Editorial: A nudge from Washington

CHENNAI: Foreign policy practitioners in India tend to dismiss the Khalistan issue as one of no significance, kept alive only by an extremist fringe of the Sikh diaspora in Canada, USA, Australia and UK. It may well be, but in the past few months it has become a major headache that threatens to sour India’s relations with the very countries that it is currently in a dalliance with. Worse, if not handled skilfully, it may end up offering human rights leverage to the West.

Within that context, a western media report this week that US agencies foiled a plot, possibly by Indian or Indian-associated actors, to assassinate Sikh separatist activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a major setback to India’s defence against Canada’s allegation that Indian state agencies were involved in the murder of another Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver in June. The White House has confirmed the story and conveyed to New Delhi, at a very senior level, that it is taking a serious view of the plot to kill a US citizen on its soil.

India’s reaction to Washington’s concerns has been a stark contrast to its hot-headed response when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broached his misgivings on the Nijjar murder with his Indian counterpart at the G-20 summit in September. Then, reacting with anger, New Delhi escalated matters into an ugly spat, stopping visa processing for Canadians coming to India and forcing Ottawa to cut down the number of its diplomats. To the current American insinuation on somewhat similar charges, however, the Ministry of External Affairs has reacted guardedly, stating that it was carefully examining the information provided to it.

Responding with a cool head was the correct thing to do. That should have been New Delhi’s approach too when Canada disclosed its suspicions on the Nijjar murder. Diplomacy is best practised tactfully rather than feistily. Having now agreed to consider the facts furnished to it on the Pannun plot, New Delhi would be expected to act similarly in regard to the Nijjar case, thereby appearing to backtrack on its earlier truculence. An indication of this is that visa processing for Canadian visitors has been quietly restored.

More details of the Pannun plot are likely to be made public when the indictment of one of the suspected plotters now in the custody of US agencies is unsealed. If Indian state agencies had any association with the plotters or would-be assassins, New Delhi needs to brace up for further embarrassment.

Both the Nijjar and Pannun cases underline the need for India to argue its case more cogently. Khalistan activists have in recent years staged gratuitous provocations against India in many countries in the West. Indian missions have been attacked in the UK and Canada, our citizens have been subjected to threats and intimidation in Australia and the US. Canada’s investigation into the 1965 Air India Kanishka bombing was anything but adequate and perpetrators of the crime were allowed to operate freely within the Khalistan movement in that country. While these facts do give India a credible case to argue in the court of public opinion, New Delhi must ponder why its protestations seem not to gain enough credence. It can only be because its own Machiavellian ways detract from the merits of the case.