The Five Eyes and India have been communicating about this for a couple months now, but Trudeau publicly announced this after The Globe and Mail said they would publish a story about Foreign Interference. To preempt that Trudeau announced this in Parliament 30 minutes before that article was released [0]
Generally, stuff at this level is highly sensitive and classified because it becomes a headache for everyone [1]. It doesn't make sense for the Canadian PMO to leak this despite G20 crap because it has no actual benefit during a non-election year nor does it make sense for the Indian PMO to leak this as this impacts Indian foreign relations.
Was this a disgruntled CSIS analyst (like the China Election Interference leak), the Tories (they leaked the existence of a military base in Afghanistan used for anti-Taliban black ops), disgruntled NDP MPs (force an early election and win the Vancouver suburbs where they compete against the Liberals), or disgruntled Liberal MPs (force an early election and get a cabinet position or a more senior role)?
Is it a leak driving this? Trudeau apparently brought it up in the G20 summit so it wasn’t a last minute call. I would expect internal pressure from his political partners.
They were talking about this over diplomatic channels. The news coverage about this happened after Fife gave the Trudeau admin a 24 hour heads up on publishing, which lead to this being publicized 30 minutes before publishing. The story was based on a credible source within the Govt. This has been stated in both Canadian and Indian media.
I think the sources of leak are plenty. Khalistani separatist movement of India (actually it is active only in Canada right no) is deeply embedded in Canadian politics and especially close to the current Canadian admin. (For example Trudeau once invited a convicted (by Canadian courts) terrorists and assassin from this movement of an official dinner).
This classified information is likely available to Khalistani separatists working at different levels of Canadian government and they would have leaked it to foment more anti-India sentiments.
Doesn't make much sense to me for anyone from the political side to leak this. No real upside. Especially not for the Conservatives.
The Liberals are doing terribly in the polls right now, and Canadians, due to inertia and history, are resultingly giving the Conservatives a big uptick in poll numbers.
This story does not help the Conservatives or any opposition parties in that it helps "change the channel" from the current issues that the government is doing poorly on.
I don’t have a dog in this fight but this is geopolitics. Unless you're absolutely sure, you cannot accuse other countries of planning and executing hits on people living in your country.
Now, on the other hand, a person living abroad, advocating for basically secession and creation of a new country, with a massive following also living abroad (+700,000), get gunned down in a country with some of the most restrictive gun control laws and there's no suspect in custody? It's odd, to say the least.
The world is getting more divided by the day. We're practically seeing in realtime the world is dividing itself into factions.
> advocating for basically secession and creation of a new country
Let's be really precise. What you just said is absolutely something that everyone in a free democracy should be free to do as much as they want to their heart's content.
The quirk here is that India and many Hindu nationals disagree that this is all he was doing, and they instead basically brand him as something closer to a terrorist responsible for murders.
Who is right I don't know. These are very difficult things to figure out even decades later, never mind at the current moment in time in history.
It is not in dispute that India has a complex and bloody history discriminating heavily against it's Sikh minority in Punjab. And it is not in dispute that the Khalistan movement is responsible for the murders of hundreds of civilians through bombings.
None of this should enable the Indian government to be able to murder a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil without repercussions.
But it's important to be precise that what you describe OUGHT to be legal, and what India accuses this man of doing OUGHT to not be.
> advocating for basically secession and creation of a new country
Let's be really precise. What you just said is absolutely something that everyone in a free democracy should be free to do as much as they want to their heart's content.
Not sure whether 'free democracy' allows for anything and everything.
BBC - Who was 'Nijjar ..in India, he was wanted under India's Terrorist Act for several cases, including a 2007 cinema bombing in Punjab that killed six people and injured 40, and the 2009 assassination of Sikh Indian politician Rulda Singh.. In 2020, a statement by the Indian government accused him of being actively involved in "operationalising, networking, training and financing" KTF members. He had also been accused of running terrorist training camps in British Columbia for supporters ready to carry out attacks in India.https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66860510#
Canada has a terrible track record in dealing with Khalistani terrorist activities. The bombing of Air India flight 182 that killed 329 civilians in 1985 was planned and executed from Canada (this is proven). Yet, the perpetrators walked free with practically no conviction or punishment that suits the crime. There was a recent event in Brampton where the Khalistanis put up a pageant reenacting their assassination of a previous Indian prime minister. Despite protests from India, it was downplayed as under 'right to free speech' - simply neglecting the fact that challenging the sovereignty of another nation is considered as a terrorist act and not as free speech in the modern world. At the minimum, it's a challenge to human dignity. Canada has proven time and again that it has scant regards for sovereignty of India or even basic human dignity when it concerns Khalistanis.
> If he was convicted, then he should've been extradited.
That applies only if Canada follows the minimum standard of justice. Do you honestly believe that Canada was going to arrest or prosecute an alleged cinema bomber when it tolerates all the activities I mentioned above?
> I don't have a lot of faith in India's Hindu-Nationalist government's judgement of Sikh separatists.
Then don't. But judging the stance of the Canadian government doesn't require you to depend on the opinions of the Hindu nationalist government. Canada's own actions speak loud enough.
I'm against these sorts of extra-judicial killings. But let's not pretend that Canada is a saint of sorts in this case. Their argument about sovereignty is just plain hypocritical. All this could have been avoided if they had reigned in an activity that's considered evil anywhere in the world.
> The bombing of Air India flight 182 that killed 329 civilians in 1985 was planned and executed from Canada (this is proven). Yet, the perpetrators walked free with practically no conviction or punishment that suits the crime.
The Air India trial was a travesty of a prosecution, but it was a fuck-up of royal proportions, not a top-down conspiracy theory from "Canada".
This is what people who don't live in a democracy don't understand. The trial embarrassed everyone in Canada, from the people involved, to the other Canadians who saw justice not being achieved. But "Canada" could not have guaranteed a conviction, nor could it have done anything to prevent one from happening.
> There was a recent event in Brampton where the Khalistanis put up a pageant reenacting their assassination of a previous Indian prime minister. Despite protests from India, it was downplayed as under 'right to free speech'
Again, sorry to disappoint people who don't live in a country with free expression, but that is exactly what that is.
> simply neglecting the fact that challenging the sovereignty of another nation is considered as a terrorist act and not as free speech in the modern world
I think we would have to first agree on what is the definition of "challenging the sovereignty of another nation", then whether allowing people to demonstrate for it is the same as challenging, then whether internal border/disputes qualify. And even if we agreed the most extreme version of each of these questions (which we wouldn't), I still would like to see a source for this claim. I don't think it's true?
> At the minimum, it's a challenge to human dignity.
Agreed. And again, permissible under free speech. You don't have to like it. You are free to counter-protest. You are free to react even stronger (Freedom of Speech vs Freedom From Consequences). But this is not something for the GOVERNMENT to get involved in.
> Canada has proven time and again that it has scant regards for sovereignty of India or even basic human dignity when it concerns Khalistanis.
> That applies only if Canada follows the minimum standard of justice. Do you honestly believe that Canada was going to arrest or prosecute an alleged cinema bomber when it tolerates all the activities I mentioned above?
> A summary of the case said Nijjar’s name had surfaced following the 2007 bombing of the Shingar Cinema in Punjab.
> Suspects arrested for the blast confessed they were “acting under the instruction of Hardeep Singh Nijjar,” according to the summary.
> Pannun, a Canadian lawyer and activist, said Nijjar was accused of conspiracy in the cinema bombing but all the other suspects were acquitted.
> I'm against these sorts of extra-judicial killings. But let's not pretend that Canada is a saint of sorts in this case. Their argument about sovereignty is just plain hypocritical. All this could have been avoided if they had reigned in an activity that's considered evil anywhere in the world.
George W. Bush: "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists." Even the most powerful military on the planet couldn't hold to this line else they would've invaded Saudi Arabia, or then invaded Canada for not helping them invade Iraq.
You cannot lobby accusations of terrorism at someone, offer weak evidence, carry out no judicial examination, then violate another country's territory to kill one of their citizens on their soil. For you to even begin to try to consider these analogous is ludicrous.
And let's be clear. It only even happened because India does not consider Canada strong. If he was in the US, India would've never had the gall.
CSIS agent was a co-conspirator of bombing Air India flight, that's why CSIS destroyed tapes under the guise that RCMP wouldn't protect anonymous informants. Of course, Canada can preach about "rule of law", "freedom of speech". The people who lost lives on that flight were brown people, that's why their lives are less worthy. Almost 300 times less worthy, according to the Canadian govt in the name of 'we f*cked it up'.
Another instance: the chief culprit Parmar behind that bomb blast was not extradited even before that blast. You know why? Trudeau's dad's reason: India was not deferential to the Queen.
TIL about the Parmar extradition, that definitely seems egregious from rudimentary looking around. Though I can't find any examples of "deferential" point. It seems more likely Trudeau just didn't want to and then used a loophole to deny that commonwealth extradition protocol should apply.
> The Governor General-in-Council in 2006 appointed the former Supreme Court Justice John C. Major to conduct a commission of inquiry. His report, which was completed and released on 17 June 2010, concluded that a "cascading series of errors" by the Government of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had allowed the terrorist attack to take place.
Note: nuanced phrasing here - "had allowed the terrorist attack to take place" means that their negligence and incompetence led to it not being stopped. Not that they knew it was going to happen and allowed it.
> "The CSIS investigation was so badly bungled that there was a near mutiny by CSIS officers involved in the probe," said the agent who destroyed the tapes once he had been granted anonymity in January 2000 by Globe and Mail journalists.[143] One agent "said he felt compelled to destroy the tapes (that were in his possession) because he was morally obliged to do everything in his power to protect the safety of his sources. '[I] decided it was a moral issue... If their identity had become known in the Sikh community, they would have been killed. There is no doubt in my mind about that.'"
I ultimately don't know what I would do in this situation. These moral choices are not black-and-white. Do you seek to improve the likelyhood of convicting someone of murder by X%, if it increases the likelyhood of more deaths by Y%?
I genuinely don't know. If you read on, the CSIS connection is also tenuous.
Again, the CSIS fucked up royally. Just like the CIA, FBI, and all the american intelligence agencies fucked up royally when they failed to prevent 9/11. These things do happen, but I do not believe for a second that it was a conspiracy.
Would the investigation have gone differently if the victims were white? Honestly, probably, yes. But to be clear, that is a problem of institutional racism within western democracies - not a geopolitical stance Canada has against India, Punjab, or Khalistan.
The distinction does matter. Because you're using Canadian incompetence in getting convictions in the Air India bombing to suggest that they have a vested desire to somehow protect, or enable Sikh terrorists.
But if you're saying that they fucked up the Air India trial is because of racism, then why would they want to protect Nijjar from India? Just throw him over the fence and make him India's problem.
Two descriptions of same phenomenon wrt CSIS and Air India: You and others claim that it is a fuc*k up; people in the deep say it is a malice, because CSIS wanted to protect its agent Surjan Singh Gill [0]
> This is what people who don't live in a democracy don't understand.
> Again, sorry to disappoint people who don't live in a country with free expression
Oh! Please! Get off your high horse! It's tiring to see you pretending to be in some sort of democratic utopia. You are talking about countries which invaded other nations on very shaky grounds and left them under terrorist rule. And while the Khalistanis were getting a free reign, how much 'free speech' and 'free expression' were the indigenous people there allowed? From relocation of populations, to treatment of those who oppose oil sands mining and deforestation of heritage land, to residential school graves? The government supported cultural and literal genocide - by UN definitions. The freedoms that you are flexing about are applied selectively at best, and often misrepresented in cases like with the Khalistanis.
You're just deluding yourself with a grandeur and misguided western moral superiority complex. You might want to reflect on the humans rights records of your own country before lecturing others about free expression. You wouldn't be flexing here if you were one of those affected populations.
> not a top-down conspiracy theory from "Canada".
Canada is known to neglect very insidious activities due to political biases. In this case, it would have been easy to punish the perpetrators if it weren't for such biases. But again - keep deluding yourself.
> Again, sorry to disappoint people who don't live in a country with free expression, but that is exactly what that is.
Repeating falsehood doesn't make it correct. There is no definition of democracy and 'free expression' that tolerates separatism and violence in another country. Your condescending arguments are in very bad faith.
> I think we would have to first agree on what is the definition of "challenging the sovereignty of another nation", then whether allowing people to demonstrate for it is the same as challenging, then whether internal border/disputes qualify. And even if we agreed the most extreme version of each of these questions (which we wouldn't), I still would like to see a source for this claim. I don't think it's true?
I have given two examples of what is considered unacceptable. But you reject them under your self-defined standards that are not accepted internationally.
Ok then - I guess by your standards, the conspiracy that led to 9-11 in US was just an expression of 'free speech' in their country and that the same applies to Chinese interference in Canada.
> Agreed. And again, permissible under free speech. You don't have to like it.
Your 'free speech' has no limits. Hello! Real world doesn't work like that. It comes with consequences when it crosses a limit - when it affects the safety of others.
> If he was in the US, India would've never had the gall.
