The Indian Canada policy is a strategic mistake

India is embroiled in a steadily escalating diplomatic situation spat with Canada. Over a year ago, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Indian officials of being involved in the June 2023 murder of a Sikh community leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and demanded that the Indian government cooperate with Canada in its investigation to the murder of Nijjar and other matters. similar attempts.

India rejected the accusations as absurd and accused Canada of harboring Khalistani separatists wanted for terrorism in India. The first recurrence of the feud led to the expulsion of diplomats and a reduction in the size of their respective diplomatic presence.

Escalating crisis

The crisis has continued with periodic flare-ups and has now metastasized into a diplomatic disaster with no easy paths to early resolution and normalization. Canada has been demanding for over a year that the Indian government cooperate in its investigation. The Modi government responded by pointing out that Canada had provided no evidence to support its claims and so the Indian government could do nothing to help.

In recent weeks, Canadian investigators claimed to have presented the Indian government with the proof They did, and still India rejected it outright. The Canadians first announced that Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Verma (the most senior 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 meeting with India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in Singapore and shared the evidence they had collected with him.

Failing to provoke a cooperative response, Canadian law enforcement officials went ahead and made public their allegations that India and its officials were involved in murders and extortion of Canadian citizens in Canada and also engaged in criminal activities and election interference. The latest escalation in the steady stream of accusations included the revelation by Canada’s Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison that he had confirmed to the Washington Post that India’s actions, which amounted to transnational repression, were ordered by Amit Shah, India’s Home Minister and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s confidant. Moreover, Canada now considers India as one ‘opponent of cyber threats’ This is likely an attempt to increase diplomatic pressure.

The diplomatic crisis has not yet affected economic relations between the two nations. But the battle for stories continues to escalate. Canada continues to maintain that it values good relations with India, but cannot tolerate the violation of its sovereignty by India’s actions against its citizens.

India has taken a very dismissive attitude towards Trudeau and Canada and views it as one failing economy and accuses the country of ignoring India’s legitimate concerns about anti-India activism, terrorism and separatism by some members of the Indian diaspora in Canada. The Indian government has also unleashed a saga that’s what Trudeau paints as incompetent, a failed leader desperately clinging to a fragile minority government with the help and support of a party led by a supporter of Khalistan, Jagmeet Singh. Singh is the leader of the National Democratic Party, whose outside government support in Canada’s parliament keeps Trudeau in power.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe

Two months after Trudeau’s explosive accusations against India in the Canadian parliament, US officials said has filed a complaint against an Indian citizen, Nikhil Gupta, who claimed he tried to hire an assassin to kill a US citizen on US soil. There was no grandeur, no public comment from President Joe Biden, but the indictment unsealed by a US federal court was quite damning.

India’s response to these allegations was to announce that the Indian government has instituted this a high-level investigation are investigating the information shared by the United States with the Indian government. The Indian government responded in a rather mature manner, respecting US concerns without dismissing them as absurd and promising to take meaningful action.

The contrast in the Indian government’s response to similar accusations from Canada was startling. On the American side, the matter passed without any diplomatic drama. It’s a stark difference from the Canadian case, where each escalating accusation was met with an even harsher dismissal and countermeasures such as suspend visas for Canadians who want to visit India.

Unlike the Canadian government, which has so far only made accusations without sharing any information or evidence it had collected with the public, US authorities continued to pursue their case. With each new step, they dealt a severe blow to the Modi government’s narrative that it was not involved in any transnational repressive activities. Most recently the American authorities has filed a complaint against a former Indian intelligence agent for his role in the murder-for-hire plot that was foiled by the FBI. At every opportunity, American spokespeople emphasize that India must cooperate with the Canadian investigation and that the US would like to see meaningful accountability.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, the target, has now filed an application a civil lawsuit against the Indian government and has named Doval as one of those behind the plot to kill him. The high-level team set up by the Modi government to investigate recently visited the United States and shared its findings. This investigation has not shared its findings with the Indian Parliament or the Indian public.

The American response has been to demand meaningful accountability. Vedanta Patel, the State Department’s deputy spokesperson said, “The United States will certainly not be satisfied until there is meaningful accountability as a result of that investigation.”

Power and diplomacy

The two sets of accusations on the same issue, one from Canada and one from the US, and the two very different reactions they provoked from India, should be a vindication for realists who believe that power is the most important element in world politics. of their paradigm.

India judges itself to be more powerful and influential in the world order than Canada, which is a member of NATO, the Five Eyes, the G-7 and the G-20. So India has adopted a belligerent attitude. It’s also betting that Canada can’t do much economic damage to India, even if it’s the Canadians have huge investments in India that they could withdraw and discussions on a possible free trade agreement have already stalled. India also appears confident that other Western countries will not undermine their growing relations with India for Canada.

But with the United States, which India views as a much more powerful state and a much-needed partner, India’s response has been much more moderate and cooperative. It is fair to say that the US has cornered India by extraditing and arresting Nikhil Gupta and by initiating legal processes that cannot be as easily dismissed as Canada’s efforts, which at this point amount to on mere allegations without any evidence in the public domain. S. Jaishankar, more or less Foreign Minister of India acknowledged this in a statement to the Rajya Sabha last December, when he stated that the reason for the difference in response was that one country (the US) provided significant “inputs” while the other (Canada) did not.

The real difference may be that the US also shared its input publicly by filing charges in court, while Canada did so privately. Moreover, it is also important that the US is a superpower, while Canada is not.

Questions for Indian Policymakers

India has legitimate concerns about the anti-Indian separatist Khalistan movement and their actions in Canada and India. But trying to use criminals to kill Khalistan activists in powerful, friendly democracies is not a smart policy, especially given the intelligence community’s rather sloppy covert dealings.

The US counterintelligence agency has not only caught them red-handed, but could also gather enough evidence to embarrass India and push the country 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 unwise. It has brought more attention to the Khalistan case and damaged India’s reputation as one of the good states in the international arena.

India is magnifying the consequences of its strategic mistake by trying to bully Canada. The denials seem apocryphal when viewed in parallel with developments on the American side of this issue. India’s belligerent attitude toward Canada undermines its affinity with the Western policy elite, and its cooperative attitude toward the US makes the country look weak in the eyes of the Global South. India needs the West for new technology, advanced weapons, investments, markets for its exports and allies to balance China and the high-paying jobs its citizens hold in Western countries, sending billions of dollars in remittances home. It must not endanger these interests.

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

If this attitude of denial and bravado towards Canada is only intended to demonstrate that India is a great power, then it is misleading. But if this policy is intended to protect the Indian leadership from blame for orchestrating a campaign of transnational repression, it undermines Indian national interests by prolonging the crisis.