Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said on Monday that “agents of the government of India” had carried out the assassination of a Sikh community leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar (a Canadian citizen), in British Columbia earlier this June. This of course was an explosive allegation that has further soured relations between the two nations. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the accusation “absurd.” The two leaders met briefly at the Group of 20 summit meeting in India earlier this month.. Trudeau stated last week in Parliament that Canada had credible information that “agents of the government of India” had carried out the assassination of Nijjar. A formal investigation is on-going. At the summit meeting, Trudeau met briefly with Modi and raised the matter with him. Mr. Modi “completely rejected” the allegations.
Since then, Canada was forced to cancel a scheduled trade mission to India and postponed a possible trade agreement between the two countries which had been negotiated for over a year.
In turn, the Indian government temporarily blocked the issuance of visas to Canadians wishing to visit India. This will affect Canadians of Indian descent, Indian students studying in Canada and family members visiting in Canada. Both countries expelled diplomats from their respective embassies. India for some time has also accused Canada of providing shelter to “Khalistani terrorists and extremists” who threaten India’s security. Khalistan is what Sikh separatists call the independent state they seek to create in India.
The situation regarding the Sikh community is an important one given that Canada is now home to the largest Sikh population outside India, with about 770,000 people who reported Sikhism as their religion in a 2021 census. Sikhs hold a prominent place in Canadian society and politics. In the federal government, the head of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, is Sikh.
The current diplomatic dispute places President Biden in a tough and very sensitive place. On the one hand, he has to recognize Canada’s right to defend its sovereignty. After all, the U.S. would do the same under similar circumstances where American citizens are attacked in their country by foreign agents. However, Biden is being forced to maintain a delicate balance between the interests of two democratic allies. The White House has declared that it is waiting for the formal investigation to conclude before weighing in, but it pushed back on criticism that the U.S. is trying to avoid antagonizing India because of its important strategic role. As reported by the Washington Post, India is among the world’s most populous countries, occupies a strategic location in the Asian subcontinent — notably opposite to China — and is home to a growing technology sector. The U.S. and India recently established a high-level initiative on defence and emerging technologies that will, among other things, promote joint production of defence equipment, including military jet engines, long-range artillery and armoured infantry vehicles. However, the relationship is complicated by India’s poor record on domestic human rights, its reliance on discounted Russian oil and its neutral position vis-à-vis the Russian-Ukraine war. Biden has raised the issue of Modi’s crackdown on dissent and his persecution of religious minorities in India. Biden is asking both Canada and India to cooperate in the incident’s formal investigation in order to end the dispute as soon as possible.
Those perceptions of peaceful Sikh advocacy for independence in India faced a jolt in 1985, when a bomb went off on an Air India flight from Canada to India via Britain. The explosion off the coast of Ireland killed the 329 people, including several Canadians, on board. An extremist, a Sikh immigrant, was convicted in connection with the bombing, which came at a time of heightened tensions between the Sikh community and the Indian government. As in the U.S., Canada will always condemn any extremist activity that results in violence in Canada or elsewhere. However, freedom of expression and freedom of religion are deeply entrenched in the constitutions of both countries and are fiercely protected.
Hopefully, both Canada and India, with their many other mutual interests, can resolve their differences through the promotion of cooperation in investigating the above incident.
FROLITICKS 