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If India ordered a murder in Canada, there must be consequences
(www.economist.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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As an Indian I agree. But I need to see conclusive proof first. I don't want to see my country degrades itself to the same level as CIA / NSA or Mossad. If we did something wrong there should be adequate consequences.
The thing is we're scared of China and you're the only developing country of over a billion left, on top of your ideological and language similarities with us. Even Trudeau is treading as lightly as he can given the situation.
If the west is scared of China, then India's PM Modi is terrified of them. In June 2020, When China invaded India in Galwan and beat our 20 soldiers to death, Modi publicly state that nothing happened in Galwan. Since then he has been unable to take China's name, even when China built an entire village with paved roads in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
The Modi govt that rules India is ideologically fascist dictatorial, majoritarian, and violently Hindu supremacist. If that is also your country's ideological stance then we do have a lot in common.
Maybe I should have said historical ideological similarities. India has been a democracy, which makes you seem much more trustworthy than China. Democracy is having a hard time in many places right now, though.
Where is this statement coming from? India literally took the Galwan issue with China. India lost 20 brave men who were cremated with state honours. It was in the news for weeks. I don't know where your "Nothing happened" statement is coming from. The defence minister/ EAM answered questions on this in parliament.
There are two sides here - absolute nationalism where India and Modi can do no wrong, and absolute cucks where everything that India, Modi, or Hindus do is all wrong. OP is one of these extremes.
I understand your point of view but don't you think these things should have been considered thoroughly before going public in this manner? It is only fair to ask for conclusive proof if you accuse something serious like this in public. It is safe to assume all diplomatic effort has been failed from both side. Also as far as I read in the news, the investigation itself is ongoing. Don't you think all these confusions could have avoided if Canada decided to go public after concluding the investigation? That way India would have very little wiggle room to refute the hard evidence presented.
That would be good. The thing is spies are involved, so I don't know if all the evidence he can see will be released for decades. I don't think the Prime Minister would have brought it up at all unless he had to, given how terrible this is for everybody.
What do you think, would the Indian government do this? There are a lot of Khalistan supporters in Canada and it seems like Hindutva would argue for a very tough treatment of that, but I'm not Indian.
I am a common citizen I literally have no internal knowledge, especially in these top secret national security stuff. As a sane human being what I can say is that incentive to commit the alleged crime is there. That doesn't necessarily mean we actually did it. And yes as a society currently we are in ultra nationalistic clusterf**k. So public sentiment is there to support this kind nefarious behavior domestically.
It is really unfortunate situation. At one hand it's foolish to blindly believe anyone (irrespective of their designation county or affiliation) without concrete evidence, especially regarding issues as serious as this. On the other hand I also kinda understand how hard it is to make espionage related evidences publicly available, even for world leaders. In any case, diplomacy from both sides failed us. Knee jerk reactions in international relationship seldom help.
Above all, what I would like to point out is that, this is a kind of situation where nobody wins.
Yes, absolutely agreed.
The news was going to leak, so he decided to get ahead of it. He very much would have preferred to finish the investigation first
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/harjit-sajjan-hardeep-singh-nijjar-1.6971605
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sikh-nijjar-india-canada-trudeau-modi-1.6974607
Our government has not released a single statement saying 'we didn't do it' AFAIK. Let us know if you find any.
Fair enough, I see where you're coming from and fully expect some proof. I do however have doubts that any proof will ever be conclusive enough to convince people and certainly not enough to get Modi to admit the truth if his govt is truly behind it. So what will providing proof accomplish anyway? Not providing proof might be a tactic to elicit lies that can be demonstrated as such through a trickle release of proof, enough to prove that the deniers are liars.
At the end of the day, Canada is a sovereign country and they are free to level a number of consequences against a foreign government if they so desire, including sanctions, visa restrictions, and so on. The only proof they need is for themselves, and to take action that will protect Canadians from foreign assassinations in the future. Canada really does not have to prove anything to India, especially if they do not believe the Indian govt is acting in good faith.
I don't agree. Something is better than nothing, even if things are heavily redacted. I as a common man may not interprete them adequately but there are people who can. Especially people from the intelligece community can check and somewhat verify if there is anything plausible with respect to the accusitions. This important for the allies of the Canada too. Canada is a member five eyes, so they can definitely validate their gathered intels with the likes of UK, US if the evidence deemed unfit for public release. So far I have not seen any of those countries conclusively made statements that they validated Canada's allegations. The investigation is ongoing anyway.
