Canada-India Relations at New Low

Prime Minister (PM) Justin Trudeau said on Monday that agents of the Indian government carried out the killing of a Sikh community leader in British Columbia last June. Speaking in the House of Commons, Trudeau said he raised India’s involvement in the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar directly with PM Narendra Modi at the Group of 20 summit meeting earlier this month in no uncertain terms. He said the allegation was based on intelligence gathered by the Canadian government. India has denied the allegation. The information is based on the Five Eyes intelligence sharing that exists between the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Canada has expelled Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai who was station head of Indian intelligence. India has also expelled Canadian diplomat, station head of Canadian intelligence Olivier Sylvestre. The two countries have paused their negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement. Both have issued travel advisories to each other's countries.

Before the G-20 Summit in Delhi, on 9 Sep, the Panjab Police issued a red alert and beefed up security across the state. As directed by the director general of police (DGP), Panjab, Gaurav Yadav, police teams conducted flag marches at all the sensitive areas in all 28 police districts from 9am to 11am simultaneously. At the same time, cordon and search operations (CASOs) were conducted at all the railway stations and bus stands from 2pm to 7pm. No other state in the country experienced CASO, neither was any flag march conducted anywhere else. This raises the question of why Panjab was singled out. After the G-20 summit - where the US President was not allowed a press conference and foreign media were curtailed - in Vietnam, Biden said he raised the issue of human rights, the role of civil society, and the importance of a free press with Modi. Strangely, Biden's address to the media was suddenly stopped by a White House staffer.

Australia’s Queensland state police have released documents of its investigation into the defacement of a Brisbane temple’s outer wall, which suggest that they are ready to close this matter after getting no more leads from the complainants. They stated that there seemed to be a Hindu hand in the anti-Modi graffiti that was done on the night of 3 Mar, which came to be blamed on pro-Khalistan Sikh elements. Holding that they have no suspects in the case, the investigators proposed that the Hindus defaced their own temple after purposely shutting off the key CCTV cameras and that the serial offender who had done similar desecration in Victoria had then sneaked into Brisbane’s Sikh rally of 4 Mar. Three more Australian temples have been defaced since Jan. After these incidents, PM Modi had thundered on Australian soil and made it an issue of Hindu and Indian pride. He turned it into an issue in Australia-India relations involving Sikhs. There has been no response from the Indian government.

Over the last few years, under the current regime, the Indian media has shown its partisan aspect. Many now call such media the corporate media because it is owned by a handful of corporations. A glaring example of this is a recent report by The Times of India. Over two days it reported in diametrically opposite ways on the Khalistan Referendum. On 11 Sep, Monday, the newspaper reported that the Referendum was held in Surrey, British Columbia. It then went on to depict the recent events in the background of the Referendum. The same newspaper reported the very next day, 12 Sep, Tuesday, that the Sikhs had snubbed the Referendum. The media quotes a local who says: ‘The referendum was an abject failure, a listless exercise.’ Many Canadian and some Indian media outlets have reported the Referendum drew the largest ever crowds. They placed the figures at 130,000 voters. These contradictions erode the trust of the readers and place a question mark on the integrity of Indian media.

On the second day of the G20 summit, PM Modi announced the launch of the India-Middle East-Europe mega economic corridor. The project includes India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, France, Italy, Germany, and the US. The rail and shipping corridor is part of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment (PGII) — a collaborative effort by G7 nations to fund infrastructure projects in developing nations. PGII is considered to be the bloc’s counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. President Biden called the launch of the India-Middle East a ‘big deal’. Two of the three ports involved – Mundra and Haifa – are owned by Gautam Adani who, it is apparent now, is in Modi’s good books.. An expert says: At a rough estimate, the cost of laying intercontinental railway lines and electricity cables will exceed a trillion dollars. The Green Hydrogen part of the project is not workable. 

In the midst of the Ukraine war - which is, in effect, a challenge to NATO and the United States’ hegemony in world affairs - Russia has resumed trading fertilizer with Europe and the US. Russia is halting the discounts it was previously giving to India. India had previously reaped benefits after the Western countries together imposed sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Russia was compelled to sell fertilizers to India due to a lack of demand from Europe, resulting in lower prices compared to those from Morocco and Jordan. Experts say, for now, the rise in fertilizer prices will not impact the farmers as they get subsidies on it. The shift in trade dynamics is expected to increase the Indian government’s expenditure on fertilizer subsidies. The question is if Russia is exporting essentials like oil, fertilizers, and grains to the West, then what is the war about?

Panjab Chief Minister (CM) Mann appointed 560 sub-inspectors at a function in Jalandhar on 11 Sep. Congratulating the newly inducted officers and their families, CM expressed hope that they will discharge their duty with ‘honesty, diligence and dedication’. The CM said the appointment letters of these sub-inspectors were delayed by two years due to the apathy of previous state governments. We must note the last two years included COVID-19 and the state assembly elections. The CM announced the government will soon be recruiting 1700 police constables to the Sadak Surakhya Force - traffic police. The appointment of sub-inspectors has come under a shadow because Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira has alleged that from Mansa appointees alone, 6 out of 7 appointees are from Haryana, not domiciled in Panjab. If more irregular appointments are found, the controversy could blow up.

Talking about the grave agrarian crisis in Panjab, a noted agriculture expert Devinder Sharma said 12 Sep, ‘Panjab is fast developing into a junkyard of stubble management machinery with the state already having 1.17 lakh such machines and another 20,000 to be added this year.’ A new report reveals the reasons for stubble burning include no minimum support price (MSP) on alternate crops and crops and crop residue being unfit for use as cattle fodder. The report Beyond Stubble Burning was released by Asar Social Impact Advisors in collaboration with a group of researchers, Clean Air Punjab, and Chemical Management and Safety Rules Consultants. The report is based on feedback gathered from 400 farmers between May and July this year in villages that have a high incidence of stubble burning. The report pointed out that even though crop residue management (CRM) schemes have been introduced, farmers still face challenges such as insufficient horsepower of tractors, limited use periods, machine malfunction, and low productivity that contribute to traditional methods and crop burning.

The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) chief Iqbal Singh Lalpura said in a letter written to the Chief Minister of Gujarat on Thursday to set up a Sikh Development Board and a Sikh Research Board in the state to promote the Panjabi language, Sikh culture and history. The NCM chief said that the special relationship between the Sikhs and Gujarat has traces in history. Gujarat witnessed historic visits by Sikh Gurus including Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh. Bhai Mohkam Singh, one of the Panj Piare - the five enthroned lovers - was from Dwarka. Also, a large number of Sindhi Sikhs live in Gujarat. However, it must be noted, that in 2014, when Modi assumed charge as the nation’s PM, hundreds of Sikh farmers were being pushed out of their lands in Kutch. It is laudable that the government should create boards and promote Panjabi language but the Sikh land issue needs to be solved.

On Friday last, Pakistan’s first Sikh journalist and anchor, Harmeet Singh was terminated from his job by Public TV. He was sacked after a complaint by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader and former minister Shazia Atta Marri, who blamed Harmeet for spreading fake news about the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) raid on her and recovery of PKR 97 billion from her possession. Harmeet - who also runs his own YouTube channel - said he had shared the news after the same was circulated in several local news channels and several independent journalists of Sindh on their social media accounts. After he learned the news was fake, he deleted the tweet and sent a written apology to Shazia Marri acknowledging his mistake. Instead of accepting his apology, Shazia sent him a legal notice of a PKR 10 billion defamation case and used her political power to dismiss him from his job.