Author: Kim Richard Nossal, Queen’s University

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced that his authorities had ‘credible allegations’ relating to India’s involvement within the homicide of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist chief and Canadian citizen, he added to the spiralling doom loop that has been roiling India–Canada relations.

In the aftermath of the homicide, which was caught on the safety cameras of the gurdwara that Nijjar headed, Canadian authorities gathered human and indicators intelligence pointing to the involvement of Indian officers, together with communication intercepts of Indian diplomats in Canada. Some intelligence was shared with Canada by one other member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which incorporates Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Given its shock at discovering {that a} supposedly pleasant authorities had been concerned within the homicide of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil — it was hardly shocking that Canadian officers raised the problem privately with the Indian authorities on a number of events throughout August and September. But because the story started circulating extra broadly in diplomatic and intelligence circles, and when particulars had been then leaked by a nationwide safety supply to the Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper, the Trudeau authorities determined to pre-emptively go public.

The similar day, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly expelled an Indian diplomat, Pavan Kumar Rai, the station chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s intelligence company, who was primarily based at India’s excessive fee in Ottawa. A Canadian commerce mission as a result of go to India in October was additionally suspended.

The Indian authorities was unrepentant. It dismissed the Canadian claims as ‘absurd’ and, in a tit-for-tat transfer, expelled a Canadian diplomat from India. Two days later, India suspended all visa providers in Canada, claiming that the safety of its diplomatic missions in Canada had been compromised. On 3 October, the Indian authorities introduced that 41 of the 62 Canadian diplomats in India had one week to go away the nation.

There is now no straightforward approach out of the doom loop for both nation. For India, there’s little incentive to again down on condition that any retreat would merely encourage the continuation of the diaspora politics in Canada that strained the connection. Moreover, for the federal government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there can be home advantages in treating Canada harshly, since many Indians are extremely vital of the tolerance loved by Sikh separatists in Canada.

For years, Indian governments have watched activists in Canada partaking in what New Delhi calls ‘anti-Indian activities’, together with efforts to undermine Indian territorial integrity by working for the creation of an impartial state, Khalistan, in Punjab. But these anti-Indian actions have additionally included threats towards Indian diplomatic missions in Canada, the overt endorsement of violence as a political device, and — in a single significantly outrageous case — a really public show in Brampton, Ontario, that glorified the 1984 assassination of former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi.

India usually accuses Canada of being a secure haven for terrorists and gangsters, and has sought the extradition of a number of Canadians on terrorist and prison costs. It claims that Canadian authorities have persistently refused to deal with these costs critically. In 2020, the Indian authorities declared Nijjar himself a ‘designated terrorist’, accusing him of main a terrorist group, the Khalistan Tiger Force, and plotting terrorist assaults in India. A reward of 1 million rupees was supplied for data resulting in his arrest.

The Khalistan motion overseas is commonly framed by India as a nationwide safety menace and continuously linked to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. Tellingly, after Trudeau’s announcement, tales started to appear in India claiming that the Inter-Services Intelligence organised Nijjar’s killing to discredit India.

Indians often establish diaspora politics as the important thing motive for the shortage of official Canadian motion towards the Khalistan motion in Canada. ‘Vote-bank politics’, it’s claimed, prompts Canadian politicians to disregard the Khalistan motion’s detrimental affect on India of their hunt for votes amongst Canadians of Sikh origin.

That evaluation isn’t improper. Diaspora diplomacy is certainly deeply embedded in Canadian political observe. Sikhs are a distinguished diaspora in Canada, with 770,000 residents of Sikh origin — the biggest Sikh inhabitants outdoors Punjab. Since Sikhs represent 2.1 per cent of the Canadian inhabitants, politicians have lengthy sought to play diaspora politics with this group, significantly since they’re concentrated in a number of constituencies in suburban Toronto and Vancouver.

But the significance of diaspora politics is why it will likely be so troublesome for Canada to flee the doom loop. Canadian politicians are so used to in search of votes amongst Canada’s many diaspora teams, despite the fact that that pursuit is commonly performed with none severe data or understanding of its exterior results. They are so wedded to diaspora politics that we aren’t prone to see motion any time quickly to satisfy India’s considerations concerning the Khalistan motion in Canada — significantly not when residents advocating peacefully for Khalistan are exercising their constitutionally protected rights.

Nor does the Canadian authorities have any incentive to again down given the seriousness of what it alleges the Indian authorities has finished. The involvement of brokers of a overseas and supposedly pleasant authorities within the homicide of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is such an egregious violation of nationwide sovereignty and of latest norms of worldwide relations that no authorities in Ottawa can ignore or overlook it.

The self-reinforcing downward spiral of the doom loop in India–Canada relations will proceed to ensnare each international locations — and can possible threaten to tug others in as effectively.

Kim Richard Nossal is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University, Canada. He is the writer of a number of books on Canadian overseas and defence coverage. His newest e book is Canada Alone: Navigating the Post-American World (Dundurn Press, 2023).