US for all its faults is not known to bend their political spine to separatists in another nation. (If you think Khalistanis are not terrorists and should be given full rights, have a look at your own government's list of terrorist entities). Heck! Even India's arch-rival Pakistan shows much more dignity in many of these matters. Canada on the other hand, is soon going to have a nice international label of being an offshore haven for separatists, saboteurs and terrorists. Enjoy your rep.
> You cannot lobby accusations of terrorism at someone, offer weak evidence, carry out no judicial examination,
Keep neglecting what is brewing in your backyard. Trust me, you will feel the consequences soon. At that time, remember all your 'free-speech' arguments here. If there is one thing Canada is well known for, it's for feeding snakes like these that come back later and bite.
> You are talking about countries which invaded other nations on very shaky grounds.
Who did Canada invade on shaky grounds?
> While the Khalistanis were getting a free reign, shall we talk about how Canada treats its indigenous people? From residential school graves to those who oppose land encroachment for oil mining?
Would love to. It's horrific, and Canada hasn't done enough to issue financial and societal reparations to it's first nations. I believe firmly that Canada should return significant "Crown Land" to first nations group (aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Back). Should honor treaties, and never encroach on first nations land for mining or pipelines.
And if a Canadian First Nations Nijjar equivalent was in hiding in India while fighting for the rights of Indigenous Canadians and Canada killed him, there would be protests in the streets of Canada and I would be there with them.
OK, your turn.
> Canada is known to neglect very insidious activities due to political biases.
Non-Indian Citation Needed
> Ok then - I guess by your standards, the conspiracy that led to 9-11 in US was just an expression of 'free speech' in their country and that the same applies to Chinese interference in Canada.
I actually don't know enough about what the Chinese justification is for electoral interference. My possibly uninformed opinion is that China is attempting to dominate the 21st century politically, and in order to do so it attempts to influence the governments of every country in the world much as the US has in the 20th. I don't believe this is a good thing, but I also suspect they'll get away with it. As far as I know this is State-on-State brinksmanship. We're talking about the actions of individuals.
I don't know what you mean when you talk about the 9-11 conspiracy, however the historical narrative that 9-11 was in many ways a response to decades of US interventionism is pretty clear.
The rest of your post shows there is no point us continuing to go back and forth. You stated something is unacceptable to international norms and goes beyond freedom of expression. I asked you for evidence that it violates international norms which you did not. And I don't think my criteria for freedom of expression is unusual.
> US for all its problems is not known to bend their political spine to separatists in another nation. Canada on the other hand, is soon going to have a nice international label of being an offshore haven for separatists, saboteurs and terrorists. Enjoy your rep.
The US is not the bar for hypocrisy or morality. Canada does not have this reputation from anyone except India.
Let's see how many of those had a good reason. I'm pretty sure that defense contractors in Canada consider it as a good enough reason.
> OK, your turn.
False equivalence. The Khalistanis in your country are your citizens fighting for a secession in another country. Foreign terrorists at best. The so-called Khalistani movement is not as popular in India as it is in Canada. It's basically an overseas separatist movement supported by Canada. Let's see how Canada reacts if another country - say China- wants to annex its territories.
> Non-Indian Citation Needed
No. Just common sense needed. Canada fucked up hard in the AI182 bombings case. Did the political leadership do anything to correct it? Did it atleast try to curb the activities that supported it? Do you think your fav US would allow similar activities to happen against them on your land?
> The rest of your post shows there is no point us continuing to go back and forth.
I have reached the same conclusion - because of you insistence that anything is justified in the name of 'freedom of expression'. Your entire argument on the other hand is based on that flaky, false and bad-faith premise. It's fundamentally accepted that freedoms are not absolute - they end where they start infringing on others' rights.
> Canada does not have this reputation from anyone except India.
Yeah. Keep telling yourself that. Canada is a PR disaster on the scale of a country. Have a look at its recent diplomatic relations. And in this case - India is accused of killing one person. Canada is accused of supporting terrorism by its citizens on Indian soil with causalities in the hundreds. Let's not neglect that part of this row.
I wasn't drawing an equivalence. You were trying to trap me with Whataboutism, and I was saying I agree with your criticisms. It's not a gotcha.
> The Khalistanis in your country are your citizens fighting for a secession in another country. Foreign terrorists at best. The so-called Khalistani movement is not as popular in India as it is in Canada.
I can't find a clear confirmation for this but my understanding is Nijjar had to give up his Indian citizenship when he got Canadian. So that he's "foreign" to India is a diplomatic technicality.
> It's basically an overseas separatist movement supported by Canada. Let's see how Canada reacts if another country - say China- wants to annex its territories.
Even if Canada, as a matter of international policy, was "supporting" this movement (which it isn't), how would this be a valid equivalence? Canada is not trying to annex any territories for itself...
Allowing human beings to express an opinion is not a tacit endorsement of them.
You could've just said Afghanistan and laid the responsibility of the re-conquering of that nation by the Taliban under Canada's responsibility rather than gish-galloping with a list of every single conflict since 1002 AD.
But keep in mind your point was that Canada has no credibility as a free and democratic institution because of it. I don't know what is the actual example but Afghanistan was controlled by the terrorist Taliban before the invasion, and it still is.
Rather than take action, Canadian authorities put terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on ‘no-fly list’ in 2017-18, after New Delhi shared with them the details of over a dozen criminal cases of murder and other terrorist activities against him in India
Having cases against someone doesn't make them guilty. Having "dozens" of cases against someone doesn't make them any more guilty. Especially when the government has demonstrated repeatedly that they will optimize for Hindu nationals at the expense of any other racial/religious minority in the country.
If the Government of Canada believed that he was being unfairly targeted, what would you expect them to do with one of their citizens? Even an extradition discussion can't occur until he's CONVICTED of these cases.
Instead India has done things like designating him a terrorist under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Activities_(Preventio..., which is an extra-judicious approach much like the US Patriot Act. It allows the government to designate someone here without a trial.
So I ask you, what would you have expected Canada to do here?
> So I ask you, what would you have expected Canada to do here?
Cooperate for deeper investigation? I'm not able to understand in a democracy with free expression how does someone gets on a 'No-Fly' list without having done anything.
On 3 January 2020, Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general, was targeted and killed by a U.S. drone strike.. [1]
This major general perhaps was the most upright citizen of Iran.
> how does someone gets on a 'No-Fly' list without having done anything.
A diplomatic compromise to demonstrate to India that Canada is not doing "nothing" while not actually punishing him judiciously.
> Cooperate for deeper investigation?
India should have plenty of evidence to be able to charge him, try him, and convict him in absentia, then demand Canada extradite him. That they haven't done so is a strong hint that they don't have enough evidence that would hold up in a modern justice system.
> On 3 January 2020, Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general, was targeted and killed by a U.S. drone strike.. [1]
I in no way defend or excuse the United States' history of extra-judicial killings around the world. The US is absolutely hypocritical when it comes to international relations, has done much to destabilize democratic institutions in the world (mostly to keep them from embracing more leftist/communist ideologies that would threaten American Capitalist economic interests)
The assassination of this general will be remembered as an egregious act of the Trump administration, however it is only the latest in a long line of these kind of actions under the administrations of both political parties.
The US gets away with it because it's the most powerful economy and military in the world. Noone else does, nor should they.
> India should have plenty of evidence to be able to charge him, try him, and convict him in absentia, then demand Canada extradite him. That they haven't done so is a strong hint that they don't have enough evidence that would hold up in a modern justice system.
You really need to read up on Indian laws and history. In absentia conviction isn't a thing in Indian law.
But this is just smoke and mirrors. People in the West don't care for Indian legal system. Because "freedom of expression", "Hindu nationalists" and what not. So, this isn't going to help anyways.
But I also think you underestimate the West's perception of India. By and large, people do see the country as a democratic, powerful, diverse, proud empire.
I'm not speaking for the racists, but those are the same everywhere.
What people DON'T care for is Modi's Hindutva, his populist movement that makes people so angry online, or the extra-judicial policies that they've followed to just name certain people (like Nijjar) as terrorists, and then make no other effort to prove their guilt.
It is pretty much clear how India is perceived from your comments. Someone who is doesn't know Indian laws but trying to make assured judgments about India's justice system and telling people how they should approach situations.
At least that is how things are perceived in India. Racist or not. That is the line which is being toed by Modi.
Consider this - If this whole situation was such a perceived issue, India wouldn't have taken this strong stance. If these online angry people were the majority - India wouldn't have taken this stance.
As for the whole Modi's Hindutva agenda, no one seems to ask a basic question - Why does his populist movement which apparently is so hated online, I mean even Trump's right wing agenda isn't hated as much, is so successful? He won the elections. Twice. Not even Trump's right wingers could do that. Why do the majority still side with him?
Every "democracy" is not the same. I bet you would say something different if your country was fighting a civil war with secessionist insurgents in parts of your country. Even more so if the secession in question had been settled 30 years ago. Most people don't realise that the world does not revolve around them and their situation, for some reason.
Secession in the western world simply cannot be compared. Historically western countries (not all obviously) have been imperial powers and so when imperialism collapsed after WW2, secession and referendum have been the way to go for people seeking self determination where they feel they are not getting the deserved representation.
Jatt Sikh separatism was extremely violent and was engineered by the cynicism and short sightedness of the people running India at the time and the opportunism of Pakistan which wanted to "get" India after their own country was bifurcated in the 1971 war. And you might think this civil war was fought between Hindus and Sikhs. But you would be clueless. Both the parties were Sikh ie the Government forces in Punjab were overwhelmingly Sikh and they recognised the movement as a cover for organised crime and fought and defeated it.
A lot of people (1000s) ended up dead. This question was not settled over some maple syrup and a friendly, fair referendum. So now when the population has moved past this demand, re-raising the issue will not be taken kindly.
Again, I have to question whether the dominant HINDU population has moved past this demand, or if the discriminated-against Sikh population in Punjab has moved on.
Watching Americans map their ideas around rabid white nationalism onto Hindus says more about the naturally violent tendencies of the west than it does about Indians.
Typing hindu in all caps does not change the heterogeneity of the people and it doesn't change the millenia long welcoming nature of the native people of this land.
The HINDU only exists in the imagination of the western academic.
When the article moves from the the editorialized introduction to their stated goals, it doesn't sound as bad.
> Replace "pseudo-secularism" with "true secularism", the latter being the Western-style separation of religion and state. Decentralize and reform the Indian economy, end the socialist, centrally-planned, state-owned economic model. Address Christian and Islamic proselytization, religious conversion practices and the arithmetic of religious communities in India; insist that Muslims and Christians accept its doctrine of equality of religions.
Your framing is uninformed (if one were charitable, malicious if one weren't)
Hindus are a minority in Punjab, and Sikhs are dominant. At the time when the Jatt Sikh militancy broke out, Punjab was one of India's richest states with the politics and the economy being "dominated" by the Jat Sikhs. While Punjab's economy is a shadow of those times, it is still "dominated" by Jatt Sikhs.
I think I've already answered that India's Sikhs don't want anything to do with Khalistan. As to why, the answer is simple: without the rest of India and it's unified market and the rights available to citizens, Punjab will be an economic basket case, as would almost any other Indian state. Not to mention they will certainly be cut off from their temples and monuments established in other parts of the country. Communities established in the rest of the country will be likely forcibly expelled to the new state.
(Edit: I'm not wishing this would happen. But given India's history with partition on religious grounds, this kind of displacement on a more thorough scale is exactly what is going to happen. My argument is that Sikhs and every community knows this, and that is why I have pointed out that it was the Sikhs who fought the Khalistanis and either eliminated or drove them away)
It is only a small section of Commonwealth Sikhs who use this Khalistan thing as a cover for their criminal activities. One only needs to examine the circumstances in which these "activists" left India and the present company they keep to realise this. It is possible some of them are still rightfully pissed off about the raid on the Golden Temple in '84. But formation of Khalistan does not serve their interests.
> Your framing is uninformed (if one were charitable, malicious if one weren't)
I deserve this call-out. I acknowledge I'm uninformed, and I am attempting to get more informed through the various discussions on this thread.
But it's VERY hard to fact-check a lot of the things being said. Some are leading with obvious bias. You are not. I'm inclined to believe more of what you have to say.
I assure you I am not malicious. I have a great respect for India, Hindus, Sikhs, Punjabs, and Canadians. I have a great disrespect for Narendra Modi and his policies. I do not support terrorism, but I also fall short of saying that non-violent resistance is the only path to liberation. History has vindicated violence as a means to achieve freedom in many contexts.
My understanding of the history of tensions within India between Sikhs and the rest of the country is painted based on broad incidents, like the assassinations of leaders, Golden Temple, etc. I gather my instincts from that.
But for modern perspectives, it is incredibly hard for me from my western bubble to get accurate impartial information or statistics. What percentage of Punjab citizens want independence? What percentage of Punjabi Canadians in the diaspora? What percentage support violence to achieve Khalistan?
I would like to learn.
Many threads have drawn comparisons to Quebec. I moved to Canada as an immigrant in 1995. I was infatuated with the country. And I was immediately confronted with the country's 2nd largest subdivision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Quebec_referendum coming inches within 0.6% of voting to leave. I was furious. I didn't understand. I spent the next decade of my youth joking to anyone who would hear that "Canada should've kicked Quebec out for the vote being so close. They would have died economically, and they would've crawled back begging."
