How supporting Khalistan could cost Trudeau Quebec too
Only when the shoe is on the other foot does it begin to pinch. Mixed metaphors notwithstanding, only if (or when) the west is faced with the same situation will it understand India’s concern. Had a Norwegian child been forcibly sent to a foster family in India—as happened to Sagarika Chakraborty’s children in Oslo—there would have been howls of protest by the West. Imagine if a Quebecois secessionist group put up posters all over India urging assassinations of Canada’s envoys…

Given the high security Western diplomats inevitably insist on when posted in non-Western nations, the lack of outrage there against “Kill” posters put up by Khalistanis, featuring the names and faces of India’s envoys to Canada and the UK, is astoundingly hypThe official Canadian response to India’s concerns about the Khalistan rally slated for 8 July in Toronto and Vancouver is also stunningly mealy-mouthed, and perhaps of a piece with its lax stance regarding Sikh separatist activities. Its Foreign Minister Melanie Joly has said, “Canada takes its obligations under the Vienna Conventions regarding the safety of diplomats very seriously… We know that the actions of a few do not speak for an entire community, or Canada.”

But allowing a “few” to put targets on the backs of diplomats with impunity shows that Canada takes its international treaty obligations with a serious lack of application. More so as those Khalistani posters urging supporters to kill Indian diplomats bring back memories of the horrific 1984 kidnapping and murder of Ravindra Mhatre, posted at the Indian deputy high commission in Birmingham in UK by terrorist sympathisers of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.

The Canadian minister’s response would be rightfully deemed inadequate by any country whose diplomats and private nationals have become the stated focus of malevolent intentions. Khalistani activists have a well-known goal of vivisecting only India, as its supposed “stan” does not include the area of west Punjab, now in Pakistan. That significant omission not only points to the separatists’ funders and instigators but also to their survival despite lack of traction in India.ocritical. Open incitement to assassinate is being passed off as innocuous expressions of opinion. So Indian diplomats are in the crosshairs of not only secessionist organisations but also crazy, lone ranger assassins.