The worst isn’t over yet for India and Canada’s diplomatic ties as reports of further expulsion of Indian officials surface in Canadian media.
The CBC on Wednesday (October 16) reported that “the six senior diplomats Ottawa has ordered out of the country may not be the last Indian officials to be expelled” as Canadian police carry out its investigation of the Indian government’s alleged involvement in “widespread violence” in Canada.
On Monday (October 14), India and Canada expelled 6 of each other’s diplomats, including their top envoys, amid an unprecedented escalation of the diplomatic row over Ottawa’s allegations that Indian government agents were involved in killing a pro-Khalistan activist in Canada in 2023.
The Canadian government had named Indian high commissioner to Canada Sanjay Verma and other diplomats as ‘persons of interest’. They were subsequently expelled after India refused to waive their diplomatic immunity and cooperate with the Canadian authorities’ probe into a “targeted campaign against Canadian citizens” by Indian government agents.
“Subsequent to those [expulsion] notices, India announced it would withdraw its officials,” the Canadian side has claimed.
As relations between the two countries continue to nosedive, CBC on Monday, citing anonymous sources, reported that a “network for India’s clandestine operations remains largely in place in Canada, although they [sources] think it’s likely that some members of that network will now depart voluntarily — and quietly — rather than risk arrest.”
Meanwhile, International Trade Minister Mary Ng has assured Canadian businesses with ties to India that the Trudeau government will continue to support commercial and economic relations between the countries.
“However, we must consider our economic interests with the need to protect Canadians and uphold the rule of law. We will not tolerate any foreign government threatening, extorting or harming Canadian citizens on our soil,” Ng said.
Also read: ‘Rule of Law,’ ‘Path of Cooperation’: Canada’s ‘Five Eyes’ Partners React to Row With India
‘India will pay a heavy price for this diplomatic disaster’
A section of the Canadian media has also slammed Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing’s (RAW’s) activities not just in Canada but also other countries with a sizeable South Asian population.
“India will pay a heavy price as a result of this diplomatic disaster. And if, as the RCMP clearly fears, there is another attack on a citizen of another country, of South Asian heritage, the damage may extend to sanctions and years of suspicion, Robin V. Sears wrote in the Toronto Star.
“Those G20 countries intelligence agencies who have until today swallowed their anger at R&AW’s excesses will now want to be seen as tougher to their political leaders,” Sears added.
Meanwhile Sikh leaders in Canada welcomed the expulsion of Indian diplomats, saying that the RCMP’s (Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s) Monday announcement confirmed what they had been saying for decades – that Indian government agents were involved in criminal activities in Canada.
Pro-Khalistan activism in Canada has been a bone of contention between the countries for decades, however, the relationship reached its nadir only under Modi and Trudeau.
Senior journalist Campbell Clark of the Globe and Mail wrote that Verma had arrived in Canada with a mission to “to demand Ottawa get tough on Sikh-Canadian activists who wanted to see a separate state of Khalistan carved out of Punjab. The Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to press the issue and, we now know, pick a fight.”
Clark said that an imaginary threat of Khalistani extremists was being played up in India as part of “a narrative being pushed by Mr. Modi’s government to raise fears among Indians – especially the Hindu-nationalist base of his Bharatiya Janata Party.”
Another Canadian columnist, while acknowledging Canada’s slow response in tackling Sikh extremism, said that it cannot be cited as a justification for the Indian government’s actions.
“The government of Canada gave it every opportunity to participate in the investigation. It refused. The Modi government instead demanded that Canada present it with evidence of its agents’ complicity. It was presented with such evidence, and still refused. Are we then to suppose that the High Commissioner oversaw this scheme entirely on his own initiative, without his superiors at least knowing about it?” journalist Andrew Coyne wrote in the Globe and Mail.
Going one step further, Coyne questioned the nature and extent of democracy in India under Modi.
“This is not, to say the least, the behaviour of an ally. Neither is it the behaviour of a democracy, in any meaningful sense. The Modi government may still be constrained, just, by the institutions and procedures of Indian democracy. But its own actions, at home and abroad, reveal an alarming taste for autocracy, as this latest episode attests.”
