When an agent of Stalin carried out Operation Utka (duck) in Mexico, sinking a three-inch pickaxe into Trotsky’s skull, President Lázaro Cárdenas was faced with a dilemma: what to do with this political crime ordered by the all-powerful leader of a gigantic country. The Canadian Prime Minister must have felt something similar regarding the political crime that was committed in Vancouver, when he realized who ordered it.
Hareep Singh Nijjar was leaving the Gurdwara and was shot by two men who were waiting for him at the door of that Sikh temple. The murder was thus perpetrated, posing a dilemma for Canada and the other Western powers. It turns out that the person who ordered this political crime is none other than Narendra Modi, the powerful Indian prime minister, a star protagonist on the international stage. And the Western powers were left with the dilemma of leaving this act unpunished, or fighting with a government whose friendship they need to contain China.
Many governments have eliminated internal enemies beyond their borders and not all cases are comparable. With the precedent of Stalin assassinating Trotsky in Mexico, Vladimir Putin became a serial killer who used England as his gallows. And no country with self-esteem can allow crimes ordered by other governments.
Nijjab bled to death at the door of the most important Gurdwara of the Sikh community in British Columbia. That attack caused a crisis between Canada and India. Justin Trudeau pointed the finger of blame at New Delhi. Police investigators and the Canadian intelligence agency found strong indications that the national-religious government of the Asian giant would have used the long arm of the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), which is India’s foreign intelligence apparatus, to eliminate a separatist leader whom he accused of financing Sikh “terrorism” in the Indian state of Punjab.
Confronting the influential leader of an emerging power, such as that of the Asian subcontinent, is not easy. But the Sikh community, which represents 1.7 percent of the total population of India, has a diaspora in Canada that represents more than two percent of the population of that North American country. And it is a very influential minority.
The one pointed out by Trudeau’s finger is not a marginal leader, like the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, or the coup generals of sub-Saharan Africa, or the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or the head of the Afghan Taliban. The one pointed by the Canadian president’s accusing finger is none other than Narendra Modi, the prime minister of the most populous country in the world and one of the most thriving emerging economies. A hyperactive ruler and related to top world leaders, which he amply demonstrated as host of the recent G20 summit in New Delhi.
What is Sikh independence? Why might an Indian ruler have ordered the assassination of a Sikh leader in Canada?
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion created in the 15th century by Guru Nanak, the first of the ten great Sikh masters. The doctrine is nourished by the Koran and the Vedas, because when it emerged in a region that was always tense by clashes between Hindus and Muslims, it sought to integrate these two religions into a new religion that would convert that land of aversions and confrontations into a land of meeting and reconciliation.
Sikh means “disciple” and the almost 25 million followers it has in India and in foreign countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, follow the precepts of the sacred book Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Sikhism was the official religion in the Great Khalistan Empire, which encompassed the present-day Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandijar, and Delhi, as well as portions of Kashmir and Rajasthan.
The splendor of Khalistan extended from the 18th century to the mid-19th century. But Sikhism remained the dominant religion in those lands where Hindus and Muslims had only agreed to venerate Guru Nanak. Both in the British era and in independent India, the northern state of Punjab was the epicenter of Sikh culture and also of the idea of creating a Sikh state: Khalistan.
In 1984, the independence movement promoted the massive occupation of the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the main sanctuary of the Sikhs in the sacred Punjabi city. Indira Gandhi sent the army to repress, causing more than a thousand deaths in the precincts of the most important Gurdwara and revered by the faithful of Sikhism.
Bhindranwale, the leader of the Sikh independence insurgency, died in the massacre. The revenge of the independentists fighting to separate Punjab from India and recreate Khalistan came four months later, when the prime minister who ordered the massacre at the Golden Temple was riddled with bullets in her residence in New Delhi by two of his bodyguards, who were Sikhs.
Sikh terrorism also caused the downing of an Air India plane that had taken off from Montreal heading to London, in what was the worst terrorist attack perpetrated in Canada.
Sikh violence occupied the 1970s and 1980s but the current Indian government believes it is still acting. Within the framework of his proclaimed war against Sikh separatism, through the RAW, he would have carried out the June murder in Vancouver.
Trudeau’s accusation of Modi’s Hindu-national government, which is characterized by harassing religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Sikhs, has generated strong diplomatic tension between both countries. No one is comfortable with the situation, because Canada is a strong investor in the Indian economy, which is tempting for Canadian companies due to its great economic growth, while India, with serious border disputes with China, does not find it convenient to break with China. a member of the Five Eyes, the alliance between the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Trudeau knows that Washington, London and Canberra will not easily accept a tough confrontation with Narendra Modi, because India is one of the checks on Chinese power and it would be unwise to create New Delhi a reason to ally with Beijing. But the Canadian prime minister and his allies also know that allowing the Indian leader to act as Putin acts would not be a good precedent.
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