The India-Canada Rift Deepens

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: The India-Canada crisis rages on, Afghanistan pulls off a major upset at the Cricket World Cup, and the United States pushes Bangladesh to hold free and fair elections.

More than a month after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India’s government of possible involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist in British Columbia, tensions between Ottawa and New Delhi—which rejects the allegation—remain sky-high. Last week, Canada removed 41 diplomats from India—two-thirds of its formal diplomatic representation in the country—after New Delhi threatened to revoke their diplomatic immunity. Ottawa described India’s move as a violation of international law.

Canada’s diplomatic drawdown deals a big blow to a relationship that derives strength from robust people-to-people ties. But with new flash points emerging in the crisis and Indian domestic politics giving New Delhi little incentive to de-escalate, rapprochement doesn’t appear to be in the cards anytime soon.

Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Sunday that a smaller Canadian diplomatic presence upholds the principle of parity enshrined in the Vienna Conventions. Indeed, with the departure of the 41 Canadians, each country now has 21 diplomats on the other’s soil.

But there is a vast demographic disparity: India has more than a billion people, while Canada’s population is only 38 million. Many more people require consular services in India; there are three Canadian consulates in India and only two Indian consulates in Canada.

Ottawa has already announced a pause in “in-person services” at Canada’s consulates and warned that the reduction in diplomatic staff will slow visa processing.

Curtailed consular services will hit the India-Canada relationship where it hurts the most. Though tensions over Sikh separatism have long dogged bilateral ties, people-to-people relations have remained robust: Bilateral trade expanded by 57 percent between 2021 and 2022, Canada hosts more students from India than from any other country, and tens of thousands of Indian tourists visit Canada annually. Such exchanges require a sound visa regime.

The longer the crisis, the greater the damage to the relationship. But no offramps are in sight. Neither capital has offered conciliatory messages. Many retaliations from earlier in the crisis—including each country’s new travel warnings about the other—haven’t been reversed (though on Wednesday, India said it would partially resume suspended visa services in Canada). And new retaliations may be coming: New Delhi is reportedly considering putting Canada on the agenda of the Financial Action Task Force, a global terrorist financing watchdog.

Additionally, a new flash point in the crisis has emerged. Jaishankar says New Delhi wants diplomatic parity with Ottawa because of its concerns about Canadian interference in its politics. (He didn’t elaborate, but New Delhi certainly remembers Trudeau’s expressions of support for Indian farmers—most of them Sikhs—protesting against farm laws in 2020.) Ottawa, however, believes that New Delhi is interfering in Canada’s domestic politics through its relentless pressure on Canada to curb the activities of Sikhs who India claims are dangerous but who Ottawa says are protected by freedom of assembly and other democratic principles.

Domestic political considerations also loom large ahead of India’s general elections next spring. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in a strong position to win a third term, but he won’t want to give the opposition—which recently united under a new alliance—any opportunity to pounce. Backing down from a spat with a country that New Delhi claims is harboring dangerous Sikh separatists would not play well politically. The Modi administration’s struggle to deter Chinese provocations on India’s northern border has made it even more determined to project strength in the face of other perceived external threats.

Still, despite all this, the crisis could be worse—for instance, if Ottawa had not complied with New Delhi’s demand to reduce Canada’s diplomatic presence or if it had made a similar demand. Emotions are too raw now for tensions to be dialed down, but Canada’s response to India’s latest retaliation may have averted further escalation.

Special court indicts Imran Khan. On Monday, a Pakistani special court indicted former Prime Minister Imran Khan for revealing state secrets. The charge is related to Khan leaking a classified cable that recounts a conversation in March 2022 between Donald Lu, a U.S. State Department official, and Asad Majeed Khan, Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the United States. According to the document, which is the latter’s account of the conversation, Lu indicated that U.S. relations with Pakistan would improve if Khan were not in power.

Khan went public with the document last year, arguing that it proved the Biden administration colluded with Pakistan’s military to oust him (an allegation Washington has repeatedly denied). In August, the Intercept published what it described as a leaked version of the cable.

Khan faces many other charges, including corruption and terrorism. (His supporters dismiss them as politically motivated.) According to prosecutors, Khan could now face life in prison or even death—both unlikely outcomes but an indication of how much is at stake.

