 Hey, welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections, and we're connecting with Monty Condacar, who is our reporter, a global reporter, if you will, in New York, who covers things like this, what happened here in Surrey, in British Columbia, and it can help us understand what happened. What happened is Mr. Seng Nijab was assassinated, killed, murdered on June 18th of this year, and it, it ruined it around and then it got really exciting, excited in the, in the press. And most recently, it's become a diplomatic issue. So we have to have the history about the, what, on jobbies. We have to have the history of why India, people in India, maybe governments in India care about this, and what were the circumstances of the assassination. It's very important we know about what happened here. Welcome to the show, Monty. Aloha, Jay, and lovely to have the, and to meet you back again so fast. So let's talk about the Nijab issue, which has sensationalized the headlines and to know the history about it. So you can't take the issue on its face unless you understand what is the issue about. So let's go, Jay. It's going to be a fun episode. Okay, tell us about the history. We need to know, you know, the entire background of what happened so we can appreciate the circumstances. Okay, go. Yeah. So, Jay, when Justin Trudeau stands up in parliament and blames agents all through the Indian government to kill, assassinate Nijab, it was a direct attack on the government, isn't it? It was sensational that somebody standing up and blaming a democratic government for assassination. So now I'll just tell you in brief the history of the Kalistan movement. Now the Kalistan movement seeks to create an independent Sikh state. Now Sikh is a community in which they tie the turban. They have the five sacred caves, that is the Kirpa and the Keshe, the long hair. And they have these particular five feasts, which they follow. And so they are known as Sikh. Okay. But this Sikh, which is calling for the creation of an independent Kalistan state out of the Punjab state, already existing Punjab state of India. Now my mom told me this, that 70% of the Punjab state was given to Pakistan during partition. And 20, 30% has taken back in India. 30% only 54% are Sikh community in India. The rest of the different communities that live in India. Out of 54% Jay, there is a huge chunk of Sikh people who have given up their lives for India. Their gurus are held, held sacred by all Indians alike, you know, Modi has celebrated Vir Balandrivas for their guru. I mean, there is no discrimination between a Sikh and a Hindu. In 1970, this idea was given by Dr. Javjit Chauhan, a Sikh who was living in Canada and he called himself president of Kalistan and started printing out currency and passports. Now you see, when you talk like this, that it's my state, it's a Kalistan state in exile and I'm going to print my own passport and my own currency. That means you're starting a separatist movement. Correct. So now when you see this Kalistan movement finds very little resonance with Sikhs in India, there are no takers for this in India. That's why we don't have sensationalization of this issue as much in India as it is outside. For Sikhs in India, loyalty to the country is as important. They don't support this extremist issue of creating a state out of an existing country. How can you carve it out? And when you say they want to carve out the state, their history is painted with blood. Why? Because they were involved in the assassination of Chief Minister Biyan of Punjab. Assassination of Indra Ran, her bodyguard was of Sikh community and he supported the Kalistan movement and he shot her with, I mean, a flurry of bullets. Now Jay, a couple of weeks back, there was a float in Canada, in June, there was a float in Canada which showed the assassination of Prime Minister Indra Ran, the Indian government objected to this and wrote to Trudeau, no, stop this. So he replied that it is freedom of expression. Okay. And then, you see, Indra Ran was the one in 1982, she had asked for the extradition of a Kalistani activist known as Parmar. So this, Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, refused because he said allegiance of the Indians to the Kuwait was not enough. They were just recognizing her as the head of the state and not of the like, it was just a constitutional head, not a real head. So they did not have allegiance, so we will not extradite Parmar. And Parmar was the one who was involved in the hijacking of Air India. And that disaster was the biggest airline disaster before 1911 and it killed T28 on board 286 of Canadian citizens. So you see assassination of a Chief Minister of a state, assassination of a Prime Minister of a country, the falling of Air India, one entire airplane, they are not peace-loving movement, it's not a peace-loving movement. The movement was crushed in India by a Sikh himself, KPS Gill, and he was very shrewd in his encounters and he made sure that this movement does not exist in India. Now, when we see that Nijjar, the person who is killed, you know, Trudeau presents him as a plumber. So it's his day job, but he is visiting Pakistan and getting funding from the ISI of Pakistan. It's like always, he was the Chief of the band, Kalistan Tiger Force, TKT Ed. Now these are facts, it's like, you know, the port is all over the newspaper, it's like calling Osama an engineer. Same way, Nijjar was a plumber, but what is he doing? He's using the Gurdwara, which is a place of worship. I had explained to you in COVID times, Landar is used to help people. So a Sikh community and Indian community are no different, they are one and the same, but this Kalistan movement has taken a whole new meaning because they're using the same Gurdwara as meeting points and now