That this time India under the BJP/RSS combine has gone too far is a fact. And it must be ready to a pay a price for its audacious act. Little did India know that the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian national, on the Canadian soil two months ago will cause such a huge breach in its bilateral relationship with Canada as the prime minister of the latter country has rightly attracted global attention to a clear act of violation of his country’s sovereignty by this South Asian country that has been nursing the illegitimate ambitions of becoming a regional hegemon ever since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. While the US has demanded India cooperate with the murder probe of Canadian Sikh, the incident has put Sikh separatism under the global spotlight.

Obviously, the government in New Delhi has taken the step of eliminating a human rights activist in Canada with a view to consolidating its far-right vote bank ahead of the 2024 elections. It is important to note that three other Indians associated with the Sikh freedom movement had been killed by India’s operatives on foreign soil prior to the assassination of Nijjar. All of these acts are of audacious daring, so to speak. US publication The Atlantic has aptly summarized India’s growing belligerence by pointing out, among other things, that “The Indian government has denied involvement in the killing, but under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it has become illiberal at home and bellicose abroad, such that assassinations on foreign soil are no longer an unimaginable part of its agenda.

New Delhi, in other words, could well be a government that will do anything to silence dissidents”. Be that as it may, it is rightly argued that terrorism is a new and unprecedented form of belligerence. India’s incumbent government has shown to the world that it is extremely good at it. But in murdering a Canadian national on the Canadian soil India has gone too far.

Sajid Kaleem Chattah

Lahore

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023