The more one thinks about Justin Trudeau's assassination of India, the more it becomes clear that other people may be involved in the nefarious plot to corner New Delhi. In actuality, he could not even be the major character. This is true despite the fact that Trudeau felt disrespected at the recent G20 Summit, which India hosted. Additionally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ignored him because to Ottawa's questionable Khalistani links. Of course, he finds himself falling behind in Canadian politics and seeks to overtake them by bringing up a sensitive subject. And certainly, the ruling Liberal Party is under investigation for his shady Chinese connections.
Still, it makes perfect sense that Trudeau would revive an India ghost in the murder of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a notorious Khalistani terrorist. More so because it occurs not long after India raised its global profile with the G20 chairmanship. The suspicion increased after a New York Times article published on Sunday, 24 September, claimed that US espionage agencies allegedly informed Canada about the June murder of Nijjar. The article claims that American agencies provided the Canadian agencies with background information that allowed Ottawa to draw the conclusion that New Delhi was responsible for the murder. Interestingly, the United States has requested India to assist Canada in its investigations after Trudeau's outburst.
One wonders if American agents, who allegedly gave Canada information on Nijjar's murder, tricked Trudeau. Perhaps this is what allowed Trudeau to accuse India of extraterritorial killing this time, presuming incorrectly and foolishly that the US was supporting Canada. However, it later turned out that the Americans didn't provide any specific information; rather, as the NYT story states, it was merely the "context," which Trudeau disastrously mistook in order to bring the Indo-Canadian relations to an all-time low.
Why the US would try to corner India so soon after Modi and Biden's friendly exchanges at the G20 Summit in Delhi may be a mystery. What Gautam Sen said in an essay for Firstpost titled "Why West is so uncomfortable with rising India and happy to sponsor its enemies" may hold the key to the solution. The Americans and their European allies "have uses for India but no real camaraderie or commitment towards it" (18 July 2022). The negative coverage that the emerging, new India receives on a daily basis in the Euro-American media gives away the Western countries' uneasiness with it.
However, one must realise that a nation's foreign policy is mostly dictated by its national interest before falling into anti-American trappings. Despite recognising India's importance, particularly in light of mounting Chinese threats, the West, particularly the US, is of the opinion that a powerful Delhi would eventually push it out of its sphere of influence. India should strategically combine its geostrategic advantages and economic leverages to advance its national interest, just as the West is free to advance its agenda.
What's unsettling is the American (Western) propensity to sacrifice the long-term for hasty, short-term advantages. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine serves as a case study of how the US sacrificed its long-term goal of building a stronger alliance against expanding Chinese hegemony in favour of the urgent task of fixing Vladimir Putin. Had the Americans treated Putin with the maturity of a single superpower, they might have turned him into a valuable ally in the fight against Xi Jinping's evil plans.
Returning to the main point, this concern that India may grow to be "too big to control" frequently turns the West into an enemy. It would hug India one second and then seek for excuses to confront it with problems, whether they were real or made up. India is frequently admired and detested at the same time. This is a Western strategy for cornering Delhi and getting their cake (India's support for China) at the same time.
Khalistanis are merely a weapon for the West to keep New Delhi "engaged" in the same manner that Pakistanis have used them to forward their objective for ethnic division. A quick check at the official map of Khalistan, created by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, one of the most prominent Khalistani leaders and a lawyer in New York, would demonstrate how the entire project has been more about criticising India than it has been about Sikh identity and aspiration. For instance, the official Khalistani map includes not just the Indian state of Punjab but also all of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Delhi's National Capital Territory. The Khalistanis also assert a significant portion of Rajasthan.
The map is absurd on two different levels. One: In order to establish a Punjabi nation, Khalistanis are primarily seeking non-Punjabi states. Only Punjab has a significant Sikh population among the other Indian states that the Khalistanis claim. Hindus make up 87 percent of the population in Haryana, 81 percent in Delhi, 95 percent in Himachal Pradesh, and 88 percent in Rajasthan.
The generosity of the Khalistanis in choosing not to claim any territory from Pakistan is even more absurd given that there are several Sikh historical and religious sites on the other side of the border. Since Lahore was once Maharaja Ranjit Singh's capital, nothing is demanded from Pakistani Punjab because of the great regard that Khalistanis have for the Radcliffe Line. Even the revered Nankana Sahib, the location of Guru Nanak's birth, has been purposefully left off the Khalistan map. The sheer fact that the Khalistanis prefer Delhi to Lahore reveals the movement's true, evil goals for the pretended homeland of the Sikhs.
The West-Pakistan relationship is evident from the start of the Khalistani misadventure. Jagjit Singh Chauhan, the leader of the Khalistan "movement," founded this terrorist organisation while he was in Pakistan. Gen Yahya Khan, the nation's then-military dictator, gave him a warm welcome during his stay. Following this, he travelled to New York and published an advertisement in The New York Times on October 12, 1971, announcing the creation of Khalistan. The advertisement declared, "We won't wait any longer. "Today, the last crusade begins... We stand as a sovereign nation. That advertisement on American soil was allegedly purchased by the Pakistani Embassy!
After the humiliation of the 1971 war, which resulted in the creation of a new nation called Bangladesh, Pakistan's desire to balkanize India also acquired a new, retaliatory angle. Gen. Yahya Khan's successor, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, also inherited the Khalistan project and added Pakistan's desire for vengeance to it. At an off-the-record briefing in 1973, Tarek Fatah, a late Canadian journalist of Pakistani descent, overheard Bhutto promise to carve out a slice of India -- Khalistan -- in order to avenge 1971. Fatah paraphrased Bhutto as saying, "Pakistan will also have a Bangladesh, carved out of India, but it will be on Pakistan's border." Additionally, it made geostrategic sense because Kashmir, which is physically isolated from the rest of India, would be available for conquest once Khalistan was won.
Whatever the case, the reality is that India and the West, especially the US, need one another for their own interests as well as for the survival of the liberal world order, which is being threatened by China under Xi Jinping. Yes, there are some similarities and distinctions between the two, which may help to explain why the US and India are not allies in the same sense that the US and Europe are. Nevertheless, for the liberal world order to continue to be 'liberal' and 'ordered,' the two must maintain their friendship. In order to achieve this, the US-led West must stop pampering anti-Indian groups in the West.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect CurrentEventsAlert views.
0 Comments