Bordman: India’s Geopolitical Concerns Can No Longer Be Ignored

India is an emerging world power. Over the last decade, the former British colony has positioned itself as a major player economically and militarily. The nation we once may have looked at as a little cousin has grown up and old mentalities have started to clash with new realities.

The current mainstream geopolitical position from the West is that India will be needed as a wedge against the potential regional and global dominance of China and the CCP. The logic here is sound. India is a country with 1.5 billion people, the only potential economy with the human capital to counter Chinese manufacturing capacity.

The CCP is extremely hostile towards the West, their leadership still carries animosity from the opium wars of the 1840s. In contrast, India is the world’s largest democracy, a country that came to the aid of the West, especially Canada, during COVID and asked nothing in return. So why is Canada fighting with India and submissive in the face of widespread CCP interference in our political system?

The short of it is the ISI-funded Khalistani movement that has been allowed to flourish in Canada unimpeded despite their foreign and domestic belligerence.

For the West to reach its maximum potential it needs India as a strong ally. Conversely, for India to reach its full potential it needs strong ties with the West and the rest of the free world. That is what makes the current tension so frustrating to watch.

As India emerges, it needs to be treated as an equal and true ally. No reasonable ally would tolerate what Canada has enabled for the last four decades in regard to the violent Khalistani movement.

The Khalistani terrorists of Babbar Khalsa blew up Air India Flight 182 in 1985. 329 innocent people were murdered, children among them. This is the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history and due to the apathy and incompetence of the Canadian investigation, there were no serious consequences for any of the terrorists involved. To say that this emboldened the Khalistani movement would be an understatement.

Glorification of the terrorist mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar is not an uncommon sight at Khalistani rallies and institutions. Canada was recently embarrassed by the parade float that glorified the assassination of Indra Gandhi, add that to the many instances of Khalistanis outright calling for ethnic violence inside Canada and the balkanization of India and you have a major problem.

The Khalistanis have been a cancer in Canadian society terrorising Hindus and Sikhs. According to recent allegations from Indian officials, they are also involved in gang violence, illegal guns, drug running, and immigration fraud/human trafficking.

After four decades of Canada’s head-in-the-sand approach to extremism, India has had enough. The Khalistanis have pulled off multiple assassination attempts on Indian officials inside Canada and potentially outside as well. Most famously, Jaspal Atwal, a terrorist convicted in Canadian courts of attempted murder, was invited by Justin Trudeau to India to take pictures with all the high-ranking Liberals. This may have been the worst case of a failed vetting, had Justin Trudeau not just invited a literal SS Nazi to parliament to be honoured in front of Voldamir Zelinsky.

This brings us to the death of Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Nijjar was gunned down outside of the Gudwar that he was the president of. A place where he preached hate and violence against Indians and Hindus. He is even on video glorifying suicide bombings, an important part of this story that has been widely omitted from the government-subsidized Canadian legacy media outlets.

Khalistani leaders getting gunned down is not an uncommon occurrence in Canada. It is something that most Canadians are deeply ignorant of, widely due to our head-in-the-sand mentality, but it does not make violence any less of a problem.

However, this time the death of a Khalistani has made international headlines as Justin Trudeau decided to go public with his accusations against India and expel a diplomat in a move that made many people question the wisdom of the decision to do so prior to the conclusion to the investigation and no ability to promptly produce and credible evidence of India’s involvement to the public.

This is not how diplomacy should be handled with an ally. There are back channels to work these things out.

The West may currently be frustrated with India’s political stance of neutrality between Russia and Ukraine. We want them to make a choice between hostile actors and defensive actions. This is a very reasonable ask from the West, the problem is that this has essentially been India’s main request when it comes to their fight against Pakistan and its many Jihadi proxy groups attacking India. We have failed to pick a side in this fight, despite India providing way more economic and cultural opportunities than Pakistan, the nation that provided Osama Bin laden safe haven.

If both sides want to prosper, we cannot enable Pakistan’s fomentation of ethnic violence and separatism on our soil. To be a good friend one must listen and understand the needs of another. If the roles were reversed would we tolerate such behaviour from India?

India’s influence will only grow in the coming years and we must ask ourselves how we put both of our peoples in a position to succeed globally. The answer may be complicated, but whatever it is it starts with ending the free reign of the Khalistanis in Canada, with warning to the UK and Australia as well.