The muted reaction of the Canadian government and media to evidence of India’s targeting of Sikh activists contrasts with the treatment of China, Russia and Iran, argues John Clarke

Police in Edmonton, Alberta have arrested three men on murder charges over the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June. Nijjar, who was gunned down outside a Sikh temple in a Vancouver suburb, was active in the campaign to create an independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan, and the Indian government had labelled him as terrorist.

The CBC notes that a few months after the murder, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ‘cited credible allegations of Indian government involvement,’ which led to an angry response from the Modi regime. It is clear that these arrests are likely to increase the tensions. Trudeau made it clear that ‘the investigation remains ongoing, as does a separate and distinct investigation not limited to involvement of the three people arrested yesterday.’

The investigation has involved a level of co-operation between Canadian and US police agencies and ‘more arrests might be coming’. The assistant commissioner of the RCMP (Canada’s federal police force) ‘wouldn’t comment on the alleged links between the three men arrested and Indian officials but noted the force is “investigating connections to the government of India”.’

The response of Indian external-affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, suggests that the Modi government has no desire to appear contrite or even conciliatory in light of this development. Jaishankar told the media that ‘one of our concerns which we have been telling them is that, you know, they have allowed organized crime from India, specifically from Punjab, to operate in Canada.’ He later suggested that Canada was one of a number of countries where ‘pro-Khalistan voices held sway.’ He further accused the Trudeau government of giving ‘these kind of extremism, separatism, advocates of violence a certain legitimacy in the name of free speech.’

Pattern of intimidation

In an article I wrote for Counterfire last September, I argued that there ‘is no doubt that Nijjar’s murder is part of a pattern of threat and intimidation that Sikh communities in Canada have been subjected to by Indian state authorities.’ An article in Al Jazeera last December shows how this ongoing intimidation is intended to disrupt and undermine international networks of support for Sikh independence.

Surrey, the Vancouver suburb where Nijjar was gunned down, is home to about 154,000 followers of the Sikh faith and Canada’s Sikh population is the largest outside of India itself, so it is little wonder that it has been a particular focus of the Modi regime. Indeed, three other Sikhs who live in Surrey ‘have received a “duty to warn” notice from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) that their lives were in danger.’

Jasveer Singh, a senior press officer with the Sikh Press Association, claimed that community leaders in Surrey ‘regularly receive threats on social media.’ He also suggested that Sikh business owners are being threatened and that this ‘different element of Indian nationalist thuggery’ is being used as a form of economic reprisal.

Canada is not the only country where Sikh communities are worried that their members are under threat by agents of the Indian government. Last December, the US Department of Justice announced that it had foiled an alleged plot by an Indian official to murder a Sikh activist and American citizen in New York City.’ Czech authorities had detained and extradited the ‘alleged assassin’.

After the killing of Nijjar in BC, the CBC reported on the concerns of Sikhs in Britain over the death of Avtar Singh Khanda in a Birmingham hospital during the same month. Given that he died of a blood clot, the evidence is less clear in Khanda’s case, but his name appeared ‘on at least one so-called “hit list” broadcast on Indian television.’ Media reports in India had also suggested that he was ‘the chief instigator’ at ‘a pro-Khalistan protest outside of India’s High Commission in London, where one demonstrator climbed onto the building and tore down the Indian flag.’

Clearly, the Trudeau government is very bothered by the killing of Nijjar and the prospect that it is part of a much broader pattern of intimidation carried out by operatives of the Indian government in Canada. Still, it is striking how restrained the response has been in the face of this extreme behaviour.

When the Indian government’s persecution of religious minorities and its increasingly authoritarian conduct is weighed against the benefits of a partnership with Modi to counter China, it is easy to see the basis for this restraint on the part of Western governments. Jacobin Magazine pointed out last June that the Biden administration values ‘Modi’s commitment to neoliberal capitalism’ and we may be sure that the Trudeau government shares this perspective.

To appreciate just how cautious the response to Modi’s criminality has been, it is only necessary to consider how political leaders and media outlets would have reacted if credible evidence had emerged that death squads were being operated in Canada by the Chinese, Russian or Iranian governments. Indeed, the response has been far more strident when quite flimsy allegations of far less serious transgressions have been levelled at these countries.

Enemy within

Every effort has been made to advance claims of malicious interference with Canada’s political system. Despite a very long and ugly history of anti-Chinese racism in this country, which flared up again during the pandemic, grossly irresponsible efforts have been made to whip up a panic about a Chinese fifth column in Canada.

On the basis of unproven allegations from anonymous state security agents, sections of the media, led by Global News, have promoted the notion that the Chinese government has sought to interfere in Canadian political life with the assistance of Chinese Canadian politicians who supposedly function as an enemy within. Liberal MP Han Dong served Global News with a libel notice, after it described him as a ‘witting affiliate in China’s election interference networks.’

In March, the Toronto Sun ran a column alleging that Palestine solidarity actions in Canada and a number of other countries were being financed by the Iranian government. The writer, Warren Kinsella, produced not one shred of evidence to support this, but he claimed that protests of this kind couldn’t be ‘organic’ and must be the work of a controlling hand. Based on this assumption, he boldly declared that ‘most of us think the road will lead, ultimately, to the real Jew-hating Wizard of Oz: Iran.’

The restraint shown by the Trudeau government in the face of the killing of Najjir and the subdued reporting in the media certainly shows a desire to retain normal dealings with the Modi government to the greatest degree possible. However, as I previously mentioned, the aggressive response of India’s external-affairs minister suggests that this may not be at all easy.

When Trudeau spoke out on the killing last year and suggested evidence existed of Indian government involvement, his mild assurances that ‘we are not looking to provoke or escalate. We are simply laying out the facts as we understand them and we want to work with the government of India to lay everything clear and to ensure there are proper processes’ got him nowhere. The Modi government expelled a senior Canadian diplomat and accused the Trudeau government of interfering in India’s internal affairs.

The present Indian government is devoted to eliminating political secularism and establishing an order based on Hindu chauvinism. It seeks to contain and subdue religious minorities and places great emphasis on crushing the Sikh separatist movement. To the extent that Sikh communities abroad speak out against Modi’s repressive course, it is clear that they will be targeted. If, as is highly likely, the prosecution of those arrested for the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar leads to damaging revelations that fully implicate the agencies of the Indian state, the repercussions are likely to be explosive.