it's a movement of profit, ego, and there is a lot of, what do you say, it's extremism and any man who's extremist or a separatist cannot be supported by a democratic government. Now let's bring in why Justin Trudeau is supporting this, you know, because he has 11 seat support from Kalistani Jagmeet Singh of Canada, who is very much a supporter of the Kalistan movement. Justin Trudeau's government is supporting because of this 11 seat support from Jagmeet Singh. So he is the one who drives Justin's support for the Kalistan movement. Now the National Security Agency of India, when it declares a one million rupee reward on Nijjar, I mean he is a terrorist, he is wanted, he is wanted by the Interpol in 2012, he's gone to Pakistan occupied Kashmir, he's collected Pakistan occupied Punjab, collected funds and come to India. You know, this is going on death years because he was just presented as a Canadian citizen, when did he become a Canadian citizen, he became after he was illegally staying in Canada for five to ten years. I mean, this guy has got a shady past and future and present. So leave that aside, okay, we agree. But the day Justin Trudeau says that Nijjar has been killed by agents of state and government, the very next day another Kalistani leader was killed, okay, and a rival guy from Lawrence Bishnoi came responsibility that we killed him. So immediately the very next day, a same killing of the same order takes place and it's rival gang. Now the investigating agency for Nijjar's killing had let out a call that to everybody, please if anybody has leads, please come and inform us. Is this credible enough that Justin Trudeau gets up in parliament and talks from government to government? It's not, I feel it's not. He should let evidence come up and then talk. Now he should have that he's got it from the Five Eyes Intelligence Network, that is US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada. These are the five countries who make up the Five Eyes Intelligence Network. But CJ, none of them are coming out in pure support of him. They all are asking for a thorough investigation. So as prime minister of a country, you have to wait for credible conclusions, not credible evidence before you point fingers at the government. And not only did he stand up and say this, he dismissed a diplomat, Indian diplomat. He issued a travel advisory. India replied in kind. And third was where he said that his statement India has now understood that it cannot, the Khalistan movement is in Canada. So their properties which are in India are the right of the Indian government. They sealed it. The bank accounts are sealed. The properties which were, you know, in flamboyant properties in India, they are taken away by the government and Canadians are not allowed to enter India. So India can do its best to protect itself from this kind of separatist movement. You cannot allow somebody who is capable of assassinating the head of the country to come in. I mean, they are violent. And it's a very minor minority which is dealing with huge funding, Jay, huge funding in the sense that I'll tell you when there was a farmer's bill that was passed. These guys gave three million dollars to Rihanna for a single tweet. So this is the kind of money that is flowing in. And Pannu, another leader who's over there, he's in America, but he talks about the next day that Trudeau says this, he gets up on an issue, blurt it out that all Hindus should leave Canada immediately. So there is no flamboyant down by the government on it. So what about Justin Trudeau risking the lives of the many Hindus that stay there? Now Indians are not just Sikh, Indians are not just Hindus. Indians are a huge community of different, different faiths and religions and everybody and they are working population. Now when India refused to grant visas to Canadians, Justin Trudeau cannot reply in kind and say, we do not issue visas to Indians. Tell me why? Because a huge chunk of Canadian economy depends on skilled Indian labour and Indian students. So it's a source of income for the Canadian government, this skilled labour and students in Punjab, they almost sell their land and they go over there. In many states, they go for a better life and everything, but now the taxation, the mortgage, everything is making life so difficult over there. You have skilled labourers who's going for cab driving and all that. So standard of living is not that high as it was portrayed to be. But still, making Canada to support the Kalistan movement is as good as going against the Indian government and when you are supporting the Kalistan government, opposite, overly you're blaming the Indian government that you killed this naja without any credible evidence J. They still do not have conclusive evidence. He is just saying, come into the investigation, but where? Where do you come in? I mean, there has to be a point in which you say that these people who are involved and diplomats are being threatened. The same situation happened in Australia. Our temples are being vandalized in Canada. The same situation happened in Australia. And when he had come in, the Australian Prime Minister had come in, Mr. Mopati had requested him to take care of the Kalistan movement. He cracked down on extremists. It doesn't mean you cracked down on everybody, but he cracked down on them and he gave protection to the temples, he gave protection to the council. That is the way to go about it. Not say that. And I told you, it is World Bank politics. Jagmeet Singh, the pro-Khalistani leader who's given 11 support, 11 seats support to Trudeau is the one who's driving his pro-Khalistan tactics. This is a little history on it. Well, you know, the only thing I saw in the newspaper that suggested it was the Indian government was this leap of logic about