The diplomatic ties between India and Canada hit the lowest on Monday after India decided to withdraw its high commissioner and some other “targetted” diplomats asserting that it has “no faith” in the Trudeau government. The move came after Canadian government, led by prime minister Justin Trudeau, attempted to implicate the Indian high commissioner in an investigation likely related to the murder of Sikh extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.India also issued a stern warning against the “concocted” allegations targeting its diplomat.
India vehemently rejected the accusations against high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, labeling them as “preposterous imputations” and attributing them to the “political agenda of the Trudeau government that is centered around vote bank politics”. The ministry of external affairs (MEA) stated that India received a diplomatic communication from Canada, suggesting that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats are “persons of interest” in an ongoing investigation in Canada.
The relationship between India and Canada has been under significant strain since prime minister Trudeau’s accusations in September last year, suggesting a “potential” involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Nijjar, who was shot dead in Surrey, British Columbia, in June 2022. New Delhi has repeatedly dismissed Trudeau’s charges as “absurd”. This, however, is not the first time India and Canada are staring at a historic low in its diplomatic ties under a Trudeau regime. Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who served as Canada’s fifteenth prime minister also had a difficult relationship with India much like his son Justin Trudeau.
India’s nuclear test at Pokhran
In 1974, Ottawa’s foreign policy experts were outraged when India conducted nuclear tests, suspecting that the Canadian-designed and collaboratively constructed CIRUS reactor was used. Canada had previously assumed that India shared its ideological opposition to nuclear weapons development. The Indian tests challenged this assumption, forcing Canada to reevaluate its understanding of Asia’s emerging strategic landscape.
India later carried out nuclear tests in Pokhran, Rajasthan in 1998, motivated by various domestic and external factors, including a growing consensus among India’s political elites and scientific community, the security threat from China following the 1962 Sino-Indian war, and China’s nuclear tests in Lop Nor. The aftermath of the tests saw a deterioration in India’s relations with Canada and much of the Western world.
Canada perceived the Pokhran event as a betrayal by India, with policymakers in Ottawa worried that Indian nuclear tests would encourage other non-nuclear states to pursue similar capabilities. As a result, Canada halted tentative nuclear cooperation with India. The then Foreign Minister Mitchell Sharp expressed his disappointment, stating that the “trust between the two countries was gone.”
Canada’s former PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau had warned Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi about the repercussions India would encounter if it developed nuclear weapons capabilities. Trudeau’s India policy aligned with his positive stance towards Communist states like China and a rejection of Washington’s expectations for Canada’s foreign policy. Consequently, Canadian policymakers became wary of any attempts to seek reconciliation with India, particularly regarding civil nuclear energy cooperation. This position was eventually abandoned during the Harper administration, leading to the signing of the Canada–India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.
Following India’s nuclear tests in 1998, Canada imposed sanctions on the South Asian nation. According to reports, the Canadian foreign minister at the time, Lloyd Axworthy, initiated a “crusade” against India in response to the tests.
The sanctions remained in place until 2001 when they were finally lifted. However, it took another nine years for India and Canada to sign a civil nuclear agreement, which occurred in 2010.
The nuclear tests and subsequent sanctions strained the relationship between the two countries for a significant period, highlighting the complex dynamics of international diplomacy and the consequences of pursuing nuclear capabilities.
Trudeau’s support to Khalistani extremists and Kanishka bombing
More than the nucleat test, Pierre Trudeau’s failure to take action against the Khalistani forces dealt a serious blow to Indo-Canadian relations.
Several terrorists from Punjab took refuge in Canada after the crackdown on militancy in the 1980s. One such terrorist was Talwinder Singh Parmar. He fled to Canada after killing two police personnel in Punjab in 1981. Parmar, a member of the Khalistani group Babbar Khalsa, advocated for attacks on Indian diplomatic missions abroad and mass murder.
India asked for Parmar to be extradited, but the Pierre Trudeau administration denied the request. Additionally, even warnings from Indian intelligence agencies remained unheeded.
The final blow came when all 329 people on board Air India Flight 182 (Kanishka), which was traveling from Toronto to London, UK, on June 23, 1985, were killed when a bomb concealed in two luggage detonated. The majority of those killed in the Kanishka bombing were Canadians. Parmar, who Pierre Trudeau protected, was the bombing of Kanishka’s mastermind. In Punjab, he was murdered by police in 1992. Posters honoring Parmar were seen all around Canada in June of this year.
Talwinder Singh Parmar was among those arrested in connection with the Kanishka bombing, but he was all released, and only one person was found guilty.
In 1982, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi complained to Pierre Trudeau about the meek Canadian response to the Khalistani challenge, according to Terry Milewski, a retired CBC correspondent and author of “Blood for Blood – Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project.”
