- India-Canada, a story of a long-standing bilateral relationship strengthened by common factors like democracy, pluralism, interpersonal connections, and people-to-people ties and trade, has come to an undesired turning point with the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
- With bilateral trade worth billions and Canada being home to over 1.7 million Indian diasporas and a go-to haven for Indian students seeking education abroad, would the countries take such a drastic step of severing ties, economic and interpersonal completely?
- Both countries keeping in mind their national interests and economic interests are very unlikely to let the dispute spill over to the economic realm.
India-Canada, a story of a long-standing bilateral relationship strengthened by common factors like democracy, pluralism, interpersonal connections, and people-to-people ties and trade, has come to an undesired turning point with the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. While who committed the murder remains a pertinent question deciding the future of the New Delhi- Ottawa relations, would both countries completely sever ties is the hotly debated topic at present. Would this row be contained within the political realm or leave ripples across economic ties and visa-processing machinery? All the questions loom large with the relation souring.
With bilateral trade worth billions and Canada being home to over 1.7 million Indian diasporas and a go-to haven for Indian students seeking education abroad, would the countries take such a drastic step of severing ties, economic and interpersonal completely? Justin Trudeau, with the obligation to appeal to his Sikh vote bank and with a considerable amount of pressure from Canadian-Sikh ministers like Jagmeet Singh to further the cooling of the relationship with India, severing the ties completely could be an option. But if this happens, considering this to be the worst-case scenario thereof, what would be its implications and how long would it last, is a serious question that needs an answer.
Canada has negative population growth, the reason why Canadian immigration policies are more welcoming compared to the West. With 41% of its existing foreign student population being Indian and hosting shelter for a whopping population of working cum settled Indian population Canada is economically and politically dependent on the Indian population in the country implicitly and explicitly to an extent. In such a case the row spilling over to the economic sphere would be of loss for Canada.
The same is the case with India. with a huge Indian diaspora in Canada, the Indian government has to be conscious and careful while dealing with the issue. This could potentially affect the safety and security of the Indian population and their future opportunities in Canada. It would adversely affect Indian students and job seekers if the Visa is rejected. In the worst-case scenario if hostility furthers it could affect the Indian diaspora and might even leave them with no option but to return to India which would be a heavy blow on Indian resources, employment, and remittances.
However, to seem more appealing to the Sikh population and to let out a message that the Sikhs are safe under the Trudeau government, if the Canadian prime minister takes a drastic step of completely severing ties and inter-country travel is severely affected then the same Sikh community which once felt safe and supported under the Trudeau government would turn their back against him, as a majority of their families and relatives are back in India and with the restrictions on travel, visiting them back home in India would be a distant dream for the Canadian Sikhs.
If the Canadian prime minister takes the drastic step of completely severing ties and inter-country travel is severely affected then the same Sikh community which once felt safe and supported under the Trudeau government would turn its back against him.
This could be seen as an opportunity for China to further its already healthy relationship with Canada. With Canada getting more dependent on China for trade, post the economic fallout with India, Canada’s strategic partnership with China in the Indo-Pacific shall shoot to prominence. But how far is this going to be a possibility? With India being a pertinent factor in Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy aiding its economic diversification, complete negligence of India shall turn out to be of loss for Canada. And with India being the counterweight of the West against the growing importance of China in the region and beyond, there shall be serious pressure from the Western alliance on Canada to mend ties with India. Similar is the case with India. It has to take a diplomatic stand to renegotiate with Ottawa to run further and faster in the race to be a superpower. With the growing prominence of China, the West’s alliance is of value and use to India and its national interests. It cannot risk to let go of the proximity with this alliance over a diplomatic cum political feud with Canada.
When the US accused India of not cooperating with Canada in the investigation of the murder, at the same time reaffirmed that India remains a partner and a close friend of the US. One reason is, the national and economic interests are certain to supersede everything else. Tracing history testifies to this fact. With US annihilating terrorists internally and externally and still having close and healthy ties with countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the chances of the West urging Canada to mend ties with India are very high as Nijjar was identified as a Khalistani terrorist by India. As long as the West has vested interests in the region and needs India to counterbalance China in the region and vice versa, the chances of the complete severing of ties are very bleak.
Even though the diplomatic relations are souring and there is considerable cooling of the New Delhi- Ottawa relations, there would not be economic sanctions or drastic steps taken in this regard. Dialogue to stop between the two countries for the time being is an expected outcome, that would not last long. Similarly, there might be a negligible impact on the intake of international students into Canada like the cap on intake undertaken earlier this year which was 35% less than the year 2022. But this could be seen more as a policy to manage the population of international students in Canada rather an outcome of the row.
Similarly, the opposition leaders in Canada blaming Trudeau for bringing this issue up as a tactic to overshadow other domestic controversies, have reduced the gravitas of this accusation on India. Therefore even though the relations might go down the road for the time being, both countries keeping in mind their national interests and economic interests are very unlikely to let the dispute spill over to the economic realm because at the end of the day as Machiavelli puts it “a man is quicker to forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony”, the only difference being the man here is two countries concerned about the future of their economies.
(Megha Joshy Mathew is a Research Scholar and Junior Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies, Pondicherry University, specialising in International Relations. Her areas of interest include West Asian/Middle Eastern Politics, Conflict and Peace Studies, North American politics apart from Gender in International Politics. Views expressed are the author’s own)
Aayush Pal