India Vs Canada: What is happening? Full Explanation

The story so far: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada stood up in the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa to make a shocking statement hours as Indian lawmakers prepared for a special session in the new Parliament building in Delhi during last week. He said that members of the Indian government were responsible for the murder of Canadian Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the leader of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) in India who had been designated as a terrorist.

In June of this year, while Nijjar, 45, was leaving a gurdwara in Surrey, two hooded shooters shot and killed him. Despite the fact that the Canadian Prime Minister admitted that the investigation was still ongoing, his administration had already chosen to dismiss a senior diplomat from the Indian High Commission.

What was India's response?

The claims surfaced a week after Mr. Trudeau's tense "pull-aside" encounter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi while he was in India for the G-20 summit. Both sides published readouts after the meeting accusing the other of "foreign interference in Canada's affairs" and "providing safe havens to anti-India extremists," but neither had made it known that Nijjar's murder had been brought up.

Furthermore, it was revealed that Canadian National Security Adviser (NSA) Jody Thomas had been to India twice in the previous month to discuss the subject with India's NSA Ajit Doval, despite the government's repeated claims that no "specific evidence" had been presented by Canada.

The "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance, which consists of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, was reported to have exchanged information with partners before the G-20 summit, and some of its leaders are said to have spoken with Mr. Modi about the matter.

Following Mr. Trudeau's speech in Parliament, India reciprocated by expelling a Canadian diplomat. In response to the claims, the Ministry of External (MEA) Affairs sent a demarche to Cameron McKay, Canada's High Commissioner to India, ordering him to reduce the number of diplomats assigned to his mission since some of them were allegedly meddling in internal Indian affairs. The MEA categorically refuted Mr.

Trudeau's claims, calling them "absurd," but noted that in spite of numerous requests for their extradition by India, many individuals, including Nijjar, who were sought for Khalistani separatist violence in India, were given "safe haven" in Canada. According to the MEA, India has stopped providing visa services throughout Canada and will not accept Canadian applications at any of its other missions abroad due to security reasons.

What's the evidence on the Nijjar killing?

A breach of "Canadian sovereignty" and "international rule of law" would result from Mr. Trudeau's failure to disclose any concrete information linking India to the murder. According to Canadian government sources, there were both SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) and HUMINT (Human Intelligence) inputs that included diplomatic correspondence within the Indian High Commission that pointed to the Nijjar killing. If so, it would also suggest that Canadian security services were spying on the Indian mission, which would be against accepted diplomatic practice.

How did the 'Five Eyes' Alliance react?

Each of the nations that make up the Five Eyes alliance, which was formed in the years following World War II, has released a statement expressing worry about Canada's accusations and urging India to assist with the probe. Anthony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, Penny Wong, James Cleverly, the British foreign secretary, and Nanaia Mahuta, the foreign minister of New Zealand, have all made statements, but none have yet provided more support for the proof that Canada claims to have. Additionally, their responses stood in stark contrast to the "Skripal case" in the U.K., where the British government accused Russian agents of assassinating a former Russian officer and his daughter.

Each of the Five Eyes nations had swiftly ejected a number of Russian diplomats from their embassies, and the discrepancy in stance now suggests a desire to avoid upsetting New Delhi as they strengthen their strategic alliance with India.

However, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that if Mr. Trudeau's charges were verified, the US would not grant India any "special exemption." Indian officials have denied the allegations of an assassination, but several former Indian diplomats have criticised what they call a "western double standard" in which the killing of designated terrorists by the United States in drone strikes or other operations, such as the killing of Iranian General Soleimani in Iraq or al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, is proudly announced but an allegedly similar operation by India is subject to such scrutiny.

Why are there conflicts between India and Canada?

With the exception of Manmohan Singh, who travelled to Toronto for the 2010 G-20 summit, tensions between India and Canada over the Khalistan issue have always been strong. This is the main reason that no Indian prime minister visited Canada on a bilateral basis between 1973 and 2015. This was due to the fact that beginning in the late 1970s, a growing number of Sikhs living abroad, particularly in nations like Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, began to support the Khalistani separatist movement in Punjab.

Canada was the most challenging country for India to work with because the Canadian government and politicians took the position that many people in the diaspora were escaping human rights abuses by Indian security forces in Punjab. For instance, Canada refused India's plea to extradite Khalistani leader Talvinder Singh Parmar in 1982. A few years later, in June 1985, Parmar planned the bombing of the Air India flight 182 from Toronto to Mumbai, which resulted in the deaths of 329 people.

What lies ahead?

Even though Mr. Modi tried to restart relations with his trip to Canada in 2015, things haven't gone well. Several issues plagued Mr. Trudeau's "return" trip to India in 2018, including the presence of a supporter of Khalistan at his dinner reception. After Mr. Trudeau criticised Mr. Modi's handling of the farmers' protests in India in 2020, New Delhi put engagements with Ottawa on hold. They only resumed after a Modi-Trudeau meeting on the fringes of the G-7 summit in Germany in 2022, at which point the two sides started to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Following the Nijjar murder, Canada postponed FTA negotiations, cancelled a trade delegation's trip to Delhi, and there may potentially be repercussions for the $55 billion Canadian pension funds had invested in India. Last year, India and Canada jointly issued 500,000 visas to each other's nationals; 2,26,000 Indian students were admitted to Canada; and there are already 1.4 million members of the Indian diaspora living there.

Canada may take retaliatory measures in response to India's move to suspend visas for Canadians, which would have an impact on hundreds of thousands of people waiting for visas, including professionals and students. This is already at its lowest point in decades due to the termination of trade negotiations and visas; in the past, when political involvement was halted, people-to-people contacts had been permitted to continue.