Then I looked into the actual history of Quebec and Canada. And I understood just how much propaganda and misinformation exists in English-language Canada that mocks Quebecois uniqueness and interests.
And I decided I actually understand why so many Quebecers wanted to separate, but that I wanted them to stay because their uniqueness is vital to the Canadian spirit. I can't imagine what I would think if the history was as violent as it was with Sikhs within India.
Which is why I keep doubting the premise that these sentiments only exist in the diaspora outside of Punjab.
Reading this is so frustrating I don't even know where to begin. I was writing a long reply to you some time back.. and I just deleted it all. I thought there is no point.
I don't think you are insincere. I'm certain that you are a very good person. But there is a certain arrogance in trying to understand things you are not equipped to understand. Not being equipped to understand things is not always a bad thing. And it certainly does not mean that things are always out of your control.
I must admit that I'm not articulate or authoritative to present this myself. I would recommend listening to this conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpa597jg4uY with as much open mindedness as you can muster.
Pew is the most respected non-partisan global survey corp, and 95% Sikhs said they were proud to be Indian. There simply isn't a desire for it in India.
Read all your replies. I can only conclude that have no understanding of Hindus, Sikhs or even India. Forget understanding Modi. That is not your cup of tea. I see a lot of comments on HN mindlessly bash Modi based on the ridiculous, perverted view presented by Western Media. That is what is driving your conclusions. Indians know better as to what exactly is happening in India and why we voted Modi. The West will never understand either the political landscape of India or the dynamics of demographic politics. For starters, majority of the "oppression" BS in India (be it on religious, caste or gender lines) is manufactured by all parties (representing all strata of society) to garner sympathy and votes from gullible voters. The actual reality is quite the opposite. You cannot have a prosperous economy, in a Democratic setup, with continuous oppression. Just because few riots happened in some parts of the Country, does not mean the Government is authoritarian. Do not forget that India is a country of 1.4 Billion People. It would be ridiculous to generalize the Nation, its Elected Government or the People based on extreme issues (which are bound to happen considering how vast the Country is and how huge the population is).
Either ways, as sibling comments have rightfully noted, you are unable to grasp the true psyche of India and Indians. For you to truly understand India, you will have to stop referring to Western publications of India (which are so out of touch with ground reality it is hilarious) and move to India and live her for at least a decade. You will reach the same conclusions as Indians then.
> The quirk here is that India and many Hindu nationals disagree that this is all he was doing, and they instead basically brand him as something closer to a terrorist responsible for murders.
It seems you are ignorant of the history behind this issue. The Khalistan movement wanted to stay in India and get special status (like J&K did which was removed later). If these powers were not granted then they wanted to secede. The Union of India happened with a lot of effort. Nearly everyone wanted a special status (and politically there are still fights for special status of different kind but no one threatens to secede). Even J&K special status nearly fractured the ruling party (Congress which is not "Hindu nationalist party" as per today's Western agenda) with many leaders refusing to be part of it. Khalistan had no chance and wasn't granted that exception too. They took to arms and captured the Golden temple.
It was the Congress leader which had ordered an army attack on the Sikh sacred ground - The Golden Temple in Amristar. When the Air India bombing happened, even then Congress was in charge.
The larger point is that West is ignorant of India's concerns. Previously, it was an issue of "botched" investigation and Indian justice and legal system. Now the garb is "Hindu nationalists".
At the end there is always some story about "freedom of expression" as well. It is nothing new.
|It is not in dispute that India has a complex and bloody history discriminating heavily against it's Sikh minority in Punjab
It is in dispute, what is not in dispute is killing of sikhs in delhi incited by party members of than ruling govt.
Sikh's are not in minority in punjab they are in majority or do you mean punjab region itself is discriminated by federal govt?
Also you need to make distinction between sikhs(followers of religion) and khalistani(people demanding separate statehood). In punjab there was genocide against minority(hindus) by khalistanis NOT sikhs(they were protectors and some even laid their lives against it) but it is inconvenient to talk about so doesn't get much mind share.
I generally refrain talking about india because whenever i try to dig deeper it becomes more and more complex that i simply give up on finding what is true. What i do know is to treat popular narrative with skepticism.
Also, important to note that Khalistani movement does not exist because there is any discrimination against Sikhs in any way shape or form. It's entirely a foreign intelligence operation, and not by one single nation state, and unfortunately for them, it does not resonate with the local population at all, specially now. So, the idea that India killed him is absurd. I would look to foreign intelligence who are looking to escalate tensions.
> Sikh's are not in minority in punjab they are in majority or do you mean punjab region itself is discriminated by federal govt?
Let's be frank, regardless of who rules at the center, the non-Hindi states have always been discriminated against in every facet, while shit hole states like BIMARU get a pass. It's damning for India when a southern relatively right wing leaning state (although ruled by a secular party) has to promulgate a law stating that bank services have to be delivered in Kannada, their mother tongue, in addition to Hindi. That itself shows how much the Hindi belt takes the rest of the country for granted.
Holy sh*t, you're supposed to reserve the rabid mask off racism for private spaces.
UP and Bihar were run by local minoritarian govts, mostly allied with the national minoritarian party. They ran criminal govts for decades, because India has a system with a 'weak center' and any fair but targeted retaliation would be seen as targeting specific communities.
The reality of things is that you can't run an underdeveloped heterogenous society like a homogenous rich country in the west.
There is something uniquely wrong culturally in those states, and it permeates all the way down to the lowest levels. That something is a rampant culture of corruption and oppression of minorities and lower caste peoples. In some states, there's only corruption and dishonesty in the upper levels (or little of it like Kerala and HP). In most states, there's corruption in the upper and middle levels. But in the BIMARU belt and Karnataka, it's practically every where. Every one is looking to scam and cheat you regardless of where you are. Karnataka was "saved" thanks to the IT boom, but without that happening, it would have remained an extremely corrupt mining state. But for the others, it's telling when you get in a lot more Central funding and still have nothing to show for it.
IMO, most of those states should be split for good reason, to make administration easier and more easy to monitor. UP should be 3 states, Rajasthan should be 2, MP should be 2. Even worse, looking at the split away states such as Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand, they're all now currently better run than their parent states.
Yeah, 1000 years of being the easiest target of foreign raids erodes all culture down to the bone.
I don't think it has much to do with minority oppression. If anything, these states have been run through minority favored govts for a long time. SP favored the Muslims, BSP favored lower castes, Lalu favored the OBCs, and Nitish a combination of them all.
> IMO, most of those states should be split for good reason, to make administration easier and more easy to monitor. UP should be 3 states, Rajasthan should be 2, MP should be 2
Whole heartedly agreed, 50 million is near the upper bound of how many people can be sanely governed by a single entity.
Punjab and Haryana are the gateway for any foreign invasions, yet while corrupt, they don't have anywhere close to the corruption that those states have. Besides, Malwa (where MP is) was often not conquered soon enough because of the hilly Vindhyas and the presence of powerful ruling states in that region. So I don't buy the foreign invasion argument.
I didn't say that the corrupt culture has much to do with the oppression of minorities. By that factor, Gujarat should have been doing severely poorly. But oppressing minorities seems to be something all of these states tend to want to do some time or the other. That's just something that's bad for business and economic growth, but still doesn't explain why these states are uniformly corrupt, even worse so than poorer states like Sikkim or Odisha.
>> advocating for basically secession and creation of a new country
> Let's be really precise. What you just said is absolutely something that everyone in a free democracy should be free to do as much as they want to their heart's content.
Let's be really precise. Democracy isn't a free ticket to do anything someone wants. And no democracy in the world tolerates challenges to their sovereignty and integrity. I'm seeing this trend of misrepresenting the meaning of democracy to justify international secessionist and often outright terrorist activities.
> It is not in dispute that India has a complex and bloody history discriminating heavily against it's Sikh minority in Punjab.
I am not entirely aware of what happened during the 80s. But India was ruled by Congress party under Indira Gandhi, not the current "Hindu nationalist" BJP. When the farmers protest happened recently, even though the farmers (most of them Sikhs) were literally chasing away policemen with swords and tractors, the government didn't do any violence (beating protesters with batons, water cannons don't really count since its a standard practice in my South Indian state as well). In South India, the local government literally used police snipers to kill 12 protesters when people were protesting against pollution by a factory [1]. So, when compared to that, the farmer protesters (majority Sikh) were pampered.
If the government has actually killed him, and if it would prevent the deaths of 1000s in the future, it is definitely worth it.
The current Hindu nationalist government didn't resort to violence against the Sikh farmers. Compare that to what they did in Gurgaon after the religious riots, where they practically demolished the homes of the entire Muslim community.
Also, Operation Blue Star was carried out by a secular but hardline government led by a pseudo dictator. Although looking back, it was probably justified considering the Pakistani support for Khali Stan even today. And the Prime Minister lost her life for those actions.
> Let's be really precise. What you just said is absolutely something that everyone in a free democracy should be free to do as much as they want to their heart's content.
I don't think that's remotely true at all.
Democracies abide the rule of law, and this means following basic principles such as not toleraring treasonous, sedition, and subversive activities. Democracies are not a free-for-all, where vocal minorities get to impose their will upon others.
This might be the only case over a decade of Modi's term where the entire Indian political class is united. The Sikh insurgency happened during the term of a party that's famously minoritarian. Indira Gandhi's, she was half-Parsi, half atheist-hindu, her president was Sikh, her body guards (who assassinated her) were Sikh and many of her most trusted generals in her most important moment (1971 war) were Sikhs.
Could you give me examples of Hindus having a bone to pick with Sikhs ? Or is it just Indians in general disliking violent terrorists.
The Khalistan/Sikh insurgency was practiced by a minority of Sikhs, and imposed themselves on mostly peaceful Sikhs of Punjab. Hindus suffered in the insurgency, but peaceful Sikhs were the majority victims.
Remember, India has been very accommodating of opposing views. Dravidian nationalists have controlled Tamil Nadu for decades and communists have controlled Kerala since independence. They all fight fair elections and the national govt. (NDA or INC) integrates one of their splinter groups into its wider big tent. The same has been true of Sikh groups such as the Akali dal.
The idea of India being a hostile place for Sikhs is somewhere between laughable to outright propaganda.
> discriminating heavily against it's Sikh minority in Punjab.
Could you give me examples ?
Sikhs are strongly represented across the wealthy and polical class of India. They have the same rights and more, at least more than the resident Hindus. (Because of how the Indian constitution gives extra protection to minorities for how they run their religious institutions).
Their state has been run by a Sikh for decades now. They were the biggest beneficiries of the 1960s green revolution by the federal govt, propelling them to the richest medium sized state in India.
Punjab has continued to unilaterally derail all agricultural reform in India, wile seeing their own Sikh leaders commandeer 30 years of economic underperformance as they refuse to move past ancient practices in agriculture. They were able to non-democratically storm arm the govt into revoking a bill with massive public and democratic support. They raided the red fort (closest thing to white house lawn) and replaced the Indian flag with a flag of Khalistan, without facing any repurcussions.
The idea that what's honestly an priviledged population is discriminated against in the country is ridiculous.
The sequence of events here was rather interesting. The Globe and Mail got the assassination story, and asked the government for comment. The government asked the Globe to hold the story for a week due to security concerns, and the Globe gave them 24 hours. Then Trudeau used that window to get ahead of the story by announcing it himself.
He probably burned some bridges with journalists due to this stunt, and that would also explain the complete lack of evidence.
From what I've read in multiple news agencies is: Canadian diplomates state they have been working behind the scenes with Brits and the Americans for weeks to try and avoid a full on conflict with India, they opted not to get involved, then Trudeau met with Modi at the G20 and he brushed it off, Globe and Mail just pressed the issue further. Seems like a bit of a cluster f.
I don't see why UK and US should avoid confrontation with India, if there were solid evidence to back up these claims. After all the entire western world is up in arms over similar cavalier behaviour exhibited by Russia and China. There is literally no reason to pull back from China when India shows similar tendencies.
I'm betting the evidence, if there is any, is just hearsay BS.
The UK has been trying to be closer to India to have something to show for having exited Brexit - closer trade ties would be a victory. This is with elections for the Tories looming, and with an Indian-origin PM, uniquely positioned to strengthen ties.
The US is courting India as part of an anti-China bulwark, along with those in South East Asia (Vietnam w/ the elevation of the US to the highest bilateral status during a Biden visit; the Phillipines with close military co-operation, including Taiwan invasion drills.) Biden also met the C5+1 nations in Central Asia, and that's part of both pushing against Russia and China.
In this environment, these two countries don't want to needlessly antagonize India.
Ironically this comment is actually an excellent example of "identity politics" (as the term was originally used at least). It ascribes identity-based motives on state actors when other possible explanations exist.
your theory is that the only reason that the PM of Canada is annoyed about a notionally allied country murdering someone*, in Canada, is because of parliamentary politics?
> No, the theory is that the PM of Canada recognises the electoral benefits of pandering to Khalistani extremists.
I've read that nonsense, along with more imaginative firehose of falsehood bulshit, on Reddit posts brigaded by accounts hellbent on attacking Canada in general and Trudeau in particular.
But it really doesn't hold any water, does it?
I mean, think about it for a second.
