The larger message from Ottawa

AN important story of global migration flows of the past decade has been the sharp rise in Indian emigration. From the US to Australia, from Singapore to Dubai and from Portugal to Israel, Indians have been emigrating in ever-increasing numbers. A mere 38,364 Indians became permanent citizens in Canada in 2014. By 2022, this number hit an all-time high of 1,18,095. By contrast, in 2022, only a little over 30,000 Chinese moved home to Canada. Canada has been a go-to place for Indian, especially Punjabi, emigrants for decades and was a strategic partner that helped in the building of India's nuclear capability. Why, then, have relations between the two countries hit an all-time low?

That there is a problem between India and the Anglosphere is becoming clear. It is not clear how serious it is and what is being done to mend fences.

Indian diplomats and other government officials have blamed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, charging him with mixing up self-serving domestic political stratagems with foreign policy and national security. He needs the Canadian Sikh vote and so he is pandering to their Khalistani aspirations. The charge is even more severe. Trudeau's government has been accused of harbouring drug peddlers, criminals and anti-India terrorists.

For their part, the Trudeau government has accused Indian intelligence operatives and diplomats of conspiring to assassinate Canadian citizens.

What began as a diplomatic kerfuffle soon escalated into a major spat and blew up when the US entered the game and linked the assassination of a Canadian Sikh to a similar attempt on a US Sikh. The Indian complaint about pro-Khalistani activism in Canada, the US and Britain is based on domestic security concerns, but the question remains unanswered as to how serious such activism has been in recent times, and whether it required such an explosive blow-up in diplomatic relations between democracies.

The view of the Modi government that western governments have not been sensitive to Indian concerns is understandable. However, the charges of culpability levelled by Canada and the US against an assortment of Indians, including diplomats and senior government officials, are serious. Two questions arise. First, why did the Canadian and US governments go public? Second, where does the buck stop on the Indian side? On the second question, both the US and Canada have mentioned names and placed the onus of proving innocence on the Indians concerned.

The first question is important because Canada and the US have had reasonably good diplomatic relations with India and could have been expected to handle matters with greater discretion. The official Indian charge, with respect to the first question, is that Trudeau is playing partisan politics, hoping to seal an electoral deal with Canadian Sikh voters. This sounds very much like Pakistan accusing Indian politicians of making political capital out of charges relating to alleged 'cross-border' terrorist attacks. Mixing national security issues with domestic politics cuts both ways and one must be careful about how third parties view such imputations. Will international public opinion view the Indian charge with greater sympathy than they would view Canada's charges? Should one care?

Perhaps, some would, understandably, take the view that India can afford to ignore the Trudeau government. That was a dominant view in New Delhi when the initial charges pertaining to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar were made. Then, the US upped the ante by not only accusing Indian officials of plotting a similar killing on US soil, of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, but also launching legal proceedings.

Is all this just a misunderstanding and bad faith between friends or are larger issues involved? That the Anglosphere countries of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the US share intelligence through their 'Five Eyes' alliance is well known. Given this, merely accusing Trudeau of trying to pick up more votes does not sound a very credible response.

More importantly, the question must be asked as to why the Indian government believes it is being targeted by western democracies. That there is a problem between India and the Anglosphere is becoming clear. It is not clear how serious it is and what is being done to mend fences.

In his Vijayadasami speech last week, the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat, indirectly accused western "liberal, democracies" of planning to stage 'Arab Spring'-type 'colour revolutions' in India, as they did in Bangladesh. This way of viewing relations with western democracies raises a larger question relating to Indian foreign and national security policies.

During his term in office, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would often claim in many of his speeches that "the world wants India to do well, our challenges are at home." This view was based on the assessment that the international community, especially liberal democracies, were as concerned as India was with jihadi terrorism and the rise of authoritarian China and, therefore, supported India's rise as a bulwark against both threats to the western liberal, democratic order.

Has this view changed? Does India no longer view the Anglosphere as an 'ally', or, at least, a partner in its progress? Can India afford to alienate western liberal democracies, having declared both China and Pakistan as threats to its national security? Is there a misalignment between the thinking of the managers of foreign policy and those who manage national security? L'affaire Trudeau raises many such questions.

Nearer home, the conflict in West Asia, that has followed the war in Europe, also raises questions about India's relations with the West. The growing involvement of the US in the ongoing West Asian conflict can make this a larger conflagration, with immediate consequences for the Indian economy. Oil prices could rise and the safety of hundreds of thousands of Indians in the region would be under threat, imposing a huge economic burden on India.

Taken together, it would seem that the global environment is today much less conducive to India's economic growth and development. Does the world, at least the West, no longer have as high a stake in India's rise as it did even a decade ago? Given the regular barrage of criticism of the West and its institutions by members of the Narendra Modi government and of the BJP and the RSS, it would seem the relationship with the West is being tested and facing a crisis of confidence. L'affaire Trudeau may just be one symptom of a deeper malaise.