Canada and India: Expelled Diplomats Amidst Escalating Allegations

Both India and Canada have recently expelled diplomats from each other’s countries. Canada has specifically alleged the highest level of the Indian government has orchestrated an assassination within Canada. India has denied any involvement.

While this dispute began over a year ago, its origins seem to be much older.

The day before a gunman killed Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18, 2023 outside a Sikh temple near Vancouver, Canada, he made a call to fellow activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun warning him of threats to his life. This wasn’t a surprise to Pannun. Nor was Pannum surprised when five months later, he received another message, this time from the U.S. Justice Department telling him of an assassination plot against him they foiled in New York.

Pannun and Nijjar started the referendum campaign to gauge public interest among Sikhs for the creation of an independent Sikh state, Khalistan. The call for this independent homeland stretched back to the 1980s when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a military raid, Operation Blue Star, on Sikh separatists sheltering in the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Around 400 people lost their lives, but the number of fatalities is disputed as Sikh groups claim thousands were killed. Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards was considered reprisal for the raid, and violence ensued against Sikhs that claimed 3,000 more deaths in the few days that followed.

At the time of Nijjar’s death, he was not only considered a terrorist by the Indian government, but he had been banned from the country and subject to an arrest warrant for his alleged role in the attack of a Hindu priest in India. Generally, the Indian government considers the Khalistan movement a threat to national security and considers those involved terrorists. Canada, on the other hand, has now accused the Indian government of directing attacks on Canadian soil.

Relations between the two countries took a downturn when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first alleged links between the assassination of Nijjar and the Indian government last year. Over a year later, these allegations have turned into actions by both governments. In mid-October, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, including the Indian high commissioner, on claims of their involvement in the assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada. India has denied involvement in the assassinations and expelled six Canadian diplomats in response.

On October 29, a top Canadian official alleged that a campaign against Sikh separatists in Canada could be traced to the highest levels of government in India, specifically the leader of the Ministry of Home Affairs Amit Shah, but have yet to share the evidence they have against him.

Canada isn’t the only country making these allegations. In mid-October, the U.S. Justice Department charged an Indian government employee with criminal charges over the foiled assassination plot against Pannun last year. Australia’s foreign minister also raised the allegations with India’s foreign minister when he visited the country in early November.

Canada-India relations have been strained for the last year but the recent expulsion of each other’s diplomats could create a new, harsher reality for these two countries and their relationship moving forward.