The Decibel - The view from India after allegations of killing in Canada

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Canada’s relationship with India has been rocky for years, but it’s at a particular low point right now after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused agents of the Indian government this week of killing Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in B.C.Today, the Globe’s Asia correspondent James Griffiths joins us from New Delhi, India to discuss how this news is playing out there, why the relationship with Canada – and Trudeau in particular – has struggled, and the power India has in this moment.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

Things aren't going well right now between India and Canada. India has suspended all visa services for Canadians. Both countries have kicked out diplomats. And the Canadian government said it's reducing its diplomatic staff in India because of threats. This all stems from an allegation Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made in the House of Commons on Monday that agents of the Indian state were behind the killing of a Sikh activist in B.C. this year. India denied the allegations, called them absurd, and accused Canada of, quote, growing anti-India activities, unquote.

This is a real low point between Canada and India. quote, growing anti-India activities, unquote. This is a real low point between Canada and India, but that relationship was already strained and has been for years. Today, The Globe's James Griffiths joins us from New Delhi. He'll tell us how this bombshell accusation is being perceived in India, why things with India were already rocky, and what this all means for the relationship between India and Canada going forward. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. James, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me. Can you just give us a sense, what is the atmosphere like in New Delhi? these dramatic accusations that Canada has made, but also the way in which they were made, the fact that this wasn't some leak to a newspaper or even a release from CSIS or some ministry, but the fact that it was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking in Parliament himself, and directly, you know, albeit with several caveats, accusing India of involvement in the murder of a Canadian citizen, that has shocked a lot of people. I haven't personally perceived any anger from Indians that I've spoken to. Like I said, there is a certain degree of outrage, but mostly people are pretty dismissive of this.

You know, to be honest, it's more people rolling their eyes than anything else and seeing this as something, you know, ludicrous that they're pretty dismissive of. And I wonder about how this is playing out in the Indian media. What kind of comments or coverage are you seeing there? Yeah, it's kind of been a mix of outrage, again, at the way that Canada has handled this. And then also actually quite a lot of ridicule of Canada and Mr. Trudeau in particular, because there's a sense that this is more about domestic Canadian issues than really about India. And there's the scene that from here, it was felt that Mr. Trudeau had a very rough G20 in Delhi earlier this month, and then is maybe lashing out or trying to prove something with these accusations.

And when you're saying ridiculed, like, can you give us some examples of what you're seeing there in the media? Yeah. So we've seen caricatures of Trudeau as a clown, a lot of recycling of photos of him on a trip to India where he wore Indian garb, which didn't really go down well here at the time. Oh, yes. That trip in 2018. Yes. Yes, absolutely. And one broadcaster, News18, quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying that Trudeau's actions, quote, reek of immaturity and frustration. And then also, quite strangely, at the same time, there's also this current within the Indian coverage that not only should we not take this seriously, and that India has refuted this and it's outrageous that Canada suggested India was involved in this, but also a kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge that if India was involved, that's fine. That shows how good and strong we are as a country, especially kind of the right

wing, very pro Modi media here can't really decide which side it wants to come down on. Obviously, they have to give credence to what Delhi's saying, which is that there was no involvement. But from their perspective, this is India going after what they believe is a terrorist overseas. And when Modi has done that previously in Kashmir and in Pakistan, that there has been a lot of praise for that. And this is a sense that India's growing muscle on the world stage. And so it's a bit strange and disjointed, the response to this. You said something really interesting, James, that I want to come back to. You said that there's a sense that this move by Trudeau was to help him domestically, but that might hurt him internationally. Can you just expand on that? What do you mean? Yeah, so for a long time, the Khalistan issue and the issue of Sikhs who want to have an independent homeland in India has been seen as something that Canada supports or tolerates for domestic situation in Punjab or the situation for Sikhs in India or concerns about Canadian Sikhs not being able to go to India or being blocked from going to this country, that's's seen as a very cynical reason that Canada is interested in this issue.

