By Mayank Chhaya-
The inevitable resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has the potential to reboot Canada’s seriously frayed relations with India over the question of Khalistani separatism.
Whoever takes over as Trudeau’s successor will have a fresh opportunity to recalibrate bilateral relations which have practically collapsed since October last year after unprecedented tit-for-tat expulsions and withdrawals of its diplomats over escalating tensions flowing from his allegations of a “campaign of violence”.
The last two years under Trudeau saw India-Canada relations sink to their lowest depth as Trudeau kept up his attacks on New Delhi over what his government claimed was “a campaign of violence” waged by the Indian state against Canadian citizens who all happened to be Sikhs campaigning for a separate homeland.
New Delhi withdrew its High Commissioner to Ottawa Sanjay Kumar Verma along with others after Canada disclosed a sweeping investigation into the activities of Indian diplomats, including Verma, describing them as “persons of interest”.
The investigation related to the June 2023 assassination in British Columbia of Canadian national and pro-Khalistan campaigner Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Over the last one-plus year Canada generally and Trudeau particularly variously maintained that the Nijjar killing was part of a concerted plan by Indian government agents, a damning charged that New Delhi has angrily rejected and described as product of Canda’s domestic politics as practiced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issued a remarkably sharp denunciation of Canada’s action saying it “strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau government that is centered around vote bank politics.”
The reference to “vote bank politics” is clearly to the politically consequential presence of the large Sikh community in general and within them particularly vocal pro-Khalistan activists. New Delhi has, directly and indirectly, described Trudeau as pandering to the pro-Khalistan activists out of political expediency.
“Since Prime Minister Trudeau made certain allegations in September 2023, the Canadian Government has not shared a shred of evidence with the Government of India, despite many requests from our side. This latest step follows interactions that have again witnessed assertions without any facts. This leaves little doubt that on the pretext of an investigation, there is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains,” the MEA said.
One particular passage from the MEA statement underlined the fact that it does not seem concerned over a virtual collapse of diplomatic ties. “Prime Minister Trudeau’s hostility to India has long been in evidence. In 2018, his visit to India, which was aimed at currying favor with a vote bank, rebounded to his discomfort. His Cabinet has included individuals who have openly associated with an extremist and separatist agenda regarding India. His naked interference in Indian internal politics in December 2020 showed how far he was willing to go in this regard,” the MEA statement said.
Both countries expelled six diplomats each.
Before this, there had never been an instance in the history of India’s diplomacy of a government explicitly accusing the head of state of a friendly or unfriendly country of pandering to terrorists out of electoral expediency.
Even Pakistan, India’s permanent arch enemy, has not experienced its prime ministers being accused of personally fraternizing with terrorists and practicing “vote bank politics”.
With Trudeau on his way out, New Delhi will be watching the rise of his successor closely, particularly from the standpoint of how to mend bilateral ties.
Closer home, the view from Washington cannot escape the fact that Trudeau visited President-elect Donald J Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in late November as a supplicant in the face of the latter threatening to impose heavy tariffs on Canada on day one of his return to the White House.
To add insult to injury Trump even said that Canada should consider become America’s 51st state and Trudeau its governor. The return of Trump wielding tariff threat appears to have broken the proverbial camel’s back for Trudeau.
The resignation letter of Trudeau’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland in December last year spoke of the “grave challenge” Trump’s threat of 25% tariffs on Canadian goods. Freeland is widely seen as a potential successor to Trudeau.
Apart from his ever-declining popularity, two major factors did Trudeau in. One is his unprecedented fight with the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Sikh separatism and the other Trump’s tariffs.