Daily Times

For a country so determined on finding fault with others, India does a terrible job of keeping its own house in order. As rightly proclaimed by the PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the escalating row between India and Canada in the wake of the murder of a Sikh separatist leader should have been enough of a reason for the world to realise how the former had become a “rogue Hindutve terrorist state.” As a direct consequence of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s courageous move to call a spade a spade as he talked of actively pursuing allegations that linked Indian intelligence agencies to a Canadian citizen shot dead, the high commissioner in New Delhi has been asked to leave the country within five days. No side is ready to pull any punches as Ottawa does not wish to overlook an “unacceptable violation of (its) sovereignty;” something India’s Ministry of External Affairs has already dismissed as “absurd” and “motivated” to shift focus away from Khalistani extremists enjoying refuge in Canada.

Although Sikhs’ demand for a separate sovereign nation carved out of Indian Punjab and governed as per their faith had immediately followed partition in 1947, these calls have become increasingly louder in the last few years, especially among the Sikh diaspora overseas. No matter what the Modi administration may like to paint before the rest of the world, it cannot brush aside the fact that in March, it had orchestrated a colossal police hunt straight out of a Bollywood script all over the state of Punjab, hunting for a leading ideologue within the Khalistan movement. It is often said that the Indian authorities dramatically hype up the threat, reviving painful memories of the ’80s for many in the Sikh community for the sole purpose of creating a bogeyman for local audiences. It suits them to divert the attention of the voters away from the actual challenges and keep them overwhelmed with the terrifying security threats to the Indian nation.

The foreign office would do well to draw parallels between what happened in British Columbia, the string of spies caught by Pakistani intelligence agencies and constant violations of the Line of Control. Strike while the iron is hot! *