On June 18th, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist and Canadian citizen, was shot dead in front of a Sikh temple near Vancouver. Last week, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau alleged that Indian agents were behind the assassination. Although no evidence has been presented to the public, C.B.C. reports that the “credible allegations” were derived from Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance between the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Now that India’s Ministry of External Affairs has rejected the allegations as “absurd,” there is growing pressure on Ottawa to release the evidence to the public.
According to The Hill, New Delhi classified Nijjar as a terrorist in 2022 and has continuously accused Canada of protecting extremist elements within the country. Following the dispute, both countries expelled their respective diplomats and India suspended visa services for Canadians.
Nijjar was a firm supporter of the Khalistan movement, which aims to set up an independent theocratic Sikh state in the Punjab province of India. According to the Washington Post, 24 million of the currently 26 million Sikhs in the world live in India, comprising roughly 1.7% of the nation’s total population. Tensions between the Sikh and Hindu communities were intentionally heightened under the British colonial system in order to suppress any unified rebellion. Subsequently, resentment between the Punjab state and the Indian government has persisted following Indian independence.
The Khalistan movement reached its climax in the 1980s and 1990s, during which decades of violence between Sikh and Hindu forces led to the deaths of thousands. The violence surrounding the movement became particularly devastating in 1984, when Indian forces raided the Golden Temple to arrest suspected separatists. Targeting the Sikhs’ holiest site was met with strong resistance and bloodshed. Although official figures say the operation killed around 400 people, many Sikh activists argue the death toll was in the thousands. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister who ordered the operation, was assassinated just five months later, which ultimately led to more ethnic violence.
In 1985, Air India Flight 182 was bombed on its way to India from Canada by a Sikh terrorist. The bombing killed all 329 passengers, making it the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history. Although violence persisted for several years following that incident, the insurgency movement started to cool down during the 1990s, and nowadays there is relative peace and stability between the groups.
Although the Khalistan movement only enjoys limited support within India nowadays, diasporic Sikhs are increasingly signing on. Although the Indian government has banned the movement domestically, Sikhs in the diaspora are free to advocate for their cause in other nations – including Canada, which, according to the Washington Post, is home to 770,000 Sikhs. This makes it host to the largest population of Sikhs outside of India.
Nijjar was just one of many Sikh activists who vocalized their support for Khalistan state. Acknowledging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi considers the Khalistan movement a priority security threat, the Indian government does have a strong motive for Nijjar’s assassination. However, because no conclusive evidence has been presented to the public no assumptions should be made. When it comes to diplomatic disputes such as the one presented, transparency and dialogue are of the utmost importance. It is worrying that both governments have engaged in retaliatory acts despite the lack of information available to the public.
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