CNA Explains: What lies at the heart of Canada and India’s deepening rift?

On Jun 18, 2023, Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a separatist leader campaigning for an independent Sikh homeland carved out of India, was shot dead in Surrey, Vancouver.
Following his murder, Canada alleged that Indian government agents were involved. This sparked the beginning of souring relations between the two countries, which on Monday (Oct 14) culminated in both expelling each other’s top diplomats.
Canada kicked out six Indian diplomats – including the High Commissioner – alleging their direct involvement in Nijjar’s murder, and further accusing Indian agents of a broader effort to target Indian dissidents in Canada. India rejected the allegations as “preposterous” and retaliated by telling six Canadian diplomats to leave.
How did the ties between Ottawa and New Delhi hit rock bottom? 
The current rift between the countries is “the most serious crisis” since disagreements over India’s nuclear testing in the 1990s, said Sanjay Ruparelia, associate professor of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“But this is something quite different. This is an allegation that agents of the government of India had a hand in the killing … not just of Mr Nijjar, but others as well, and many cases of extortion and harassment and intimidation,” he told CNA938’s Asia First on Wednesday. 
He noted that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations last September in the House of Commons were “as serious as you could get”.
While the public nature of Trudeau’s comments upset New Delhi, Ruparelia noted that Canada had tried to use quiet diplomacy and was rebuffed.
“There’s a very real threat of the closing or diminishment of consular services. There’s even been talk about ramifications of trade and investment business ties of various kinds as well,” he said.
Bilateral trade between India and Canada amounted to US$8.4 billion at the end of the last fiscal year on Mar 31, slightly up from the previous year, according to India’s trade ministry.
Michael Kugelman, who is director of the US-based think tank Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, went as far as to draw parallels with the rhetoric India uses against Pakistan, with whom it has a long-running conflict over cross-border terrorism. 
“India’s government is now saying that Canada is sheltering and sponsoring anti-India terrorists,” Kugelman noted. 
“That is the exact accusation that it has levelled against Pakistan for many years.”
Canada is home to the largest number of Sikhs outside India, with a Sikh population of more than 770,000 – or around 2 per cent of its total population.
The countries’ differing perceptions of activism in demanding a separate Sikh state called Khalistan is at the core of their deep crisis, Kugelman said.
While the Khalistan movement is stronger in the West and does not appear to have momentum at home, India’s fear harks back to the 1970s and 1980s, when there was a violent insurgency waged by separatists, he said.
He added that India is afraid that these groups are making a comeback from their “safe haven” in Canada and other Western countries, where they could potentially have been orchestrating an uprising unhindered.
“India is claiming that this could, in due course, pose another major violent threat to India,” Kugelman told CNA’s Asia First. 
“Canada looks at this very differently. It doesn’t believe that it’s sheltering anti-India extremists. It believes …  that these are Sikh separatists who are activists, and what they do and say is protected by freedom of speech laws in Canada.”
Another issue at the heart of the deepening tensions is one of evidence to support Canada’s public allegations. 
While Canada has made several allegations publicly, it has not provided the necessary evidence to back them up, pointing to how doing so could undermine the integrity investigations, said Kugelman. 
“But the more allegations it puts out there in the public eye, the more pressure (there is) on Canada to come out with some very specific evidence,” he said. 
Ruparelia said the disconnect could be in what counts as evidence.
“It could simply be that … (the) evidence, for the Indian authorities, hasn’t met a threshold that they’re happy with or comfortable with,” he said. 
He added that for Canada, the solution is that India cooperates with its investigation and looks into it. For India, the demand is for Canada to share evidence in a way that it deems sufficient to trigger action. “That’s the impasse right now,” he said.
Observers said there is a potential political agenda behind the dispute. 
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stands to gain from the crisis because his government’s vociferous rejections of the allegations give an impression of the country defending its honour and integrity, said Kugelman. 
In the case of Canada, he noted that the Sikh community is politically influential and that Trudeau depends on the support of Sikh political parties.
“There are clearly domestic factors at play in both countries that I think drive both leaders’ behaviour and actions, and … these two prime ministers both benefit from this crisis,” said Kugelman.
He noted that Trudeau, unlike Modi, is experiencing low popularity at home, and that the opposition in Canada has rallied around the Trudeau government following the allegations against India.
But while brewing criticism against Trudeau had led to speculation about a political angle, that may not be enough impetus for such a situation, said Ruparelia.
“The charges are so grave and so severe that it’s hard to credit the idea that this has simply been done for political grandstanding,” he said.