the fact that there were two automobiles involved in the killing and half a dozen people were involved. And I guess, you know, of course, the historical background here in crime suggests that India is not happy with this recession, its movement. However, that's really not enough to reach a conclusion that it was the Indian government that set it up. So this investigation is going to be pretty hard because it doesn't sound like there's any real evidence connecting it with the Indian government. But just as a, you know, just as a sort of a gestalt reaction of Rupmani, this isn't something that Modi would do. This is not something that the Indian government would do. The Indian government doesn't do this. No absence. The very next stage, the very next day Sukka, equal leader as Nijjar, he was killed. I mean, you Google Google Nijjar and you see him standing with an AK-47. It's it's up on Google. Just Google Nijjar and you see him with the AK-47. Is he a plumber? And what are you talking? It's very difficult to say that he's just a plumber and gang war and gang war. And this politics of killing is because Jay, a lot of funding is involved. There is a lot of profit which is being made. See, you can't say that I will carve out an Orthodox Christian state fictional name out of Texas. I want somebody sitting in Australia will say I want something out of Texas or it can't be done. I mean, you just you can't say, okay, I can't do that because that's a fully functional state with a democratic setup and it's working as a federal under the federal government. There is a lot of machinery in world interest. How can you carve it and give it? Already a state called Pakistan has been carved out of India during our independence. After that, it's a fictional motivation that is kept in front of youth. They're given a lot of money for it. And this extremism is jingoism in which you feel that maybe I can take part in it but it's not possible. I told you issuing passports and currency of a fictional state, it doesn't make any sense. No. So what I get is that there's an undercurrent of racism with Trudeau against and maybe others you know in Canada who just don't like Indians, period. Yes. And this is a way for them to express that racism. Surrey in British Columbia is largely Indian, all kinds of Indians, but all kinds of Indians and it suggests to me that Trudeau made a huge mistake here, a series of mistakes. Would you agree that his public statements and his actions on the act of the Canadian government were a series of mistakes? Absolutely, absolutely yes, yes, yes. And particularly yes because Jay, he is making the biggest mistake of his life by thinking that this Kalistani Sikhs make up the entire Indian population. Kalistani Sikhs do not make up even the Sikh population. I mean Sikhs are the ones who have given their lives for our country, their part, integral part of the Hindu culture, Indian way of life. It's never, you cannot separate a Hindu and a Sikh. They're together. I mean there is no distinction in our style of praying, our style of eating, our style of living. It's the same. There is no difference. And see our army, and I told you the person who thwarted the movement in Kalista, in Punjab, of Kalistani movement in Punjab was himself KPS Gill, given the highest honours in India. Sardarji are respected with a lot of, they have, they're cherished in Indian society. And the gurus, we have the gurus which are revered amongst the Hindu community itself. So there is no distinction. But Trudeau is thinking there is such a massive support for the Kalistani movement that he can get away with this, but he doesn't understand. He's putting our Hindu population itself at risk over there. The rest of the population who are not supporting the Kalistani's are at risk. Now you see they have these yellow flags. They take the tri-colour and they kick it around. They hit Modi's effigies. So this kind of extremism is uncalled for, but you see on the opposite side of the road, you will see Indians with tri-colours trying to say that no, we support India. Kalistani is a separatist movement. It's a full stop on that. You can't say that a separatist movement is good or separatist movement is bad. A separatist movement which has tainted itself with extremism and violence is never important. In part, the press has created this because it's reminiscent of what happened to Khashoggi in Istanbul a few years ago. And in that case, Saudi was clearly responsible that the BMS organized it and they killed Khashoggi at his instructions. And that pretty much has come out. And although Trump bypassed that and forgave him, fact is that it's clear enough that Saudi did that. So the press is reminiscing on what happened in Turkey with Khashoggi. Furthermore, there's been all this criticism of the police. Now this assassination took place on June 18th. June 18th is a long time ago. And it was looking under the hood and there were those people who had an agenda and they were trying to make a claim that the police were burying this and the police did not respond and the police did not investigate. So you get a kind of reminiscence of the American issue about how the police are at fault for failing to investigate. And I think the press makes much more of that than they should. I haven't found anything to suggest that the RCMP or the Surrey Police are trying to bury this. But the press is making that that annexing. So what you would have is a whole bunch of factors that on cleaning through dough make a big thing of it. And that makes it political, doesn't it? He's willing us to satisfy some political group that is trying to animate the issue. Am I right? Right. Now Khashoggi had a personal agenda with the Salman of he's a he's a he's a monarch over there. Modi is a pan India elected member