What are they saying about us?

India: arrests and allegations of extrajudicial killings

So glad you can join me here on “What are they saying about us?”
I’m Jessica Brando…I’m a journalist by training, and now I’m teaching the next generation of reporters at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Canada.
If you’re tuning in, maybe it’s because you’re like me, and you care about Canada’s place in the world.
Did you ever sew a Canadian flag patch on a backpack when you were travelling the world in your 20s?
I did.
I think a lot of us want to be liked by the rest of the world.
Is it a sign of insecurity that we want to be “popular” on the global stage?
Maybe. But when it comes to geo-politics, having a good reputation buys you clout.
It can open the doors to new trade deals. It can make you more attractive to immigrants. And other countries see you as a better ally.
So, what is Canada’s brand? It’s a lot more than hockey and Mounties, from sea-to-sea-to-sea.
But it’s not easy to define. And that’s even more true when you’re looking at Canada from the outside in.
On “what are they saying about us?,” I’m trying to see what gets reported about Canada in other countries…and how that impacts the perception people have about us.
And this week I’m paying attention to what I’m seeing in articles written for readers in India.
Headlines such as “India slams Canada as diplomatic tensions rise” and “It's Canada's compulsion to blame India” are greeting readers in recent days.
And if you’re asking how come, here’s why. Police in British Columbia have just arrested four Indian nationals in connection with the murder of a Sikh leader last June.
That’s when gunmen opened fire on Hardeep Singh Nijar in his pick-up truck. Nijar lived in Canada, but he was a leader in the movement to create an independent state for Sikhs, called Khalistan. We’ll talk some more about that later.
But you should know that the Indian government is very much against this separatist movement.
Nijar, and many others from the pro-Khalistan movement are considered extremists and terrorists by the Indian government.
So…why is Canada grabbing negative headlines in India?
Because our prime minister is saying Nijar was murdered on orders from the Indian government. That’s called an extra-judicial assassination, and if it’s true, it’s a big violation of international law.
I wanted to see what’s behind the reporting, so I’ve brought in a former student of mine who is just back from India after visiting his family in Mumbai.

JB: Welcome Adil to What Are They Saying About Us? It's nice to have you in studio with me here today.
AN: Thank you. It's great to be here.
Great. So just for our listeners, tell me about yourself.
So my name is Adil Naik. I come from India. I came to Canada in middle of, towards the end of 2021.
Back in India, I was doing a bunch of different things. I used to be an automobile journalist.
I worked in HR for a while. I did an MBA. I did a program in journalism.
And right now I'm writing YouTube scripts for an electric vehicle channel and a space
related channel. Oh, and on the weekends, I'm a motorcycle instructor. So that's, that's me.
JB: Okay, wonderful.
So, this is a big question and it might be hard to distill, but what should we know about
the media landscape in India?
AN: India drops every year on the free press index, right?
Officially the government vehemently rejects it and refutes these, these ratings and standings,
but it, it drops every year. And it's come to a point where you're like, you, by the time you drop below like Pakistan and things like that, you, it's a, it's, it's not a great sign.
So if what you need to know about the media and how news is reported is that like one
in maybe two very big industrial families own like 95% of all media outlets.
And as, as we know with the state of, of news today, right, is that with all these layoffs
and things shutting down, news just isn't making money unless someone big is funding
you.
And if that someone big steps in to fund you, they want to tow a certain line.
So, so, so in terms of how the news is reported, realistic news, more accurate on ground data
news, you're better off finding it in on social media or independent creators.
Mainstream media is more cheerleading than what, what you'd consider, you know, reliable
news.
JB: Is it too much to say that the mainstream media is a mouthpiece of the government?
AN: Yeah, yeah, that, that would be an accurate assessment of it.
JB: Okay.
And how in touch would you say the, is the population of India in terms of the
news? How often are they going to these sources? I'm trying to gauge how much influence the news coverage in India has, specifically Canadian events and how they're covered in the news in India.
How much traction do you think that the news stories have with, you know, the average Indian
person?
AN: People, people do tune into the news quite a lot.
Like in, in my family, my father would get four or five newspapers every day.
It's kind of, it's kind of cut down now, not because of him, but because my mom put her
foot down.
JB: Just too much recycling.
AN: Yeah, yeah.
But, but at the same time, right, he'll tune into the news every day.
And even though, you know, it's, it's not as accurate, people still consume a lot of
news, right?
Whether it's, it's, newspapers have kind of started dwindling down, but then everyone's
got a smartphone right now in India. Like everyone has a smartphone.
And data plans are, it's, it's exponentially cheap or like Canada's, if I read some, it's
like top three in the world in terms of data plans, India would be probably the cheapest.
JB: So, so very accessible, very accessible.
AN: And so, so, you know, like WhatsApp, Facebook, things like this have really picked up in
a big way in India. So people are, are very in touch with the news.
