top of page

By:

Dr. V.L. Dharurkar

12 February 2025 at 2:53:17 pm

From Frost to Thaw

After years of diplomatic chill, India and Canada have attempted a strategic reset driven as much by geopolitics and trade anxieties as by a desire to repair a damaged partnership. For nearly three years relations between India and Canada resembled a prolonged winter. Yet, the visit of Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney to India at the start of the Month suggests that the thaw may finally have begun. If the past few years were marked by recrimination and mistrust, the present moment hints...

From Frost to Thaw

After years of diplomatic chill, India and Canada have attempted a strategic reset driven as much by geopolitics and trade anxieties as by a desire to repair a damaged partnership. For nearly three years relations between India and Canada resembled a prolonged winter. Yet, the visit of Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney to India at the start of the Month suggests that the thaw may finally have begun. If the past few years were marked by recrimination and mistrust, the present moment hints at a cautious but deliberate reset. Both sides have shown a keenness to replace acrimony with pragmatism. The chill began during the tenure of Justin Trudeau, whose government publicly alleged that Indian agents may have been involved in violent activities on Canadian soil. India rejected the accusations as unfounded and politically motivated. The dispute triggered tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, the freezing of high-level dialogue and an atmosphere of mutual suspicion. For two countries that had long prided themselves on democratic affinity, shared Commonwealth ties and large diaspora links, the rapid deterioration was remarkable. Canada is home to one of the world’s largest Indian diasporas, numbering well over a million people. Trade and educational links have grown steadily since the late twentieth century. Canadian universities attract tens of thousands of Indian students each year, while Indian professionals and entrepreneurs have contributed significantly to Canada’s economic life. These human connections had long acted as ballast in the relationship. But politics, as ever, can overwhelm social ties. Symbolic Weight Carney’s New Delhi visit therefore carries symbolic weight. A former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, he has entered politics with a reputation for technocratic competence rather than ideological theatrics. His five-day visit to India, from late February to early March, was carefully choreographed to signal renewal. Beginning in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, he met industrialists, bankers and policymakers, emphasising economic cooperation as the cornerstone of the revived relationship. India today is among the world’s fastest-growing major economies, with ambitions to expand its industrial base, modernise infrastructure and transition towards cleaner sources of energy. Canada, meanwhile, possesses abundant natural resources, technological expertise and capital. The two economies are complementary in ways that diplomacy had recently obscured. One of the most notable outcomes of the visit was a long-term agreement on uranium supply. Canada’s mining giant Cameco and India’s Department of Atomic Energy concluded a ten-year deal worth roughly $2.6bn to supply more than 20m pounds of uranium. For India, which is expanding its civil nuclear programme to meet rising energy demand while limiting carbon emissions, reliable access to uranium is strategically important. The agreement will help fuel a new generation of small and medium reactors, which India sees as crucial to its energy transition. Canada, for its part, is among the world’s leading producers of uranium. Renewed nuclear cooperation therefore reflects not only diplomatic reconciliation but also the convergence of economic interests. Previous agreements between the two countries had faltered amid political tensions. This time both governments have emphasised implementation and timely delivery. Trade Boost Trade, too, looms large in the reset. Bilateral commerce between India and Canada currently hovers around $10bn to $12bn annually, a modest figure for economies of their scale. Both governments have spoken of raising that number dramatically, potentially to $50bn by the end of the decade. Negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), long stalled, have been revived with renewed urgency. Here global geopolitics provides an additional incentive. The increasingly protectionist trade policies of the United States under Donald Trump have unsettled many of Washington’s traditional partners. Tariff threats and economic nationalism have encouraged countries to diversify their commercial relationships. India and Canada, both heavily exposed to the American market, now see advantage in strengthening bilateral trade and investment as a hedge against volatility emanating from Washington. Education and innovation are another pillar of the renewed engagement. Canadian universities are exploring the possibility of establishing campuses in India, enabling Indian students to access Canadian education without leaving the country. Joint research programmes and technological collaboration are expected to deepen intellectual ties that already run deep. Beyond economics lies a broader strategic calculation. The Indo-Pacific has become the central theatre of twenty-first-century geopolitics. As China’s influence expands across Asia, many countries are seeking new partnerships to preserve a balance of power and maintain open sea lanes. India has positioned itself as a leading voice in this effort, promoting a vision of a free, stable and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. Strategic Dynamics Canada, though geographically distant, has begun to pay greater attention to the region’s strategic dynamics. Collaboration with India could therefore form part of a wider network involving countries such as Australia, Japan and New Zealand. For Ottawa, engagement with New Delhi offers a way to remain relevant in Asia’s shifting geopolitical landscape. For India, Canadian support adds another partner to its growing Indo-Pacific coalition. Yet enthusiasm should be tempered with realism. Diplomatic resets are easier to announce than to sustain. The political sensitivities that strained relations in the past have not vanished entirely. Canada’s domestic politics, particularly debates surrounding diaspora activism, remain complex. India, meanwhile, is unlikely to tolerate external criticism on matters it considers internal. Managing these differences will require careful diplomacy and mutual restraint. Nevertheless, the symbolism of the present moment matters. The revival of high-level dialogue, the signing of concrete economic agreements and the visible warmth between leaders all suggest a shared desire to turn the page. In the grand sweep of history, relations between India and Canada have always rested on deeper foundations than temporary political quarrels. If the current reset succeeds, it could transform a once-strained partnership into one of the more promising relationships in the Indo-Pacific era. (The writer is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal.)