It does not matter whether Indian PM admits it or not if evidence is there and the international community verified and largely accepts it as truth. So far I haven't seen this happen.
Off course Canada can do whatever they choose in their jurisdiction. For example, many countries creates travel advisory for their citizens regarding which countries are deemed safe / not safe for them to travel to. If country X says that country Y is unsafe for their citizens to travel to, it's perfectly fine. However, that doesn't mean country Y is universally unsafe. But, when it comes to international relations we can't just hurl allegation to another sovereign country without any evidence, independent verification / backing. Because tomorrow country Z can allege something outrageous about country A without evidence, will the international community accept that without questions as well?
Personally I feel diplomacy from both sides have failed us. It's their job to handle these things more gracefully.
I understand, it sounds like you are concerned for India's international reputation in light of these allegations, and rightfully so. It's unfair from the perspective of a common citizen that your country gets flamed like this without proof, and insulting that people just say "well it's Canada, they aren't lying".
It's just that I trust my government and institutions and I believe them. Biden and Trudeau both spoke to Modi before this was released. Journalists in Canada were going to release this if the government didn't. I truly believe that handling it this way was bad for Canada too, so I don't see an incentive for Canada to lie which I do see for the Indian govt. Don't forget that other countries have their own relationships with India and will make their own decisions about supporting the allegations, not necessarily in light of the quality of proof but rather for pragmatic reasons. I think this whole affair will be painful for normal people in both countries, so in that sense you're absolutely right that diplomacy failed.
Still I'm curious: what do you think would be the reaction if the allegations turn out to be true?
Yes, I am aware that CBC was going to go public with their report and they notified Trudeau beforehand. I watched the interview of the CBC journalist by Karan Thapar.
It is indeed painful and unfortunate for everyone. I understand that geopolitics is extremely complicated, it's not as straightforward as asking the allies to back the claims based on evidences alone.
That's a bit debatable. There are speculation that Trudeau is doing this to win popularity among the Sikh community in Canada. It is obvious that his government needs their support. So there might be a internal political pressure as well. Not to mention Canada has an upcoming federal election in 2025.
I'm not saying this is the case. But as you said you trust your government and you see no reasons for them to lie. Similarly many people from the other sidr can choose to believe in their government too. There are plausible speculations on the both sides. But plausibility rarely helps, instead often introduces biases in our thinking. That's why producing evidence is extremely important. I hope Canada do provide some evidence which is accepted by international community. I'll give you an example. In case of Jamal Khashoggi killing Saudí Arabia never admitted any wrongdoings. But from the evidences we all know what happened and who did what. So, as a concerned human being is it unreasonable to ask something similar in this case as well?
I'm not a representative of my Government so I can't really say what they'll do in case the evidences are rightfully presented. But my experience with the current government and my common sense tells me that they will try their best to wiggle out of the allegations and evidences. But that doesn't matter, what matters is whether international community accepts the evidence provided by Canada or not.
If India indeed commited the alleged crime, I want my fellow citizens to know that and see how international community vetted the evidences. So that they can judge wisely in our next election and vote accordingly. As I said in my original comment, I don't want to see my country degrades itself to the level of CIA, Mossad or FSB.
Sounds like there's a bit more confirmation that Canada was actually correct and not making it up, since other international parties seem to have looked into it: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/diaspora/us-envoy-confirms-canada-received-intelligence-from-five-eyes-partners-before-trudeau-went-public-with-allegations-against-india-547068
In that case, Indian govt is also free to retaliate since no country is just going to keep diplomatic relations one-way.
What evidence do you want to see about a state-sponsored assassination? It's happened twice now and you think it's an accident?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-homicide-victim-wanted-india-1.6975772
Just yesterday.
That's hardly proof
Not saying it isn't true.. but from that alone nada. someone posting something on twitter and then someone is murdered... must be government?!
He's wanted in India.
Was* wanted
Well, yeah. Obviously not wanted anymore, since they got him lol.
And if we didn't there should be equally measured consequences for the once who made acquisitions without adequate proof
IIn the past ndia has never been a terrorist country, not even at the worst provocation. But the current regime is fascist and Modi is desperate. As Governor Satya Pal Malik has said about India's PM Modi 'he can do anything, he can go to any extent'.