External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar speaks at NDTV World Summit 2024, in New Delhi on Monday (October 21, 2024).
| Photo Credit: ANI

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Monday (October 21, 2024) hit out at Canada for its “double standards” as the ties between New Delhi and Ottawa came under severe strain over the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil last year.

“Double standards is a very mild word for it,” Mr. Jaishankar said while explaining how Canada treats other diplomats and the “licence” their diplomats try to use while in India.

Last week, New Delhi expelled Canadian Charge d’Affaires Stewart Wheeler and five other diplomats following Ottawa’s fresh allegations of the Indian Government’s involvement in Nijjar’s killing in British Columbia.

India also recalled its high commissioner and five more diplomats, who are on their way back to India. The Canadian government had said the Indian diplomats were expelled from the country.

“I think there are some very specific issues. Canada asked us to subject our high commissioner to a police inquiry and we chose to withdraw the high commissioner and diplomats,” Mr. Jaishankar said at the NDTV World Summit.

“They seem to have a problem if Indian diplomats are even trying to make efforts to find out what is happening in Canada on matters which directly pertain to their welfare and security.

“But look what happens in India. Canadian diplomats have no problem going around collecting information on our military, police, profiling people, targeting people to be stopped in Canada,” he said.

“So apparently, the licence that they give themselves is totally different from the kind of restrictions that they impose on diplomats in Canada. When we tell them you have people openly threatening leaders of India, diplomats of India, their answer is freedom of speech,” Mr. Jaishankar added.

The bilateral ties nosedived after Canada linked Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Verma and other diplomats to Nijjar’s killing.

New Delhi has strongly rejected all the allegations made by Ottawa in connection to the case relating to the killing of Nijjar, who was a designated terrorist in India.

“If you threaten the Indian high commissioner, he is supposed to accept it as freedom of speech, but if an Indian journalist says the Canadian high commissioner walked out of the South Block looking very grumpy, it is apparently foreign interference,” Mr. Jaishankar said.

Asked about certain pro-Khalistani elements openly issuing threats to India’s airlines, diplomats and high commission, he said, “These threats are cleverly worded. They (the Canadian government) call this freedom of speech. But my question to them is – if you receive these threats, would you take them lightly?” the minister asked.

“If it was your airline being threatened, your Parliament, your diplomats…. This is exactly the kind of problem with which we started this conversation,” he said.

The External Affairs Minister said India is having a problem with a segment of Canadian politics.

“We are having a problem with a segment of politics in Canada,” he said.

“I think we would like to maintain people-to-people relations. I think we need to narrow this down and define this problem for what it is,” Mr. Jaishankar added.

New Delhi:

India has summoned Canada’s charge d’ affairs in New Delhi after the diplomatic relations between the two countries witnessed a new low today. Foreign Ministry’s summons to Stewart Wheeler followed the government’s criticism of Canada for investigating the Indian ambassador and other diplomats as “persons of interest” over the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India received a “diplomatic communication from Canada yesterday suggesting that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats are ‘persons of interest’ in a matter related to an investigation in that country”.

The government called the allegations “preposterous” and a “strategy of smearing India for political gains”.

 “The Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is centred around vote bank politics,” the government said in a sharp rebuttal.

“India now reserves the right to take further steps in response to these latest efforts of the Canadian Government to concoct allegations against Indian diplomats,” the foreign ministry added.

The 2023 murder of Nijjar crashed diplomatic ties between New Delhi and Ottawa after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” linking Indian intelligence to the crime. India, which had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020, dismissed the charges as “absurd”.

Canada has now reportedly named the Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma as a ‘person of interest’ in its investigation. India accused Canada of maligning its officials without evidence and using “preposterous” claims to justify its failure to curb Khalistani extremism on its soil.

“High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma is India’s senior-most serving diplomat with a distinguished career spanning 36 years. He has been an Ambassador in Japan and Sudan, while also serving in Italy, Turkiye, Vietnam and China. The aspersions cast on him by the Government of Canada are ludicrous and deserve to be treated with contempt,” the foreign ministry said.

It said Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s hostility to India has long been in evidence. In 2018, his visit to India, “which was aimed at currying favour with a vote bank, rebounded to his discomfort”.

“His Cabinet has included individuals who have openly associated with an extremist and separatist agenda regarding India,” the ministry said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently met Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Laos, almost a year after his Canadian counterpart accused India of involvement in the death of a Khalistani terrorist.

Even as sources in New Delhi said there was no substantive discussion between the two leaders, Trudeau termed the meeting a “brief exchange”.

“I won’t go into details about what we talked about but what I’ve said many times is that the safety of Canadians and upholding the rule of law is one of the fundamental responsibilities of any Canadian government and that’s what I’ll stay focused on,” Trudeau told a press conference at Vientiane.

Canada is home to around 7,70,000 Sikhs, who make up about two percent of the country’s population.

India has been maintaining that the main issue between the two countries is that of Canada giving space to pro-Khalistan elements operating from Canadian soil with impunity.