How did India-Canada ties turn bitter?

PERHAPS never in the recent past have the Indian Canadian bilateral relations been so very fiercely bickered, bitter, and all in the open!

That in fact seems incredibly amazing as these steeply rising tensions between the two best known friends and deep-seated strategic partners on trade and security have attained grandiose proportions only during the last one year or so, has been a matter of tremendous concern in New Delhi and Ottawa.

This fast-mounting malevolence surfaced brazenly when both countries expelled some of each other’s most senior diplomats. Looking back, it seems to have begun particularly when the Canadians hoisted murder allegations against India.

In India, it is widely believed that it was the Canadian Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Liberal Party of Canada, the 53-year-old Justin Trudeau, who first accused India of murdering Indian-Canadian Sikh citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

The matter took a serious turn when Canada accused India of ‘homicide and extortion intended to silence’ the critics.’ It heightened the ‘crisis’ as Canada alleged that it found India was “meddling in internal Canadian affairs.” But India denied that and said that Canada was not recognizing the fact that Nijjar was a ‘criminal terrorist, affiliated with the banned militant Khalistan Tiger Force,’ and wanted in India. And it was during a brief meeting with Mr. Justin Trudeau in Delhi that the Government of India told him that it had “strong concerns about continuing anti-India activities of extremists elements in Canada’’ who it accused of “promoting secessionism and inciting violence against Indian diplomats.’’ This statement related to the Sikh activists in Canada demanding Khalistan, a separate homeland in India for the Sikhs.

Be that as it may, currently, Canada is home to the largest Sikh diaspora outside Punjab (Indian). According to most recent census figures, the Sikh population in Canada is around 2.1% of the total population, i.e., 770,000 who people identify themselves as Sikhs. The Sikhism is the fourth largest religious group in Canada. Overall, Indian total population in Canada numbers around 14 lakhs, 3.7% in the 2021 census. Incidentally, the largest migration to Canada was recorded between 2013 – 2023 from 32,828 to139,917- a 326% increase. In addition, Indian student enrollment in the Canadian universities also went up by 50 times, between the years 2000 and 2021-- from 2,181 to 128,928.

However, unfortunately, the Sikh separatist movement in India has long been a source of tension in India-Canada ties. India has strongly opposed the Khalistan moment. And so also, almost all mainstream political parties, including in Punjab, have intensely opposed any related violence and separatism all the time. But Hardeep Singh Nijjar, said to be a mere clerk in a Sikh temple, who became a Canadian citizen in 2007, was an ardent advocate of the elevating separatist movement.

But meanwhile, when “the 2016 Interpol red notice issued in India, Nijjar was accused of being a mastermind and key conspirator of many terrorist acts in India. He was 45-year-old when he was allegedly shot by two gunmen wearing dark clothes with hoods outside a Sikh temple in Vancouver suburb, Surrey, on a June summer evening,” according to BBC. The police said Nijjar died the same evening. But Nijjar was also alleged to have shot and conspired killings of many Hindu leaders, and that he was running a Sikh terrorist training camp in Canada, near Mission, in the Canadian state of British Columbia.

Of course, Nijjar was also questioned by Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The Canadian police had placed him on Canada’s ‘No Fly List, and his personal bank accounts were frozen.’ These incidents kept accelerating the temperatures in both countries.

Besides, at the recent meeting in Laos, when Trudeau repeated that India should investigate its “diplomats’ involvement in Nijjar’s alleged assassination,” India outrightly ‘rejected the absurd’ demand. This angered Trudeau who is said to have asserted that Canada “will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government’s threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil...’’ India again rejected the Canadian statement on its diplomats and recalled its diplomatic staff from Canada because of “an atmosphere of extremism and violence that put them in danger.’’  India also expelled six Canadian diplomats in India, a sort of ‘retaliatory diplomatic move.’

Meanwhile, both the USA and the UK, Canada’s two outstanding western pre-eminent allies pitched in: The US raked up an old ‘indictment’ against an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, about his alleged participation in a failed murder bid of a New York City citizen, thus linking the assassination bid against Nijjar and the NYC citizen. The case court hearing is set for trial next month. The bad blood feelings among the two nations continue to sour the ties.

Be that as it may, let it not be forgotten that Canada and India have had many intimate ties linking familial bonds and financial engagements over decades since independence: the history tells us that India and Canada have relations that have their roots in 19th century when both nations were part of the British Empire. While India became an independent republic, both remain part of the Commonwealth of Nations and the G20 group of nations. Indians are the tenth largest self-reported group in Canada by nationality. Both the nations have had the friendliest ties all these years … the year 2011 was celebrated as ‘The Year of India’ in Canada. Justin Trudeau’s father, the late Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Prime Minister was a fast friend of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in New Delhi during late 1960s. He was regarded as a ‘playboy’ type. Both were bosom friends.

Now, from among his five siblings, the eldest, Justin Philippe Yves Elliot Trudeau, will lead the Canadian Liberal Party in the country’s forthcoming general elections for a fourth term of his government. And the Canadian Sikhs form a major voting chunk of his constituency.