By Air Cmde TK Chatterjee(retd)
The Canadian prime minister’s bombshell declaration in the parliament that the government of India engineered the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil has generated an unmatched media interest – from Pakistan to Peru. Every media house worth its name has comments on the incident, some for, some against, some neutral.
Taking out a rogue element in another country is nothing so surprising. Such acts are even glorified and claimed with astonishing bravado by the executors after enough time has passed and the incidents have been duly buried in the annals of history. Those uninitiated to the subject may well see the docuseries SPY OPS on Netflix, where Israeli leadership from Golda Meir to Ehud Barak are shown ordering the extrajudicial executions of the Black September group, who planned and executed Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics in 1972. All these killings took place far away from Israel or Palestine, in various cities in Europe. The last execution took place in 1992, twenty years after the incident, sending out a clear message of deterrence to all those who had any such ideas against Israel.
Whether the Indian government had really ordered the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil will never be known, except for a select few and they will certainly not talk. Intelligence agencies unfortunately cannot take credit for their kills, unlike uniformed soldiers. Their failures of course get known. Neither will Mr. Trudeau be able to disclose to the world any evidence against India, even if he has it, because disclosing will expose the fact that they, and the rest of the Five Eyes, were snooping on Indian authorities, a supposedly friendly nation, and a strategic ally to some of them. These acts are indeed carried out by governments but never accepted in public. Be that as it may, when a certain Saudi Arabian national was taken out by the Americans on Pakistani soil, after years of intelligence work, Mr. Trudeau was full of praise, wondering what pinches him now.
Casting aspersions on a sovereign nation and then not being able to follow it up with credible evidence, within a reasonable amount of time, is an offense by itself. Whether it was an act of revenge for getting the cold shoulder on his India trips, or an act to please his Sikh supporters in Canada with whose help he is in power, is a rather simple matter of deduction. It is perhaps a bit of both.
Mr Trudeau has perhaps miscalculated the consequences of his actions. Whether the victim of the assassination was killed due to gang war or by an intelligence agency may be big news in Canada, but it is of little consequence in India. The cause for which these few individuals in Canada, the USA, the UK, and Australia are canvassing – Khalistan- is a non-issue in India. That issue was settled for good in the eighties. India as a nation has tasted prosperity and Indians would be loath to take to the path of secession. As one NY Times piece comments, Khalistan is merely a ‘diaspora illusion’.
Trudeau’s allegation would therefore not project Mr Modi and his government in a bad light to the Indian voters if that was his intention. On the contrary, it will project the PM and his party’s right-wing policies to his supporters as bold and fearless in tackling national security issues. Going by past experiences, this episode will certainly be used as a part of the election narrative for the coming elections in 2024. In effect, Mr. Trudeau may have unknowingly paid the BJP a backhanded compliment and done Mr. Modi a favour.
Some argue that these allegations have affected India’s reputation on the international stage. Has it now? All that has been heard so far is that the Five Eyes group members are taking the matter seriously and have requested India to investigate the issue. The Canadians are avoiding the K word very carefully, claiming that they are only interested in bringing to book the killers of a Canadian citizen. Their current political scenario will not permit them to do anything else, which India should understand.
The Indian backlash to the Canadian allegation has been fast and furious. Probably in the coming years, Canadian universities will feel the effect of this outrageous declaration of Mr. Trudeau in the parliament when Indian student intake drops, and their coffers run dry. Canadian citizens of Indian origin who have no links or interests in these secessionist elements and their hair-brained activities have become the unfortunate collateral victims of visa and other business restrictions. The time will invariably come when they start asking the Canadian government awkward questions.
It is almost twelve days since and as yet Mr Trudeau has not come up with any evidence against Indian involvement in the killing of a person who India has declared a terrorist. The Trudeau torpedo has perhaps backfired.
Author is Retired pilot from the Indian Air Force.
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