The News
Canadian officials Monday accused top Indian diplomats of being involved in a plot to track Indian dissidents in Canada who were later attacked or threatened, including Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was murdered last year.
Ottawa ordered six Indian diplomats to leave the country, including New Delhi’s most senior envoy who was named a “person of interest” in Nijjar’s killing.
Canadian authorities said that they had uncovered information revealing the “breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the Government of India.” Meanwhile New Delhi called the latest allegations “completely unacceptable” and expelled six Canadian diplomats in response.
SIGNALS
Modi’s ‘deepening authoritarianism’
India’s alleged pursuit of lethal operations to kill dissidents in North America has “stunned” Western security officials, The Washington Post reported, with several countries arresting, expelling, or reprimanding Indian intelligence officials in recent years. A recent human rights report by Freedom House listed India as a practitioner of “transnational repression” — an accusation usually lobbied at Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia, indicating a “backsliding democracy” in the country. When asked why India would risk assassinations on Western soil, one Western security official told The Washington Post: “Because they knew they could get away with it.”
India-Canada relationship breakdown indicates changing priorities
Despite a long history of cooperation, New Delhi and Ottawa now risk a “complete breakdown” of relations, according to John Ibbitson in The Globe and Mail. However India may be unconcerned, wrote Shweta Sharma in The Independent, noting that while New Delhi dismissed Canada as a “sham” democracy in an angry reply to its allegations, it responded differently to the US’ separate international assassination plot accusations, saying it would form a high-level investigation committee. “Canada is the weak kid in the playground being bullied by someone who is, at the same time, being careful not to offend an even bigger kid,” said Ibbitson.