And so that when this came up, this was seen as just the latest example of that. A lot of media coverage, for example, was pointing to the Liberals drop in the polls, Mr. Trudeau's own unpopularity. And this was like, oh, this was a last ditch effort for that. And then also, I think on the Canadian side, this is perhaps indicative of something that analysts have pointed out for a while, that with the Trudeau administration, there is sometimes a underestimation or lack of consideration with how things will play out internationally and an over-focus on how they play out domestically. So our colleague Bob Fyfe was on the podcast earlier this week and talked about how the Globe had this story and was about to publish it. That would have been deeply embarrassing for the government, especially on the back of reams of reporting on Chinese

interference. And so I think we can draw a pretty clear line between the Globe warning that they're about to publish this story and Trudeau trying to get out ahead of this. And it feels like from the Indian perspective, a lot of people that I've spoken to about this feel that they didn't really think how this was going to land in India, that actually from an Indian perspective, it probably would have been better for the story to come out in the Globe than to have the prime minister get up in parliament and accuse India of murder. So it's, you know, there's that kind of, they may have won some points domestically, but it was a disastrous reception internationally. Of course, it is worth noting that Trudeau said he talked to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

about this allegation in person, privately, at the G20 summit a couple of weeks ago. So Modi did know that this was coming, essentially. So yeah, we shouldn't kind of downplay the fact that obviously, Trudeau did raise this with Modi, according to his office. And I think the Indians have acknowledged to some extent that this conversation took place as well. But a lot of people feel that that wasn't enough warning that this should have still been handled at a kind of, you know, closed door basis, country to country, behind the scenes, you know. Perhaps even if the story came out, this was not something that the prime minister should be publicly talking about in

such high profile setting. It just sends a very different message. And a lot of people have kind of used this language that it's not how you treat friendly countries. All right, let's get into this relationship between Canada and India. How have things been between these two countries over the past few years? So under Mr. Trudeau, they've been pretty difficult, to be honest. There have been concerted efforts to improve ties between India and Canada. Obviously, there's a huge Indian origin population in Canada. There's a lot of country to country ties and things like that.

In 2015, a year after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India, he made a historic visit to Canada. And it was the first time an Indian leader had been to Canada in 42 years. And this is when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister. And there was a lot of enthusiasm at the time for building stronger ties between the two countries and really building the trade relationship and the general diplomatic relationship. Prime Minister, you are very much among friends here. And your visit is a testament to the strong friendship between Canada and India and an objective our government has been keenly pursuing since we first came to office. But after Trudeau took over as PM, that all kind of stalled. He'd always been seen as softer. The liberals and the NDP have always been seen by India softer on Khalistan than the Tories. And there was a kind of suspicion of Trudeau. He'd been photographed at some Sikh events where Khalistani activists were there and things like that.

And when we're talking about Khalistan, we should just say this is the six separatist movement, essentially, to create a state called Khalistan. Absolutely. Yeah. And this culminated in, frankly, disastrous trip in 2018, when from the get go, things kind of went badly. He was essentially snubbed by Modi. He wasn't greeted at the airport by the prime minister. Trudeau and family landed in India with folded hands or namaste, but the welcome was nowhere near the grand affair arranged for then American President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping. There was this huge controversy where a Sikh separatist in India was invited to a dinner hosted by the Canadian embassy for Trudeau. Obviously hugely embarrassing. Ottawa investigated this and said that it never should have happened. They blamed an MP on the trip for inviting him.