Afghan cricket squad steals the show. On Sunday, Afghanistan beat defending champion England at the men’s 2023 Cricket World Cup in what analysts have described as the greatest upset in the event’s history—and one of the greatest in sports history. The Afghan team had lost 14 matches in a row going into the match and had only ever won one World Cup match. (It barely squeaked by Scotland in 2015, the first year Afghanistan participated in the competition.) The next day, Afghanistan pulled off another dramatic upset, this time against Pakistan.

The team’s victory against Pakistan set off raucous celebrations in Afghanistan—a rare sight in a country where millions of people suffer from acute economic and humanitarian stress. Afghans’ euphoria was fueled not just by victory but also by geopolitics: Many Afghans resent Pakistan for sponsoring the Taliban during its nearly 20-year war. Islamabad’s plan to expel Afghan refugees starting Nov. 1 has only fueled this bitterness. After Afghan batsman Ibrahim Zadran received the Man of the Match honor following Monday’s match, he dedicated the award to Afghan refugees forced to leave Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s cricket team is not without controversy: It has posed for pictures with Taliban leaders, and early this year, several of its members criticized Australia for pulling out of a scheduled series to protest the Taliban’s policies toward women and girls.

Nepali survivors speak about Hamas attack. Nearly 50 Nepali students were staying on a kibbutz in Israel to work and learn about agriculture when Hamas attacked on Oct. 7. Ten died; one is believed to have been taken hostage. In recent days, survivors, now back in Nepal, have spoken about the attack. One told the Guardian, “We started shouting ‘We are Nepali, we are Nepali’ but they didn’t listen to anyone, they just kept firing and threw two grenades into the bunker [where he had sought cover].”

The tragedy has reopened a debate in Nepal about the safety of its citizens abroad. Many Nepalis, like many other South Asians, work in the Gulf countries. They often labor in hot, grueling, and dangerous conditions, with several thousand in recent years dying or suffering life-changing injuries and illnesses. Now, Nepalis are questioning whether Israel—where hundreds of Nepalis work as caregivers—is a safer destination, as many had previously thought, and reconsidering the cost of going abroad for work.

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Washington’s laser focus on the Israel-Hamas war may have diverted its attention from many foreign-policy priorities, but the conflict hasn’t affected its efforts to press Bangladesh to hold free and fair elections in January.

Last week, Afreen Akhter, a senior U.S. State Department official, visited the country to reiterate Washington’s message. Her trip wasn’t without intrigue. An Oct. 17 report in Northeast News, an India-based South Asia news site, alleged that Akhter delivered an “ultimatum” during her visit, calling on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to turn over power by Nov. 3 to Bangladesh’s president (a ceremonial post) or the speaker of parliament to prepare the country for elections—a move that seems to align with the political opposition’s core demand that the government step down before the election.

On Oct. 18, a spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka responded to the Northeast News report by reiterating that Washington supports a free and fair election and doesn’t take sides in Bangladeshi politics. He did not explicitly reject the report. Even so, the report should be treated with skepticism. The Biden administration has repeatedly emphasized that its policies in Bangladesh—including one that restricts visas for those hindering free and fair elections—do not favor one party over the other, and it’s unlikely that Washington would want to risk conveying the impression that it’s doing the opposition’s bidding.

Autism advocate Sahara Dhakal decries in the Kathmandu Post the unwillingness of Nepal’s schools to enroll students with autism: “The transformative potential of inclusive education and proper government attention cannot be overstated. It is not merely an obligation but an opportunity to foster equality, social inclusion and quality education.”

Journalist Rumisa Malik contends in the Express Tribune that Pakistan’s television dramas fail to shine a light on the country’s social issues: “Drama, despite its multifaceted characters, intricate narratives and thought-provoking themes, fails to serve as a powerful medium for unravelling the complex tapestry of societal dynamics.”

Editor D.K. Singh, writing in the Print, offers an assessment of the first year of Mallikarjun Kharge’s presidency of the opposition Indian National Congress party. “In a nutshell, Kharge has set the 138-year-old party’s rusty wheels in motion in his first year,” he writes. “Congress is looking relatively better with a non-Gandhi at the helm.”

Correction, Oct. 26, 2023: Canada has three consulates in India, not four, as originally stated.