Lies, damn lies & western media: On Canada-India row, Deep State’s pet toolboxes are creating new realities

It has been a couple of days since the Justin Trudeau regime held a giant blow torch to India-Canada relationship and reduced it to cinders. Opinions on what prompted the beleaguered Canadian prime minister to do so, varies.

The meandering consensus is that Trudeau, facing a housing crisis, falling ratings, a battle for political survival, internal party revolt and a public inquisition on whether his Liberal Party benefitted from Chinese interference in 2019 and 2021 elections – a charge levelled by Canada’s own  intelligence agency – has found in India a soft target for deception, obfuscation and diversion, with an added benefit of consolidating the pro-Khalistani vote bank.

Triggering a billion-strong population that is hindered by no language barrier or internet firewall ensures intense heat and noise and creates an immediate ruse. In this endeavour, Trudeau has found an eager ally in western media.

One thing should be clear. Canada has moved on this front in complete collusion and coordination with its Big Brother, a circumstance that India is acutely aware of. Without the green signal from Washington, Ottawa wouldn’t have had the audacity to malign the Indian High Commissioner, a senior diplomat with a distinguished career, on charges that are flimsier than a thong. Calling Sanjay Verma and five other Indian diplomats “persons of interest” in a murder investigation and seeking a waiver of their immunity is the diplomatic equivalent of a nuclear attack.

Without America’s active  encouragement and support  , Canada couldn’t have triggered a game of escalation that has led to unprecedented downgrading of diplomatic ties. On Tuesday, US State Department spokesperson effectively chided India for not “cooperating with Canada in its investigation” and made it clear that Washington expects India to do so.

Trudeau has been calling on his Five Eyes partners, seeking their support in ‘exposing India on international stage’. Yet, the circumstances still merited narrative management, the telling of a coherent story where regardless of the facts or truth, India is perceived as the villain of the piece – a rogue state chaperoned by an authoritarian Hindu nationalist leader who is out to engineer “transnational repression” on Canadian territory by targeting innocent citizens who follow Sikhism and ‘peacefully’ advocate the carving of a ‘Khalistan’ out of India.

Bringing charges against India and maligning its diplomats is one step, ensuring widespread media coverage and a battery of negative headlines around the world against India is the second.

In absence of real punitive options, inflicting reputational damage seems to be Canada’s primary strategy to deal with an India that is projecting power deep into western shores to safeguard its sovereignty and interests, and it has been interesting to see how western media outlets, especially American ones, have readily jumped into the fray, amplifying and disseminating Canadian propaganda. The synchronization is apparent.

Western media outlets not only started parroting Trudeau regime’s talking points soon after the diplomatic fracas exploded into view, but they also fashioned every Canadian position as a statement of fact and every rebuttal from India as a dodgy attempt by a rogue regime bent on escaping responsibility.

It was remarkable to see the surgical precision with which these reports on Canada-India diplomatic row were crafted. Unverified charges were presented as ‘compelling evidence’, along with twisting of words, bending of perspectives, subtle pejoratives and even stark gaslighting.

A cross section of these reports that emerged from noted western media outlets reveal the creation of a whole new discursive context where entire meaning systems are gamed in a way to nullify India’s position, its concerns, its perspective and even deny India the moral right to defend itself. Conversely, every accusation that Canada has levelled against India so far, including preposterous ones such as alleging that a senior Indian diplomat stationed as the high commissioner in Canada was a criminal kingpin, received tacit validation.

This matters. I have written on previous occasions about western media’s awesome discourse power. Discourses are explained as a ‘function of public and shared cultural knowledge and understandings’ (Oyserman and Markus, 1998) that inform and even create realities.

None of the western media outlets that have carried articles on the dispute have cared to provide contextual information on the Khalistani threat that plagues India, the movement’s bloodied past that claimed the life of a sitting Indian prime minister. The Khalistani movement was also behind the worst terrorist attack in Canada’s history, the bombing of Air India flight ‘Kanishka’ in 1985 that exploded mid-air and took with it the lives of 329 people, including 268 Canadians, 27 Britons and 24 Indian citizens. None of the content that have poured forth since the fracas makes an honest attempt to explain how under Trudeau state backing for terrorist elements that target India from its soil has been institutionalized.

