Canada Blind to Power Shifts

When Canada accused India of assassinating a Khalistani Sikh leader, Nijjar, I was curious how things would play out. On the one hand was the likely West-hangs-together groupism; on the other hand lay India’s growing economic power and its geopolitical value as a counterweight to China.

 

It started with the expected tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats which then escalated to the downsizing of embassies. When Canada tried to corner the remaining “Five Eyes” spying allies (US, UK, Australia and New Zealand) into confirming their allegations, they only got token statements from those countries.

 

As I saw this Netflix spy movie starring Tabu called Khufiya, I found another reason for the silence of the Five Eyes. In that movie, an Indian R&AW agent played by Tabu tells the CIA agent, “If I can prove that the US spied on an ally (India), things will get very messy”. That unwritten rule (countries don’t spy on their allies) is probably another reason the other “Eyes” have reacted the way they did - India is an ally-in-the-making for the West and as Tabu said, you don’t spy on allies. Well ok, you do spy on them (everyone does it), but you don’t go around admitting it openly.

 

Bit by bit, India found it advantageous to not deny the charges. The perception that India was now strong enough to take out targets, even in Western countries, works to our advantage. Canada has helped by inflicting many self-goals.

 

One, Canada lives in a delusional world where it thinks it matters more than India geopolitically – when the world changes, some countries adapt; others like Canada don’t. Two, support for terrorist groups isn’t an issue on which Canada could have expected Western support. Don’t get me wrong – the West is cynical and has/will support terrorists when it suits them, but Khalistan doesn’t serve any strategic or tactical interest of the West. Three, since Canada had brushed aside attacks on Indian embassies and consulate members as “freedom of speech”, it gave India the chance to turn the conversation to that topic. Condoning attacks on embassies isn’t a slippery slope that the West will allow – imagine what will happen to Western embassies in the Middle East.

 

This is what happens when vote bank politics goes out of control – for a tiny Sikh minority in their country that matters a lot electorally, Canada has alienated one of the world’s biggest and fastest growing economies. That is in addition to having burnt all bridges with China over the Huawei affair (where Canada arrested top executives of the company on America’s bidding).

 

Destroying relations with two of world’s largest economies in the world with great growth prospects, now that requires monumental stupidity. But hey, Canadian PM Trudeau probably won himself another term in office with the support of his Sikh constituents.