The entire Sikh population of Canada barely accounts for 2% of it's whole population. Let's assume each and every Sikh is of voting age, is a voter, and never voted for Trudeau in their entire life. Let's also entertain the thought that a Canadian government decrying political assassinations in their land by agents of a foreign country is something that would otherwise be unthinkable, and that the government of a western nation would need to want to go way out of their way to object to that.
Would a potential 2% bump in the polls justify all the noise?
welcome to Canada. That's how it is here. Politics is corrupt in every country. The political class is not equal before the law regardless of their claims.
the replies I got to this are the dumbest things I've ever seen on this website, including all the crypto- and NFT-idiots that have swarmed us over the last few years, jfc
Trudeau derangement syndrome is real. If tomorrow, Trudeau came out in favor of breathing oxygen, conservatives in this country would choke themselves to own the libs.
The Globe and Mail leans Conservative. It's basically Canada's WSJ.
I'm kind of curious whether it was the Cons who leaked it or someone in the CSIS (some analyst did the same thing a couple months back about an ongoing investigation into Chinese interference)
It just doesn't seem like something Trudeau's Cabinet would want to leak, as you win 100% of the controversies you never participate in.
The same agency that deleted the wiretap evidence of Canadian based terrorists that killed 320 people aboard the Air India flight that was blown up over the Atlantic after taking off from Canada, resulting in no convictions?
Keep in mind that the "left" vs "right" determination is somewhat skewed within the Canadian political landscape.
Among the major federal parties in Canada, none of them offer or propose policies that could be considered "right wing" in any meaningful way.
Policy-wise, the Conservative Party should objectively be considered a "left-of-centre" party. They embrace socialism and big government, and they support high immigration rates, for example. Such stances are inherently antithetical to "right wing" ideologies.
The Conservative Party only appears to be "right wing" because they aren't as far "left" as the Bloc Québécois or Liberal Party are, which aren't as far "left" as the NDP or Green Party are.
The PPC is perhaps the most "right wing" of the mainstream parties, but platform-wise, it's still quite centrist in pretty much all respects.
Essentially all mainstream media in Canada should be considered "left wing", including those that tend to be somewhat supportive of the Conservative Party.
Well this is a first, I usually get told that Canadian politics is center (NDP), center-right (LPC), right (CPC) or far-right (PPC) because it’s compared to the politics of Western Europe.
Generally I don’t consider it useful to conceptualize a global “center” and say that a countries political parties are mostly to the left or right of it. I only ever hear this in the context of somebody painting an entire country as (unduly) off to one side or the other.
Compared to most comparable countries Canada is to the economic right and social left, and people tend to vastly overestimate how much social spending Canada does and vastly underestimate how much social spending the US does… when you crack open the books the amount spent on social services is shockingly similar.
You're following the American definition of "left" vs "right", and while America may dominate international culture, it is not the defacto standard for policy.
The conservative party would be considered "left-of-centre" only in the United States. Whereas the Democratic party would be considered "right-of-center" everywhere else in the developed world.
Unfortunately the Canadian conservative party imports a lot of unfortunate ideas from the American right including most recently a suspicion of vaccines and gender affirming care for youth. (inb4 "don't mutilate children" -> 'gender affirming care' is a broad spectrum of medical care including mental health, social changes, and hormonal care).
> The PPC is perhaps the most "right wing" of the mainstream parties, but platform-wise, it's still quite centrist in pretty much all respects.
While the placement of various political parties differs based on the nations involved, the "left" versus "right" political scale itself is uniform in all cases.
Collectivism (which implies more/larger government, e.g., socialism, fascism, and communism) increases toward the "left", while individualism (which implies less/smaller/no government, e.g., libertarianism and anarchism) increases toward the "right".
The "center" is a mix of the two, to varying degrees.
As mentioned earlier, almost all of the major Canadian federal parties fully support large and intrusive government, extensive socialism, high taxation, forced medical treatments, and so on. Some, like the NDP and Liberals, are also rather pro-union. This puts them to the "left".
The PPC are the only exception, with a platform that proposes a more balanced mix, putting them much closer to the "center". They support more individualism, but are still rather support of large government, too.
There are no major federal parties in Canada to the "right" of that. None offer a platform that would end immigration, deport most foreigners, significantly reduce the size of the federal government, and end taxation, for example.
I think if there were truly a "right" wing party in Canada, it'd be clear to you how different it would be than the existing parties, and it would instantly clear up your confusion.
> the "left" versus "right" political scale itself is uniform in all cases.
I agree. Except in every one of those definitions in impartial sources like Wikipedia, categorizes the Conservatives as "right", and PPC as "far right"
> There are no major federal parties in Canada to the "right" of that. None offer a platform that would end immigration, deport most foreigners,
So long as people who lived through World War 2 remained alive, we called people that advocated for this fascists, and they held no sway in most elections or political representation. Once the majority WW2 veterans started dying, suddenly these perspectives started rising again under a new coat of paint.
> significantly reduce the size of the federal government
It's cute that conservatives still pretend that this policy disagreement is still in any way of a signifier between left and right wing parties ANYWHERE in the world. US right wing parties, for instance, do not reduce the size of their governments. They just reassign their priorities to things like processing citizen reports of abortions, or banning books in school libraries.
> , and end taxation, for example.
Does anyone actually think this is a good idea? Are we intending to go back to the days of private firefighters not putting out on fire buildings that didn't pay them?
The NDP is a centre-right party. Don't apply the USA's very very right-shifted political spectrum to Canada. The American Democrats and Republicans both would be parts of the Conservative Party. The Democrats are closest to the Red Tory wing and Republicans to the Blue Tory wing of the Conservative Party. It's just there is very little difference between the USA's two conservative parties.
I'd classify it as neoliberal. They favor business interests but lean left on social issues. They are also big proponents of the Century Initiative, a plan to have Canada reach a population of 100 million by 2100 through massively increased immigration.
What you describe is called the third way, neoliberalism comes from friedman, and is a right wing economic framework also known as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics
It's not as bad as the National Post, but the Opinions Pieces they host have a distinct PC (Progressive Conservative) tinge to it, and they have had a history of endorsing the Conservatives. This can be seen as well in their endorsements within Ontario (which is basically the only part of Anglophone Canada that matters tbh)
It was the mouth piece of the Progressive Conservative Party before the merger. It's been a conservative newspaper since it's founding. Historically most of it's ownership has been directly involved, sometimes in a leadership capacity, of the current iteration of the conservatives. Yes, the National Post is now the mouth piece the current Conservatives, but it still has a very conservative byline by Canadian standard.
Moreover, Cambridge’s Harvard and MIT produced many scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project. There’s always been interesting military tech where research started in Cambridge.
As for People’s Republic, that was long immortalized in the bar, “People’s Republik” close to Harvard. Closed down I think around or just after the pandemic.
Just curious, which "American running for president"? I googled "Havana Times" and "Globe and Mail" and couldn't find anything about it. Is it an American who would know much about the Canadian news media? Because - as a Canadian who routinely reads newspapers - that's a position that's wildly difficult to square with my reality.
Various groups assessing the issue find it's a little to the right of centre. My personal take is that it's a little more right-leaning than this implies, but I'm just one guy.
> A 2017 survey of Canadians found that the Globe and Mail was perceived to be the most biased national news media outlet [...] Respondents had mixed opinions as to whether its coverage favoured the Liberal Party or the Conservatives. A 2010 survey found that the Globe and Mail was perceived as slightly right of centre, in similar standing to the bulk of other Canadian news organizations.
The addition of 'elitist' is a key indicator here. It is a label used by the American far-right for anything even slightly left of their position which may correct or expose them. Whereas the right wing relies on the firehose of falsehood, the 'elitist' term is used to attack those that may speak truth against them, particularly media and education. They're portrayed as 'out of touch', and thus sought for destruction. They could correct the lies or shine light on their misdeeds, and so must be slandered and attacked maximally. The right wing views these elements as a threat to their goals to seize power, both in actual power and in control of the message.
The position you see doesn't even have to fully make sense to you, because 'slightly right of centre' on your scale would be nearly 'communist' on their scale.
- highest reading level for daily paper
- most expensive daily newspaper
- readership in the highest income / education bracket
- storied elite history
- writing from an elitist point of view to an upper class reader
It leans conservative for Canadians - on the American political spectrum Danielle Smith might be considered more radically progressive than Bernie Sanders since she runs a government that provides provincial health insurance.
Framing politics by American standards is rarely helpful.
I'll let the Georgia Straight[1] know that they're totally controlled government propaganda... overly broad vague statements like this are rarely helpful. Though G&M, CBC and Nat Post are heavily biased news sources Canada does actually have a press that does good work.
I don't remember this and I lived on the Delta and Vancouver Island for several years as a kid. Vancouver Sun was always the go to newspaper I remember as a kid, plus that terrestrial Punjabi news channel that would report on Vancouver news in Punjabi around 5.30 or 6.30 pm every weekday. Also some 2 pager newsletter/newspaper that would also give fun facts and stuff.
never heard of it, and probably 99% of Canadians haven't either.
Canada is pretty much an oligopoly in everything: media, communications, air transport ...
not sure what is the surprise for you, do you live here ?
I live in Canada, and everyone I know is aware of the Georgia Straight. Maybe you haven't heard of it because it is local to... the Georgia Straight (Vancouver and Victoria), even though it does cover national interests too.
> I live in Canada, and everyone I know is aware of the Georgia Straight.
Then you live in a bubble. I spent most of my life in Canada (and I'm considered old) and have never heard of it. But it is interesting and I'm happy to have learned about it now, so thank you!
Sure, there might be evidence that they are refusing to release, but Trudeau made the accusation publicly. By turning this into a public diplomatic spat, he now needs to show the proof.
Maybe they already lost the evidence because of routine deletion like it happened with the downing of Air India Flight 182 that killed 320 people and the alleged Canadian perpetuators were let go.
> Maybe they already lost the evidence because of routine deletion like it happened with the downing of Air India Flight 182 that killed 320 people and the alleged Canadian perpetuators were let go.
The perpetrators weren't "let go"; they had a trial (the most expensive trial in Canadian history), and two of the three charged were found not guilty. Which is how things work in a liberal democracy.
> The guy murdered was associated with one of the alleged perpetuators later on according to Canadian court records.
Pretty sure that's not a crime in Canada. And if it is one, it doesn't meet the standard of "summary execution while sitting in ones car", which is definitely not a thing in Canada.
> The perpetrators weren't "let go"; they had a trial (the most expensive trial in Canadian history), and two of the three charged were found not guilty. Which is how things work in a liberal democracy.
Is the destruction of critical evidence also part of a liberal democracy? Not to mention failure to prevent critical witnesses from getting killed before being able to give testimony.
> June 2, 2003:
> Opposition MPs call for an inquiry into accusations that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) blocked the RCMP investigation into the bombing.
> According to RCMP documents, CSIS ordered the destruction of hours of wiretaps to conceal the fact that one of its agents, Surjan Singh Gill, had penetrated a circle of Sikh extremists planning the attack. He was ordered to pull out three days before Air India Flight 182 blew up.
> Major releases his final report. Over more than 3,200 pages, he tears into the government and its "wholly deficient" agencies. He says failure to prevent the bombing was "inexcusable," the CSIS was "ineffective" and notes a "lax security culture" at airports. The RCMP "failed" to protect threatened witnesses, he adds.
> Major says he cannot understand why CSIS deleted its wiretap tapes: "Inconceivable, incomprehensible, indefensible, incompetence," he writes
> He also says successive governments had treated the victims' families "like adversaries, as if they had somehow brought this calamity on themselves." Politicians' failure to plug security holes was "inexcusable."
> The inquiry concludes Talwinder Singh Parmar was the mastermind behind the deadly bombing.
Maybe you know more than the retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice John C. Major.
Your earlier comment made it sound it like it was a fair trial for the 329 victims(including 82 children) on board the Air India flight and their families.
Did the presumably new information change your mind? Or do you still think it was a standard part of a liberal democracy?
It's not new information; I've lived in Vancouver my whole life, I know well the history of the Air India disaster and all the drama surrounding the investigation and the trial.
Fair trials are indeed a cornerstone of liberal democracy, with fairness being an attribute given to those accused of a crime, not necessarily the unfortunate victims. The accused tends to get the benefit of the doubt because of the cost of the loss of freedoms that hinge on a guilty verdict. CSIS fucked up. The RCMP fucked up. But there is a standard to which prosecutions are held and the government didn't meet it.
And none of this excuses _gunning down a person sitting in their car_ which, in case you forgot, was the original topic of this discussion. It doesn't matter who they associated with, what they were involved with, or what they did.
You seem to be doing your best to dance around the point belltaco is making.
There is evidence that CSIS destroyed evidence that led to the acquital of the defendants. And your response is "CSIS fucked up. The RCMP fucked up." Nothing to see here!
>And none of this excuses _gunning down a person sitting in their car_ which, in case you forgot, was the original topic of this discussion. It doesn't matter who they associated with, what they were involved with, or what they did
For better or worse, the victims of a crime are not parties to a criminal trial in common law. The idea of a "fair trial" is solely between the crown and the accused.
