Western media eats out of Trudeau’s hands in Canada-India row
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau with David Elby, premier of British Columbia
By Manish Anand
“The accusations could have a direct implication for Modi. RAW reports directly to the prime minister’s office, and should Canada’s investigations into Nijjar’s killing lead to arrests or judicial action against senior figures in RAW, even in absentia, it could touch those in the prime minister’s inner circle,” wrote The Guardian in the ongoing diplomatic row between Canada and India in the aftermath of the sensational claims made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in parliament.
The commentaries in the western media suggest an overt willingness to eat out of the hands of Trudeau and put India in the dock and make insinuations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The slanted reportage in the western media clearly hinges on the premise that Trudeau would not have made accusations of the scale, that he did in parliament, without the existence of hard evidences. Trudeau made the accusations that there were “credible allegations of potential involvement of the Indian agents in the killing of Hardpeep Singh Nijjar”.
Mining the reportage of the western media commentaries on Trudeau’s allegations fails to reveal efforts to probe claims of the Canadian prime minister. Even the likes of the premier of the British Columbia in Canada David Eby fail to find space in the commentaries of the western media. Eby, on record, asserted that Trudeau had invited him for an intelligence briefing on his accusations against “Government of India”, and all that were offered were “open-sourced evidences, which were taken from the internet”. Eby argued that there were no credible evidences offered by the Canadian intelligence sleuths on basis of which Trudeau made the sensational accusations against “Government of India”.
But the western media in place of probing the evidences is seen building grounds to put India on the dock because a country like Canada has made allegations. This is indeed a reiteration of racial supremacy, that since Canadian prime minister has made the allegations they have to be true, and that it will be incumbent on India to prove her innocence. This is outlandish, and certainly has no place in a time when imperialism is firmly inked in the history books.
The Economist headlined “If India ordered a murder in Canada, there must be consequences”, and followed quickly with a judgmental claim that “the western countries have for too long acquiesced to the Indian government’s abuses”. It termed Trudeau’s accusations as “explosive charges”. This fits into a pattern for the western media willing to latch on to anything to lampoon India.
All efforts to mine details in the commentaries in the western media probing the antecedents of Trudeau’s domestic politics and his eating out of the hands of the ‘Sikhs for Justice’ deliver no result. Such commentaries fail to trace that Nijjar had been involved in terror activities. There is no trace of hints in the commentaries of the western media that India had shared evidences against Nijjar following his visit to Pakistan where he was seen with the masterminds of the killers of Punjab’s former Chief Minister Beant Singh. The western media also conveniently ignores that fact that India has demanded evidences from Canada to back Trudeau’s allegations, which has not yet been complied with.
One also fails to come across any effort to examine the toxic extremism in Canada where the Indian diplomatic missions are attacked with impunity and the Hindu community is threatened freely. Trudeau claims being a champion of free speech, but he appears to be protector of hate speech, which for a leader of G7 should be unforgivable and certainly not unnoticeable by developed countries and members of “Five Eyes’ allies, as well as the western media.
Former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has argued for a long time that Canada is tolerant to extremists, as he has on several occasions stated that he hand handed over a list of nine Khalistani terrorists to the Canadian prime minister when he had called on him during his India visit in 2018. The western media conveniently chooses to ignore decades of Canadian political leadership riding the extremists for electoral gains because of their notion that pandering to the radicals would help them win some of the seats.
The one-sided jumping-to-conclusion commentaries of the western media fails the journalistic standards, as they fail to balance their views with facts, while rushing to conclude the alleged Indian involvement in the Nijjar case. It’s also astounding and baffling that the western media could suffer from selective amnesia to not examine the gang war among the factions of radical Sikhs in Canada as part of the Gurudwara politics. Ripudaman Singh Malik, who is known to be the main plotter of the 1985 Kanishka bombing, was also killed in 2022 in Canada, while experts attribute his killing to a gang war.
Ironically, former Pakistani diplomat Hussain Haqqani spotlighted a 2016 Interpol notice against Nijjar for his alleged bombing in Punjab, and subsequent $16000 reward for his arrest by India. Haqqani in a column called upon Canada to act against the Khalistani separatists.
Western media is erring on facts in their commentaries on Canada-India diplomatic row, and they are guilty of covering up facts to spotlight Trudeau’s unsubstantiated allegations. This risks the western media peddling kangaroo-court-journalism to pounce on opportunity offered by Trudeau’s allegations to peddle their narrative against India.
But in the age of internet and free flow of information, memory is refreshed quickly on celebrations of the western media of several assassinations carried out by the US intelligence sleuths and others in West Asia, Afghanistan and other countries. Hypocrisy dies millions of deaths when the rules-based order are cited as moral plank to hector India to cooperate with Canada in the Nijjar case. It’s Canada which should cooperate with India for sheltering extremists and terrorists who challenge the sovereignty of India.
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