The fierce clash under way between Canada and India over the assassination in Vancouver in June of an Indian dissident raises difficult questions for all countries, but especially for democracies. The first concerns what to think and do about countries acting in a violent way against opponents in your own sovereign territory. The second question, however, is the flip side of that one: why is it that in modern times so few political leaders themselves get assassinated? The third is more specific to the latest case: how should we think about the state of democracy in India?
The killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar attracted little international attention at the time, chiefly because Mr Nijjar was not a well-known man, except to the community of Indian Sikhs in Canada of which he formed part. It was when the Canadian authorities, apparently assisted by intelligence from the U.S., decided that the Indian government itself had been involved in the killing that this became big news.
Since Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, tried and failed at the September G20 meeting in New Delhi to engage his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, on the issue of this killing, and then chose to make a public statement alleging Indian involvement, the story of Mr Nijjar’s death has become a big geopolitical scandal. It has become a scandal because of outrage at the idea of India sending agents to kill a dissident abroad, but also because of outrage that Canada has accused India openly of doing this.
Let us be realistic: extra-territorial actions against opponents have always happened. Russian agents have killed or attempted to kill numerous dissidents abroad in recent years, many in Britain, including one attempt using a nerve agent, Novichok, that is banned by international conventions. Saudi Arabia notoriously killed a dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in 2018 in their consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Chinese agents have kidnapped people they consider to be dissidents not just in Hong Kong but also in South-East Asia.
And Japan has not been immune to such actions: in 1973 the South Korean opposition politician, Kim Dae Jung, was kidnapped from a Tokyo hotel by South Korean agents who allegedly were only dissuaded from murdering him by pressure from the American CIA. Mr Kim was taken to Seoul and put under house arrest instead before being sent into a more distant exile in the United States. In 1998, once South Korea had become a democracy, Mr Kim was elected president.
What is notable about the series of examples of extra-territorial violence listed above is that apart from India the perpetrators listed have all been authoritarian regimes. Some might argue that western democracies’ secret services are just better at disguising their actions, and it is known that Israel’s Mossad has committed such killings in the past. In general, however, we should note that these kinds of actions are fairly rare, whatever James Bond and other movies might tell us.
One reason is that, in democracies, public protests against extra-judicial and extra-territorial killings by spy agencies would be fierce, unless the country felt it was in a state of war, making such actions politically risky both for the spies and for the political leaders who have to give approval for them. In 1988, when British soldiers killed three unarmed members of the terrorist Irish Republican Army the backlash against the action was long and loud, even though a civil war was under way in the UK territory of Northern Ireland and even though the killings took place in the British colony of Gibraltar. Authoritarian regimes feel a lot less constrained by public opinion, which is why Russia has been such a frequent culprit.
Nonetheless, all types of regimes are constrained by a further consideration. To carry out a violent act on another country’s territory is tantamount to an act of war. This provides the answer to the second question, of why countries do not assassinate each others’ political leaders. The reason is that to carry out a political assassination would, in modern times, be seen as a declaration of war on the target country. All countries, authoritarian or democratic, rightly think twice before contemplating such an action.
Which brings us back to the case of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and his murder in Vancouver in June. It has not been proven that this was the work of Indian agents, or of killers encouraged by the Indian government. Yet Prime Minister Trudeau clearly believes the evidence for this is strong enough for him to take the risk of accusing a fellow democratic country, India, of perpetrating this violation of Canadian law and its sovereignty.
We are not in a position to judge the merits of the case. We can note that many Sikhs, including Mr Nijjar, are campaigning for their homeland in India to secede and become a separate country. We can reasonably wonder whether Mr Nijjar can really have posed such a threat to India, from his home thousands of miles away, that it would have been worthwhile for agents to take the political risk of taking a domestic fight across international borders and into an otherwise friendly foreign country.
What we can also observe is that inside India itself the backlash against the idea that Indian spies might have committed this act has been quite modest. There have instead been many loud protests in the Indian media against Canada and the West for making this accusation, albeit often linked to an argument that if the accusation were proved to be true, the killing would be justifiable.
This inevitably raises the third question, about the state of democracy in India, a country which Japan and many of its allies have been seeking to become closer to, arguing that we somehow share common values. The reality is that since his election in 2014 as prime minister, Narendra Modi has tightened controls over the media and over universities, and has pursued an often divisive, sectarian policy in a country that contains many religions, including Muslims and Sikhs as well as Mr Modi’s Hindus.
The lack of protest against the idea of the Canadian killing implies that India has become more like an authoritarian country than a democracy, at least in its public discourse. It is of course still a democracy, given that the next general elections will be held in 2024 and they will be competitive, unlike elections held in Russia. But it is a democracy with some authoritarian characteristics.
Does this mean that Japan and the West should shun India? No, because there is nothing that outsiders can do to make India more or less democratic than it is. Rules about sovereignty and foreign interference apply even more to domestic politics than to assassinations. What we can do is to shed any illusions our political leaders might have about whether collaboration with India is something justifiable and promotable on the basis of values. If we collaborate, especially with regard to resisting China, it will be on the basis of shared interests, nothing more.
Source: The Mainichi