But at the same time, he really didn't help matters with some personal choices he made, particularly to wear Indian dress for most of the trip. He did Bhangra dancing at a reception. He was on video. And it was seen kind of at best as pandering and at worst, you know, offensive to a lot of Indians, the way he behaved or the way he dressed. So this was just a disastrous trip on all fronts. And things have not really gotten better since

then. There have been brief moments when it seems like things are going to improve. And then something will come along to harm the relationship again. So post-2018, there was a brief period of rapprochement and then you have these Sikh-led pharma protests in India or Sikh-dominated pharma protests and Mr. Trudeau comments and expresses concern and again attracts outrage in Delhi and this feeling that he was trying to interfere. That seems to die down and there's talk of trade talks. I was doing a lot of reporting ahead of the

G20 around the Canada-India relationship. And Ottawa's messaging then kind of in August, earlier in the summer, was that this relationship was improving and that they were on track for a new trade deal. this was going to be progress of the G20. And then Trade Minister Mary Ong would be here in October and get it across the line. And, you know, as all things go, things are getting better, then we get this. And, you know, things are now in the worst state they've been in decades. So it's been a very rough period. I wonder, though, with all this stuff that we're talking about, James, it seems to be very focused on Prime Minister Trudeau. How much of the criticism that we're seeing in the wake of these allegations is centered on Trudeau himself rather than Canada as a whole? is particularly weak, is the word the Indians would use on Khalistan, or that Canadian politics

is influenced a lot by the Khalistan movement, there is a particular amount of ire towards and suspicion of Mr. Trudeau himself. I was speaking to an analyst, Harsh Pan, who's vice president of the Observer Research Foundation, which is a very influential think tank here in Delhi. And he said that he felt like this relationship has really become about Trudeau, that, quote, the man is the problem, not so much Canada. And he feels that while Trudeau stays in power, India is going to be extremely reluctant to deal with him because that relationship between him and Modi, but also him and kind of the Indian people has broken down so much. We'll be back in a minute. Okay, let's turn a little bit to some of the broader context here, James. As we've discussed, the current feud between India and Canada is around the killing of a well-known advocate for the Sikh separatist movement, which is a movement that wants to create an independent state for Sikhs called Khalistan. What do you hear from Sikhs in India about the movement?

I think it's important to caveat this with that it is quite sensitive to talk about Khalistan in India, that this is not something people necessarily want to talk about publicly, especially maybe with a Canadian journalist. But having said that, I spent all day yesterday going to Gurdwaras in Delhi, which admittedly, it's important to say this is Delhi, this isn't Punjab where the majority of Sikhs live. And they would say that, you know, this is something that diaspora cares about that we don't really, that this is not so much an issue for us, that this is a very fringe minority movement within the Sikh community that has a lot of influence in the diaspora, but doesn't have influence here. And as far as they're concerned, they have other priorities, other concerns, other criticisms of the Indian government even, but it's not about a separatist issue. And that's what you hear from Indian politicians, both in the ruling Bharatiya Janata party, Miss Modi's party, but also from the opposition.

Isn't there an argument though that Sikhs in the diaspora outside of India could speak more freely about wanting a state independent from India? Like, as you said, this is a very sensitive topic in the country. Yeah. And Khalistani Sikhs who want to see an independent homeland in Punjab in Canada will definitely make this argument. And I did speak to a one pro-Khalistan figure who's based in Punjab and is the head of a separatist or a peaceful separatist organization there, who did say that, you know, the diaspora are able to speak for us in a way that we're often not. But there isn't a real mainstream movement to push for kind of peaceful self-determination or separatism. This isn't really the same as like Quebec, you know, there is no political party with this as their agenda. And it is difficult to tell, you know, that's kind of why I'm being hesitant on this, because it is very difficult to tell in a country where people often are afraid to speak out against the government, how much people are self-, or just, you know, people on the street. And there is a broad agreement from what I've seen.

