Who is prompting Trudeau to wag the dog?

Justin Trudeau is more Rahul Gandhi-like than he realises. It is not merely dynastic pedigree rather than innate political talent that connects the two; it is also the supreme belief that they are clever strategists whose gameplans and motivations are beyond the ken of most people. But Trudeau taking potshots at India—the land of his doppelganger—on the issue of Khalistan of all things, is nothing short of ironic. If not stupid. Even Trudeau, with a rudimentary knowledge of Indian history, should know that those Sikh elements who are fomenting and fuelling separatist in the border state of Punjab, also celebrate the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister who was Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother. So his party, the Congress, despite leading the opposition in India, certainly will not lend its voice to support Trudeau’s outrage over the killing of a Khalistani kingpin. By expelling an Indian diplomat for the yet-unsolved killing of a man who entered Canada under false pretences and gained citizenship after fleeing prosecutions for his crimes in India, Trudeau has put his country in the same bracket as Pakistan. His ignorant conflation of the Sikh community with separatist Khalistanis has led him to think he might secure a vote-bank for his ailing party in the 2025 elections by championing Hardeep Singh Nijjar. But he should have been reminded by his advisors, at least, that all Sikhs are not Khalistanis, and Punjab has little sympathy for that agenda. Punjab’s voters even elected the Congress to power, setting aside the scars of Operation Blue Star. Punjab’s electorate showed maturity, an understanding of what led to that traumatic event. Pakistan’s hand Khalistan activities has discredited it in India, but Trudeau remains unaware, it seems. Pakistan today is a basket case economically and politically. Money is thin on the ground for its own convoluted politics, and hence its broad portfolio of anti-India activities including Kashmiri and Khalistani separatism has needed a new backer for a long time. It would be hard to find financiers from among the navel-gazing, Russia (and Ukraine)-obsessed west these days. So who or what could be behind Trudeau’s evident Khalistani sympathies? There have been regular reports in Canadian media about the infiltration of the Trudeau’s Liberal Party by people beholden to financier George Soros, whose malevolence towards India’s current PM and government is no secret. Photos of Soros and Trudeau are predictably hard to find but one of the Canadian prime minister and Alexander Soros, son and current head of the financial empire, grinning arm-in-arm at Davos this April is telling indeed. Canada’s deputy PM, Chrystia Freeland, who in her journalist avatar not only interviewed Soros and wrote admiring “analyses”, but also claimed for several years to be writing his biography, is worth examining too. A curiously prescient line in her 2012 article in Foreign Policy goes: “…after years of struggling to be accepted as a public intellectual, the turmoil in the world economy has finally made the rest of us more receptive to his insight.” The journal Foreign Policy itself has disclosed that it partnered with Open Society Foundations—Soros’s chosen vehicle for interference in other countries in the garb of “protecting” and fostering democracy—on “events and research projects in 2022”. A search of recent FP articles on India reveals a slew of negative pieces by one Kunal Purohit, including, “Modi’s Tiger Warrior Diplomacy Is Harming India’s Interests” on August 28. Coincidence? Politicians and “advisors” with Soros connections—mostly via his many “philanthropic” ventures particularly in the very verdant sphere of environmental activism—are heavily embedded not only in Trudeau’s government but also his Liberal Party, even through social links. Hence his sudden truculence towards India in perfect consonance with Soros’ current agenda should be regarded with extreme suspicion by India, not as a coincidence. Piquantly, a more assertive India under Narendra Modi has put one of Soros’s other bugbears, China, on the same side although he still professes a dislike of Xi Jinping. Interestingly, though Canada is more incensed by China’s interference in domestic elections, the Trudeau government’s long awaited inquiry commission’s remit has been expanded to include not only China but Russia and “other foreign states and non-state actors”. Deflection? China’s interference in Canada’s internal affairs has become a hot potato that Trudeau is finding increasingly hard to explain. Under Trudeau’s benign (or inept) gaze, China has even reportedly been operating “police stations” where Chinese dissidents are brought in and then “disappeared”. Yet what does Trudeau do? Call out India over the death of a person holding a Canadian passport who plotted to vivisect India through acts of terror. China’s support for Khalistan is a badly kept secret, and not restricted to Canada-based separatists. The leaders of the recent Khalistani protests against and attacks on the Indian High Commission in London have links of varying degrees to China, including one even saying his organisation has an office in Beijing. The difference is that the Khalistani elements have not gone as far as to put targets on the backs of Indian diplomats in the UK. This latest egregious act exposed the extent to which Trudeau is in hock to hidden elements, because no government in its right mind would shy away from cracking down on organisations targeting diplomats of another nation. What is Canada waiting for before cracking down on the Khalistani outfit that is calling for assassination? For them to try to kill an Indian diplomat as Kashmiri militants of the JKLF did in Birmingham in 1984? That Trudeau unsuccessfully tried to garner support recently from the leaders of US, UK and Australia also shows they are equally unhappy with his latest gambit. Despite Soros’s and China’s formidable tentacles in the political setups and governments of many countries, leaders usually understand wider ramifications of not cracking down on those plotting against sovereign nations from their soil, even if the financial inducements are generous. Entities like Soros and China are always on the lookout for leaders—and potential leaders—with a distinct inability to recognise this simple but crucial geo-political fact. And once in a while, they get lucky. India has proved to be a harder nut to crack politically these days for them, though, and hence the attacks on it from more conducive places like Canada are multiplying. And will only increase as the Indian elections draw near. The 1997 Clinton-era film, Wag the Dog, about political fixers staging a “war” to deflect attention from a presidential sex scandal changed the meaning of the much older English term “tail wagging the dog” and found wide application. It now basically refers to efforts by politicians to distract public attention from any uncomfortable issue by drawing attention to another. Trudeau has just added a new chapter, if not a new movie idea. The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.