WHY DID INDIA REMOVE ATWAL FROM BLACKLIST?
‘NOT AN ACCIDENT’ THAT EX-CON SIKH EXTREMIST AND LIBERAL BACKER WAS ALLOWED TO VISIT
How did Jaspal Atwal, a man convicted of the attempted murder of an Indian politician and a former member of a banned extremist organization intent on creating a Sikh homeland by dismembering India, get into that country in the first place?
It doesn’t make any sense — until you start to consider who stands to benefit from Atwal’s attendance this week at parties organized as part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s official visit.
India has a blacklist of Sikh extremists, intended to stop people who intend to undermine India’s democratic institutions from entering the country. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, for one, has been denied a visa in the past. Until very recently, it is a list on which Atwal figured.
But Canadian officials say that, despite his criminal past — Atwal was convicted of attempted murder for his role in a 1986 attack on an Indian cabinet minister — he has now been removed from that list, and not at the behest of the Canadian government.
“This was not an accident,” said a senior security source within the Canadian government, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Atwal has developed links with the Indian government and his political views “have evolved” in recent years. “They no longer see him as the enemy,” said the source, who believes it is convenient for some in India’s government, if not necessarily for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to embarrass Trudeau for being soft on Sikh separatism.
Asked which part of the Indian government might be so motivated, the source said, “The intelligence service.”
The Indian High Commission in Ottawa did not respond to calls seeking to confirm that Atwal has been removed from the blacklist. An email seeking comment from Indian High Commissioner Vikas Swarup, who is in India, had not been returned at press time. But Asian Age newspaper, an English language daily in India, reported Friday that home ministry officials say Atwal is no longer on that list.
Atwal’s removal from the blacklist does not explain why he was invited to a reception by B.C. Liberal MP Randeep Sarai. That may be simply have been a rookie mistake by a rookie MP.
But the cool reception Trudeau has received from the Modi government since landing in India suggests disquiet with the Liberal government’s approach to Sikh extremism.
Trudeau reiterated his support for a united India and condemned violence, “but we understand diversity of views is one of the great strengths of Canada,” he said Wednesday after a meeting with Amarinder Singh, the chief minister of Punjab, who last spring had refused to meet with defence minister Harjit Sajjan over concerns that Sajjan was sympathetic to the Sikh separatist movement.
However, the prime minister has gone beyond merely endorsing freedom of speech. In May last year, he attended a Sikh event in Toronto which featured Khalistan flags and posters of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the terrorist leader killed at the Golden Temple in 1984 when it was taken by Indian troops.
The calculation appears to have been that mild flirtation with Khalistani separatists would be repaid at the ballot box in seats like the Toronto-area riding of Brampton East, where one third of voters report Punjabi as their mother tongue.
But it seems that a failure to appreciate the nuances of Indian politics may have rebounded on Trudeau, sending a trip that was already attracting criticism into National Lampoon’s Vacation territory.
In India, as in China last December, the Liberals are finding out the hard way that great powers have no patience for domestic political games.