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Biden wants to take away Modi’s license to kill
Before Narendra Modi became prime minister, he said India should be quicker to kill terrorists outside its borders – carrying out extrajudicial assassinations on foreign soil, giving his spies the license to kill, James Bond-style.
An indictment unsealed in New York on Wednesday suggests that Modi did do that, and then angrily denied responsibility for an assassination in Canada.
Modi is popular enough in India that this should not dent his popularity or threaten his reelection bid next spring, but the news raises challenges for him internationally, not least with Canada, whose leader has been vindicated.
The US indictment alleges that on June 9 an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, arranged for a payment of $15,000 to an American hitman to carry out a $100,000 murder contract on Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist leader who lives in the United States. The problem for Gupta, and Modi, is that the “hitman” was an undercover officer with the US Drug Enforcement Agency.
Eight days later, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh separatist leader, called Pannun, who was his lawyer, to tell him that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had just warned him his life was in danger. The next day, Nijjar was gunned down by a team of killers outside his gurdwara in Surrey, B.C. That night, the indictment says, Gupta sent a video of Nijjar’s bullet-riddled corpse to the fake hitman he had hired.
The next day, he messaged again — “we have so many targets” — and urged him to take out Pannun.
Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic later in June on murder-for-hire charges.
The indictment alleges an Indian government official — presumably a senior spy — “directed the assassination plot from India” and that three more assassinations were planned in Canada.
This indictment makes everything that India has said since look ridiculous. When Justin Trudeau announced in September that Canada suspected Indian involvement in Nijjar’s death, Modi’s government responded with furious denials and expelled 41 Canadian diplomats. India’s media attacked Trudeau, even accusing him of being coked out in New Delhi for the G20 meeting, an entirely made-up allegation that nonetheless went viral around the world.
Joe Biden’s government was put in an awkward position by Trudeau’s accusation. Washington confirmed that it had intel that seemed to back Trudeau’s claim but also sought to calm tensions between its closest ally and India, whose cooperation it needs in containing China.
Behind the scenes, the Americans were exasperated, says Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Eurasia Group’s practice head for South Asia, who lives in New Delhi. “I’ve heard that the Americans have yelled at both sides and said the world has some serious problems going on right now. This is just bullshit. Let’s get this off the table very quickly.”
But India kept applying pressure to Canada, motivated by long-standing resentment of Canadian inaction on Sikh separatism.
Both Nijjar and Pannun had been helping organize a diaspora referendum calling for the creation of “Khalistan,” a majority Sikh state in northern India, which enrages the Indian government. There is little support for that idea in India, but it lives on in the hearts of Sikhs around the world, and India believes Canadian Sikhs finance terrorist attacks in India.
A Canadian inquiry into the 1985 Air India bombing, which killed 329 people, blamed poor intelligence and policing for failing to prevent it, and nobody was ever convicted. India regularly complains that Canada does not do enough to crack down on separatists, alleging, for instance, that Nijjar was running a terrorist training camp. They accuse the Liberals of failing to crack down because they need Sikh votes.
India has legitimate complaints, but it now seems clear that Trudeau was entirely right and Modi entirely wrong about who was responsible for killing Nijjar.
It is easy to understand Trudeau’s moves now. He came under heavy criticism for taking the impolitic position he did, instead of trying to resolve the matter quietly, but he knew all along he would be vindicated. It’s much harder to understand Modi’s moves, especially after Gupta was arrested, and after both Trudeau and Biden raised this issue with him at the G20 meeting in September. How did he think this would end?
Biden has invested a lot of time and energy in wooing Modi, cultivating him as a crucial Asian ally in the soft-power struggle with a rising China. Wednesday’s news will inevitably raise questions about how useful an ally he can really be.
But India has now promised to investigate the matter. “The Biden administration is pushing the Indian government to make a commitment not to carry out such targeted killing on ‘friendly soil’ and against citizens of friendly countries,” says Chaudhuri.
“I suspect they have already told the Indians in no uncertain terms that this cannot happen again,” says Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's global macro-geopolitics practice. “But Washington needs New Delhi on a range of high-priority issues, and New Delhi knows that.”