Ticking Bombast

The Congress and the AAP go to war yet again, this time over imaginary explosives in Punjab.

Punjab
Punjab

If India’s opposition alliance were a circus, then Punjab would be its clown car. Into it pile the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress (supposed allies in the grand-sounding, but barely functional INDIA bloc) only to emerge flinging bricks at one another. The latest scuffle involves hand grenades, political vendetta and a level of melodrama that would shame a Bollywood soap.


It began when Congress veteran and Leader of Opposition in Punjab, Partap Singh Bajwa, dropped what he presumably thought was a rhetorical bomb in a TV interview: “50 bombs have reached Punjab. Eighteen have exploded; 32 are yet to go off.” One might think such a statement would prompt a high-level security response. Instead, it triggered something far more Punjabi: a full-blown slanging match.


AAP workers, always ready to protest with more zeal than perspective, took to the streets of Mohali demanding Bajwa’s arrest. Their contention was that he was either fearmongering or tacitly colluding with terrorists. The Punjab Police, proving that no metaphor goes unpunished, dutifully booked Bajwa under the Official Secrets Act, a move that, if nothing else, proved that irony is alive and well in the state.


The Congress, naturally, cried vendetta. Its state president, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, accused Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of orchestrating the FIR like a B-grade movie villain, complete with late-night swoops and dramatic declarations. Jairam Ramesh, Congress’s high priest of outrage, chimed in from Delhi to accuse the Mann government of being a “bundle of insecurity and incompetence.” It’s a description that unintentionally fits much of the INDIA alliance.


Bajwa, for his part, insists he was merely conveying a security tip from an anonymous source. He even filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court to quash the FIR, accusing the AAP regime of political vengeance and calling Punjab’s police force useless.

Meanwhile, Sunil Jakhar, Punjab BJP chief and part-time voice of reason, dubbed the whole affair a ‘fixed match’ between Congress and AAP, claiming that both parties were milking the situation to appear relevant. Whether or not the match was fixed, it certainly wasn’t subtle.


That both AAP and Congress are trying to bury each other alive in a state while still pretending to be comrades at the national level would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic. This isn’t the first time the INDIA partners have acted more like warring cousins than allies. We got a sample of that in the crucial Delhi assembly elections earlier this year when the Congress, which performed dismally was gloating over the AAP being dethroned by the BJP.


If their antics in Delhi were the stuff of grade B soap opera, Punjab takes the cake: the drama, the FIRs, the press conferences - all over a metaphor gone rogue.


Voters might be forgiven for wondering if anyone is actually running the state. Law and order in Punjab has indeed frayed, with grenade attacks, drug seizures and cross-border smuggling on the rise. The AAP government’s answer is to lash out at critics. The Congress’s response is to play victim. And the only ones offering anything resembling adult supervision appear to be the BJP.


Jakhar said only the BJP could restore Punjab’s lost dignity, and that the Centre will not let anyone play with law and order. It is the kind of paternalistic rhetoric that would usually induce eye-rolls. But in a state where the ruling party and the opposition are busy suing and protesting each other, the bar is so low it’s subterranean.


As Punjab lurches from grenade jokes to legal drama, the real explosion may come at the ballot box when Punjab goes to polls in 2027. The INDIA alliance wants to take on Narendra Modi nationally. But if it can’t even stage a ceasefire in Punjab, one wonders what sort of coalition government it hopes to run - assuming, of course, it doesn’t implode before then.

Comments

bottom of page