Nijjar’s killing: did India overplay its hand?
According to press reports Hardeep Singh Nijjar 45, a Sikh Canadian national active in the Indian Punjab’s independence or the Khalistan movement was killed on 18 June 2023, outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia (Canada). Indian Government had designated him a terrorist, under India's Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, for accusations of complicity in the murder of a Hindu priest in Punjab.
On 18 September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed in Canadian Parliament that, based upon the ‘credible’ intelligence collected by the Canadian Government, Mr. Najjar was assassinated by Indian government agents. In response, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly expelled an Indian diplomat, Pavan Kumar Rai, heading intelligence collection for New Delhi. She cited the murder ‘a great violation of our sovereignty’. Trudeau was, however, very cautious by saying Canada was not trying to ‘provoke or escalate’ with India’ and demanded “utmost seriousness” from India, as the slaying had far-reaching implications. Canadian National Security Advisor, Jody Thomas listed India besides China and Russia for “foreign interference” in Canadian affairs.
India reacted angrily on 19 September, dismissing the Canadian assertion as “absurd”; and in a tit-for-tat response, expelled a top Canadian diplomat, reportedly the station chief of Canadian intelligence agency in India. Canada also asked the local staff of its Delhi High Commission to leave premises and issued a travel advisory for Canadian nationals to avoid traveling to ‘some’ parts of India including the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), the northeastern states especially Assam and the violence-marred Manipur area. India has issued its own travel advisory. Since then both sides have taken further escalatory steps.
PM Trudeau had discussed the murder with Mr. Narendra Modi amidst the fanfare of Group of 20 Summit in New Delhi (9-10 September) and asked for cooperation in the investigation. He also raised the issue with President Biden and the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The US statement said the US was "deeply concerned" about the murder allegations and that it was "critical that Canada's investigation proceeds and the perpetrators be brought to justice". It urged India to cooperate with the investigations. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly stated Britain "listen[ing] very, very carefully” to Canadian concerns. Australian government spokesperson expressed “deep concern” over Ottawa’s accusations and reported to have conveyed its concerns to India at senior levels.
Canadian Sikh and Muslim organizations appreciated Ottawa’s response and asked for greater protection for the Sikh diaspora, some 770,000 strong (2.1% as per 2021 Census), the largest outside Indian Punjab and with substantial pro-Khalistan sentiment. Sikhs are more than half of about 1.4 million Canadians of Indian heritage. It is a politically influential diaspora as in 2019, Canadian Parliament had 18 MPs compared to 13 in the Indian Lok Sabha. Support by Sikh leaders like Mr. Jagmeet Singh, leader of the opposition New Democratic Party is critical for PM Trudeau’s minority Government. Elsewhere, the Sikh diaspora has powerful farming lobbies in places like California and Australia. New Delhi claims its urgings with Canadians to act against anti-Indian and pro-independence separatist elements mostly goes unheeded.
In the aftermath of the murder, the Indian Sikhs demonstrated in Amritsar onsite the office of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s premier spy agency, and elsewhere in the world. From the above factual situation, we would analyze the implications of the saga, its likely unfolding, and the role of Indian intelligence in such targeted operations on foreign soil.
An overconfident India
There are great strides made by India in personification of Indian state by the Modi-RSS combine. Reasons galore. India is literally ‘on the moon’ after its Chandrayaan-3 unmanned lunar craft landed on moon on 23 August 2023; and after PM Modi rubbed shoulders with who-is-who in the World during the September G-20 Summit. India has made giant economic strides propelling its ranking to the top five economies. War in Ukraine was a boon for the Indian economy, and it has - so far - been able to deal with the US and Europe on its terms, without spoiling its long-standing ties with Russia. It is an important member of BRICS alongside Britian, Russia, China, and South Africa. BRICS emerges as competing power bloc in reshaping global politics and economy.
With nemesis like China with whom it is fighting a hot and cold war in Aksai Chin, its bilateral trade reached a record $135.98 billion (2022). January 13, 2023, data by Chinese Customs show a surge in Indian imports of Chinese goods by more than 21% since last year. With Canada, bilateral trade reached nearly $12 bn Canadian dollars ($9 bn USD) in 2022, a substantial 57 percent increase over the previous year, as per Canadian figures. However, Canada paused talks on a proposed trade treaty with India.
With the 5th largest economy, ahead of UK, France and Italy, and the Indian diaspora holding the reins of IT world like never before, Modi happens to be just at the right (or wrong) place in history to steer India out of poverty, self-doubt, and tribalism. However, his strong personality lifts centrifugal forces in the Indian Union, as his appeal is narrow, petty, and parochial that excludes minorities like Muslims, Christians, and others like the Untouchables. Poverty is still rampant; and vigilante-justice under RSS activism can tear India apart once the appeal of ‘how de Modi’ dies, like all appeals do. However, till that inevitability, the overconfidence of Indian state in dealing with any crisis is telling.
The overstretch
Geostrategic overstretch and overreach generally result in the downfall of many promising political systems, as it has inflicted states and societies from the Roman Empire to Ottomans to Hapsburgs to Romanovs to Germany under Hitler and many others. So, Indian overconfidence might be its own undoing.
