In retaliation for Canada’s expulsion of Pavan Kumar Rai, a senior Indian diplomat who served as the head of India’s foreign intelligence agency, ‘Research and Analysis Wing’ or RAW, in Canada in connection with the murder of Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara President Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey last June, India expelled a senior Canadian diplomat on Tuesday. According to a press release from India’s External Affairs Ministry, the Canadian government decided to deport a senior Canadian diplomat stationed in India today and informed the High Commissioner of Canada to India via phone. The concerned diplomat has been given five days to leave India. It stated that the decision reflects Government of India’s growing concern over Canadian diplomats’ interference in our internal affairs and their involvement in anti-India activities.
Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar?
Before being murdered by two unidentified assailants outside a gurudwara in Surrey, British Columbia, Nijjar, a 46-year-old Canadian, was one of the most wanted terrorists in India. Nijjar was identified as an “individual terrorist” under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in July 2020. He was charged with sponsoring secessionist operations as well as taking part in numerous instances of targeted killings in Punjab. Another accusation against Nijjar was that he encouraged anti-Indian actions and maintained contact with Pakistani spies. Prior to joining and rising to the position of KTF’s leader, Nijjar was a member of Babbar Khalsa International (BKI). Officials in intelligence agencies said that Nijjar had travelled to Pakistan to meet KTF leader Jagtar Singh Tara and handlers in the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence sometime in 2013-14.
History of Khalistani movement’s Emergence
India and Canada relationship has been strained for nearly 45 years. This relationship has a tumultuous history that was typified by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s remarks to the House of Commons that Indian government agents may have been involved in the death of a prominent pro-Khalistan activist on June 18. It might start in the first decade of the 20th century when Sikh immigrants had begun arriving in Canada. The fertile terrain attracted British Army soldiers who were travelling through British Columbia. The Sikh community in Canada had become well-known by the 1970s. There was little support for a Sikh country.
The 1970s saw a change in that. The Canadian government was incensed by India’s Pokhran nuclear tests in Rajasthan in May 1974 because the CANDU type reactors, which Canada had donated for peaceful nuclear energy, had been converted for military use. Diplomatic ties deteriorated as a result of the ire of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the current leader’s father. Unfortunately, that occurred just as Punjab’s Khalistan cause was gaining popularity. Many Sikhs who had family ties to Canada applied for refugee status there, citing political persecution. Due to the poor connection, there was a sudden inflow of Khalistanis into a nation that did little to quell their separatist.
Talwinder Singh Parmar, widely regarded as the terrorist bombing of Air India flight 182, the Kanishka, was one of those who established a base in Canada. Parmar served as the leader of the Babbar Khalsa International and was based in the British Columbian municipality of Burnaby. As in the case of Parmar, Canada also served as an easy entry route for Khalistani individuals traveling to Pakistan to meet and train with their handlers from the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service.
The fatal plane was traveling from Montreal to London when it was destroyed on June 23, 1985, by terrorists from the Khalistani movement. Some of its remains were scattered around the Cork region of Ireland’s shore, while the remaining pieces sank into the North Sea. 22 crew members and all 307 passengers on board died. It is recognized as Canada’s National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism and is still regarded as the deadliest terrorist incident in the country’s history. Although Canadian intelligence was aware of the possible internal threat that Khalistani elements might pose, there was no political will to recognize the episode as a tragedy that only occurred in the twenty-first century and a Canadian tragedy.
A sophisticated core of English-speaking politicians with pro-Khalistan leanings began to emerge within the community by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, but the majority of the original group of Khalistani leaders spoke little or no English. Many of the 1980s refugee youngsters had been brainwashed. Even though the Khalistan movement was put to rest in India in the late 1990s, it continued to exist in Canada, especially in a few gurdwaras run by extremists. Even in 2010, on the sidelines of the G20 conference in Toronto, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with his counterpart Stephen Harper, and he voiced New Delhi’s displeasure with Ottawa for allowing the Khalistan problem to fester. In reality, for even longer, advocates of Khalistan and militant groups accused of terrorism in India have looked to Canada as a safe haven.
According to Terry Milewski’s book Blood for Blood: Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project (2021), “The meek Canadian response to the Khalistani challenge was a frequent target of Indian politicians as far back as 1982, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi complained about it to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.” Justin Trudeau, the current Prime Minister of Canada, is the son of Pierre Trudeau, who served the country as leader from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984.