As for liberal democracies: you'll find many examples of the spies (i.e. counter-intelligence) working at cross purposes to the criminal justice system. Think MI5 vs the Met, or the NSA vs local law enforcement. The spooks are often much more interested in protecting sources and methods than they are in criminal prosecutions. That's partly why the USA has gotten so good at parallel construction.
I think the point they are trying to make is pretty clear - Canada, be it due to systemic incompetence or vested political interests, shares a lot of the blame.
Surjan Singh Gill was a CSIS Agent, and he was one of the co-conspirators of Air India and Narita bombings. That's why Canada can hide behind 'we fucked up our investigations'. Canada, RCMP, CSIS did not not screw up the Air India bombing investigation. Instead, they covered it up by destroying evidence.
So far this mysterious evidence is not shared with ANYONE. Whether it is leader of opposition, five eyes allies whom he seeked support from, with the government he is asking to cooperate.
It's not shared with public, which these things rarely are due to usual sources/methods excuse. US formally supports Canadian allegations against India, which means intelligence at least been vetted by FVEYs. Which isn't to give credenance to FVEY credibility, only it suggest there isn't LACK of evidence that gives US an out.
No, the US has not formally supported Trudeau's allegations.
> Weeks before Trudeau's announcement, Canada had asked it's closest allies, including Washington, to publicly condemn the killing, according to a Western official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatically sensitive matter. But the requests were turned down, the official said.
>"Reports that Canada asked the U.S. to publicly condemn the murder and that we refused are false and we would strongly push back on the rumours that we were reluctant to speak publicly about this," the official said.
US formally support Canada investigation, urged India to cooperate. That doesn't happen behind the scenes if US can wiggle out of allegations. Canada wouldn't have gone to G20 with allegations on sidelines unless they have sufficient FVEY intelligence. That's read between the line of formally supporting Canadian allegations but trying to find a position not throw everything into the shitter. Which they could have during Indian G20 to make this the dominating narrative. The most charitable interpretation right now is FVEY/US supports CA allegations, but still hoping this somehow IN/CA can manage crisis in way it would blow over.
There is no difference. The point wasn't level of support/theatre/posturing but presence of support at all that tacitly indicates the level of intelligence behind Canada's accusation. It's credible enough that FVEY can't deny. Which is key. How they hedge / crisis manage,whether they hang Canada out dry during G20 etc, is secondary to the fact that they can't swept it under the rug. The narrative this isn't India said vs Canada said, it is India said vs FVEY said. With underlying assumption that FVEY can't deny credibility of Canadian allegations. Even if 4/5 of FVEY also say meh/whatever to the incident overall. And as I mention previous, entire layer also modulated by how much credence you place in FVEY, only that its extremely counter to their interest to not be able to deny.
Why the hell should the Indian government trust Canada's so-called evidence that they are not even willing to reveal? Anyone with two brain cells will call bs on something like this.
Why not? If the evidence can be fact-checked on both sides, then its credibility can be established. All this depends on what kind of evidence Canada has (if at all they do).
I don't get how you folks believe Canada's allegations right off the bat, when there is no factual proof or evidence provided by them.
As long as there is no evidence provided by Canada, India is the victim here, with Canada leveling baseless allegations on her.
That's why I said, India has to confirm Canada's factual evidence first, because it can be any politically motivated bullshit for all we know.
Or the attacks may have been carried out by a rogue agent, with no hand of the Indian government in it. But even then the Canada has jumped the gun and claimed that the killings were state sponsored. In that case too India is the victim with Canada making false accusations against her.
> I don't get how you folks believe Canada's allegations right off the bat, when there is no factual proof or evidence provided by them.
I don't get how you infer support of Canada's allegations from a statement that the Indian government doesn't need to rely on Canada's evidence to determine whether or not they carried out an assassination, since they either know that they did it or know that they didn't do it.
> Or the attacks may have been carried out by a rogue agent, with no hand of the Indian government in it.
What do you think I meant when I said, "Third party evidence is relevant only to the extent that they didn't do it as a matter of state policy but a rogue agent or group might have done it."
It would be nice if your responses to other people's posts showed some sign that you were actually reading those posts rather than going off on a canned tirade that isn't in any meaningful way relevant to what it is nominally a response to.
If India is guilty, it knows that it is guilty. If India is innocent, it knows that it is innocent.
In either case, India wouldn't need evidence from anybody else to determine its own innocence or guilt, because surely it knows whether it did what it is being accused of doing.
That's because India is not 1 person, if you haven't noticed.
Even if this murder thing is true, it could have been some rogue agent in the government. In that case the evidence would flush them out. India does have a lot to lose, reputationally, in this case. But not enough to lose that they would simply accept whatever Canada says.
From the Indian point of view Canada has also brushed off situations where India approached them with evidence against Canadian citizens. So if Canada now approaches with demands of their own, dismissing these is perfectly alright without precise evidence.
India has no obligation to preserve whatever sources some 5 eye(I) country has within their government, and just cooperate with Canada no questions asked.
I have indeed noticed that a government is not a single person, but I simply would not think of a rogue agent as representative of the said government, and what they did as what the government had done.
From my perspective, the crime would need to be officially sanctioned by the person or people in power, for it to be called "done by the government". Just like if a US government employee is turned rogue, deciding to act against the US government, I wouldn't say that the US government is now against the US government.
CSIS destroyed evidence in that Air India 182 bombing case. Of course, Canadians have the prerogative to preach the world about free speech, the rule of law, etc. Why did CSIS destroy the evidence in that bombing case? Surjan Singh Gill was a CSIS agent and one of the co-conspirators of Air India and Narita bombing cases.
1. Karima Baloch, a dissident Pakistani human rights activist living in exile in Canada, was found dead in a Toronto river in 2020. She was the second Pakistani dissident from Balochistan living in exile to be found dead that year (other person was found dead in a river in Sweden). No one accused any country for these deaths.
2. Air India flight was blown up mid air killing 329 people abroad. Some of the witnesses were murdered, and finally only one person was convicted. Call recordings that the authorities had against the terrorists disappeared. He is now living in Canada after 15 years in jail. They had plans to bomb another plane, but it detonated in advance killing two employees in Japan since they didn't take into account DST. Indian agencies had warned Canada about attacks of this nature. Justin Trudeau's father was the prime minister when this happened.
3. When the farmer's protest occurred in India, Justin Trudeau came in support of the protesters. Then when the Canadian truckers protested, they were forcibly removed.
The defensiveness and overreaction of India suggests that something is amiss. Why not just either 1) work with Canada to convince them they didn’t do it, or 2) just let it go?
Because they did it, and resent being called on it.
The USA reserves the right to assassinate any one, any where, at any time as long as someone with signing authority calls them a terrorist. The Russians have made a game of it with their exotic mix of radioactive poisons and throwing people out of windows. The current nationalist government of India is demanding these same prerogatives to match their self-conception of India and status as a major power.
Or (only slightly) more charitably: India would have been happy to keen this quiet. But once Canada announced this, India had to respond. Their voters respond well to muscular gestures, so something flashy like a visa ban demonstrates their toughness. Canada had already generating some bad publicity in India, and beating up on us for a little bit will probably make number go up.
Or maybe they are sick of having approached Canada earlier in history and being told to fuck off back then.
So now that the shoe is on the other foot, they just want to treat the Canadians the same way.
From the Indian perspective, Trudeau is basically in bed with the Khalistanis and relies on them for votes and money. Nothing explains people like Nijjar, a guy with minimal life skills, getting a citizenship after having his application rejected twice on grounds for fraud. Just this week there have been reports on a Canadian citizen, from Canada, claiming responsibility for the killing of a local legislator in Punjab for personal vendetta.
And now we are hearing Modi tried to reach out to some separatist factions back in 2015 but his efforts were torpedoed by the Trudeau government who were under pressure from a rival Khalistani faction.
Maybe that's why the Government of India is just saying FU to Canada.
Oh sure. Canada has made good business turning a blind eye from all sorts of ugly organizations from LTTE at the bottom to Barrick at the top. We are distinctly uninterested in peoples histories and activities abroad. The obvious problem with that is people activities tend to follow them home.
As for a thug like Nijjar: I have no idea how he swung it. It could be any of: mere oversight/incompetence amongst the civil service; small corruption in same; infiltration by Khalistanis of the same; or sympathetic elected officials. Remember that Canada processes 1000-2000 immigrants per DAY, and the idea that we are vetting every single one thoroughly is just silly.
TBH - of all of those, intervention by elected officials seems least likely. Our MPs are not especially hands-on. But who knows? Maybe some idiot really did write a letter of support on parliamentary letterhead in support of a gangster. I expect we'll find out. This scandal isn't going away over night.
>As for a thug like Nijjar: I have no idea how he swung it. It could be any of: mere oversight/incompetence amongst the civil service; small corruption in same; infiltration by Khalistanis of the same; or sympathetic elected officials. Remember that Canada processes 1000-2000 immigrants per DAY, and the idea that we are vetting every single one thoroughly is just silly.
Quid pro quo. Same way how USA hosts Gulen. A few greens (or in Canada's case, likely a number of votes) gets passed around under the table and the guy gets "recommended" for a visa. And letters of support for citizenship are often passed for favours. I was offered one by an MP in the UK, and it's perfectly legal. Granted, I'm also not committing illegal shit like blowing up planes over the Atlantic or sth.
They do, when they view themselves as in immediate danger. They killed Ibn Al-Khattab by bribing his courier into delivering him a letter laced with nerve agent.
I appreciate the fact that you believe India is being unfairly vilified in the greater discussion.
> The defensiveness and overreaction of India suggests that something is amiss.
> Why not just either 1) work with Canada to convince them they didn’t do it, or 2) just let it go?
If you take the original comment at face value, the thread is a thought experiment. Demanding proof of events in a hypothetical situation, seems like misplaced concern.
So India should just accept being called a murderer without evidence, and expulsion of its diplomat as well as Trudeau’s clear support to Khalistanis in Canada.
I don’t think so.
The onus is on Canada to provide evidence, not on India. Remember, innocent until proven guilty - or would you like that legal principal to be changed?
Secondly, I’ll say that silence is an admission of guilt. India is daring Trudeau to show evidence or retract.
Innocent until proven guilty isn't a legal concept that applies to international relations, it is a colloquial phrase that clarifies rights in certain criminal cases. But also, "silence is an admission of guilt" is in direct contradiction to innocent until proven guilty.
There are a variety of reasons why Canada might not provide proof to your satisfaction. One might be that it would expose intelligence channels that they are trying to keep alive (literally, in some cases). It has also only been a few days, and there is likely some pretty serious maneuvering on both sides where withholding information is important.
I can also assure you that most Canadians, including the PM do not care in particular about "Khalistanis", or really know what that means in the context of Indian politics. Before this week, I would be surprised if most Canadians knew there was a rift between Hindus and Sikhs
Canada does need to provide proof, but in Canadian politics you simply don't make an announcement like this as the PM without strong evidence.
So, I'm assuming that tomorrow Indian PM can make a claim that Canadian agents (CSIS?) was behind it and not provide any evidence. That'll be equivalent and acceptable right?
India has provided ample evidence including via Interpol (whatever the process is called, red something notice or whatever) regarding various Khalistanis and Canada hasn't acted. Culprits from Air India bombing in the 80s were acquitted since Canadian intelligence had decided to erase evidence. Just look at the videos of the Gurudwara in question, it has posters calling for assassination of Indian diplomats. Graffiti was painted in Hindu temples in Canada. Etc. Etc.
It is very clear that Canadian governments and politicians have a soft spot for Khalistanis since they constitute a sizeable vote bank. I believe NDP leader is also a Khalistan sympathizer, has to be if he wants Sikh votes in Canada.
Having said that, I still believe that this is not a rift between Hindus and Sikhs. This is limited to a vocal, but powerful, minority of Sikh diaspora. Khalistan is a non-issue within India, but can flare up which is why governments need to be careful.
> Culprits from Air India bombing in the 80s were acquitted since Canadian intelligence had decided to erase evidence.
The Air India bombing killed 268 Canadian citizens. I do not understand how anyone can begin to imply that the Canadian Government would be more interested in "protecting" Khalistani terrorists than providing justice for their own citizens.
Was it a catastrophic prosecution and investigation? Yes. But to jump to malice for something that every Canadian wanted justice for is ludicrous.
> Khalistan is a non-issue within India
Pretty sure it's a fairly significant issue inside Punjab. Or is your implication that the rest of Hindu India doesn't consider their opinion important? If so, you've just self-explained why the Khalistan movement exists in the first place.
> I have no idea how good/bad Canada's National Post is
The National Post was founded by one of the 2 main inspirations for the character of Logan Roy on succession. Overall they do not lean TOO conservative (https://www.allsides.com/news-source/national-post-media-bia...), however these days Justin Trudeau inspires INTENSE hatred from those even mildly conservative in Canada, and they foam at the mouth to criticism him for anything, especially when it fits into their narrative of him being Too Young, Too Arrogant, and Not Respected On The International Stage.
> I do not understand how anyone can begin to imply that the Canadian Government would be more interested in "protecting" Khalistani terrorists than providing justice for their own citizens.
Obviously because they are brown Canadians and their lives count for less. Anyone who saw the outcome of the Canadian "investigation" and the following court trials where witnesses were murdered, would say the same thing.