This overconfidence spills into India’s election politics and in its arrogance in dealing with its neighbors in particular. During the run upto the G-20 Summit, the venues and roads were lined with life-size portraits of Modi, in a brazen effort of personality projection and political advantage ahead of India’s elections next year. Some analysts also fear the possibility of false-flag operations against Pakistan like the Balakot strikes in February 2019. Whipping up nationalistic - mostly Hindu fervour - is a favoured tactics with the ruling BJP.
Sikhs and Khalistan
Sikh separatists’ demand for Khalistan (the land of the pure) to be carved out of Indian Punjab goes before the Indian partition in 1947. It resurfaces now and then after it peaked during violent insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s, which paralyzed Punjab. Indian government response was brutal including widespread torture, extrajudicial killings, and abuses, according to human rights groups. In Operation Bluestar (June 1984), Indian troops stormed Sikhism’s holiest Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out Sikh militants led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a key figure in the growing Khalistan movement. In retaliation, two Sikh bodyguards assassinated PM Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984, leading to anti-Sikh mayhem across India, with thousands killed, injured, and arrested. Sikhs in general and those in Punjab in particular, ruefully bear the scars of violence between the pro-Independence separatists and the Indian soldiers. This episode still mars the collective Sikh psyche.
India blamed Sikh militants for the 1985 bombing of an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India causing death of all 329 on board off the Irish coast. Ripudaman Singh Malik, 75, one of the accused in the bombing, who was acquitted by Courts in 2005, was later killed in broad daylight by two men in their 20s, later charged with first-degree murder. Sikh community directed the blame on Indian agents.
However, the Khalistan Movement continues to resonate among Sikh diaspora in Canada, Britain, Australia, and the US. Canadian Sikhs massively (100,000 people) supported ‘Khalistan referendum’ in Brampton on September 19, 2022. Indira Prahst, a sociologist at Langara College in Vancouver says, “There is now more visible, physical, tangible support for Khalistan,” and “It’s more overt.”
Indian stance
India protested with Canada for allowing a float in a June 2023 parade, glorifying assassination of Indira Gandhi. India also takes exception to vandalism at its diplomatic missions by Sikh separatists and their supporters in Canada, Britain, the US, and Australia. Indian diplomats on various occasions have dubbed Ottawa's failure to tackle "Sikh extremism", and harassment as major foreign policy ‘stress point’. Reportedly, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised strong concerns about ‘Sikh terrorism’ with PM Trudeau on the sidelines of G20 summit. The Summit was a cold détente between both Modi and Trudeau as the later missed a banquet and overstayed two days in New Delhi due to some fault in his plane, refusing to accept Indian replacement.
The pervasive Indian intelligence
On May 14, 2020, I wrote “The pervasive world of Indian intelligence” detailing the overreach of RAW, and the arrest and trail of its sources by foreign governments, accused of perception management and influencing operations. Canada’s Global News revealed, based on a highly sensitive Canadian government document, that RAW and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) ‘were using money and covert disinformation operations to sway Canadian politicians towards supporting Indian interests, especially against Pakistan as early as 2009’.
Indian intelligence agencies follow four specific interests in Canada, UK, US, and other Western countries, namely; keeping Indian diaspora especially the pro-Khalistan, pro-Kashmir elements and foreign-born Indian youth under surveillance; perception management operations to promote Indian narrative and silence criticism of Indian treatment of minorities; undermining Pakistani and Chinese interests; and to control and limit Western/US military supplies to Pakistan.
With the passage of time, RAW’s objectives have broadened. RAW’s “Establishment 22” - a covert group of Tibetan refugees in India undertakes “deep-penetration terror operations” in China. In 2009, RAW and IB jointly launched 400 snatch operations in Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh to apprehend and repatriate escaped militants to India. KHAD (the defunct Afghan National Directorate of Security, NDS), monitored activities of Sikhs in Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal belt for RAW, in exchange for intelligence on Pakistan. Some analysts accuse India of “sending RSS terrorists disguised as students to Canada, UK and elsewhere.
The implications
The overconfidence of Asiatic powers in a Western dominated economic and political system is never appreciated beyond acceptable limits, especially if at tangent with the wider aims and objectives of Western Alliance. On the face, break with Canada makes the case for a severe blow to Modi’s efforts to portray India as a global leader representing the developing world. However, according to a BBC report, the Western Alliance would want to play down the row, as it creates a rift between the US, other Western powers, and India. The ABCA (America, Britain, Cananda, and Australia) Alliance is strongly moored, and other powers would have to go with Canda, if push comes to show.
India is accusing Canada of levelling allegations without evidence that, Canada claims, was shared in confidence by the Canadian intelligence officials with their Indian counterparts. This killing is not going to go away easily. It will drive a deeper wedge between the Hindu and Sikh communities in India, Canada or elsewhere and further divide the pro and anti-Khalistan Sikh diaspora. Sikhs in Canada are ardent supporters of a Sikh homeland, given the community’s social evolution, and the ‘political emergence of second-generation’ Sikh immigrants, whose parents fled to Canada after the anti-Sikh violence of 1980s. The separatist movement is now sustained largely by this vocal diaspora of second-generation Canadian Sikhs, who grew up hearing stories of Indian atrocities.
So, for RSS-Modi combine, strategic overreach in ABCA backyard might awaken sleeping demons. Do not blame the ISI!
Inam Ul Haque is a retired Pakistan Army major general who writes on defence, global affairs and political sociology. He can be reached at tayyarinam@hotmail.com and his Twitter handle @20_Inam
All facts and information is the sole responsibility of the writer