. The Trudeau government says India is behind not only the Nijjar killing but a “campaign of violence” on our soil. The RCMP has been active in investigating the Nijjar murder for some time.
What does all this mean? A lot, to put it simply. Canada is host to a large south Asian diaspora, including Sikhs, and has a responsibility to prevent attempts by India to harass, influence or coerce them. The government cannot allow anyone, be they foreign agents or local actors at the former’s behest, to take the life of those living in Canada.
At the same time, India probably has a legitimate point about Sikh extremism on our soil. Within the 770,000 Sikh community here there are undoubtedly some who espouse violence with the goal of forcing India to grant independence to its Sikh population. The government, clearly not wanting to alienate an important source of votes, has tiptoed around this issue, going as far in 2018 of removing the phrase “Sikh Khalistani terrorism” from that year’s Public Safety Canada report (replacing it with “extremists who support violent means to establish an independent state within India’, a typical fudging of reality). India appears to have grown tired of our inability, or lack of will, to deal with this form of political violence.
This may be a tempest in a teapot that will resolve itself diplomatically, though I fear it will not be. On the plus side a government has never taken national security seriously (e.g. on China) appears to have confidence in the original intelligence (from a SIGINT partner) of Indian involvement, and what the RCMP has found in the course of its work. On the other hand, trade ties with India are important to the Canadian economy and it is possible that we will – again – bow to India’s pressure (much as we did to the PRC, ignoring its decades of foreign meddling within the Chinese diaspora). Canada is also aware of the West’s need for India to remain on our side and not leap into the arms of Russia or China.
In the end, Canada is not that important on the international stage and India knows that. India’s ascent as a global power under Modi is already spawning acts that defy international law and it probably does not care about the reaction, even less so that of Canada. We will have to see how far this government goes to send a message to Delhi but I will be surprised if it is a strong one. I hope I am wrong.