Canada’s permissiveness on organised crime, letting in gangland criminals including drug peddlers from India who game the asylum system based on fake documents, and then carry out or sponsor violent criminal acts within Indian territory, repeated ignoring of India’s extradition requests despite the existence of a treaty – all these issues have found little contextual mention in western media’s narrative management over the diplomatic kerfuffle.

Toronto Sun points out that “India is currently the top source country for people claiming asylum with more than 15,000 claims in the first six months of this year (2024), claims from Mexico are at nearly 9,000. People coming here from India and Mexico, with rare exception, are not refugees, they are economic migrants abusing a system meant to protect people from persecution.”

Instead, India is represented through stereotyped generalizations and India’s legitimate concerns have fallen prey to confirmation bias embedded in every paragraph of these reports.

For instance, Ottawa’s evidence-free assertion that a Canada-based criminal syndicate called Bishnoi group is being used by the Indian government to carry out hit jobs inside Canada has received wide play, but nowhere have these reports pointed out that New Delhi has registered multiple cases against members of the gang, and the Indian high commission in Ottawa has multiple times flagged India’s concerns to Canadian authorities that these gangsters are carrying out killings in India, including the widely covered assassination of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala.

The killer, Goldy Brar, a Canada-based member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang has 16 cases slapped against him, and main conspirator Lakhbir Singh Landa, another Canadian resident, has 20 cases pending against him in India, according to a Hindustan Times report. Canada has so far refused to extradite Brar, who is believed to be based in Brampton and has an Interpol red notice issued against him. Why have none of these details found even a passing mention?

There is a reason. Effective narrative management requires a monopoly over narrative nomenclature that leads to suppression of realities and creation of alternate realities through imposition of meanings and interpretations. This is accompanied by carefully curated omissions and/or amplifications.

For instance, Washington Post’s report on the diplomatic incident inserts a sentence that “Modi, who came to power as a champion of Hindu nationalism, has revived concerns about the supposed threat posed by Sikhs living abroad.”

In the broader context of the article, this sentence served no other purpose except to manipulate public opinion on India’s democratically elected prime minister, and subtly propagate the view that he is a majoritarian leader going after minorities stationed abroad as part of a larger Hindu nationalism project. Such an interpretation is not made explicit. It remains in the realm of suggestion and yet informs, shapes and influences the social cognition and moral judgment of readers.

I was going through some of the headlines in western media in the immediate aftermath of the diplomatic row. Nearly all the headlines were similar. That is not surprising. What is a little startling, however, that be it New York Times “Canada Expels Indian Diplomats, Accusing Them of Criminal Campaign”, Reuters “Canada expels top India diplomats, links them to murder of Sikh leader”, BBC “India and Canada expel top diplomats over murder accusations”, or Associated Press “Canada expels India’s top diplomat and alleges wider diplomatic involvement in crimes”, ALL headlines echoed Canada’s claim that it had “expelled” Indian diplomats.

The timeline of incidents, however, supports India’s contention that it had withdrawn its diplomats before the notice of expulsion was served by Ottawa. According to the Indian side, the Canadians had issued a ‘persons of interest’ communique on October 13, seeking the removal of diplomatic immunity of six Indian envoys, including High Commissioner Verma, so that they may be interrogated.

New Delhi read the riot act and released a stinging riposte the day after on Monday, October 14. By that evening, New Delhi summoned Canada’s chargé d’affaires Stewart Ross Wheeler around 7 pm (IST) and within 20 minutes of that development, declared the withdrawal of its diplomats. The ministry of External Affairs notification to that effect was posted on X (formerly Twitter) on 7.58 pm.

Within half an hour of that development, however, the western media outlets started reporting that “Canada had expelled Indian diplomats”, even before Canada could release its official readout.

The Canadian statement , claiming that Indian envoys were asked to leave, was eventually issued by its foreign minister Melanie Joly later in the night on October 14 (India time).

The question is, why did western publications ignore India’s official statement that “in an atmosphere of extremism and violence (in Canada), the Trudeau Government’s actions endangered their (the diplomats’) safety. We have no faith in the current Canadian Government’s commitment to ensure their security. Therefore, the Government of India has decided to withdraw the High Commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials”?

