India, Canada in a serious spat

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau created a diplomatic storm when he stated in the House of Commons that investigations into the killing of a Sikh activist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, declared by the Indian government as a terrorist, indicated that Indian intelligence agencies were involved in it. India shot back and described the claim as “absurd”. Canada followed the prime minister’s statement by expelling a diplomat from the Indian High Commission, who was an officer connected with India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).

And he was also an officer of Indian Police Service (IPS), who served in Punjab which is a Sikh-majority state. India followed suit by expelling a Canadian diplomat in New Delhi, and it also had decided to stop issuing visas to Canadians visiting India. The Indian foreign office also said that it had asked Canada to pare down its staff in New Delhi as the number of staff members were more than those in the Indian mission in Canada, and it had also said that the Canadian diplomats were involved in divisive acts in India.

The spat is not confined to the two countries. It has implications for other countries, and in a way the global balance of power. Trudeau said that he had shared the information about the Indian hand in the killing of Nijjar, a Canadian citizen, with the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, also known as Five Eyes Alliance because they shared intelligence. This put the US and the UK in an awkward spot because the US was backing India as a counter-weight to China and the UK was seeking a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India because after Brexit it was looking to India as a potential business partner. India has just overtaken Britain as the fifth largest economy by GDP size, and Britain was looking to India’s big market. The US and UK are also very close allies of Canada, with the common Anglo-Saxon bonding of the English language and democratic traditions. The US and the UK had partly supported Canada by saying that the investigation should go on unimpeded, but they did not take issue with India. Washington had urged India to cooperate with Canada in the investigation.

Most of the Western countries, especially in Europe and the US, think of India as the only credible, democratic, free market counter to Communist Party-ruled China with Xi Jinping as the tough ruler. The US may have disagreements with India but it keeps the big picture in mind and it recognises India’s importance in the global context. That is why, the US would not go so far as to criticise India in the matter.

There is the fact that Trudeau seems to have spoken a little too early, even before the investigation was complete and there was certainty about the suspects. It seems that there was a political compulsion behind going public a little too soon. His Liberal Party is dependent on the Sikhs’ New Democratic Party for staying power, and he had to speak out because of the pressure from the Sikh community in Canada. The Sikhs are now a part of the Canadian political landscape. It is possible that the spat between the two countries, which had reached the diplomatic low, would resolve itself in the next few weeks. But this would leave a mark on the bilateral relations.

Canada has been a restive partner, and it did not see eye-to-eye on many issues with India. When India carried out its first nuclear test in 1974, Trudeau’s father who was prime minister of Canada at the time, suspended nuclear fuel for the Canadian-supported reactor in India. It has been a testing relationship.