> Khalistan is a non-issue within India
Its not a non-issue, but Punjabi Sikhs don't care about it in India. Elections are never fought on this topic and candidates with Khalistani leanings always lose. Sikhs are well integrated into Hindu society because Sikhism itself is an offshoot sect of Hinduism (now a formal religion), no matter what the Sikhs say. There are Sikh Gurudwaras and holy places across India. Khalistan is an issue in India in the national security context. Indians want to see the government to be acting against forces threatening India.
> Pretty sure it's a fairly significant issue inside Punjab. Or is your implication that the rest of Hindu India doesn't consider their opinion important?
Do you have evidence to support that?
Khalistan has been a non-issue in Punjab since the late 80s or so. There is no militancy nor is this an issue during elections or in the manifesto of any political party. Akali Dal, which is kinda Sikh religious party is not in government for last 2-3 elections and before that I believe it was in coalition with BJP, the so called Hindu-nationalist party, which is currently in power in center. Current and previous state governments are from centrist national parties.
Whether or not it is discussed in hushed tones or not is something obviously I don’t know.
Can it flare up again? Sure it can, and that is the hope of the Khalistanis in Canada and fear of people in India, which is why the sensitivity.
May be a hyperbole, but when is comes to Khalistanis, Canada is playing with fire shattering these terrorists, many of whom have links with Punjabi organized crime and it is going to bite them hard.
Sikh Gurudwaras have banners calling for assassination of Indian diplomats. I don’t know of any other civilized nation that would allow that to happen.
It is genuinely impossible to find any information except from biased sources screaming that Sikhs don't want it.
I cannot find an impartial survey of Sikh support for Khalistan EXCEPT in the international diaspora. This of course is itself problematic. One take is the diaspora outside of India is the only one free to offer an honest perspective. The other equally correct side is that the opinion of the international diaspora is irrelevant. Only the opinions of Sikhs in Punjab matter.
I made an assumption and it might be flawed. I would love to find some concrete data.
> the other equally correct side is that the opinion of the international diaspora is irrelevant. Only the opinions of Sikhs in Punjab matter.
Yes, because the ones who migrated and cry out for Khalistan are a bunch of cowards seeking refuge in the West in the name of oppression. If they were actually interested in freedom, they would have stayed in India and carried on the fight. At least the majority of Kashmiris had the courage to stay back and carry on the fight, even under the covers, and not migrate en masse.
I had attended an event for the Sikh community a few years back, which was attended by Sikhs from all over the world, including from USA, Australia, the UK and India. Nowhere in another community have I seen a strong culture of brotherliness and felicitation for good. And while there were a few Canadian Sikh families, they were far too few to be countable in one hand. Tells a lot about the kind of Sikhs that Canada is harboring, tbh.
History is full of figures that have eventually only succeed in liberating some oppressed people from exile.
Not saying that's the situation with Sikhs or that's who Nijjar is.
But it does seem like he would have good reason to believe that advocating for Khalistan from inside India would get him into jail or worse.
And if the work is important to the Sikhs in Punjab, it would definitely stand to reason that he might have had to do it from Canada.
> I had attended an event for the Sikh community a few years back, which was attended by Sikhs from all over the world, including from USA, Australia, the UK and India. Nowhere in another community have I seen a strong culture of brotherliness and felicitation for good. And while there were a few Canadian Sikh families, they were far too few to be countable in one hand. Tells a lot about the kind of Sikhs that Canada is harboring, tbh.
Is your criticism that Canadian Sikhs do not engage with the international Sikh diaspora? Not being a part of that community I guess I don't know why that might be. But since Canada contains the largest Sikh population outside of India, it's possible that they have their own self-reinforcing community (That amongst Canadians has exactly the same reputation as you mentioned - "a strong culture of brotherliness and felicitation for good") that they've disconnected from the international or Punjab Sikh community? That's not necessarily a problem - African Americans don't have a strong connection to Africans.
If there is a secessionist terrorist equivalent like Nijjar in the US, do you think he would be left to walk free? Unlike the Commonwealth countries of UK, Canada and Australia, India and the US both have constitutions which clearly state that once you're in, you can't get out (iirc, the Indian one was based on the US one for the federalist aspects). The US would equally take care of such an anti-social element rapidly, because secession from the union is an act of war - in fact, India's response was damningly slow.
On the other hand, there are peaceful movements in India that are still happening for separate statehood, or at minimum the removal of certain extremely biased and abusive Acts (such as the AFPSA). Irom Sharmila, for instance, fought against the Indian government with a fast unto death, was constantly arrested, released and rearrested. There was a successful decades long movement for the creation of a separate state for the state of Telangana. There is currently another peaceful decades long movement for the creation of a separate state for the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, where the current Prime Minister contested his seat from. I don't see people from either of those movements being oppressed in the 21st century.
The core reason why other Sikhs don't stand for Khalistani Sikhs is because Khalistan is in essence a theocracy in Punjab. Khalistanis want a separate nation that is firmly rooted in Sikh religious principles, something which the majority of Sikhs in India don't really want. Even in the diaspora, apart from Canada, Khalistanism is a fringe element, simply because most countries except Canada don't allow refugee status based on claims of "oppression" by an Indian government in this century (they would have had more standing in the 80s for that claim). And like others mentioned, the ones migrating to Canada are often part of the leadership of various gangs and mafias in Punjab, something that another country like the US would easily prevent from entering their soil.
> The US would equally take care of such an anti-social element rapidly, because secession from the union is an act of war - in fact, India's response was damningly slow.
Are you asking if Nijjar was advocating for secession from the US, or if he was in the US instead of Canada?
If it's the latter, I think the US would've done exactly as Canada.
If you're asking what the US would've done if it was in India's shoes, you're absolutely right - it would've successfully pressured Canada into giving him up.
However, this is not a gotcha. That the US is insecure enough in it's freedom that it overreacts to "protect" it (see, the 2000's and the invasion of Iraq) is one of the reasons it is a flawed democracy. If the US had done what India has done, Canada might've cooperated, but the uproar from our citizens (and from me here), would've been identical.
> The core reason why other Sikhs don't stand for Khalistani Sikhs is because Khalistan is in essence a theocracy in Punjab. Khalistanis want a separate nation that is firmly rooted in Sikh religious principles, something which the majority of Sikhs in India don't really want. Even in the diaspora, apart from Canada, Khalistanism is a fringe element, simply because most countries except Canada don't allow refugee status based on claims of "oppression" by an Indian government in this century (they would have had more standing in the 80s for that claim). And like others mentioned, the ones migrating to Canada are often part of the leadership of various gangs and mafias in Punjab, something that another country like the US would easily prevent from entering their soil.
See this is a fascinating paragraph. Because the whole time until the last sentence, I was nodding along, learning more about the situation, and gathering a more nuanced worldview. Then you finish it with a blanket dismissal of Sikhs in Canada as gangsters and mafios. Punjabi Organized Crime is huge in Canada. And the Punjabi diaspora in Canada is likewise large. (Almost 3% of the Canadian population).
It shows a clear bias you have against the potential for peace from any Punjabi Canadians.
You decided to hinge on the last bit, which was actually a small additive statement and not the whole point of my assertion. Reading back, I understand that I worded that last sentence extremely incorrectly in haste to finish up typing a long monologue.
I'm not painting all Canadian Sikhs as gangsters and mafiosos. What I said was that, compared to other places such as Australia and the UK, Canada has a lower barrier to entry for someone claiming to be a refugee. A Khalistani Sikh cannot obtain refugee status in either Australia or the UK, simply because the bar for claiming refugee status is much higher, and it's very difficult to show "oppression" in a country where the former Prime Minister was a Sikh. In Canada, the barrier is much lower and the existing Sikh community was connected enough, so you have all sorts of people passing through, including many of the gang leaders and members involved in the drug mafia. They find safe refuge in Canada, simply because they find a lower barrier to entry compared to the US or the other commonwealth countries.
This situation is effectively the exact same one as Pakistan harboring Osama bin Laden, then USA killing him on Pakistani soil, in spite of the two of them being "allies". Replace Pakistan and USA with Canada and India respectively.
Fair enough! I'll dismiss that statement of yours.
> This situation is effectively the exact same one as Pakistan harboring Osama bin Laden, then USA killing him on Pakistani soil, in spite of the two of them being "allies". Replace Pakistan and USA with Canada and India respectively.
There was absolutely no dispute in the international community about the guilt of Osama bin Laden and the direct connection between him, Al Queda, and dozens of terrorists attacks including 9/11.
As far as I understand, the same is not the case about Nijjar, and he is in no way believed to be the core "mastermind" the way Osama was.
> It is genuinely impossible to find any information except from biased sources screaming that Sikhs don't want it.
>I made an assumption and it might be flawed. I would love to find some concrete data.
These two together don't compute. You obviously have a tilt that anything coming out of India is "biased source" while international one is unbiased somehow. So, why even pretend that you want some concrete data.
And that basically is the issue. Indian evidence, data and proofs are treated with suspicion. While Western data is somehow clean. If this is not a classist mindset I don't know what is.
I said the ones that I found seem biased because they bring in a lot of clear opinion into the matter.
Consider the same is true about the US - if you try to find information and land on FOX News and the Wall Street Journal Opinion page, you will see a lot of bias.
I see the same with the Indian news stories I find. I can see the bias.
Is there a Indian equivalent Reuters or Associated Press that has data on internal opinions on Khalistan?
The party shifted to a moderate agenda in the 90s. Funnily enough, this party has been working with Modi's Hindutva party or BJP.
In comparison, J&K demands were raised by a party called National Conference. This party has never shifted its agenda and continued with demand for sometimes separatism and sometimes special status for J&K.
Politics runs on supporting specific agendas. J&K agenda is still supported. No one denies that. You will not find any Indian sources claiming that. While there is no popular party supporting the Khalistani agenda. So, Indian sources claim that.
While there are parties in Canada supporting and pushing this. So, you'd surely find facts in the international media saying there is support.
The Khalistan movement found a fertile breeding ground in Canada about 40 years ago. They bombed an airline (AirIndia flight 182) in the 80s, the terrorists who plotted walk free in Canada to this day. Additionally, any Sikh , in Vancouver, who dissents with the Khalistan idea is asking for trouble - its a mafia. This tumor in Canada's politics has been allowed to fester, and now their PM is hostage because he is a minority party , one wrong move and he's out of power. Assassinations and hit jobs are common. In 1984, leaders were groomed, there were riots over Khalistan and a major political assasination of PM Indira Gandhi. I wonder what other Sikh leader is being groomed, this time in Canada - to blow up in the Canadian political scene.
When the Khalistan govt. crackdown, and violent riots happened in India in 1984/85 I saw that first hand. These fugitives from India are a mix of Political aspiration (nothing wrong there), bigotry, criminal mafia, and vengeful militias that wields political power in Canada - Canada has opened its doors to trouble. Some of the grievances are no doubt legit, but there is (effectively/relatively) zero religious repression of Sikhs in India (unlike other minorities in India who have experienced problems, based on their religious views, that are covered in the media).
The vast majority of Sikhs want nothing to do with these extremists. Sure they want to protect their distinct identity, and culture, a beautiful thing in itself. Obviously, the Indian govt can do much more and be more effective if it tries, within its own borders - but thats a matter of political will or games. But India has already paid the price, and been there.
Canada has no clue they're dealing with a major social/political/criminal nuisance.
An order of magnitude more Canadians died on that flight than Indians. Canada has a higher percentage of Sikh residents than India at this point. This issue isn’t exclusively Indian.
The issue is that an extrajudicial, extraterritorial killing of a foreign citizen is a pretty serious step to take. There is no evidence that India tried to extradite or otherwise bring this gentleman to justice, nor what exactly his crime would be. India has accused him of a lot with not a lot of specificity.
Flip this on its head: if Canada were to identify the assassins, would it be appropriate to send Canadian agents to India to have them assassinated? How would Indians react to such an act?
> An order of magnitude more Canadians died on that flight than Indians
They were almost all of Indian or South Asian ethnicity since the flight was to India.
The wiretaps with critical evidence were intentionally destroyed by the Canadian govt, according to the RCMP, resulting in two perpetuators walking away.
> There is no evidence that India tried to extradite or otherwise bring this gentleman to justice, nor what exactly his crime would be
You're completely out of the loop on this. India put out two Interpol notices in 2014 and 2016, put him on most wanted lists and requested the Canadian government multiple times for an extradition.
Canada refused, just like the current Canadian PM's dad refused to extradite the mastermind of the Air India bombing in the early eighties when he was the PM because "India recognizes the Queen as the Head of the Commonwealth but not as head of state".
Even if the accusations are true, India will not respond. To protect the lives of Indian nationals in Canada , and to protect the Indian high commission and ensure staff safety is paramount for them. Because, if I was an Indian who had the opposite opinion ( to these Khalistan people) - I’d be fearing for my safety- that’s a reflection of how much ‘rule of law’ these people will apply.Months ago these Khalistan activists vandalized the Indian consulate. The so-called Canadian rule of law seems pretty selective.
This activist who was killed was an illegal immigrant and criminal fugitive, and Canada PM wants to protect his interests. It’s clearly political pressure and the rule of law might be an excuse .
