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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.)

True Grit

The aftermath of Pahalgam has seen Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah consistently rising above politics to speak for the soul of Kashmir.

Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir

In a region often engulfed by fogs of mistrust and communal division, it is rare to find a leader who speaks with moral clarity. It is rarer still to find one who manages to turn tragedy into an opportunity for reflection rather than recrimination. In the wake of the horrific April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, in which 26 people, mostly tourists, were slaughtered at a bucolic meadow in south Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has offered something that has long eluded the state: dignity in mourning and sobriety in leadership.


The bloodletting in Baisaran, where innocent visitors were gunned down in cold blood, triggered national grief. The retaliatory fury followed in form of Operation Sindoor, which struck nine terrorist installations across Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. But Islamabad, too, answered with a grim barrage of cross-border shelling, missile strikes, and drone intrusions. In Poonch district alone, 20 civilians were killed, among them children like Zoya and Ayan Khan, twin siblings whose deaths underlined the senselessness of this escalation.


At a time when war drums beat loudly and politicians sniffed opportunism in blood, Omar Abdullah chose a quieter, nobler path. Touring bombed-out villages in Poonch and Surankote, condoling with families of the dead - Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims alike - Abdullah reminded the state and the country that the costs of war are borne not in Parliament or on primetime news but in tin-roofed homes near the Line of Control.


What set Abdullah apart was his refusal to use the moment to further his own political agenda. The statehood of Jammu and Kashmir, a cause his National Conference has championed vociferously since the Centre revoked Article 370 in 2019, was pointedly kept out of his speech to the Assembly. “Is my politics so cheap?” he asked. That rare restraint deserves acknowledgment.


In a moving address to the Assembly, Abdullah read out the names and home states of each of the 26 victims of the Pahalgam massacre. From Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh, from Kerala to Kashmir, he painted a map of national grief. And yet, he was unafraid to confront uncomfortable truths: that while the nation rightfully mourned the Pahalgam dead, few seemed to spare tears for those killed in Pakistani shelling in Kashmir. In a polity increasingly deaf to nuance, this was an echo worth hearing.


Abdullah also issued a chilling warning: while Operation Sindoor might have yielded a tactical victory, the strategic cost was allowing Pakistan to once again internationalise the Kashmir issue. He reminded the country that security is not measured in body counts but in lives left unprotected.


He also struck a powerful blow against those who justify terrorism as resistance. “Those who did this claim they did it for us,” he said. “Did we ask for this? Did we say these 26 people should be sent back in coffins in our name?” His voice was not merely one of condemnation but one of exorcism, ridding the Valley of the false prophets who kill in its name.


Perhaps the most remarkable moment came not in the Assembly chamber, but outside it. Across towns and villages, from Kathua to Kupwara, people spontaneously came out in protest against terror, against its false logic, against those who seek to make Kashmir synonymous with violence. “Not in my name,” they said. This eruption of civic conscience is fragile, but it marks something rare: a spontaneous moral uprising in a state long exhausted by fear.


Omar Abdullah may not command armies, nor be in control of the Centre’s security apparatus for Kashmir. But in refusing to politicise grief, in centering victims rather than vendettas, he has done something arguably more valuable: he has offered real leadership. In the heart of a wounded Valley, that counts for much.

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