of 1.4 billion people who were popularly voted him into power and Nijjar had no personal enmity with Modi. There was no one on one with Modi to equate Khashoggi's murder with Nijjar's killing. There's a big war in gang war between Nijjar's people and the opponents over there. The Bolivar, Lawrence Vishnoi, these are the names who who are the gang war people, rival gangs. You can't involve a prime minister who's democratically elected and present him to be a authoritarian because he's not. He has been popularly ill-tected by 1.4 billion people, majority democracy at its best at its peak. I mean, people have accepted him. People have chosen him. He works for the people. Nijjar has no personal vendetta with Modi that Modi will order agents of the government to go and kill him. NIA, the national investigation agency, declared him a terrorist in 2000, went to the Interpol there and got him declared. He was declared by the Interpol. He was declared a terrorist by the Interpol. So when Justin Trudeau talks about rule of the law and rule abiding states and order of the world, he should understand India as one who follows the rule-based global order. It has never gone outside the global order. And Jay, this happened in June. Trudeau was in Delhi a few days, a couple of weeks back. He could have spoken this to Modi, but you know the tantrums that happened with Justin Trudeau. It gives a big sign of his nervousness. He was allotted the lila hotlet for his entourage and he was given the presidential suite. He refused to take the presidential suite and he said, I want a smaller room. I didn't want to stay in the presidential suite, but the diplomatic logistics, they had given bulletproof glass and the necessary big baths about the welcome, but he refused it. And then when his plane broke down, he stayed an extra two days in India. Now a head of state who has got two days to while away in India, when Modi offered him Air India One to go back, he refused. I mean, it shows a lot of disrespect. It shows a lot of distrust. Well, where we are right now is in a low M in terms of diplomatic relationship, the national relationship between Canada and India. I never would have thought this would happen. I would have thought two democracies, they got to get along and appreciate and understand each other, not attack each other this way. So we've examined how Prudeau made mistakes in terms of dealing with this and his public statements about it and his actions about it. But what about Modi? I mean, is he responsible for the decline in the relationship between Canada and India? Is there anything else he could have done better to avoid this low M that we have now? In this case, Jay, Justin Trudeau made the statement, Justin Trudeau withdrew the diplomats and he issued the travel advisory. Three aggressive moves by Justin Trudeau. And India has not done anything aggressive against just given a tit for tat and issued an advisory that we will not issue any visa to the Canadians. And these OCI's which are given, you know why? Because they ain't done a little over the top. No, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Because I'll tell you why. Because these people are capable of assassinations, sensational assassinations, because they need to grab headlines, they need to grab media attention. So now, driven by the support of a Canadian government premier, they are going to send people who will try to come in and create havoc with bombings, hijackings. So the entry of people in this phase has to be vetted very prominently. Otherwise, it's a it's a security hazard to India itself. Because we had so many people going and coming in. Now who will come in after this are going to be fueled by anger, by vengeance. They want to see something sensational happen. And Justin Trudeau has just given a right amount of gasoline to light up such a fire. So yeah, Shane. How is this going to play out? Right now, we have a fire burning in terms of relations and you know, even assuming that it's that the fire was started with or Trudeau poured, you know, gasoline on it to make it burn ever brighter. Can't Narendra Modi do something to hold a situation to resolve this tension to explain to Trudeau and the people, you know, that this this is not an appropriate conclusion to make. And it's not appropriate in terms of diplomatic relations. We in the West cannot afford to have Canada arguing with India. And India can afford to be arguing with Canada, because Canada kind of represents the West. So what can we do to pull this off? Jay Mubali did the thing that he could that he has taken over there the land that they own in India. He has not done anything offensive against Canada. Now there but Trudeau has done something directly pointing fingers at the government of India. Here Modi in no words has said that I will this is the government of Canada has one statement, one line coming from Modi. No, because you have Justin Trudeau repeating his statement, backing his statement. Where is the credible evidence? I mean, there was two words which is very basic and they have to give the credible evidence before you point out at a country and of the West. I mean, right now, everybody has independent relations with each other. But Canada trying to garner the support of the other five states because Australia has faced a Kalistan movement in Australia, but they had cornered it very well. They gave it in control. Rishi Sona UK, they had cornered the Kalistan movement in UK. But Trudeau refuses to touch the Kalistan movement, acceptable that he is refusing ignore it, ignore it, but don't support them. When he supports it, he is going against the Indian government because it's a separatist government against the government of India. So Jay is taking very direct action, Trudeau is taking unparalleled