And this is in the Indian media as well, and is often talked about in India, that this movement is essentially a non-entity in India, that this is something being pushed by the diaspora that doesn't have real traction here. And of course, there's six in many countries beyond India, right? So Canada has a particularly large population, but there's also a lot of people in Australia or in the UK. So what is the relationship like between those countries and India when it comes to this factor? Yeah, this is a very interesting issue because there are Khalistani groups in Australia and the

UK. There have been incidents of violence connected to those groups, you know, violent protests outside Indian missions in those countries. But there never seems to be quite the level of discord between Delhi and London or Delhi and Canberra as there is between Delhi and Ottawa on this issue. So what makes Canada different, though? Like what is so different from other countries? It's honestly very difficult to tell. All I can tell you is that there is a very strong perception among a broad swath of the Indian political class that both the liberals and the NDP are overly dependent on Sikh votes, and as a result of that are overly dependent on Khalistani votes. And there's a sense that any comments they make on this issue are as a result of that are

cynical political gain. And there are prominent Sikh politicians in Canada in positions of real power, where they're not necessarily in Australia and the UK. And so that might also be shaping Indian opinions of that. Whether those Sikhs have any support for Khalistan at all, there is a kind of suspicion of that. All right. I'd like to turn to our allies here and the response that this whole situation has been getting, because we've seen a very muted response, honestly, from Canada's allies like the US and the UK. There's been some statements put out that they're deeply concerned about the allegations, but they haven't condemned India the way that Canada has. And the UK is actually even continuing trade negotiations with India. So what's going on here, James?

Why has the response been this way? So I think there are two things to keep in mind here. One is that this shouldn't necessarily be seen as a surprise because so far Canada has not presented this evidence, at least publicly. We know that the Canadian government has briefed allies on this. And I think we can look at some reactions to other incidents. And one that really comes to mind is the Saudi killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, that we now kind of think of as something that attracted widespread outrage. But that outrage took months and months or almost a year to build and to really get that reaction that we saw from Western countries and allies of Saudi Arabia. Just to really spell it out,

though, like why? Why would the reaction be so muted in Khashoggi's case and also this one? Because both Saudi Arabia and India are important allies, regional powers, and without strong evidence that they were involved in these cases, I think a lot of countries will be seeing that they don't need to really take a stance on this, that they can express concern without necessarily condemning India. Or it's worth saying that if you look at this from another direction, you could say that India's allies aren't standing up for it in the face of accusations made by Canada. A lot of countries feel that they're stuck in the middle of this and aren't necessarily prepared to take a stance either way. That might change if Canada is able to present evidence linking the Indian government to this

killing, especially if they present the kind of evidence that we saw around the Ashokji murder, where there was just overwhelming public proof of this with surveillance footage and interceptions by the Turks and things like that. But it might not. And there's also, it's worth saying, a sense in India that even if Canada is able to prove this, there isn't too much concern that other allies are going to follow suit, because India is just too important. They're just too important in terms of balancing China geopolitically and becoming a new driver of the world economy. All these security ties have been built up. All this work that's been done by Washington, by London, by Canberra

in building stronger ties with India and really bringing India into the embrace of the West, that they are not going to sacrifice that for Canada, really. Or at least that's the feeling in Delhi that there is no real fear of that. So as you said, James, things had been rocky between Canada and India, but things were improving, right? Like we were talking about a trade deal before all of this happened. So what does it mean for Canada if we don't get a trade deal with India? This is somewhat difficult to gauge because a lot of this is going to be about lost potential, not direct losses. But when I was reporting ahead of the G20, one commentator I spoke to

described it as this, quote, scramble for India at the moment, that every country is trying to build up these ties, get access to a potential new major manufacturing hub, but also this new growing middle class market for goods. And Canada might be shut out of that at a time when the previous major market for all of this stuff, China, is flagging. And so that might hurt the Canadian economy, or certainly the Canadian economy might not do as well as it would have done had there been these stronger ties with India and the free trade deal with India. And for that reason, we shouldn't be surprised if a future Canadian government, potentially a successor Canadian government to Mr. Trudeau's, tries to

pick up and repair this relationship, regardless of what evidence comes out in the next year or so about India's alleged actions in Canada. James, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Thanks, Menaka. That's it for today. I'm Menaka Raman-Wells. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer,

and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.