India-Canada diplomatic row escalates

Diplomatic expulsions follow Sikh activist's murder; allies seek de-escalation

OTTAWA/ NEW DELHI:

Tension between Canada and India over the assassination of a Sikh Canadian flared on Tuesday with duelling expulsion of diplomats and a halt to bilateral trade talks, as the United States and other countries weighed in, calling on Delhi to cooperate with Ottawa in the murder investigation.

Hours after India expelled a Canadian diplomat on Tuesday in a tit for tat move in retaliation to Canada's action of expelling an Indian diplomat, the Canadian embassy in New Delhi asked its local staffers to leave the premises in view of the current diplomatic row, according to an Indian media report.

Simultaneously, Canada issued an updated travel advisory for India, “strongly” advising its citizens against traveling to Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) as well as the northeastern states, with particular emphasis on Assam and the regions affected by recent violence in Manipur.

Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat as it investigated what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called “credible allegations” that India’s government might have had links to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18.

Barely weeks after much trumpeted G-20 summit in India, Trudeau had told Canada’s House of Commons on Monday that the intelligence agencies had been looking into the allegations after Nijjar, a strong supporter of an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, was gunned down.

Trudeau said that he brought up the slaying with Indian Prime Minister Modi at the Group of 20 Summit in New Delhi and added that he told Modi that any Indian government involvement would be unacceptable and that he asked for cooperation in the investigation.

Read Indian state sponsored-murder in Canada tip of iceberg, says Kashmiri leader

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said a top diplomat, who she said was the head of Indian intelligence in Canada, had been expelled. “If proven true this [the murder] would be a great violation of our sovereignty and of the most basic rule of how countries deal with each other,” Joly said.

India reacted angrily on Tuesday, quickly dismissing the assertion as “absurd”, and announcing that it was expelling a Canadian diplomat, further worsening already poor diplomatic relations between the two G-20 members.

India summoned Canadian envoy Cameron MacKay to the external affairs ministry and informed him about New Delhi’s decision to expel a senior Canadian diplomat, the head of Canadian intelligence in India, India’s Hindustan Times reported.

Canada and India have been trying to boost low levels of bilateral trade, which in 2022 amounted to just C$13.7 billion ($10.2 billion) out of Canada’s total of C$1.52 trillion. However, Both sides have announced they are freezing the talks.

Trudeau said on Tuesday Canada was not trying to provoke India but warned that the case had far-reaching consequences in international law. “The government of India needs to take this matter with the utmost seriousness,” he said. “We are doing that; we are not looking to provoke or escalate.”

Trudeau, when asked why Ottawa had spoken out now, said, “we wanted to make sure that we had a solid grounding in understanding what was going on ... we wanted to make sure we were taking the time to talk with our allies.”
Sikh and Muslim organisations welcomed Trudeau’s remarks and called on his government to take swift action, including protecting the Sikhs under threat in Canada and preventing Indian nationals tied to intelligence forces or human rights abuses from entering Canada, among other immediate steps.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims chief executive, Stephen Brown, while speaking alongside World Sikh Organization of Canada board member Mukhbir Singh, told a press conference: “This assassination was an attack on all of us as Canadians. This is why we must take action.”

Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside Punjab, with about 770,000 people reporting Sikhism as their religion in the 2021 census. India has been particularly wary against the protests in Canada, with some Indian analysts saying Ottawa did not stop them because Sikhs were an influential political group.

New Delhi, which urged Ottawa to act against anti-Indian elements, has long been unhappy over Sikh separatist activity in Canada. Nijjar supported creating a Sikh homeland in the form of an independent state of Khalistan, in the Indian state of Punjab. India designated him as a “terrorist” in 2020.

Soon after the murder, protests by Sikhs in India reached a new height as a demonstration was held in front of the office of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s premier spy agency, in Amritsar. The protestors accused RAW of being behind the killing of Nijjar.

International diplomacy

The conflict with Canada deals a severe blow to Modi efforts to portray India as a leader of the developing world. It also happened days after India hosted a G-20 Summit, attended by Trudeau, as well as the US president and others, which Modi used for his personal projection ahead of India’s elections.

According to a BBC report, the last thing the United States and other Western powers would want was a row that divided them from India. Therefore, Western ministers would be working hard to ensure the diplomatic row between Canada and India did not bleed into other international relationships.

Canada's foreign ministry said Trudeau had raised the issue with Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The White House said the US was "deeply concerned" about the allegations of the murder, saying it was "critical that Canada's investigation proceed and the perpetrators be brought to justice".

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Britain would "listen very, very carefully to the serious concerns that have been raised by Canada". He added he had spoken to the Canadian foreign minister about the allegations, and the UK took "very seriously the things that Canada are saying".

Australia expressed “deep concern” over Canada’s accusations. “[Australia] notes ongoing investigations into this matter. We are closely engaged with partners on developments. We have conveyed our concerns at senior levels to India," a government spokesperson said in an official statement.

As Trudeau repeated his call for India to address the issue properly, a senior US State Department official told reporters at a news briefing on Tuesday that the US authorities had urged India to cooperate with the investigation.

(AGENCIES WITH INPUT FROM NEWS DESK)