I’m pretty sure there’s other nations that have carried hit jobs in Canada - China , Saudi Arabia etc and we never hear about those. The leader of NDP is a Sikh and is kingmaker in Canada politics- I have a feeling Trudeau is just trying to cling to his job
> Trudeau isn't going to open his mouth on a false accusation that is just going to cause him grief.
This has to be a joke, or naivety. Trudeau is a politician, he’s no saint. As such no stranger to lying or fabricating things, especially after a really bad G20. The timing, immediately after G20 is also rather suspect.
> Trudeau is a politician, he’s no saint. As such no stranger to lying or fabricating things,
This accusation IS causing him grief--right now. If Trudeau announced this, he perceives that A) announcing this gives him an advantage somehow or B) not announcing it will cause him more grief that announcing it.
Now, it could be that Trudeau is a complete and utter dolt--I haven't been tracking Candian politics particularly strongly. It could also be that Modi somehow really pissed Trudeau off.
However, successful politicians don't generally spout lines that can be factually refuted or that can be verfied to cause allies problems. Trumpistan is the exception, not the rule.
Silence and carry on is what false accusations deserve. The issue is, I don't think Modi can afford to stay silent, whether the accusations are true or not.
I respect your disagreement, and in some cases perhaps yes - letting the barking dogs bark and ignoring them might be the best policy.
But I feel that in the given the context, both external and internal in India, Indian government had to react rather than let silence be assumed to be an admission of guilt. That would have been worse since it frees people to draw their own conclusions.
Anyway, I'm just an observer. This is a royal mess and hope it gets resolved quickly, though I doubt it.
> Silence and carry on is what false accusations deserve.
Only if there is a robust justice system which will protect you from the effects of false accusation. International law and a lot of countries not as developed as the west have no such systems.
People in less developed nations don't have that luxury.
It seems unlikely to be false and made up, it's not like Canada goes about saying stuff like this, historically. At the same time it's not hard to imagine a case where revealing the evidence/sources would compromise the capabilities/assets used come up with this conclusion.
Perhaps the early announcement is a misstep from the Canadian PM, but I really doubt that they would make this stuff up. They have very little to gain by coming out with this, if untrue, and a lot to lose.
And if the allegations are true, Canada still is probably in an unenviable position of not wanting to come stir problem unnecessarily, but also not being able to let it slide and be seen as a push over. Extraterritorial killings by foreign nations is a big deal, and being soft on this is opening the door to a whole lot of problems.
I would be weary of trusting the current Canadian prime minister
CSIS and Canadian NSA (Canadian Intelligence Services) overall have a good reputation but have been mismanaged recently and also have been politicised and made to lie about events
An example incident around 2018-2019
Canadian Prime Minister on his visit to India in 2018 had invited a known terrorist in hiding to his gala, who was shown to even take a photograph with his wife, the first lady at that event [0]
Then after this incident blew up back then, the national security advisor of Canada, CSIS and the Canadian Prime Minister claimed that it was rogue elements in the Indian government who brought the criminal to the gala to embarass Canada [1]
Only for a liberal mp from Prime Minister’s own party admitting they were the ones who invited the known fugitive who was facing charges on attempted murder against Indian beauracrats and journalists. [2][3]
It was a disaster and showed how the current prime minister likes to use public services to save his face and make false accusation against other governments and nations.
The Minister even had to resign later for this.
I’ve added two attributions for last point [2] and [3] a canadian and a indian media source as it wasnt widely publicised in Canada (considering how embarrassing it was for them) but was widely shown in India
I linked only canadian sources and newspapers to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Somewhat reminds me of the situation with Meng Wanzhou. Canada seems to end up with high profile folks with ties to other countries that then put Canada in a difficult position. China is still angry at Canada over the Meng Wanzhou situation (among other things). Xi Jinping took a swipe at Trudeau in front of the Camera recently, Modi is now telling me to f'off. Politics aside, say what you will about Justin, sure as heck wouldn't want to be him.
Apparently Robert Fife told the PMO they were going to run this. The government asked them to hold off for a week, and then The Globe and Mail said "no, we're running it in 24 hours."
Do you expect for someone to not be defensive after you accuse them of murder? And then how can you ask them to investigate themselves? In civilized countries false accusation is considered criminal offense. Accusation comes after evidence, not before or during investigation.
I'd like to think that Canada has a clean enough reputation as decent global citizens that they've earned the benefit of the doubt on this one.
India aspires to be a global superpower, and since there's few decent role models for how to do that they've decided that "reckless impunity and belligerence" is how it's done.
Considering all the Snowden fanboyism and anti-CIA/NSA sentiments on HN and reddit I expected people to be more critical of a Five Eyes intelligence service saying "just trust us bro".
Generally being amicable in situations like this where you are accused of serious issues is viewed as insulting. I’m not saying they didn’t do it, I’m just saying that even if they didn’t they wouldn’t take kindly to it just being thrown in their face.
To me this is all weird, I dont really understand the reactions
If a country accused my country of an extrajudicial killing, we’d say “yeah, don't fuck up”, any citizen reading would chuckle, slightly smirk, and go about their day
The defensiveness is justified because off late the Western media has run a number of articles on India, noting autocratic backsliding and what not, with no evidence and just opinions. India let those slide, and those voices have only got louder.
They are not going to let this one go with no answer.
To a western nation this makes no difference. But to a country that is trying to show the world that it is a responsible member in the globe, these kind of facts free accusations are pretty damaging.
The problem with India is the attitude of sheer apathy. They should have countered the earlier remarks as well, then maybe Trudeau would have thought twice before making these charges as casually as he did. Maybe he would have spent more effort convincing the Indian counterparts why he thought the killers were linked to the government.
>Air India Flight 182 was an Air India flight operating on the Montreal–London–Delhi–Bombay route. On 23 June 1985, it was operated using Boeing 747-237B registered VT-EFO. The aircraft suffered a catastrophic decompression mid-air en route from Montreal to London, at an altitude of 31,000 feet (9,400 m) over the Atlantic Ocean as a result of an explosion from a bomb planted by terrorists.[1][2] The remnants of the aircraft fell into the sea approximately 190 kilometres (120 miles) off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people aboard, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 24 Indian citizens.[3] The bombing of Air India Flight 182 is the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history, the deadliest aviation incident in the history of Air India, and was the world's deadliest act of aviation terrorism until the September 11 attacks in 2001
The alleged perpetuators were let go after a lengthy and costly trial in 2005.
> Wiretaps by Canada’s intelligence agency had been erased before they could be used as evidence
There might be a link between the groups responsible in a 1985 terrorist attack, and 38y later someone related to the movement being (allegedly) assassinated by the Indian government on Canadian soil.
But regardless of the allegations against the assassination victim, India would have no right to kill someone on Canadian soil, no matter the justifications it might have.
Extraterritorial killings are not justifiable, and definitely not by events that occurred 38y ago.
Hopefully this is all false and India wasn't involved in the murder of this person. But if true, it's inexcusable and paints India in a very bad light in term of international reputation.
To be fair, most Indian commentators also assumed the hit was indirectly called by the Indian govt when this happened. Especially after this former Khalistani turned BJP supporter was offed near the same Gurdawara a year ago by some hired hitmen - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ripudaman-si...
It's very much a tit-for-tat gang war that's being further enabled by black money, Punjabi politics, and clan politics (Jatt versus Bishnoi).
So I would expect that warrants would be issued, India and Canada would cooperate in the investigation and sentences would be handed by cooperating judicial systems. There's precedent for cross country justice being served. If this isn't working between Canada and India, it should be fixed. If Canada isn't cooperating where it ought, Canada should improve. I don't know anything about that. But was there an interpol warrant on this person?
> But was there an interpol warrant on this person?
Yes [0]
> would cooperate in the investigation and sentences would be handed by cooperating judicial systems
They don't really cooperate.
A lot of this is due to mutual red tape, and also because of jurisdictional issues (eg. is transnational crime under the CSIS, the RCMP, the Vancouver PD? Which court does it go to?) because Canada is very similar to India structurally (weird hyper-federalism mixed with federal powers attempting to further gain control).
Also the Indian equivalent of law enforcement isn't the greatest either due to federal-state conflicts along with like 6-8 different competing federal law enforcement agencies, plus a couple national security ones.
I didn't know this, and these types of details would definitely modulate my (and probably other's) perception of India's justification. Example: if there was credible imminent threat, and uncooperative foreign government giving no alternative but the emergency use of clandestine force.
> modulate my (and probably other's) perception of India's justification
This whole controversy was unplanned.
There have been ongoing discussions between the Five Eyes and India about this hit and the whole Khalistan issue for months now, but Trudeau's hand was forced after the Globe and Mail (a newspaper that leans Conservative) gave him a 24 hour heads up that an article about this was about to be published.
However, a senior officer said, “Canada, which is a member of Interpol and talks about the rule of law, has disregarded Interpol red notices. As a rule, once a red notice is issued, a member country is bound to take the suspect(s) into custody”
I'd disagree, and plenty of Indian commentators disagreed at the time as well [0].
Paying hitmen to kill violent idiots is a bad look. There are multiple other levers that could be pushed.
All of this only really started after Lawrence Bishnoi started his gang war in Punjab/Haryana/Delhi/Rajasthan.
There's a lot of shifting alliances and blood being spilled now that politics in the state of Punjab are in a flux after the AAP won and destroyed the entire political status quo of Congress versus SAD/BJP.
My gut as someone who has lived in Surrey and has heard the stories in Gurdawaras and Mandirs is that this is Dawood-Chota Rajan 2.0
Lawrence Bishnoi did claim responsibility for the 2nd killing. But what makes you so sure that the Indian government is contracting the hit squad? The big problem that Canada has is they have not even identified the killer. Even if Bishnoi makes big claims, how are they going to prove them? And then they will have to estabilish the link between GoI and Bishnoi. All that if at all their 'conspiracy theory' that India has a hand in killings holds any water. Which I honestly doubt.
> It was reported that Pavan Kumar Rai posted a hit on Nijjar on some deepweb website used to hire assassins.
If that is the case, I'd have hoped it would be viral by now. But anyhow, they would have to establish the link between the Pavan Kumar Rai's activities and the killer. The killer who they have not identified.
It's similar to when Biden said Russia's Nord stream gas pipelines will be no more if Russia invades Ukraine. When the sabotage was done, no one could blame the US since there was no evidence linking it to them.
India and the US are not in remotely comparable positions geopolitically. Yemen or Pakistan asserting their right to self defense to the UN to justify declaring war on the US would simply be suicide for them, and just another middle eastern country to topple for the US. So the US just informs the UNSC that they are killing Bin Laden on Pakistani soil, and do so in such a way as to give Pakistan plausible justification for not declaring war, since they have no interest in doing so.
If Canada decided that they were going to declare war based on self-defense, before going to the UN, they'd be going to the US and NATO, the most powerful military organizations on Earth. Canada, even just as the US's hat, enjoys the kind of superpower status that India can only fantasize about.
"The death of Ayman al-Zawahiri is a step toward a safer world. Canada will keep working with our global partners to counter terrorist threats, promote peace and security, and keep people here at home and around the world safe" -Justin Trudeau
So extraterrestrial killing are fine when certain countries do it?
if literally all your arguments and all your discussions depend on your use of whataboutism, the problem and solution lie within yourself: conceive of affirmative arguments supporting your position which aren't logical fallacies, like whataboutism is
It is my father having a love child with the neighbour's wife while I get a ass whopping for sleeping with the maid.
All jokes aside; I believe the western world set a dangerous precedent with the war on terror and the chickens are coming home to roost. Am fearful of what is to come in the future.
Russia's war on Ukraine may end up emboldening nations to act as they please with regards to dissidents wherever they might be and this is a scary world that we moving into.
Distraction from the relevant point by bringing up cases where the accusee might be construed as having performed the same act as the accused. It's a distraction because it detracts from whether the accused did or didn't do the act. And the matter here is whether India did it; distractions away from this question are either implying that they did it ("so what if I did, you did too"), or an attempt to throw off and confuse the conversations about it.
It is important here because it takes away the moral high ground. It is also important because those who did it previously have not faced any repercussions, so why would anybody hesitate to do this.
I think people who use the word whataboutism do not understand the more difficult concept of hypocrisy. It's more difficult because it requires contextual reasoning.
"Whataboutism" is easy because it's purely syntactic, every time someone says "What about ...", you are allowed to accuse them of it--instead of having to confront, in good faith, an implied accusation of hypocrisy.
It's like Orwellian newspeak, but the new word is less expressive and more likely to confuse the disagreement.
I think people who engage in whataboutism and defend it with cries of "hypocrisy" do not understand the even more difficult concept that, even if you personally think that someone else is a hypocrite, it doesn't make you any less wrong.
Indeed, whataboutism itself is easy because it's purely distractional: "but Y is a hypocrite!" a defender of X may shout, when the topic is not Y, or their hypocrisy, but X, and what X did.
If your argument is that it was okay for X to do the thing, then you should be able to affirmatively say outright "I think it was okay for X to do the thing", and convincingly explain why, on a moral basis, it was okay for X to do the thing, without bringing anyone else into it.
