{"id":321477,"date":"2023-09-30T17:23:42","date_gmt":"2023-09-30T11:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/?p=321477"},"modified":"2023-10-02T14:33:56","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T09:03:56","slug":"india-canada-trudeau-khalistani-hardeep-singh-nijjar-five-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/magazine\/india-canada-trudeau-khalistani-hardeep-singh-nijjar-five-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Canada Standoff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Col R Hariharan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

India-Canada relations that took a severe beating a fortnight ago after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, accused India of complicity in the murder of a Canadian citizen and Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, are showing no signs of recovery. The reason for this is simple; as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar puts it: \u201c(Khalistan) separatism, crime, and terror all mixed up\u201d in this issue. Nijjar was shot dead outside the Gurdwara he presided over in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, on June 18, 2023. Trudeau chose on the floor of Canadian parliament to accuse India for Nijjar\u2019s killing, based on \u201ccredible allegations of potential link\u201d between Indian government agents. The accusation shocked India, which dismissed it as \u201cabsurd and motivated.\u201d The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a hard-hitting statement said: \u201cSimilar allegations were made by the Canadian PM to our PM and were completely rejected.\u201d (It was referring to their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit meeting. PM Modi had conveyed \u201cstrong concerns\u201d about \u201cextremist elements in Canada\u201d who were \u201cpromoting secessionism and violence against Indian diplomats, damaging premises and threatening the Indian community in Canada and their places of worship.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MEA statement further affirmed \u201csuch unsubstantiated allegations seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity\u2026.the inaction of the Canadian Government on this matter has been a long standing and continuing concern\u2026 The space given in Canada to a range of illegal activities, including murders, human trafficking and organised crime is not new.\u201d It urged the Canadian government \u201cto take prompt and effective legal action against all anti-India elements operating from their soil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue of Khalistan terrorist presence in Canada is not new; it had come up when the two leaders met on the sidelines of the G-7 plus Summit in Germany in May 2022.  Trudeau during his latest visit to New Delhi had confirmed that he had discussed with PM Modi India\u2019s concerns over Khalistani groups. He added: \u201cCanada will always defend freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom of peaceful protest and it is extremely important to us. At the same time, we are always there to prevent violence and to push back against hatred.\u201d The Canadian prime minister said the actions of a \u201cfew\u201d did not represent the whole community or country. That had been Canada\u2019s refrain to soft pedal Khalistan extremist activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trudeau\u2019s actions cannot be dismissed merely as a diplomatic faux pas. It is easy to attribute it to compulsions of domestic politics, because Nijjar was an influential Sikh, involved in organising a \u201creferendum\u201d on Khalistan. As a militant leader of Khalistan Tiger Force, Nijjar has a criminal record in India that secured him two Interpol Red Corner notices. He visited Pakistan in 2013-14 where he met with Jagtar Singh Tara of Babbar Khalsa International and was recruited in the ISI. In 2020, India designated Nijjar a terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Last but not least, he was probably a double agent working for Canada. His son Balraj Singh Nijjar has said his father had been meeting with Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers \u201conce or twice a week\u201d, including one or two days before his murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, has clarified that the Canadian prime minister\u2019s allegation was based on \u201cshared intelligence among Five Eyes partners.\u201d Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Originally, it was created as a US-UK alliance in 1941 to share signals intelligence. In the post-war years, it came to be known as Five Eyes after Canada, Australia and New Zealand were admitted. Ambassador Cohen further added: \u201cThere was a lot of communication between Canada and the US about this. We have been coordinating with the Canadians on this issue. And from our perspective, it is critical that the Canadian investigations proceed, and it would be important that India work with the Canadians on this investigation. We want to see accountability, and it is important that the investigation runs its course and leads to that result.\u201d The US, UK, Australia and New Zealand have been cautious in their comments; they have expressed their concern and encouraged India to collaborate in the ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason for Five Eyes to eavesdrop on India\u2019s communication on Khalistani extremism is obvious: these extremists have been active in all the Five Eyes countries. They have defaced Hindu temples and have been holding violent protests in front of Indian consulates, creating panic among Hindus. India had drawn the attention of these countries to the extremists\u2019 anti-India activities at the highest levels. However, they have been giving a broad brush to India\u2019s concerns. Their diplomatic attitude towards India is best described by American actor Will Rogers who said Diplomacy is the art of saying \u201cNice doggie\u201d until you can find a rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the positive side, Trudeau\u2019s open accusation of India\u2019s complicity in Nijjar killing has provided India an opportunity to relook at its actions against Khalistan extremism, both at home and abroad. This is evident from Jaishankar\u2019s speech at the \u201cDiscussion at Council on Foreign Relations\u201d in New York. He said: \u201cIn the last few years, Canada actually has seen a lot of organized crime, relating to the secessionist forces, organized crime, violence and extremism. They\u2019re all very, very deeply mixed up\u2026.in fact, we have been talking about specifics and information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIndian government has provided the Canadian side with a lot of information about organised crime and there has been a large number of extradition requests. There are terrorist leaders, who have been identified,\u201d he further added. \u201cSo, we have a situation where our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked\u2026.A lot of this is often justified, as saying that\u2019s how democracies work.\u201d Jaishankar further said: \u201cIf there is any incident which is an issue and somebody gives me something specific, as a government, I would look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At home, India has taken firm action. It is filing cases in the UK against 15 Khalistani Indian passport holders, who had vandalised the Indian high commission premises in London. The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) is currently carrying out raids in 51 locations in six states targeting individuals linked to three notorious gangs\u2014Lawrence Bishnoi, Bambiha and Arshadeep Dalla\u2014associated with the Khalistani criminal network. The NIA has ordered the seizure of the Indian properties of 19 Khalistani fugitives, including that of Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, general counsel of the banned pro-Khalistan outfit Sikhs for Justice (SFJ). India has temporarily closed its visa office in Canada and stopped the entry of OCI and PIO card holders. These measures seem to have affected the number of pro-Khalistan supporters gathering to protest outside the Indian consulate in Vancouver after these orders. In the last count, there were hardly a dozen protesters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the future course of India-Canada relations is not clear. Perhaps, some clarity will emerge when the slated meeting of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Jaishankar takes place in the next few days. Hopefully, some measures can probably be expected to defuse the India-Canada standoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014The writer is a retired military intelligence specialist on South Asia associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one has been arrested so far for Hardeep Singh Nijjar\u2019s murder and police investigations are still going on. So, what prompted Trudeau to escalate the issue and accuse India of his killing based on \u201ccredible information\u201d on the floor of parliament? And follow it up with the expulsion of an Indian diplomat?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[272,2],"tags":[128507,752,128462,128374,74040,22984,117755,128506,84932,50189],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/IL\/uploads\/2023\/09\/30162151\/Justin-Trudeau-and-Modi-min.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indialegallive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}