Offshore crimes

India’s offshore clandestine activities are now getting documented. The concern expressed by US State Department spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre is a case in point. This, read with the daredevil sting operations in Australia wherein the Indian sleuths tried to allegedly steal defence secrets and monitor expatriate communities, seals the impression that New Delhi is thinking big, and has thrown to the wind the protocols of decency in inter-state relations, apparently to appease its ego of an emerging power in the region and beyond. To add to it is its pestering animosity with Pakistan, and the recent reports of extra-territorial killing of around 20 persons inside Pakistan. All this summarises to confirm that India is not behaving responsibly, and it must be checked in its cahoots.

There is much that has been reported officially in the last few months and the crime trail is getting enormous. Delhi’s role in two assassination plots in Canada and the US, and shooting of a separatist Sikh activist last June in Canada, along with its Pakistan episode must be investigated with due retribution. This is not hearsay as The Guardian, a leading newspaper in Britain, had quoted Indian intelligence sources to vindicate the charge-sheet of gun-running in various foreign capitals. This speaks of a well-orchestrated strategy to execute its nefarious designs and that squarely falls in the context of not only human rights violations but also a negation of Geneva Conventions in diplomacy.

Mere condemnations and white papers are not enough to castigate the crimes; a mechanism at an international forum must be worked out to penalise India, and that too after a judicious investigation. This will undo the impression that India has been victimised for its dominant role in world affairs. A glance at its domestic approach confirms that India as a political entity believes in otherness and has marginalised non-Hindu communities. Its Hindutva approach has cast a spell of political genocide, and now India is carrying ahead that momentum in the global context.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2024.

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