Despite this ugly business, the Americans have continued to engage on all fronts and will keep doing so. The same day the indictment came down, NASA announced it would train an Indian astronaut.
Biden is signaling that India and the United States need one another so much that the relationship will continue to deepen, whether or not Modi reins in his bumbling assassins.
Is the clock ticking on Biden and Trudeau?
It’s worse in the US, where every elected official seems to be raising money and running for reelection all the time, but leaders north of the border feel the pressure, too.
With President Joe Biden set for a reelection bid in November 2024 and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau due to meet voters by October 2025 at the latest, the already frenetic pace of electoral politics is picking up in both countries.
A pendulum swing may be in the works
Right-wing candidates in both countries aim to unseat the progressive incumbents, which means Biden and Trudeau face stiff competition. Biden’s chances, at the moment, seem far better than Trudeau’s despite some recent polling that may be giving the Democrats cause for pause – or maybe not.
Earlier this week, an ABC/Washington Post poll showed Biden’s approval rating at just 37%. What’s more, it found Donald Trump, the probable Republican nominee, leading Biden 51 to 42.
The poll, however, was such an outlier that even the pollsters who ran it recognized it as such. Criticism followed, and it’s safe to say that it is almost surely not an accurate representation of the electorate. Most polls show a much closer race, with Trump and Biden tied or within a few points of each other.
The picture in Canada is clearer. Trudeau is gunning for his fourth election win in a row – something that hasn’t been done by a prime minister in Canada in over a century – but opposition leader and head of the Conservative Party Pierre Poilievre leads by a lot. Poilievre stood out in a recent poll that found 40% of Canadians think he’d be the best prime minister compared to 31% who chose Trudeau. Canada is a multiparty democracy, so hitting 40% with several leaders on option is a strong showing.
Federal polls in Canada have the Conservatives up by four points on average, with some individual polls showing them up by double digits. According to 338 Canada, which tracks polls and models electoral projections, Poilievre’s side currently would stand to win 174 seats compared to 105 seats for the Liberals, which is enough for a majority government. The Conservatives are currently showing a 96% chance of winning the most seats.
Economic, aging, and legal matters
In the US, voters are expressing concern about both Biden and Trump – they aren’t exactly thrilled with their presidential options. A recent NBC poll echoes the ABC/Washington Post poll’s assessment of Biden’s flagging approval rating. It also shows that fewer than 40% feel Biden is handling the economy well despite job growth and the country heading for a soft landing. People are still feeling significant economic pressure.
Nonetheless, Biden might be safer on the economy than a quick glance suggests, especially since economic hopes are on the upswing. Clayton Allen, US director for Eurasia Group, says “The economy is doing just well enough for Biden.” He points out there’s just enough optimism out there with people’s personal economic outlooks that there’s “some positive sentiment among voters around the economy.” If things keep improving, such as the declining probability of a recession and the Fed’s ability to hold interest rates steady, that will boost Biden’s chances in 2024.
But any recent good news for Biden on the economy has to be tempered by the risk that economic sentiments take a turn. Recent numbers show optimism softening.
Beyond pocketbook issues, however, the electorate is also concerned by the candidates’ ages. According to NBC’s poll, a combined 74% have major or moderate concerns about the president’s “necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.”
Biden is 80 years old. Trump is 77.
Trump is also facing multiple indictments and was just found to have committed fraud in New York state. The NBC poll found that 62% of respondents had major or moderate concerns about Trump’s many legal woes.
Media coverage of the two is shaping a 2024 election narrative that is priming voters to evaluate each candidate on particular metrics. “The narrative around Biden has been for quite a while that his age is the most important factor for assessing his fitness for office,” Allen says. The one about Trump “has focused on his legal challenges and his position in the party.” The looming showdown for 2024 seems to be Biden’s age and fitness versus Trump’s (un)lawfulness.
In response, the White House has crafted a plan – parts of which pre-existed recent polling – to keep Biden fit and, just as importantly, looking fit. Of note, Democrats have had a recent run of favorable election results, which could serve as a proxy for the upcoming presidential race, suggesting an edge for Biden over Trump.
