The US can best serve the India-Canada dispute by staying out of it

In a bombshell address to Canada’s House of Commons, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government and its agencies of involvement in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar — a Khalistani separatist accused of terrorism by India — in Canada. 

The Indian government has categorically denied any involvement in the killing and has, in turn, accused the Canadian government of harboring Khalistani separatists it deems as terrorists on its soil. America’s NATO ally and the increasingly important American partner in the Indo-Pacific did not just trade barbs, however. Soon after, the Canadian government expelled Indian diplomats and the Indian government followed suit by expelling his Canadian counterpart in New Delhi. Both nations announced travel advisories. The bilateral relationship is on a downward spiral.  

To most observers, these developments came out of nowhere. But to Canadians and Indians, this was no surprise. Ottawa-New Delhi relations have been slowly deteriorating since Trudeau took office.  

The animosity can be traced to the 1980s at the height of the Khalistani separatist movement, wherein Sikh extremists in India took to arms to carve out a separate state called Khalistan out of modern-day Punjab, leading to 22,000 deaths, including 12,000 Hindu and Sikh civilians. The movement was linked to the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight from Toronto to Mumbai that left 329 dead and the failed bombing of another Air India flight in Tokyo on the same day.  

In the 21st century, Canada hosts the world’s second-largest Sikh community and a large and active Khalistani separatist movement. The size of the community makes them a large voting bloc for Trudeau’s Liberal Party. The Indian government accuses Canada of providing safe haven for separatists supporting terrorists and gang members over these domestic political considerations. Nijjar was one of those alleged terrorists. 

The Indian government made repeated attempts through official channels to extradite him using the treaty between Canada and India. It then reached out to Interpol, which officially put out a notice for him. In an unfortunate turn of events, even after New Delhi alerted Ottawa of Nijjar’s antecedents in 2014, a year later, it granted him citizenship. 

In India, Nijjar was wanted for alleged terrorist attacks and for being a leader of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), designated as a terrorist group by India. His entry to Canada was based on several lies and forgeries, including using a fraudulent passport under the name “Ravi Sharma,” false asylum claims and even staging what immigration officials said was a marriage of convenience with a Canadian national. 

Beyond Trudeau’s accusations, India’s frustrations stem largely from Canada’s ambivalence to repeated complaints by the Indian authorities on Khalistani activity on its soil. This activity has not been peaceful activism, as some falsely claim, but rather violent extremism fueled by hateful propaganda. The attacks on Indian consulates in Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom, a forced closure due to protests in Australia and death threats to Indian diplomats have made the Khalistan issue a top security concern for New Delhi.  

Adding to the frustration, while Trudeau’s accusation made headlines, the attacks on the consulates did not have nearly the effect nor discussion — raising the question of whether only the security of the West matters and not nations of the Global South, such as India.  

For example, the Indian National Security Agency has regularly briefed counterparts in the U.K., U.S., Canada and even Australia where the diplomatic missions came under repeated attacks, statues of Gandhi were pulled down and Hindu temples vandalized and desecrated with hateful graffiti. These events rarely made headlines in Western media, however.  

Fast forwarding to the recent spat, the history and context of the attacks on Indian missions and comments by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun — Nijjar’s lawyer and head of the Khalistani separatist group Sikhs for Justice  — telling Hindus living in Canada to “Leave Canada, go to India,” have not been widely discussed in Western media. Contrarily, many organizations cover the matter as India going after dissidents.  

The Economist, based in the U.K., said: “India has long been accused of assassinating militants and dissidents in its own messy region; never previously in the friendly and orderly West” The racist and classist undertones of a “messy” Indian subcontinent and “orderly” West are part of a bigger problem. In a separate shot at the region this month a writer for another British publication, the Financial Times, called for ditching the expression “Global South.”   

Regardless of whether New Delhi was behind this killing or not, two things have become clearer.  

Over the last two years, when pressed from a superficial position of moral high ground, several leaders in the Global South have reminded Western journalists of the United States’s role in Iraq and European powers’ hand in colonization. Western nations invade under false pretenses and justify them with national security reasons, or worse, civilizing missions. Developing nations are not afforded interventions even for legitimate national security purposes. 

Secondly, and more importantly, a developing nation’s security does not become a concern for the Western world until and unless the West finds a common cause. For Trudeau, choosing between a community that could bring him back to power versus India’s national security was an easy choice.  

Following Trudeau’s remarks, commentators around the globe quickly assign blame to India and the Modi administration, using this as yet another opportunity to question the nation’s fit as a partner to the U.S. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that the U.S. is coordinating with Canada during its investigation of Nijjar’s killing and encouraged India to work with Canada on the matter. 

Only a day prior to these events, India’s external affairs minister called on the nation to dismiss the narrative of the West as the bad one. However, reports suggesting that the U.S. providing intelligence on the killing have the potential to affect the U.S.-India bilateral partnership.

If Washington joins Ottawa in any other action, the Indian minister’s comments will fall on deaf ears and push an alignment-averse nation further away. It will reinforce the perception that, if it boils down to a choice between choosing its partner in the West or partner in the Global South, Washington may go with the former

As Trudeau attempts to transform the bilateral dispute into a multilateral one — in the process gaining domestic political capital — Biden should nip those attempts in the bud if the Indo-Pacific and Global South are a priority.

Akhil Ramesh is a senior fellow with the Pacific Forum. He has worked with governments, risk consulting firms and think tanks in the United States and India. Follow him on Twitter: Akhil_oldsoul.

Samir Kalra is the managing director of the Hindu American Foundation.