Some members of the Indian diaspora in B.C. are expressing fears that rising tensions between Canada and India could impact their ability to see their families.
The international rift was renewed this week after the RCMP revealed it is investigating allegations that Indian diplomats and agents were involved in a campaign of violence on Canadian soil.
The police agency alleges the diplomats coercively collected information on South Asian Canadians and then passed that information on to criminals, who took various actions, including committing homicides. India denied the allegations, but Canada said it is expelling six Indian diplomats.
The revelations of the RCMP investigation come months after officials tied India’s government to the 2023 killing of activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the leader of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C.
Now, some pro-Khalistan Sikh groups in B.C. are calling for Indian consulates in Canada to be shut down, saying that members of the Sikh separatist movement have been targeted.
Some in the Indian diaspora fear a shutdown could impact their future in Canada, though.
“The fact that there was a call-out, publicly, to shut down a consulate, cutting down the entire connection with the country I have deep roots in, impacted me deeply,” said Surrey resident Garima Aggarwal in an interview with CBC News on Wednesday.
“I was so mentally stressed I could not sleep last night, because I was thinking about this like, how do I visit my parents?”
Aggarwal and her husband Vaibhav Tripathi came to Canada in 2018, and say they want to bring their parents over to stay with them.
But with tensions rising, and their parents’ visa applications having sat in limbo for over a year, they’re afraid they might not get that chance.
“When you put a blanket condition that OK, all ties with India are severed, all Indian consulates are closed … it has [an] impact on real life people like us,” Tripathi said. “Not just diplomats, not just governments, it has [an] impact on citizens.”
Tripathi and Aggarwal, who are both Hindu, say they fear that the revelations this week could be driving a wedge between Sikh people and other Indian religious groups — something they don’t want to happen.
They’re asking for the Canadian government to work to restore ties with India, which some analysts have said may be significantly fractured after this week.
“Something needs to be done urgently to massage that relationship, bring that relationship back to that healthy relationship that it was years ago, when we decided to make Canada our home,” Aggarwal said.
On Monday, the RCMP revealed it was investigating claims that Indian foreign agents were involved in violence, including homicides, on Canadian soil. Vina Nadjibulla, the vice-president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said the diplomatic storm triggered by the allegations could last for a while.
Surrey MP urges calm
Neera Agnihotri, from the Surrey-based Agnihotri Immigration Consulting, said Canada’s moves to reduce the amount of temporary foreign workers in the country has already led to delays for those wanting to come to the country from India.
“This is making it harder for those genuine people to either come or go,” she said of the rise in tensions between the countries.
“At the end of the day, we Canadians are thinking ‘Is it safe for us to go to India?’ and the Indians are thinking ‘Is it safe for us to go to Canada?'”
Sukh Dhaliwal, the Liberal MP for Surrey-Newton, urged calm, however, saying his government has full confidence in the RCMP investigation.
“This is not an issue between two religions, two different communities,” he told CBC News. “It is between two countries, and I want to assure those people … that nothing is going to get affected.”
Dhaliwal added that Foreign Minister Melanie Mélanie Joly has expelled six Indian diplomats who were allegedly involved in covert operations, and that the government does not anticipate a need to close Indian consular offices.