Trudeau’s dependence on Jagmeet Singh explains Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s importance in Canada’s politics

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau directly accused the Indian government of perpetrating the killing of Nijjar. (Source: Reuters)

Why has Hardeep Singh Nijjar who had been declared an “individual terrorist” by India’s National Investigative Agency (NIA) become such a pivot in India-Canada relations? What provoked Canada’s Prime Minister Justine Trudeau to accuse the expelled Indian diplomat of hatching a conspiracy to kill Nijjar. After all, it is not as though Nijjar hasn’t had a serious brush with Canadian law enforcement agencies.

Nijjar’s Antecedents

He arrived in Canada on a fake passport under the alias Ravi Sharma in 1997. Nijjar immediately filed for asylum taking the plea that he had been tortured by the Punjab Police. His plea for asylum was rejected multiple times before he finally got Canadian citizenship in 2001. In India, his name first emerged in connection with the investigation into the bombing of the Shringaar movie theatre in Ludhiana in October 2007.

In 2021, NIA officials visited Ottawa, and a chargesheet was filed against him for his alleged role in the killing of a Hindu priest, Kamaldeep Sharma, in Jalandhar. But that was in India.

Twenty-four years after he arrived in Canada on a fake passport, his name came up as one of the suspects in the killing of Ripudaman Singh Malik, once an accused in the Kanishka mid-air bombing case. However, Nijjar vehemently denied his role in Ripudaman’s killing.

Despite his shady past on both Indian and Canadian soil, the question is what provoked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make a statement in the Canadian Parliament in his favour.

Trudeau’s Weak Political Hand

To understand that, we have to go a little back in time to March 2022, a few months after the Canadian parliamentary elections were held. After all, that is when Trudeau's Liberal Party joined hands with Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party (NDP). Jagmeet is Trudeau’s political rival but a hardcore Khalistan supporter.

This coming together was being looked at due to the strangeness of their agreement. The agreement was that the NDP would remain the political rivals of the Liberal Party, would keep pushing them but would not pull them down (the NDP would not move a vote of no-confidence against the government and would vote for it should a vote of no-confidence be introduced by any other party).

But there was an unsaid bargain made by NDP’s Jagmeet Singh – on any issue pertaining to the Indian diaspora, particularly the Khalistanis, Trudeau will have to tread blindfold to ensure he gets total support from NDP.

So when Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed on June 18, 2023, NDP pushed the Trudeau dispensation to expedite the investigation that led to the murder of Nijjar. On the streets, the Khalistanis backed by NDP kept trumping up the charges against the Indian diplomat.

The NDP-Jagmeet Singh Factor

Nijjar was an important functionary of the Khalistanis in Canada and was declared as an “individual terrorist” under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in July 2020. In 2018, the then chief minister of Punjab Capt Amarinder handed over the list of most wanted persons to Trudeau who was on a visit to India. This included Nijjar's name. Then Trudeau promised that his government would not allow any terror activity from Canadian soil.

However, On Monday, addressing the Canadian Parliament, Justin Trudeau directly accused the Indian government of perpetrating the killing of the man he had promised to keep a close watch on during his visit to India in 2018.

After Trudeau finished his speech in the Parliament, among others, NDP’s Jagmeet Singh also spoke. And he said that “to hear the Prime Minister of Canada corroborating to a potential link in the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil by a foreign government is something I could have never imagined.”

Jagmeet spoke in no uncertain terms, but, at best could only accuse the Indian government of a “potential link to the murder.”

Votebank Politics

While Trudeau can play a blow hot and cold game with the Indian dispensation, he cannot afford the same back home. After all, Canada is home to close to eight lakh Sikhs. For now, his political survival depends on Jagmeet Singh, who is one of the 17 MPs in Canada of Punjab origin. But he is the most powerful name among them all and thus Trudeau has to pander to the likes of Jagmeet.

Not just this, the power of the Sikh diaspora in Canada can be gauged by the fact that while in India, Punjab sends 13 Sikh MPs to the Indian Parliament (Lower House) out of a total strength of 545, in Canada, the number of Sikh MPs is 16 in a house of 338.

So more recently, when Trudeau was attending the G20 Summit in India, another Khalistani referendum was held in Surrey (a town in Canada’s British Columbia). Present at that event was none other than Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) Chief who issued threats to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Shamsher Chandel is an independent journalist based out of Chandigarh. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.