India faces an escalating diplomatic crisis argued with canada. More than a year ago, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Indian authorities of involvement in the June 2023 assassination of Sikh community leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar and requested the Indian government to cooperate with Canada in investigations into Nijjar’s murder and others. similar initiatives.

India rejected the offer The claims are ridiculous. He accused Canada of harboring Khalistani separatists wanted for terrorism in India. The first iteration of the row led to the expulsion of diplomats and the scaling back of their diplomatic presence.

Rising Crisis

The crisis continued with periodic flare-ups and turned into a diplomatic disaster in which there were no longer easy paths to early resolution and normalization. For more than a year, Canada has been demanding that the Indian government cooperate with it in the investigation. The Modi government responded by insisting that Canada had provided no evidence to substantiate its claims and therefore there was nothing the Indian government could do to help.

Over the past few weeks, Canadian investigative agencies have claimed to have made presentations to the Indian government. with evidence They did this and India still flatly denied it. Canadians first announced that Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Verma (the highest-ranking Indian diplomat in Canada) was a person of interest, along with several other diplomats who have since returned to India. According to media reports, Canadian officials He met with India’s National Security Advisor They took Ajit Doval to Singapore and shared with him the evidence they had collected.

When they failed to receive a cooperative response, Canadian law enforcement went further and made public accusations that India and its officials were involved in assassinations and extortions of Canadian citizens in Canada, as well as involvement in criminal activities and election interference. The latest escalation in the steady stream of accusations included the revelation of Canada’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. David Morrison He told the Washington Post that he confirmed that India’s actions, which amounted to transnational pressure, were ordered by Amit Shah, India’s home minister and confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Also, Canada now considers India as a country. “cyber threat enemy” This is likely an attempt to increase diplomatic pressure.

The diplomatic crisis has not yet affected economic relations between the two countries. But the war of narratives continues to escalate. Canada continues to insist that it values ​​good relations with India, but cannot tolerate violations of its sovereignty by India’s actions against its citizens.

India adopted an extremely condescending attitude towards Trudeau and Canada, treating them as a threat. failed economy and accuses him of ignoring India’s legitimate concerns about anti-India activism, terrorism and separatism from some members of the Indian diaspora based in Canada. The Indian government also published a story painted by trudeau An incompetent, failed leader, desperately clinging to a fragile minority government with the aid and support of a party led by Khalistan supporters. jagmeet singh. Singh is the leader of the National Democratic Party, which keeps Trudeau in power with support from outside the government in the Canadian Parliament.

Meanwhile in the Parallel Universe

US officials two months after Trudeau’s explosive claims against India in Canadian Parliament A criminal complaint was filed against an Indian citizen Nikhil Gupta claimed that he tried to hire a killer to kill an American citizen on American soil. There was no grandstanding or public comment from President Joe Biden, but the indictment unsealed in U.S. Federal Court was pretty damning.

India’s response to these charges was to announce that the Indian government had implemented these charges. a high-level investigation Investigate the information the United States shared with the Indian government. The Indian government was responding in a very mature manner; He respected US concerns, dismissed them as nonsense, and promised to take meaningful action.

The contrast in the Indian government’s response to similar Canadian accusations was surprising. On the US side, the case proceeded without any diplomatic drama. This is very different from the Canadian case, where each escalating charge was met with an even harsher dismissal and counter-actions such as: suspension of visas For Canadians who want to visit India.

Unlike the Canadian government, which has so far only made accusations without sharing any intelligence or evidence it has collected with the public, U.S. officials have continued to advance their case. With each new step, they have dealt a heavy blow to the Modi government’s narrative that it is not involved in any transnational pressure activities. Recently, US officials He filed a criminal complaint against a former Indian intelligence agent for his role in a hire-for-murder plot foiled by the FBI. US spokesmen insist on India’s Canada must cooperate with investigation and the United States wants to see meaningful accountability.

Target Gurpatwant Singh Pannu has applied now a civil lawsuit He opposed the Indian government and named Doval as one of the people behind the plot to kill him. The high-level team formed by the Modi government to conduct research recently visited the US and shared its findings. This investigation did not share its findings with the Indian Parliament or the Indian people.

The US response was to demand meaningful accountability. Vedanta Patel, “The United States will certainly not be satisfied until meaningful accountability emerges as a result of this investigation,” the deputy State Department spokeswoman said.

Power and Diplomacy

The two series of accusations on the same issue, one coming from Canada and the other from the USA, and the two completely different responses they received from India, must be proof of vindication for realists who believe that power is the most important element in world politics. of their paradigm.

India is judged to be more powerful and influential in the global order than Canada, a member of NATO, the Five Eyes, the G-7 and the G-20. India thus adopted a bellicose stance. At the same time, Canadians also believe that Canada cannot cause too much economic damage to India. There are big investments They have said they may withdraw in India and have already halted discussions on a possible free trade agreement. India also seems confident that other Western nations will not undermine its growing relationship with India on Canada’s behalf.

However, India’s response to the United States, which India sees as a much stronger state and a much-needed partner, is much more subdued and collaborative. To be fair, the US has backed India into a corner by extraditing and arresting Nikhil Gupta and initiating legal processes that are not as easy to ignore as Canada’s efforts; These efforts currently amount to mere accusations with no publicly available evidence presented. S. Jaishankar, India’s external affairs minister, more or less he acknowledged this in a statement In his reply to the Rajya Sabha last December, he had stated that the reason for the difference in responses was that one country (US) provided significant “input” while the other (Canada) did not.

Perhaps the main difference was that the United States shared its input publicly by filing criminal charges in the courts, while Canada did so privately. Additionally, it is important that the United States is a superpower while Canada is not.

Questions to Indian Policy Makers

India has legitimate concerns on the issue Anti-India separatist Khalistan movement and their actions in Canada and India. But trying to use criminals to assassinate Khalistan activists in powerful friendly democracies is not wise policy, especially given the rather sloppy undercover business prowess displayed by the intelligence agency.

Not only has US counterintelligence caught them red-handed, but it may also gather enough evidence to embarrass India and back it into a diplomatic corner. Given the absence of significant Khalistani activism in India, such an aggressive policy of violating the sovereignty of a friendly state is inadvisable. This brought more attention to the Khalistan cause and damaged India’s reputation as one of the good states in the international arena.

India is compounding the consequences of its strategic mistake by trying to bully Canada. When viewed in parallel with the developments on the US side of the issue, their denials seem fabricated. India’s combative stance towards Canada undermines rapport with Western policy elites, and its collaborative stance towards the US makes it look weak in the eyes of the Global South. India needs the West for new technology, advanced weapons, investments, export markets and to offset the high-paying jobs that China and its citizens fill in Western countries, sending billions of dollars of remittances to their countries. It cannot jeopardize these interests.

India has mishandled this crisis with Canada, and if no corrections are made, it could damage India’s international image, reduce its soft power, and create a rift between India on the one hand and its allies, including Canada and the United States, both of which are members. NATO and the Five Eyes intelligence consortium.

If this stance of denial and bullying towards Canada is just to show that India is a great power, then it is misguided. But if this policy is aimed at protecting India’s leadership from accusations of organizing a transnational pressure campaign, then it undermines India’s national interests by prolonging the crisis.