Now, whether that news is accurate or not is, is, is a separate conversation in itself.
And as we know, you know, social media algorithms are more echo chambers than, than accuracy
based.
But, but people consume quite a lot of it. And everyone has an opinion on everything, irrespective of how informed people actually are about it.
Like you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who'd say, you know what, I don't know enough
about this.
Everyone will have an opinion on something irrespective of how informed they are on it
or not.
JB: I'm not sure that's just an Indian issue. We hear that a lot here in North America as well.
So, how often are people in India actually, you know, receiving news about Canada
from the coverage that they would be experiencing from the Indian media?
AN: So let me put it like this, right?
Like India, at least in the last eight, nine years, India has gotten very, very obsessed
with itself. Right. And I don't know if that's a positive thing or a negative, but, but it, but it is right.
And it has become very particular about how it is being perceived and it's, it's taken
on this, this fervor of national pride and national identity.
So, the international news stories that, that get to India and get spoken about other than,
you know, like big natural disasters, pandemics, tsunamis, things like that, are the things
that that directly involve India, whether it's either business deals or, or matters
where Indians can take national pride in.
For example, when Sundar Pichai became CEO of, of formerly Google, Now Alphabet, it was
big news, even though he's not Indian. He's Indian origin, but that's, but that weak link is enough for it to become big news across India, you know, that this is a matter of national pride.
When Elon Musk talks about, oh, you know, India is the next big thing and we want to
set up another Gigafactory there, that makes big news in terms of India.
And of course, of late, the things that continue making even bigger news is, is when people
mention anything negative about India, those are the ones that tend to not just get a lot
more attention, but get sustained traction in conversations across the media and even
across most of the general population.
JB: And this brings us to the reason I invited you into the podcast today is to talk about
the fact that there have been some not so great headlines about Canada and things going
on in Canada in recent months in the Indian press.
Specifically, I'm thinking, going back to the fall of 2023, following the shooting of
a Sikh leader in Surrey, British Columbia, Hardeep Singh Nijar, we had our prime minister
go, you know, say to the world essentially that this was an extraterritorial assassination
that was carried out by Indian agents.
Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible
allegations of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing
of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijar.
Canada has declared its deep concerns to the top intelligence and security officials of
the Indian government. Last week at the G20, I brought them personally and directly to Prime Minister Modi in no uncertain terms.
Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian
soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.
JB: So that was Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons. September 18th of last year. And as you know, the Indian government said that these were absurd allegations.
And, you know, can you talk a little bit about that moment in time back last fall when, and how that played out?
AN: A sensible diplomatic way to go about it would be to first insist on evidence, which
wasn't the first reaction.
The first reaction was rubbishing the claim entirely.
It didn't come across as a collaborative approach that, hey, man, what happened?
Let's work this out because we are geopolitical partners. We do a lot of business between both these nations and we are team players on the global stage. So let's work this out.
It went back to that wounded pride immediately, that how could you accuse us of this?
And it's telling in the way the rhetoric played out in India, because a lot of it
immediately jumped on personally belittling Trudeau's character, right?
It went down the whole thing about, oh, Trudeau's losing a lot of political clout in
Canada. So now he's stoking up these things to get a lot of the Sikh vote because
Sikhs make up a decent number, at least in the western side of Canada.
There are like around 800,000 Sikhs in Canada, and that's a sizable number, especially
for someone who's looking to get back into a positive light politically speaking.
But it went immediately down that route, right?
The conversation across India, whether it's on news media or across government channels,
was these people have these people have no merit to these claims.
And when I say these people, I mean the government and when they refer to the government,
they went personally after Trudeau, right?
They went personally after his character.
They went personally after how he's how he's losing support and he's desperate and he's
come to a point where he'll do anything to save face.
And it became more about India's got so much and Canada needs something from us now that
Canada and Trudeau have become inconsequential.
And now they're doing this and they've got they've got ulterior motives.
And how can they talk about us interfering in foreign affairs when they've been
interfering in our affairs by harboring terrorists?
Right. What India terms as deems as terrorists and terrorist activities and sympathizers
of terrorism.
JB: Here’s a really quick sketch of what the Khalistani movement is all about. Going back to the 1930s, Sikhs in Punjab, India, have yearned for an independent Sikh state known as Khalistan. By the 1980s, Sikhs were feeling sidelined, discriminated against, and like their identity was getting squashed by the Indian government. Things boiled over after the Indian military stormed the Golden Temple in 1984 during Operation Blue Star to flush out Sikh militants. A few months later, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. This triggered horrific anti-Sikh riots across India. While the movement's intensity has cooled since then, its impact still echoes through Sikh politics, both in India and beyond…including in Sikh diaspora communities in Canada.
JB: We were talking about Hardeep Singh Nijar, his assassination killed by multiple gunmen in June of 2023.
