Modi’s muscular diplomacy against India’s moral image. Vishwaguru can’t kill US-Canada citizens

The Modi government should have started an internal investigation and acted on the allegations by Canada and the US. The Opposition leaders should have been taken into confidence.

File photo of Narendra Modi | Suraj Singh Bisht, ThePrint

For the last decade, the ruling BJP’s propaganda messaging has projected India as a “Vishwaguru,” a fount of global wisdom. The BJP’s publicity machine has worked overtime to create the illusion that India only arrived on the world stage with the advent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Never mind the colossal international stature of Jawaharlal Nehru or the dominating presence of Indira Gandhi; for the Sangh Parivar faithful, it is Modi who has ensured that India burst into the global limelight. 

Well-marketed events like the ‘Howdy Modi’ show in Houston in 2019, or media visuals of Modi being feted by an adoring Indian diaspora contributed to the image. So did Modi’s role as the ‘Covid saviour’ and ‘vaccine guru’ who sent vaccines to countries in need. Modi sitting on a swing with China’s President Xi Jinping on the banks of the Sabarmati in 2014, or Modi hugging both Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Vlodymyr Zelenskyy—as if he was bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to an end—were all used to pump up the volume on an expertly mounted advertising campaign of Modi as a white-bearded global sage.  

It has taken an unfortunate diplomatic spat with Canada and a serious indictment from the US for the “Vishwaguru” cult to unravel. When the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau made public accusations that top officials of the Indian government were involved in the 2023 murder of pro-Khalistan leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar and that a criminal gang—the Lawrence Bishnoi group—was carrying out violence on Canadian citizens allegedly with the tacit approval of Indian government officials, shockwaves rippled around the world.  

Assassination plots 

Close on the heels of Trudeau’s accusation came a formal indictment from the United States Department of Justice. The FBI leveled charges of murder-for-hire and money laundering against Vikash Yadav, a former R&AW official identified as ‘CC-1’ in the US investigations into the now-botched Gurpatwant Singh Pannun assassination plot in New York. This plan was allegedly hatched around the same time as the Nijjar murder. This is the US’ second indictment in the case. Both the US and Canada now allege that Indian officials are involved in conspiracies to assassinate their citizens on foreign soil.

India’s prestigious foreign policy is our proud inheritance. Our international stance has always struck a high moral tone of upholding democratic values at home and abroad. Many western democracies are India’s allies precisely because of shared values of pluralism and constitutionalism. While Modi may like to engage in a bellicose “Ghar mein ghus ke maarenge”tone with countries like Pakistan, Canada and the US are not Pakistan. 

Pakistan has had a history of exporting terror tactics to India, and has made cross-border terrorism part of state policy. In the face of attacks from Pakistan-based militants, India has rightfully invoked the right of self-defence. Pakistan is India’s so-called historical “enemy” with whom a cycle of cross-border terrorist acts and wars over the decades have seen many acts of retribution such as the Balakot air strikes of February 2019 after the Pulwama attack in January. Pulwama was the culmination of several strikes on India. When Modi unleashed fiery rhetoric against Pakistan, yelling ‘Hum ghar mein ghus ke marenge,” at an election rally in Ahmedabad in 2019, the public cheered. 

But the US and Canada are entirely different propositions. Canada is a stable constitutional democracy, home to approximately over a million Indians. In 2023, three lakh Indian students travelled there for higher studies. Canada is a Commonwealth partner and has deep trade and people-to-people contacts with India, as well as shared values of democracy and pluralism. Canada is also a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and most certainly would have shared its intelligence on India with the other Five Eyes countries, such as the US. India’s links with the US are vital, deep and enduring. Over five million people of Indian origin live in the US.  

The Modi brand of ‘muscular diplomacy’ runs high risks in countries like the US and Canada. With friendly western democracies, diplomatic adventurism can lead to severe embarrassment. Both Canada and the US have fiercely independent criminal justice systems. And both strongly guard their citizens’ constitutional freedoms such as the right of free speech. Neither Nijjar, who was killed, nor Pannun are globally designated terrorists, unlike Osama Bin Laden, even though in India’s eyes, both Nijjar and Pannun posed and continue to pose serious dangers to Indian territorial sovereignty.

Constitutional democracies are defined by their adherence to the rule of law. If an individual is designated a “terrorist” by one country but not another, democratic governments have an armoury of means to address the situation. Compiling detailed evidence, asking for extradition, approaching the courts, and co-operating with the host country’s police. India says 26 extradition requests have been made to Canada over the last decade. Yet painstaking investigation and evidence gathering must be the basis of extradition requests. Without detailed evidence, extradition will not be granted. While the process can be lengthy, it remains the only route available for democracies to catch criminals across borders. Any form of “encounter killings” (common occurrences in parts of north India), or conspiracies for such actions are abhorrent and repugnant in a rules-based democracy. 

Even more disturbing are the allegations that a criminal organisation like the Lawrence Bishnoi gang was allegedly involved with Indian officials in assassination plots. Such tactics are reckless and run counter to the spirit of cooperation with western allies. When such attempts backfire, they result in a great deal of embarrassment.

Moral glow of India’s diplomacy

The Modi government’s reactions to Canada’s accusations have been typically swaggering, and offhand. BJP-friendly TV anchors are shrieking about the ills of the Trudeau government. But Canada’s internal politics or Trudeau’s failings are not India’s problem. Instead, we need to concern ourselves with ensuring democratic accountability of our own agencies and institutions. 

The Modi government should have signalled full cooperation with Canada in ensuring that the rule of law is upheld, and that accountability is fixed. If both the US and Canada are alleging, in their own ways, that Indian agencies are involved in assassination attempts on their soil, then the Modi government should have started an internal investigation and acted to fix responsibility where needed.  

Importantly, an all-party meeting was urgently necessary to take opposition leaders into confidence. India’s foreign policy has always emerged out of bipartisan consensus. Both opposition and government have always been united in putting the nation first. The country’s foreign relations have never been about undemocratic unilateral moves. As a reality check: while pro-Khalistan leaders have been the focus of Indian intelligence agencies, New Delhi still has not been able to secure the extraditions of wanted criminals like Dawood Ibrahim or those accused of fraud and criminal conspiracy like discredited tycoon Mehul Choksi.

When a nation claims to be the “Vishwaguru,” lawful means, impartial investigations, and respect for another country’s territorial integrity should be the norm. A world leader behaves like a responsible power by respecting the rules-based international order. “Vishwagurus” do not engage in adventurism and foolhardiness. 

The ideals of Gandhian quest for truth, Nehruvian non-alignment, Indira Gandhi’s courageous patriotism, Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s commitment to a peaceful neighbourhood, and an open economy have given India its unique place in the world. In the post-Independence decades, these ideals have established India’s voice as one of peace and moral commitment. No, India’s global spotlight did not start with Modi, it was successive prime ministers in the post-Independence period who kept the moral glow of India’s diplomacy alive.  

Positioning India as a “Vishwaguru” and then bringing embarrassment to the country is a sure shot way to put out the flame of Indian diplomacy. The troll army on X and shrieky TV news anchors won’t repair the damage. The Modi government needs to shed its whimsical, secretive recklessness and focus on sane, rational consensual diplomacy as befits the world’s largest democracy. That would be the mark of a true “Vishwaguru”. 

Sagarika Ghose is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.

(Edited by Ratan Priya)