K N Pandita
“The State Department on Tuesday said the United States respects the right to freedom of speech and assembly of individuals when asked about American factions of the Khalistani movement that has long frustrated India.
The Indian Government has complained about the presence of Khalistani groups outside India, especially in Canada. The groups have kept alive the movement for Khalistan, or the demand for an independent Sikh state to be carved out of India,” reported the Reuter on 4 October.
The same argument is flaunted by Prime Minister Trudeau. The US’ first reaction after Trudeau’s announcement in the Canadian Parliament on 18th September was that India should cooperate with Canada in the investigation of the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Interestingly, it was Mr Cohen, the American Ambassador in Canada, who disclosed that the allegation was based on the finding of Five Eyes, and till then Canada had no clue of the murder of Najjar.
The question is that the murder of Nijjar had taken place four months ago. The Canadian Government was unable to fix the responsibility of the murder for four long months, and nobody was arrested, even on suspicion, in the case. Curiously, the Canadian Government could not unravel the killing of Karima, the Baluch woman activist’s murder or it did not want to investigate it. It raises a question mark on the professional efficiency of the investigating institution of Canada.
Simultaneous with the announcement in the Parliament, Trudeau said that he had approached the Five Eyes countries including the US to endorse his statement and condemn the killing.
No condemnation came from any country but the US foreign office said that India should cooperate in the investigation. That was the repetition of Trudeau’s statement.
This simple statement speaks the mind of the United States’ policymakers. The voice of Frank Sullivan resonated in the utterances of Premier Trudeau.
The inference is that a close consultation between the concerned officials of the two countries had taken place and the statements that emanated from their sources had to be identical. This emboldened Trudeau to bring allegations to the doorstep of India.
As a good friend of India, something which one can say with some amount of certainty after reminiscing the warmth exuded by the two leaders — President Biden and PM Modi — at G-20 in New Delhi, the US should have taken up the matter with the Indian foreign office and dissuaded Trudeau from going public, at least till a way-out was found without damaging relations between India and Canada. That did not happen, and diplomatic decorum was not observed, perhaps on purpose.
Trudeau would not have ventured to make on its own a public allegation against the world’s largest democracy. In India’s reckoning, Canada is not an adversary. Canada cannot be even jealous of India, a rising power, because Canada is not a colonial power. Jealousy against rising India is exclusive to the superpowers because they are not able to come out of a colonial and racist mindset.
We know that it is not only China that is upset by a rising India; the rightist superpowers are no less jealous. India was instrumental in getting the African Union admitted to the G-20. PM Modi had asserted that the future belonged to the Global South. To the imperialists and colonialists, these words are a red rag to the bull.
Modi’s language does not suit the US and its allies in Europe. It is a different thing that in their strategy calculus India is of vital importance to checkmate the growing influence of China in the South Asian region.
There are other stories also that speak of something unsaid of the Indo-US relationship. The secret week-long visit of US Ambassador Blome in Pakistan to the strategic and sensitive region of Gilgit and Hunza (which India claims to be its territory) speaks more than what it hides. Last year, the same ambassador, while on a visit to Gilgit, had called it “Azad Kashmir” which brazenly belied the oft-repeated assertion of the US that the Kashmir dispute needs to be resolved through a dialogue between the two contesting parties. Equating a secret visit of the American Ambassador to a disputed region for undisclosed purpose with the G-20 Tourist Group chapter visiting Srinagar for a purpose set forth by G-20 is a crude attempt of rationalising a shadowy move by the world’s most powerful democracy. That is what the American Ambassador in New Delhi tried to do.
India does not mean to disagree with the US or any other democratic country in conceding to people (including the Khalistanis) the right to freedom of speech whether in the US or Canada or the UK. Nobody can deny them human rights, the right to freedom of speech or the right to assembly.
But India’s stand is something different. It has the problem of dissident Sikhs committing crimes in India and then with the help of fake travel documents escaping to Canada where they manage to obtain a stay permit and feel safe to stay on. In Canada, they organise themselves in anti-India groups, vandalize Hindu worshipping places, threaten the Canadian Hindus which is a communal-oriented crime and intimidate the consular staff of Indian missions in Canada with the Canadian government taking no action against them. In this way, they demonstrate hatred and animosity against the Hindu community. Trudeau’s regime has taken no cognizance of complaints sent to the Canadian Government evidently because of political interests.
If the constitution of Canada or the US gives them (Khalistanis) the right to freedom of speech and freedom of forming congregations, well and good. But which constitution gives them the right to threaten and intimidate the non-Sikh Indian population or Indian mission staff in Canada or commit heinous crimes in India and then escape to Canada and join the anti-India brigades of Khalistanis in that or any other country, manipulate citizenship of the host country and continue their anti-India mission without impunity.
Does not the constitution of Canada or the US lay down how the state should deal with elements against whom dossiers of crimes are forwarded to the host country along with the copy of the Red Corner letter from Interpol? Yet the host country’s Government takes no action. If there is no constitutional provision restricting the activities of criminals, it would mean that the host country compromises with international terrorism and in this way leaves the gateway open for the criminals and terrorists to find a haven in Canada.
The situation becomes worse when the terrorist groups are taken as a vote bank and considered immune to law-governed relations between the miscreants and society. It is a new and a serious dimension of some countries soft-pedalling with international crime and terrorism, and as such, India should raise the question at the UN organs particularly the Security Council and other international fora.
The US asserts that the Khalistanis enjoy human rights and have the right to congregate, raise anti-India slogans and denigrate Indian leadership in the most unbecoming and uncivil language. But the US has also the obligation to tell us how it would deal with immigrants who are listed as terrorists with a history of dark deeds attached to their names in their countries of origin.
From a broader perspective one can say that an international conspiracy is hatched somewhere to derail the BJP in the 2024 general elections and thus manage the ouster of Modi as the Prime Minister. The entire gang of corrupt leadership has come together with this nefarious design. The national sensitivity has received a shock that in their bid to remove the nationalist Government, they are moving around the globe to garner support for their betrayal of the Indian nation. All that one can say is that the clock cannot be set back, come what may.
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