The Dragon Smiles While Modi Shouts ‘Khalistan!'
The Deccan Chronicle editorial
calling for closer cooperation between India and Canada to tackle the so-called
“Khalistan threat” is a textbook example of "locking yourself in a burning
house to escape a mosquito". It is an editorial soaked in security-state
talking points, and utterly blind to the far more pressing threats confronting
India’s foreign and domestic policy. And while we’re at it, it’s time someone
called out the Modi government’s real failing: not in what it obsesses
about, but in what it consciously chooses to ignore.
Let’s begin with the most uncomfortable,
but essential, truth: the ghost of Khalistan is more a product of political
theatre than geopolitical reality. In this regard, Narendra Modi bears uncanny
similarities to another strong-willed Indian leader Indira Gandhi, men and
women cut from different ideological cloths but sewn into remarkably similar
silhouettes of statecraft. Both authoritarian in temperament. Both centralisers
of power. Both surrounded by a sycophantic coterie of bureaucrats and party
loyalists. Both allergic to dissent. And, most importantly, both guilty of
manufacturing internal enemies to consolidate domestic power.
Both leaders understood one key lesson of
political survival: when you cannot fix the real problems, manufacture new
ones. Khalistan, in Indira’s time, was inflated through deliberate political
choices. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale didn’t fall from the sky—he was, initially,
Congress’s instrument of control against the Akalis. The flames of militancy
were fanned, and then—too late—extinguished in an operation that left scars on
the Sikh psyche for decades.
Fast forward to the Modi era, and the ghost
is back—not because the ground realities demand it, but because it suits a
government that thrives on narratives of threat. During the farmers'
protests—arguably one of the most powerful democratic uprisings in the last
decade—the response from the establishment was neither dialogue nor empathy,
but a full-spectrum PR war led by lapdog TV channels who spent more time
investigating "pizza langar" & tractor parades, rather government policy failures. The
protesters (who were mostly Sikh farmers from Punjab & Haryana) were
labelled “Khalistanis” with such brazenness that even Orwell would’ve winced.
Facts didn’t matter. Optics did.
Yet here's the truth: there is no Khalistan movement in India or across Indian Punjab today. None worth serious attention. Visit Majha, Malwa, Doaba. Talk to the youth who are planning to migrate abroad for jobs. Talk to the middle class focused on education, on economy, on healthcare. Khalistan is not on anyone’s agenda—not among the business men in Ludhiana, nor among the farmers in Jalandhar, or Gurudwara’s in Amritsar, not even in Delhi’s Sikh circles. It is not a sentiment; it is a smear.
But what does exist—and should concern
every Indian—is the geopolitical blowback from a series of poorly conceived
covert operations. The assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil,
regardless of his politics, sparked a diplomatic firestorm. That the Indian
state has been publicly linked—directly or indirectly—to this act and to the
planned murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has undermined India’s global
credibility. R&AW, once seen as cautious and clever, now appears clumsy and
compromised.
When the US Department of Justice indicts
Indian nationals in a plot to murder a U.S. citizen, it’s not just a legal
issue—it’s a global reputational crisis. The charge-sheeting of Vikash Yadav
was not just an intelligence failure; it was a communications disaster. The
Modi government, otherwise obsessed with controlling narratives, failed to get
ahead of the story, lost the trust of liberal democracies, and gave China yet
another reason to quietly smile.
The editorial naively suggests that
Canada’s internal politics—particularly a leadership change—might fix things.
Perhaps. Mark Carney may be more transactional, less Trudeauesque in his moral
tone. But let’s not fool ourselves: relationships are not reset by regime
change alone. They’re rebuilt on trust, consistency, and credibility. Right
now, India is lacking all three in its dealings with Ottawa.
And here lies the larger tragedy. At a time
when China continues its relentless aggression—be it border incursions,
infrastructure building near Arunachal, or economic coercion—India has chosen
not to confront the dragon, but to chase shadows in Canada. Instead of seizing
the G7 moment or the global spotlight to build a robust anti-China coalition,
Modi and his government allowed the international conversation to drift toward
an outdated separatist myth.
Khalistan was the distraction. China was,
and remains, the threat.
The Prime Minister, always adept at
managing headlines, missed the strategic headline: China’s silent, steady
encroachment. We had the world’s attention. We could have used the Nijjar
debacle as a pivot to reset the global conversation—something along the lines
of: “Let’s talk about real threats, not relics.” But that would have
required statecraft, not stagecraft. Instead, we got jingoism. We got noise.
If India wants to be taken seriously as a
global power, it cannot afford amateur hour in its covert operations, nor can
it afford to ignore the real and present danger from Beijing. But that requires
leadership willing to deal with facts, not fantasies.
Unfortunately, as things stand, it’s not
Khalistan that’s undermining India. It’s Delhi’s own obsession with creating —and missing the bigger beast.
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