Trudeau is US Deep State’s Zelensky 2.0: Why India should stand firm against Canadian diplomatic aggression

There are politicians whose narcissistic politics, inflated ego, and no-hold-barred ambition often come in the way of the country’s well-being. A classic example is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose shortsighted political ambition has placed him on the covers of the Time magazine but, sadly, driven the country down towards total collapse.

Ukraine today threatens to become the Afghanistan of Europe, with its fate hanging precariously on the American presidential election results this November. If Donald manages to trump Kamala Harris in the race to the White House, Ukrainians would suddenly find themselves dangerously on their own, just the same way the Afghans landed up with the Taliban when the US decided to leave Kabul lock, stock, and barrel.

If Zelensky has rented Ukraine for Western military activism at the cost of Kiev’s own interests, Justin Trudeau seems to be pushing Canada towards the same disastrous path, launching as he did an all-out diplomatic war against India. And just like Ukraine, the real actors in the US and the UK are behind the curtains dictating the war that Trudeau has agreed to wage on their behalf.

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There are two factors pushing Trudeau to open fronts against India. One, there are powerful players behind the hitjob against India, and Trudeau, just like Zelensky, believes he would be bailed out if things go haywire. The initial reaction of Canada’s closest allies, especially the US and the UK, gives away the real story. When India’s Ministry of External Affairs took the Canadian government to cleaners, the Americans were the first to come to the neighbour’s rescue. The US State Department said that the United States wanted India to cooperate in the probe, but India “has not chosen that path”. The UK, too, took Canada’s side, emphasising the importance of the rule of law. This unanimous support despite the Canadian government conceding that it only had “intelligence, not evidence” regarding India’s involvement.

The second, and most important, reason is the belief in Ottawa that the confrontation with New Delhi can be a contained one and that India won’t escalate it beyond a point. This confidence comes from the collective Canadian understanding as well as Trudeau’s personal experience. Trudeau must have seen personally how his father, Pierre Trudeau, who was the Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984, looked the other way when India, then under Indira Gandhi, constantly complained about the Khalistani terror emanating from Canadian soil.

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Bill Warden, Canada’s high commissioner to India in the early 1980s, in his memoirs, Diplomat, Dissident, Spook: A Canadian Diplomat’s Chronicles Through the Cold War and Beyond, recalled how two months before her assassination, Indira Gandhi had sent a letter to her Canadian counterpart, John Turner, accusing “in explicit terms” that Sikh outfits in Canada were financing violence against India while receiving “multiculturalism” funds from that government. In simple, straightforward words, India believed that the Government of Canada was getting its citizens to pay through taxes to “pay for the killing Indians” — a damning charge that has also been labelled by Canadian journalist-author Terry Milewski in his 2021 book, Blood for Blood: Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project.

Such was the complicity of the Canadian authorities with Khalistani terror in the 1980s that Warden, as Canada’s high commissioner to India, “was summoned to the (Indian) foreign ministry to receive strong protests on some 18 occasions”. And like Hardeep Singh Nijjar today, there was then one Talwinder Singh Parmar — a dreaded Khalistani terrorist who had warned as early as in 1982 that “Indian planes will fall from the sky” — a nightmarish scenario that became a reality with the Kanishka Air India bombing in 1985. Incidentally, India had sought Parmar’s extradition in the early 1980s, but Ottawa dismissed the request on the ground that India, despite being a Commonwealth member, wasn’t deferential enough towards Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.

The fact of the matter is that Justin Trudeau, taking a cue from his father, believes that India is a soft target that can be used to gain political ground within Canada. Trudeau’s unpopularity with the Canadians is at its peak. As a recent Wall Street Journal report says, citing a new survey, “about two-thirds of the public disapprove of his performance”.

Nothing unites a country like a spat with a foreign nation. Trudeau seems to believe that his confrontation with India will push Canadians to rally around him, besides getting the support of the Sikh population in the country (he, again, has erred in believing that most Sikhs are Khalistanis, who in reality are just a minuscule section of the community). Given his understanding that India won’t react beyond a point and that it would be business as usual after a while, Trudeau has pulled the Khalistani genie out of the bottle. What he doesn’t realise is that the genie, once pulled out, rarely goes back into the bottle. And, adding to his woes, the majority of Canadians, if reports are to be believed, have simply grown tired of the Trudeau tricks.

India’s diplomatic approach has to be two-pronged. One, it should proactively reach out to the United States and make it clear that long-term geopolitical and geostrategic compulsions demand that the two countries work together rather than at cross-purposes. Also, the attempt to corner India on the issue of a ‘targeted killing’ in Canada is ludicrous given the fact that during the presidency of George W Bush, the United States carried out 48 targeted killing operations, and under Barack Obama, 353 such attacks were sanctioned, as author Ronen Bergman reveals in his book, Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations.

Now, even if one concedes Trudeau’s claim, for which he has “no proof” but “just intelligence”, the US-led West has no moral right to lecture India on the issue. As for other Five Eyes members, Australia and New Zealand will do whatever the US will tell them to do. As for Britain, it can be left unattended as its anti-India posturing is a colonial legacy: Historically, it has not just stood against India, but also, on most occasions, unduly influenced the Americans to create a wedge between New Delhi and Washington, DC.

Two, India should make it abundantly clear to Canada that Trudeau has grossly crossed the diplomatic redline, not once but many times now. The MEA should regularly hit out at Canada’s deep Khalistani links, seek extradition of terrorists operating there, and if Ottawa’s response isn’t adequate, then launch a global campaign designating Canada as a state sponsor of terror. India should simultaneously open its line of communication with Trudeau’s political opponents in Canada. The message should be loud and clear: That India is not against Canada per se, but against Trudeau’s terror politics, which is as bad, if not more, for Canada as it is for India.

If Zelensky is the American Deep State creation for debilitating Russia, Trudeau seems to be Zelensky 2.0 aimed at containing India. New Delhi’s message, thus, has to be strong enough to make an example out of Trudeau, so that a message is sent not just to Canada but also his masters in the US: That India is not a punching bag of the West. And if you still do it, get ready to face the consequences!

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.