Very recently, four people have been arrested.
They are all Indian nationals who have, I think at least two of them were here on
student visas.
And I'm wondering what you're seeing when you look at the press in India in terms of
this phase of the situation.
AN: So the Indian press, like we spoke earlier, right?
The Indian press is, is more cheerleading the government than anything.
And the government's stance in this is very clear.
We were not involved
Outside the media, right? Like in terms of, in terms of the general population and people you meet, it depends on what side of the political spectrum you fall on.
So, India is going through a real hardcore right-wing phase for the last decade at
this point. And, and the government is very right wing as well.
So, so if you are in line with that, you, you stand up for the government's version
of things and you're supporting that.
Then what, what is termed as the left or the more liberal? They are all like, you know what?
This, this fits the playbook. The government is corrupt.
The government has been doing this in India for a while now.
I don't see why they wouldn't have extended that arm and done it across the ocean.
Right. And especially with a country that is, that is so focused on its image and so focused
on getting rid of all its enemies, right? Domestic and foreign.
They, they want to flex that, that political might that they have.
They want to show that they can do something.
And, and a lot of the political leaders have, have gone on record and said, like, while
not specifically towards the Khalistan movement, they have spoken a lot of, you know what?
There's nowhere on earth we can't reach you.
And no uncertain terms, right, is that you can't escape from us.
We can get to you wherever you are. The prime minister makes statements like this.
Political leaders make statements like this. And it's gotten to a stage where they don't mince words anymore.
So it's, it's very hard to see both of those things, like an official government
foreign minister will say, you know what, we're not involved in this at all.
And then the next day you'll hear a major political leader say, I mean, they were terrorists.
So what if they died?
Right.
So, so, I mean, they were, they were enemies of the state.
And if you're an enemy of the state, eventually something like this will happen to you.
And these aren't like fringe politicians.
These are like major cabinet holders and members of parliament and things like that.
So, so, so, so that's the kind of discourse that's happening.
And then people who are liberal are like, you know what?
They've been doing this for the last 10 years in India.
They've been getting rid of political opponents.
They've been getting rid of business opponents in very dubious, in very dubious ways.
They, they have complete and ironclad grip on institutions, government, and otherwise.
It's not a stretch to imagine they are more than capable of doing it.
JB: So the big question that we're trying to look at in this podcast is how Canadian
events impact our brand in terms of how they're perceived in other countries.
So there's something like $26 billion worth of two-way trade that happens
between India and Canada on an annual basis.
That's not insignificant. How do you see sort of the Canadian image or brand being impacted by
this specific story here. Do you think that it will have an impact and will it be lasting?
AN: Honestly, no, I don't think so, because at the end of it all, the only true
allegiance man has is to money, right?
Like humans that that's, that's the only thing our real allegiances lie with.
Uh, and, and a fantastic example of that is, is how the world has
continued dealing with China, right?
Uh, the, the, the India situation is relatively new, but this, this conflict
with China, with the U S and China and global state and China meddling in
foreign affairs and meddling with elections and, you know, human rights
violations, all that, nothing has stopped China from continuing to grow at an
exponential rate at a global level, because eventually people want to
continue making money and no one can make you as much money as China can.
The way I see it is, irrespective of, of what they speak against each other on a global stage, that trade that's, that's going to keep, that's going to keep flowing, right?
India is an economic powerhouse at this time. And in the last decade or so, they've become acutely aware of that. They've become acutely aware of it.
And they're willing to, to hold that as a trump card over everything and everyone.
You know, so they're like, you know what?
You don't agree with something we do.
It doesn't matter. We're still going to do it. If you want to do business, this is the cost of business.
And we've seen time and time again, countries, you know, make a big hoo-ha about it, but then sit down and they're like, I need the business.
JB: Do you expect as we go forward, uh, now that, uh, there have been people that
have been charged with the killing of Nijar that this story will continue to be followed in the Indian press?
AN: I feel it will because India is just going through elections right now, right?
Like in the next month or so, uh, if, if it, if it comes up because the government, the current ruling government will want to show strength that, you know, we have handled these things very well.
We have maintained India's image on a global standing.
So, so, so they'll, they'll do a lot of damage control irrespective of, of how
it turns out here in Canada, uh, because, uh, opposition factions will try to blow
this up as well that, oh, you know, these guys are doing this stuff abroad.
Like, why are you voting for these people?
And, and like all political, political battles, it will play out and it will all like, everything is used as a talking point that can be used. So, so I, I see it potentially playing out at least till elections are over.
But once that's done, money is God.
JB: Money is God.
AN: Money is God.
JB: Thank you so much for joining me today, Aadil.
AN: You’re welcome.
Extro:
Thanks so much checking this out. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you can catch more episodes as they come out.
I’m Jessica Brando…I’ll be back here soon with more answers to the question… “What are they saying about us?”