for its non-diplomat. First part, first is non-diplomatic to talk about a country like that, that agents of the country, I mean, he could not make about a Jewish person. We gave a standing ovation to a Jewish Nazi, a Jewish slayer, a Nazi who has killed thousands of Jews. I mean, he did not vet information about the Nazi who has caused, he was a big part in the Holocaust. So I mean, he doesn't vet his information. He doesn't think before he speaks. He still seems young, relative to Pierre, he still seems young. Is the press in Canada explaining this to him? Or is the press also pouring fuel on the fire? Pierre Trudeau was very mature when he made the decision not to extradite Parmar that time. He caused the assassinations. And Trudeau is also a mature man. He knows what he should do, but vote politics, everything. I mean, at one point of time, you understand that this man is not thinking a lot before he speaks today. He's causing a lot of problems, a lot of, there was a G20 which happened, global meet that happened. He could have easily raised it in a bilateral. JD, in October they have, Canada has a big trade agreement meeting with India. He could have raised it one-on-one that time. There are many avenues to raise this issue, but to raise it in this cannot be just nullified as immaturity. There is a lot of thinking to it because he is pleasing Jagmeet Singh. He's pleasing the Kalistan movement, thinking that they will support him, but Kalistan is not India. Kalistan is not Sikhs and Sikhs are part of India. Kalistan is not a part of India. Kalistanis can never be a part of India. It will fall soft soon, but you know, something that we talked about a few minutes ago troubles me and that is that, you know, this is not just between India and Canada. India is part of BRICS. You know, there's this whole movement in the world going on about dividing up, you know, the east and the west, and you and I have talked about that before. And so the question is, where does the US and US allies in Europe, for example, fit on this? Are they going to support Trudeau, however right or wrong he is, or are they going to support India and Modi? Are they going to get involved in the public conversation about it? Are they going to let these two guys think it out? Are they going to let this movement run rampant over western Canada? Are they going to get involved in some kind of solution? Or are they just not treating that as the global divisiveness that is growing among nations? Yes, the immediate reaction of the Indian government was that the Justin Trudeau statements are absurd and motivate. And the US said that we will wait out for the investigation to happen and India will be part of the interrogation of whatever they want. And nobody in issues, there's been no refusal from India to say that we will not be part of an investigation. But show us where we have to be part of. That was the statement. Australia, UK refuse to come in, Australia and UK refuse to come in between this. So the western countries are taking it on the prema facing, or rather they're taking the history to account and they are keeping the hands a little bit away from Trudeau right now for supporting Trudeau. Because just by using words like rule of the law and order-based system, these are not words you can use in front of the world's largest democracy, which has functioned very impeccably for as long as it existed. I mean, sure, like what you have seen, India going to violence in another country. We have faced wars inside our country, but we have never gone and you know, attacked any country. So this kind of top that India is the history shitter in assassinations or anything is, is absurd, really absurd. And in a matter of two weeks, he's up China, he's up Russia, he's up India. I mean, what is he trying to do? He's trying to divide east and west. What is he trying to do? So getting Zelsinski to Canada, getting a Nazi who martyred so many Jews into the house of compromise and giving him standing ovation twice, a convoy to support Zelsinski, which is larger than a Biden's convoy. I mean, he was the one who requested Modi to, he insisted not request, insisted that Zelsinski be part of the G20. But Jay, the G20 was such a big agenda, this time they wanted to resolve it. They wanted to, you know, there were, there were already so many invitees. So, and the statement was unanimously passed. So getting Zelsinski could have caused a bit of hustle in that. So they refused his insistence and he made it very clear that he was not accepting of the G20. He was very grumpy the whole time. Did you see his videos? So I mean, Justin Trudeau was carrying a grudge against Cynthia for a very long time. He needed to vent it out. But he went it out by supporting an extremist, violent, highly dysfunctional movement, which is not Indian, which is not sick, and which is not supported by anybody he's putting life up. Hindus, Indians who are not sick in Canada at risk. And Canada's biggest income of skilled Indian labor and students is definitely going to be closed. Well, you know, the problem is that, you know, the racist gain is out of the box. And his statements, his statements he made will linger. Whatever happens in this investigation they're doing, and I suspect the investigation is going to go nowhere. But the state that leaves the relationship of Canada and India and the east and the west for that matter is an ongoing problem that you're right. Putin is happy to see this kind of device. So that means that you and I have to follow this. There are implications yet to come. There are solutions, hopefully, in the wings. And you and I will examine them going forward. Thank you so much, Rootbody. Rootbody Kandekar, our reporter that covers global issues and so well. We'll see you next time soon, Rootbody.