For one, it would have likely tampered with the narrative management and forced the discourse to travel in a direction where India’s concerns are made apparent. On October 12, the banned Sikh For Justice (SFJ), a Khalistani outfit, released a new video showing the effigy of Indian high commissioner Verma being set on fire and pumped with bullets.  The Khalistanis have also placed a ‘bounty’ of half a million dollars on the head of Verma. This corroborates India’s position that its diplomats are unsafe and justifies the withdrawal.

Second, acknowledging that India had withdrawn own diplomats and expelled Canadian envoys in a reciprocal move (that only a few outlets got right ), attributes India with the power moves and gives New Delhi the upper hand in the conflict. A Five Eyes ally and a G7 member cannot be seen to be upstaged by an upstart.

It would also make it difficult to spread disinformation of the kind shared by some outlets such as Global News of Canada that claimed: “Indian government agents in Canada targeted Modi’s opponents.”

To call the Khalistanis “Modi’s opponents” is not just inaccurate, it’s chicanery. Khalistani separatists have been behind a violent movement that has so far resulted in the assassination of an Indian prime minister and blowing up of an airplane filled with passengers, and despite being a fellow democracy Trudeau has chosen to back the terrorists. The peak of the movement inside India came in the 1980s when Modi wasn’t even in politics.

The column will remain incomplete if Washington Post’s report, ‘Canada alleges much wider campaign by Modi government against Sikhs’ where the subhead claims: ‘Canada on Monday ordered six Indian diplomats to leave the country, including India’s top diplomat in Ottawa, Sanjay Kumar Verma’.

The report, written by Greg Miller, and Gerry Shih, its India-based correspondent, increased the ambit of India’s actions and claims that India has launched a “covert campaign of violence” “against Sikhs”. This is a serious charge.

Interestingly, Canadian inquisitor Justice Marie-Josée Hogue in a report released in May this year as part of an investigation into foreign interference in Canada’s electoral process, had said that India’s activities on Canadian soil were restricted to pro-Khalistan elements based in Canada, and not the larger Sikh population.

A similar thought was expressed recently by the RCMP, the Canadian law enforcement authority, at a recent press briefing. When asked if India’s alleged actions included targeting of the Sikh-Canadian community, a RCMP spokesperson said, “what we’ve seen is they are specifically targeting pro-Khalistan elements in Canada.”

This distinction is vital, since it is akin to saying that the United States, in its pursuit of Osama bin Laden, targeted the entire Afghan population.

India considers the Khalistani movement as a political and ethno-separatist movement that uses terrorist tactics to achieve its objectives, and India considers it as its legitimate duty to do whatever is required to safeguard its sovereignty, people and territorial integrity.

To conflate India’s actions against Khalistani separatists, many of whom are designated terrorists, with the larger Sikh population is a phony attempt by the Post to run the malicious narrative that India’s ‘Hindu nationalist’ government is against Sikhs.

The Post report, published on October 14, also quoted unnamed Canadian official, in saying that “we know they (Indians) are involved in the Nijjar killing…” Later that day during a news conference, when asked about India’s involvement, Trudeau said: “India was possibly, if not probably, behind Nijjar’s killing.”

The report also claims that Union home minister Amit Shah, who is referred to as India’s second-most powerful man after prime minister Narendra Modi, as one of the authorities behind the “intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists, along with senior official in R&AW, India’s intelligence wing that delves in external threats. While it would be within the R&AW’s ambit to surveil those who India considers to be a threat to the country’s national security, the Union home minister has nothing to do with the R&AW, and the intelligence wing does not report to the home ministry.

According to available information, unlike the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or Britain’s MI6, RAW reports directly to the prime minister. The Post should have researched better before spreading unverified information. No external intelligence official will also refer to Shah as a “senior official”.

These inconsistencies, omissions and errors point to a larger game that is afoot. Unaccountable career bureaucrats, unelected intelligence and security officials and the administrative state that operates outside the ambit of checks and balances or political accountability that binds elected public representatives, use media as useful tool to spread certain narratives and dominate the discourse.

The media in the US suffers from an acute credibility crisis. Recent surveys point out that Americans’ trust in media have fallen to historic lows. The underlying reasons behind this eventuality is the readiness with which media outlets have adopted the role of cat’s paw for Deep State operatives.

In India-Canada row, we see another manifestation of it.