India Ruined India-Canada Relations
"It is about time Canada and others treated India for what it is: not a 'shared values' partner but another hostile and realpolitik international actor."
Jaskaran Sandhu
May 10, 2024 | 5 min. read | Opinion
It was going so well for the Government of India.
Geopolitically, the great global powers, fearful of China, had no choice but to build closer ties with India, a fellow “democratic” country, as a bulwark.
Economically, with its population of approximately 1.5 billion and the world’s fifth-largest economy, India became an essential market, especially among developed countries looking to strike trade deals.
In the West, with the rise of India’s importance, pro-India organizations and groups became influential in every country in which they operated and were openly coveted by political parties across the ideological spectrum.
While India was always the biggest player in South Asia, we cannot deny that its confidence was now taking it far beyond the region. The governments of Canada, America, the UK, and Australia frequently talked about the “shared values” they had with India while pushing for closer ties recently.
This probably explains why India and its Hindu Nationalist government thought they could overreach by brazenly and erratically unleashing global death squads to silence Sikh dissidents in the West.
Narendra Modi and his National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, likely calculated that they could finally rid themselves of the pesky Sikhs abroad - the most powerful diaspora group outside of India that also happens to be the most critical of the Indian state. Kill some and chill the advocacy from the rest, they must have told themselves. Advocacy that has raised awareness about India’s autocratization, the Sikh Genocide, and Sikh sovereignty.
According to media reports, the successful Farmers’ Protest was the tipping point which provided Modi with the excuse to begin extrajudicially murdering Sikhs outside India - a tactic well used within India for decades, alongside colonial era laws to arbitrarily detain Sikhs without charges. This brings forward two other important questions. How fragile and insecure is India’s “democracy” and its government that it must go on an assassination campaign in response to farmers exercising their democratic rights? And, if this is what they are doing against citizens of another country, how are they treating their own?
India probably believed they would not get caught using their Indian Government-Criminal Gang nexus to make the hits, or, even better, that if they did get caught, India was now too important to be called out or reprimanded by Western democratic states.
And, why wouldn’t they believe that?
While publicly stating that foreign policy should be anchored to human rights and admonishing countries like China and Russia for their abuses, the Western world has been more than happy to ignore all the red flags in India for the pursuit of trade and security deals. Ample evidence of crumbling democratic institutions and norms, attacks on press freedom, and the persecution of minorities in India were no obstacles to closer ties. Even transnational repression and foreign interference from India in the past have largely been either ignored or dealt with quietly.
Unfortunately for India, however, they miscalculated the response from Canada and other Five Eyes allies. Not because these countries finally found their moral compass but because India went too far.
You do not get to call yourself a “democratic ally with shared values” by attacking the sovereignty of another democracy.
You do not get to extrajudicially kill the citizens of a democratic country, which has the rule of law, on their soil and get away with it quietly.
You do not get to interfere in an ally's free and fair elections and face no consequences.
You do not get to spread disinformation, fostering discord and polarization in diasporic communities, and expect no one to notice.
This brings us to where we are now. The West has learned its lesson, and India cannot be trusted.
Canada’s Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference has officially implicated India in its final report, putting it uniquely alongside other hostile states like China, Iran, and Russia. Those very same pro-India groups that Canadian officials had once flocked to are now being shunned as they are seen for what they are—proxies for the Indian government.
Three arrests have been made against Indian nationals hired and organized by Indian intelligence officials to conduct an assassination of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. Investigations are ongoing, and looking at more individuals as well, which will continue to have far-reaching implications - including the ongoing stalling of a Canada-India trade agreement.
The Americans have blown India’s cover and amateur intelligence operations by putting everything out in the open via the US Indictment against Nikhil Gupta. Allegations so damning that it caused Congress to double-think a drone deal with India, raise national discussions to increase the pressure on the Modi government, and dominate conversations about new legislation to combat transnational repression.
The Australians made public that they expelled Indian agents linked to a nest of spies operating there to undermine the Sikh Australian community and raised concerns on the state of the free press in India as an Australian Broadcasting Corporation reporter was essentially expelled for producing a documentary on Indian transnational repression.
I could keep providing more examples, but it is clearer than ever that not only does India not share values with Western democracies, Western democracies are growing tired of India abusing international order, the rule of law, and democratic norms.
India ruined their relationship with Western countries, not the other way around.
India complains that Canada and others are harbouring Sikh “terrorists.” But the problem with that claim is that whenever India is asked to provide evidence to back those allegations, they can't. Canada even signed a security sharing framework with India during Justin Trudeau’s infamous trip in 2018, in an attempt to appease Modi, much to the dismay of Sikh Canadians who rightfully believed India is a bad faith actor. However, what Canadian and American officials have come to realize is that what India is calling “terrorism” is actually just citizens practicing basic protected rights. It has become so ridiculous that Canada has had to now offer Indian officials workshops and training on the rule of law and democratic norms in a functioning democracy like Canada.
I cannot think of a greater indictment of India's “democratic values.”
One of the few Indian allies still vigorously standing up for them is Russia, which is benefiting greatly from India buying its oil as it faces sanctions in the West over its war in Ukraine. The Indian-Russian relationship is also probably far closer in “shared values.”
So, the High Commissioner of India in Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, can talk all he wants about Sikhs in Canada crossing a “red line” for promoting a non-binding referendum on Khalistan, but India is to blame for their deteriorating standing in the world.
It is about time Canada and others treated India for what it is: not a “shared values” partner but another hostile and realpolitik international actor.
Jaskaran Sandhu hails from Brampton, Canada, and is the co-founder of Baaz. He is a Strategist at the public affairs and relations agency State Strategy. Jaskaran also previously served as Executive Director for the World Sikh Organization of Canada and as a Senior Advisor to Brampton’s Office of the Mayor. You can find Jaskaran on Twitter at @JaskaranSandhu_
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