Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Indo-Canada relations' that was published in Newsband

Indo-Canada relations

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived for an eight-day state visit to India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a decision to stick to protocol, and not welcome Mr. Trudeau as effusively as he has tended to do for many foreign visitors.

Now India and Canada have much in common as two pluralistic, diverse democracies with very strong people-to-people ties: there is an Indian diaspora of 1.3 million in Canada, besides 100,000 Indian students. India and Canada need to go back to the drawing board and urgently repair ties. Canada needs India, inasmuch as India too would need Canada, as years pass by. The Potential for the Two large nations (in terms of area of the States) to cooperate and collaborate are enormous.

India has a grudge against Canada because it has been lukewarm in its handling of Khalistani separatists for a long time. Their kid-glove treatment of the AI-182 bombers is a case in point. The investigation itself was slow and painfully laborious and in the end there was very little conviction. After Justin Trudeau took over power, he has single-handedly tried every means to harm the otherwise good state-to-state relationship between us and them. He has included several vocal pro-Khalistani splittists in his Cabinet much against Indian weariness. Then, in April last year, the Ontario provincial assembly passed a 'genocide' resolution over the 1984 incidents moved by Trudeau's party member. A month later, a retired CRPF Sikh officer and a frequent visitor to Canada was suddenly denied entry at Toronto for having 'served a force that committed widespread and systemic human rights abuses". Trudeau, in his youthful exuberance it seems, is deeply hurting the India-Canada relationship. A course correction is immediately needed.

The Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s ill-timed and poorly planned visit to India was a big embarrassment and did not achieve much as far as bilateral relations are concerned. The Canadian and Indian governments should have removed the irritants before deciding on the itinerary of visit. The PMs do not visit foreign countries just for sight-seeing with families but do serious business and sign bilateral agreements on which officials of concerned countries work very hard beforehand. There are surely lessons to be learned for both the countries.