Otherwise, it's like a child whining "but Stevie took a candy bar!" – maybe, maybe not, but that doesn't mean it's okay for you to take one, even if you think that makes someone a hypocrite
Explain this in more details. The outline I gather of your position is that "the US killed Ben Laden on Pakistani territory so India killed someone on Canadian territory, Canada had it coming for what they did to Ben Laden". Fill in the details.
If you harbour terrorists who are wanted by your ostensible partners, don't be surprised if they lose patience and decide to take matters into their own hands.
I don't care how you were raised, but two wrongs don't make a right, and unilateral, extrajudicial, extraterritorial assassinations of political opponents are wrong, even if you shout "terrorist!" while murdering
imagine if such shouting made murder okay, like a secret, magical incantation any arbitrary thug could recite to immunize oneself from guilt - it's a ridiculous concept when you think about it!
I'd say this is different from the trolley problem, because, again, unilateral, extrajudicial, extraterritorial assassinations of political opponents are wrong, even if you shout "terrorist!" while murdering
they are always wrong
it doesn't matter if you also did a good thing, it doesn't even matter if the good thing was related: you aren't allowed to do the wrong thing, period, even if you really, really, really want to, even if you think you have a good reason to break the rules and do wrong
and as to your first question, eh, could be for some examples, but it'd be a distraction, as the answer doesn't matter, because the case we're discussing definitely wasn't either one
Not hopefully for Trudeau. If he has no incontrovertible proof that the international community would accept, then this move should be the end of his political career in Canada. It won't be, but it should be.
There's been seven or eight major scandals that should have been the end of his political career, but because of certain uncomfortable political realities he is immovable.
He would have to voluntarily retire from his party and politics altogether...and unfortunately it seems like he likes power.
It is if the nation harboring the terrorist refuses to cooperate with an interpol order related to murder and the person is actively killing politicians in your country. What exactly was India supposed to do since Canada refused to work with them? Sit on their hands and watch their elected reps get assassinated?
The accepted response is escalating the situation on the diplomatical level. Imposing sanctions if necessary. Getting other countries impose them as well. And, in extreme cases, trying to get the UN Security Council authorize military action.
Well they killed him and haven’t had any real consequences so I would say killing him was also an accepted response. It was accepted by everyone realistically able to do anything about the situation.
Not facing real immediate consequences is not the same as acceptance. Especially when we are talking about acceptance in the moral/normative sense.
Besides, you should wait at least a decade or two before talking about consequences. Things don't change that quickly in international relations, because the stakes are so big. But they do change, as you can see from the relations between Russia and the West.
This is whataboutism, and you imply that extraterritorial killing by India on Canadian soil is ok, because Ben Laden.
And so what new status quo are you suggesting by this?
Ben Laden was a well known terrorist and the US never hid the fact that they went there and did that. If the same is happening here, why isn't India coming up clean and saying "yes we killed this guy because he was responsible in XYZ grave crime and sorry not sorry". That would at least be comparable to the "US/Ben Laden" parallel you're trying to make.
Perhaps, the poster is referring to assassinations by the West being overlooked and/or justified while those committed by other countries are vilified and even an excuse for the West starting another war, killing millions of people in the name of vengeance.
By the way, many “intrajudicial” killings are not justified either.
> Perhaps, the poster is referring to assassinations by the West being overlooked and/or justified while those committed by other countries are vilified and even an excuse for the West starting another war, killing millions of people in the name of vengeance.
The situations are different because in the case of Ben Laden, the intent of the US was well known and publicized, and there was an international warrant for his arrest, and the US never denied responsibility. As such I don't think it makes sense to compare the situations as if they were equal and that it represents an application of dual standards.
I'm not saying it was ok (or not ok) to go for Ben Laden. I'm saying it's not a comparable situation.
> By the way, many “intrajudicial” killings are not justified either.
That's a political position which is defensible and thoroughly debated.
Also, am sure there are lot of people America killed or got killed cause it forwarded their cause or it removed a thorn. And if you don't believe that, you are clearly ill-informed.
> So you do agree extraterrestrial killing are justified if the country says so in advance.
Whether it's ok or not is a different matter. But it is definitely _different_ if you tell the whole world "if we find this person, and you don't hand them over and we have a warrant, we will kill them on your territory or not".
In this case, whoever is harboring the person of interest knows fully what's coming, and isn't going to be surprised by it. Citizens of the country might be unhappy about it, but they will understand that this was coming, and it was a risk and the government decided that they were going to run that risk.
Whereas killing someone of little significance and pretending like nothing. That's the stuff Russia does. So yes it's different, and the reputational impact is different.
Do you believe that US govt gives advance warning when it carries out assacinations. Western govt would have done thousands of these kind of operations.
Your orginal assessment is correct. Extraterrestrial are not justified and it applies to West as well and foremost USA. Whatever Russian have done I assume USA has done worse. That is its reputation!
Well I take offense if India killed someone in Canada. And if Canada killed someone in India, I would also take offense. I wish none of these parties had such disappointing relationships.
> Whether it's ok or not is a different matter. But it is definitely _different_ if you tell the whole world "if we find this person, and you don't hand them over and we have a warrant, we will kill them on your territory or not
I think you're simply not aware of the facts in this case. The Indian govt certainly appears to have done the first part of what you said, including putting out an Interpol notice.
Its not whataboutism. America did the same thing. And let me tell you clearly - someone killed some innocent people in India from canada, and then they were taken out because the country they are hiding in refused to take action against them. Why didn't Canada do anything about these Khalistan supporters when India has been clearly stating and giving evidence to Canada that they have all virtues of terrorists?
Not to mention the travesty that followed in terms of bringing the perpetrators to justice. Most of them walked, owing to witnesses getting murdered in Canada under RCMP's watch.
There is zero credible information that the person assassinated had anything to do with any armed militant groups. He was a political activist. RCMP and CSIS investigated him quite thoroughly.
edit: the persons posting replies to "news" articles contradicting this are from sources that are hardcore Modi/BJP supporters. About as credible as posting a newsmax URL.
This guy killed the President of Bangladesh and most of his family (women and children included) and is now a guest of Canada and is refused extradition based on a technicality.
I don't condone extra-judiciary killings but Canada absolutely has and continue to harbor criminals.
Hard to find the info, but seems like the guy got sentenced to death in absentia.
From what I can tell, Canada can’t constitutionally extradite when a death sentence is on the table.
Not much of a technicality. Not a guest of Canada either, but nowhere to deport him to. Bangladeshi judges basically made this guy unreturnable to Bangladesh.
Probably also fair-trial concerns in any conviction in absentia. Kinda surprised another common-law country allows that as Canada doesn’t.
This isn't even particularly unusual. Most of Europe can't or won't extradite people when a death sentence is a possibility for basically the same reason, including to the US - the only way for the US to get an extradition is through a binding agreement that the person being extradited cannot be sentenced to death. Actually, the Canadian Supreme Court case which found this to be unconstitutional seems to have involved an extradition to the US from what I can tell...
At the very least he appears guilty of traveling on fake passport and committing immigration fraud to obtain Canadian citizenship, for which normal folks without special treatment would be punished for. But the Canadian govt seems so hell bent on harboring him that the Immigration Minister was willing to lie to the world on Twitter about him.
Feels more like incompetence and red tape. Canadian immigration authorities are not the greatest at background checks. I've had distant relatives buy fake credentials in PB and HP to emigrate to Canada and they're now PRs and Citizens
A lot of people are saying that these accusations against India must be true, and why would Canada lie, it has no benefit from lying.
The Trudeau government operates significantly differently than previous administrations, they have used their national security advisor and CSIS before to lie about India to save their prime minister from embarrassment and then get caught red handed for making false accusations.
An example incident around 2018-2019
Canadian Prime Minister on his visit to India in 2018 had invited a known terrorist in hiding to his gala, who was shown to even take a photograph with his wife, the first lady at that event [0]
Then after this incident blew up back then, the national security advisor of Canada, CSIS and the Canadian Prime Minister claimed that it was rogue elements in the Indian government who brought the criminal to the gala to embarass Canada [1]
Only for a liberal mp from Prime Minister’s own party admitting they were the ones who invited the known fugitive who was facing charges on attempted murder against Indian beauracrats and journalists. [2][3]
It was a disaster and showed how the current prime minister likes to use public services to save his face and make false accusation against other governments and nations.
The Minister even had to resign later for this.
I’ve added two attributions for last point [2] and [3] a canadian and a indian media source as it wasnt widely publicised in Canada (considering how embarrassing it was for them) but was widely shown in India
I linked only canadian sources and newspapers to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I’ve also found the current canadian administration with how unprofessional they are, their prime minister was caught publicly insulting trump and making jokes about him at a NATO summit (no matter what you think of trump, it is unprofessional and bad, considering canada was back then negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with america back then), he has lied about India accusing them of serious things before then after getting caught about it, put it all under the bus.
He has soured relationships with a lot of countries, China, India, USA (under Trump), publicly tried to lecture Italy (no matter what your opinions are on that), got shamed at EU parliament during his speech.
The winners of this news coming out are the victims and family members of the murder victim, as the norm until now was to hide information. As normal people, we all win when governments hold less secrets.
By sharing inconvenient information, I am more likely to trust the Trudeau Government, eventhough I don't agree with them on most things anymore.
> The winners of this news coming out are the victims and family members of the murder victim
I wish the 320 Air India passenger victims got the same consideration from Canada even though the Canadian citizens were likely ethnically South Asian than Canadian. The alleged perpetuators were let go due to lack of evidence two decades later.
> Wiretaps by Canada’s intelligence agency had been erased before they could be used as evidence
You keep bringing this up, but I don't see how it's relevant considering Hardeep Singh Nijjar was 8 years old at the time of the bombing.
> Wiretaps by Canada’s intelligence agency had been erased before they could be used as evidence
Is there any evidence of a coverup? The trial was ~20 years after the wiretaps were collected which leaves plenty of time for incompetence/negligence to do the job.
> Is there any evidence of a coverup? The trial was ~20 years after the wiretaps were collected which leaves plenty of time for incompetence/negligence to do the job.
> Opposition MPs call for an inquiry into accusations that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) blocked the RCMP investigation into the bombing.
> According to RCMP documents, CSIS ordered the destruction of hours of wiretaps to conceal the fact that one of its agents, Surjan Singh Gill, had penetrated a circle of Sikh extremists planning the attack. He was ordered to pull out three days before Air India Flight 182 blew up.
> You keep bringing this up, but I don't see how it's relevant considering Hardeep Singh Nijjar was 8 years old at the time of the bombing
The accused in the bombing was heavily associated with Nijjar later on to the point of them having a dispute and a lawsuit about a commercial printing press used for the separatist movement.
The impact on the immediate victim and family members pales in comparison to the large scale impact this can have by driving a wedge between nations that ought to be friendly and allied.
I don't wish India and Canada (and the West) to be unfriendly for one bit, as the result of this misalignment could be a more severe return to bloody Cold War era and its related proxy wars. Many more victims will derive from democracies not being on good terms and showing a strong unity.
The only winner in this spat is whoever benefits from India and the West being driven apart.
The local canadian plumber who like to volunteer at his place of worship was a known indian fugitive with an interpol request for extradition. He also ran a training camp in Mission,BC to build a militant army. Canada can keep these snakes in its back yard.
Haven't seen any evidence for the militant training camp except for unrelated video that clearly showed a different person. Countries can put anyone on Interpol, including activists and that's a known problem https://www.voanews.com/a/as-interpol-turns-100-criticism-pe...
Well, you can deflect what I said all you want but the fact remains that he was a terrorist with credible links to crimes in India.
If a Country’s sitting prime minister and innocent citizens (mid-flight ref Kanishka bombing) are murdered by terrorists, would you find fault if that country goes to the end of the earth to eliminate them?
US was one such country. Canada sent its soldiers into Afghanistan and Iraq in the past while innocent civilians were being killed in the open.
If India did have a hand in Nijjar’s killing, it perhaps did it to either send a message to Khalistani’s that it’s not to be messed with. Canada is tolerant of intolerance. Again, it can keep its snakes in its backyard.
They probably didn't want this wedge, and the leak to the media that forced Canadian PM's hand was probably not motivated by neither India or Canada's interests. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would think that a third party with an interest in dividing these two countries would have leaked the information.
The Five Eyes and India have been communicating about this for a couple months now, but Trudeau publicly announced this after The Globe and Mail said they would publish a story about Foreign Interference. To preempt that Trudeau announced this in Parliament 30 minutes before that article was released [0]
Generally, stuff at this level is highly sensitive and classified because it becomes a headache for everyone [1]. It doesn't make sense for the Canadian PMO to leak this despite G20 crap because it has no actual benefit during a non-election year nor does it make sense for the Indian PMO to leak this as this impacts Indian foreign relations.
Was this a disgruntled CSIS analyst (like the China Election Interference leak), the Tories (they leaked the existence of a military base in Afghanistan used for anti-Taliban black ops), disgruntled NDP MPs (force an early election and win the Vancouver suburbs where they compete against the Liberals), or disgruntled Liberal MPs (force an early election and get a cabinet position or a more senior role)?
[0] - https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/harjit-sajjan-hardeep-s...
[1] - personal experience