Canada focuses on affordability
Canadians are expressing their own fatigue with the current leadership and economic frustrations, particularly on housing and affordability. In recent weeks, the Trudeau government has gone all-in on the housing file, removing the sales tax from the construction of purpose-built rental units. They’ve also made a push to “stabilize” the cost of groceries – which grew 8.5% year over year in July. Food prices have been a significant issue in the country.
The government seemed to be gaining some traction on affordability issues of late – concerns that will determine the outcome of the next election. But events conspired last week to shift the national focus and some of the government’s attention.
Trudeau’s allegation last week that India assassinated a Canadian on Canadian soil shocked the country and the world. Days later, during a visit to address parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, welcomed a World War II veteran in the gallery who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.” He noted the man was a “Canadian hero” and a “Ukrainian hero” before the chamber, including Trudeau and Zelensky, and the chamber gave him a standing ovation. But it turns out that the veteran in question was in a Nazi SS division.
Rota has since resigned, and while Trudeau had nothing to do with the scandal, Conservatives are blaming him for the debacle – and there’s a good chance some voters will, too. This was the last thing Trudeau needed, particularly since questions about whether he can even last until 2025 are already circling. An August poll found a majority of Canadians thought he should go ahead of the next election.
With more than a year to go before the presidential election and as many as two years before a Canadian contest, no outcome is guaranteed. Elections matter, and the time ahead of them leaves plenty of opportunities for events and shifting fortunes to do their thing. Plus, not everyone has made up their mind.
“Polling this far out from the general election is inherently compromised,” notes Allen. “People are still very much deciding what their position is going to be, especially voters who are persuadable to either side.” This is true on both sides of the border, but current numbers suggest that by 2025, we’re more likely to see Biden in the White House than Trudeau in the prime minister’s chair.
The pendulum may end up swinging, but Biden stands a better chance of holding on for another term.
The Graphic Truth: Indians hold 40% of Canadian student visas
The fallout from allegations that India was behind the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar has thrown Indo-Canadian relations into the lurch. Each side has expelled a diplomat from the other, and India’s Embassy in Canada stopped processing visas – a serious diplomatic gesture, no doubt, but the material impacts are likely to be small. Only around 80,000 Canadians visited India in 2021 out of more than 1.5 million foreign tourists.
But if Canada responds in kind, it will be a very different story. Indian students represent a staggering 40% of the 807,000 foreign student visa holders in Canada, more than every other nationality combined save China. The number of Indians studying in the Great White North skyrocketed from just 2,210 in 2000 to 171,505 in 2018 — also the year Indian students first outnumbered Chinese students. Their population has since nearly doubled, and Indian students now represent approximately 0.8% of the entire population of Canada.
Here’s the twist: Even before the row over Nijjar’s murder, Canada was seriously considering capping student visas. The country is in the midst of a severe housing shortage, and efforts to alleviate the situation are falling short. The province of Ontario needs to build around 150,000 new houses every year for the next several years to rectify the situation — and they’re managing around 40,000. Capping the number of foreign students competing for limited housing might be politically expedient, but it would be a devastating blow to the Canadian universities that depend upon international tuition rates.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rises to make a statement in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Sept. 18, 2023.
India and Canada expel diplomats, US treads carefully
Following Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegation on Monday that the Indian government assassinated Sikh independence activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil, the two countries each expelled one of the other’s diplomats.
Ottawa booted an official that it said was heading India’s intelligence operations in Canada, while New Delhi announced it would send home a senior Canadian envoy as well.
India denies any role in the killing of Nijjar, who was gunned down in June, and the foreign ministry objected to what it said was the “interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities.” New Delhi believes Nijjar was involved in terrorist attacks carried out by Sikh separatists in India.
Meanwhile, the White House has been circumspect. The Biden Administration said it was “deeply concerned” and that it is “critical” that Nijjar’s killers be brought to justice — but refrained from directly commenting on India’s alleged involvement.
Trudeau’s allegations, of course, put Washington in an awkward position – caught between supporting an extremely close and longstanding ally, or potentially embarrassing India amid major US efforts to make inroads with New Delhi.
(For a deeper dive into the geopolitics behind the Nijjar assassination, read the forthcoming edition of GZERO North)