Washington Should Mediate The Canada-India Dispute

On Monday, news broke that Canada had expelled six Indian diplomats from the country’s High Commission in Ottawa. The expulsion is the latest escalation in a dispute that began when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of directing the murder of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia last summer, resulting in a war of words and freezing of Canada-India relations.

Now, Canada is levying accusations of involvement in a slate of crimes against six members of India’s diplomatic mission to Canada, including the High Commissioner himself. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) did not provide specifics due to the ongoing nature of the investigations but claimed to possess evidence linking the Indian diplomats to extortion, coercion, intimidation, harassment, and other violent acts, including Nijjar’s murder.

India retaliated by expelling six diplomats from Canada’s High Commission in New Delhi, which was already operating with a reduced staff after both countries scaled down their diplomatic presence in the early stages of the dispute. The new allegations have already reignited tensions between the two countries, putting further strain on the trade, immigration, and diplomatic efforts that have endured the initial freezing of relations. 

Despite neither country exercising trade restrictions, Canadian merchandise trade with India declined by over one billion dollars in 2023 after ballooning to a historic high in 2022. Both countries have also declined to resume negotiations over two agreements – a Foreign Investment Promotion Protection Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement – that have been in the works since 2010 and would have enabled a major expansion in the bilateral trade relationship.

The dispute has also led to a decrease in the High Commission in New Delhi’s visa processing capacity. Prior to the tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats last fall, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) staff processed over 12,000 Indian visa applications per week; after an 80% reduction in locally based IRCC staff, the department is struggling with vetting and processing delays. India remains the top source country for both temporary foreign workers and international students in Canada.

A broken Canada-India relationship also carries negative implications for alliance-building in the Indo-Pacific, where Western states hope to use India as a bulwark against China. Canada’s own Indo-Pacific Strategy, released in 2022, claimed that “India’s growing strategic, economic and demographic importance in the Indo-Pacific makes it a critical partner in Canada’s pursuit of its objectives.” India, already well-integrated into the network of regional alliances, could block Canada’s efforts to join major institutions such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

The Indian government has rebuffed Ottawa’s efforts to present evidence and refused to cooperate with Canada’s investigation into the Nijjar killing. New Delhi maintains that the accusations are politically motivated and that Canada, by refusing to recognize the Indian government’s designation of certain Canadian nationals as terrorists, is the party at fault. Both countries’ unwillingness to back down makes it difficult to see a path towards de-escalation or a return to friendly diplomatic relations in the near future.

Adjacent to the ongoing feud, the United States is grappling with its own discovery of an assassination attempt on US soil involving a suspected Indian government agent. Unsealed with little fanfare over Thanksgiving weekend in 2023, a Department of Justice indictment alleges that Indian national Nikhil Gupta both conspired to assassinate an American Sikh cleric in New York City and possessed knowledge of the plot to kill Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. 

Unlike in its response to Canada’s accusations, the Indian government has pledged full cooperation with US authoritiesand established its own inquiry to assist in the investigation. Gupta, arrested in Prague and extradited to the United States earlier this year, claimed in an interview that he has not been contacted by the Indian government since his arrest and expressed frustration with what he described as abandonment by New Delhi. This week, India also arrested Gupta’s handler, referred to in the indictment as CC1, after an internal investigation. India’s willingness to cooperate has enabled its bilateral relationship with the United States to progress with minimal interruption.

Washington is not, however, insulated from the ripple effects of India’s dispute with Canada. Canada is one of the United States’ closest allies and a major partner in trade, defense, and, most importantly, intelligence. The two countries are members of the Five Eyes intelligence network. Any information that one partner collects about domestic threats to another’s citizens, including organized killings and state-sponsored criminal activities, would be shared with that government. The Gupta indictment confirms that the United States shared intelligence about the Nijjar killing with Canadian officials in the weeks leading up to his eventual assassination, and it is likely that Canada will share the evidence from its own investigations with US authorities.

On the other side of the dispute, successive US administrations have spent the past decade carefully cultivating a close relationship with New Delhi. Through the creation of shared security and economic institutions, United States has built a network of Indo-Pacific states that can counter China’s regional influence. India, with its growing economy and capable military, is the linchpin of that network. The importance of maintaining India-US relations was obvious to Nikhil Gupta, who wrote that the assassination attempt in New York City should not take place before or during Modi’s trip to Washington in June of 2023.

The United States only stands to lose from the ongoing dispute between two of its most important allies. The rift between Canada and India will make it difficult for both countries to work together in international fora, hindering efforts to strengthen the existing network of alliances. This could happen as early as next year, when Canada hosts the G7 and has the authority to snub India from the summit for the first time since 2019. 

The matter is also time sensitive, though not necessarily urgent. Canada’s investigation into Indian agents has already expanded beyond the killing of Nijjar and now implicates senior diplomatic officials in a variety of criminal activities. As more of this evidence is uncovered and, eventually, shared with the public, it will become increasingly challenging for both sides to resume friendly diplomatic relations. Allies may also be pressured to weigh in once evidence is released to the public, putting the United States itself in the awkward position of picking a side. 

Instead of allowing the situation to further escalate, Washington should first review Canada’s findings and, if it believes they are credible, quietly use its influence to convince New Delhi to cooperate with the RCMP’s investigations. This can happen behind closed doors, saving all parties from major embarrassment and avoiding the public scrutiny that has fed the dispute over the past thirteen months. Trust and a willingness to work together have helped the US-India relationship avoid disruption despite the Nikhil Gupta scandal. Although the state of Canada-India relations is far more severe, encouraging both countries to turn down the temperature and cooperate could be the first step towards an acceptable resolution.

Neither Canadian nor Indian leaders will deviate from their collision course without external pressure. An extended game of chicken will only raise the stakes for both countries and, by extension, their allies. Regardless of who wins the White House in November, the next president should be prepared to encourage Canada and India to remember the values and rules-based order they nominally support, recognize the potential harms caused by an extended dispute, and work together to close this unpleasant chapter in diplomatic relations.