Don't expect Trump to keep the pressure on India over hit squads operating in Canada

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India's foreign minister who has tangled repeatedly with Canada, said last year that many countries were nervous after the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

But he said India was "not one of them."

This week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Trump in the White House, following a recent visit by Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu — a close friend of Modi's.

Talks already held between Jaishankar and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio give a strong indication of what's on the agenda.

The U.S. wants India to buy more American arms (India has always been a loyal customer of the Russian arms industry). It also wants to talk about immigration and deportations with India, which is hoping to preserve the H-1B visa and others that open the door to Indian IT workers.

There is also sure to be talk of trade and trade barriers.

But what almost certainly won't happen is what happened at the G20 in New Delhi in September 2023, when then-president Joe Biden spoke to Modi about the Indian government's alleged plots to kill its enemies in North America.

Fall guy accepted

It was the U.S. government that provided Canada with some of the critical intelligence that allowed it to confidently blame the government of India for the activities of the hit squad that killed Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. (and likely a number of other people).

When India denied those allegations, it was the U.S. government that took Canada's side and told India to co-operate with Canadian investigators.

It was also the U.S. government that complained to New Delhi about a conspiracy on its own soil, aimed at U.S.-Canadian citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who lives in New York City.

That allegation, rather than Canada's allegations about Nijjar, is what led India to acknowledge that its own officials had indeed been involved in plotting crimes in North America — albeit with the implausible claim that they were acting as rogue agents.

But that pressure now seems certain to disappear, with Washington apparently ready to accept a fairly transparent ruse that seeks to place all the blame on one Indian official — alleged rogue agent Vikash "Vikas" Yadav.

Yadav was charged in absentia by U.S. authorities last October for his alleged role in the Pannun plot and remains a wanted man.

The manoeuvring between the U.S. and India around Yadav's case bears some resemblance to the dance that Washington went through with Saudi Arabia following the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post correspondent Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Although the CIA reported that the murder was carried out at the direction of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the U.S. government eventually acquiesced to an official version that blamed, and punished, supposed rogue agents within Saudi intelligence.

Reluctant scapegoat

But if the plan is to do something similar to make the Pannun issue go away, the designated fall guy — unlike his Saudi counterparts — may be ready to resist the role.

Reports in Indian media suggest that he feels hard done by and has the support of his home village, where he is seen as a patriot and local hero, and where some have threatened "revolt" if there is an attempt to imprison him.

"There is certainly pressure to have some accountability," said political scientist Sanjay Ruparelia. "Mr. Yadav seems to have been accused and has been fired and ordered arrested. There are different reports about whether he is free now or not."

After indicting Yadav, it was assumed in India that the U.S. would seek his extradition. But that doesn't appear to have happened, at least publicly.

"Whether the U.S. pressures India to act on that is unclear," said Ruparelia, "or whether there are any other arrests that take place."

No more help from Washington

What does seem clear, though, is that the U.S. is a lot less likely to pressure India over the assassination plots under Trump than it was under Biden, including the murder plot that targeted a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.

"I think it must be worrying for us in Canada on that score," said Ruparelia. "This is not an administration that's committed to the rule of law from any stretch that we can see, and given whom President Trump has pardoned, given whom he's appointed to very senior positions in his administration, I think that's a concern."

Among those nominees are Tulsi Gabbard, named by Trump to be director of national intelligence (DNI), and Kash Patel, Trump's proposed FBI director.

Both have a history of support and sympathy with the Modi government's guiding ideology of Hindutva.

In her opening statement at her confirmation hearing, Gabbard argued that she was not a "puppet of Modi." 

Gabbard was named as chair of the World Hindu Congress, an international organization affiliated with the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), though she later asked to be released from that role.

Modi is a lifetime member of the RSS, a paramilitary cousin to his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In 2013 Gabbard, then a congresswoman from Hawaii, opposed a House resolution condemning RSS violence against Muslim and Christian minorities in India. The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations opposed her nomination to DNI as "very dangerous" and "putting the fox in charge of the henhouse."

FBI pick defends Ram Temple

Patel was publicly supportive of the construction of a controversial Hindu temple in the city of Ayodhya.

The temple was the product of a long-running dispute between Hindus and Muslims over a site holy to both. The 1990s sectarian campaign by Hindu nationalists, including Modi, was the formative event that gave rise to his BJP.

At the height of the campaign in 1992, a Hindu mob destroyed the 470-year-old mosque, and at least 2,000 people were killed in rioting. Fresh rioting over the Ayodhya dispute in 2002 killed over 1,000 more — and Modi, then-governor of Gujarat province, was accused of inciting the rioters. The case hung over his head for 10 years before he was cleared by the Supreme Court of India.

Last year, Modi oversaw the consecration of a new state-funded Hindu temple on the site, marking the occasion with a reaffirmation of his Hindus-first ideology: "Ram is the faith of India, Ram is the foundation of India, Ram is the idea of India, Ram is the law of India … Ram is the leader and Ram is the policy."

Patel backed Modi, arguing that "there was a Hindu temple there for one of the quintessential gods in the Hindu pantheon in 1500 that was toppled, and they have been trying to get it back for 500 years."

He accused "the Washington establishment" of "a disinformation campaign that's harmful to India and the PM's position."

Modi-MAGA relationship is broad

Canadian intelligence experts and former officials have warned that the nominees endanger intelligence co-operation between the U.S. and its erstwhile allies.

Those concerns have focused more on Gabbard's ties to Russia's Vladimir Putin and Syria's Bashar Assad, and on Patel's talk of pursuing political enemies, than on either's relationship with India.

But former CSIS director Ward Elcock says there is a convergence of interests and ideology between Modi's Hindutva and Trump's MAGA, and indeed among right-wing populist movements around the world.

"I think that we probably can count less on the Americans taking a tough line with the Indian government in the near future," he told CBC News.

Elcock says the affinity for the Modi government is not confined to particular officials such as Gabbard and Patel, but is rather a common feature of populist governments around the world, and is shared by many on the right in Canada.

Trump himself has spoken of his fondness for Modi, and even appeared to express sympathy and admiration for Modi's alleged willingness to target and kill his government's enemies overseas.

On the podcast Flagrant, Trump said of Modi "he's great, he's a friend of mine.… On the outside he looks like your father, he's the nicest guy, but he's a total killer."

Trump recalled interacting with Modi at the "Howdy Modi" diaspora rally in Houston in 2019.

"He's the nicest human being, but we had a couple of occasions when someone was threatening India," Trump recalled, saying he had offered to help Modi deal with those threats. 

Trump then imitated an Indian accent and approvingly quoted Modi's reaction: "I will do it, I will do it, I will do anything necessary."