Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s invitation to his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, to participate in the G-7 Summit and outreach sessions being held in Alberta, Canada, on June 15-17, and the Indian prime minister’s confirmation of his participation in the event, are seen as marking a shift in their bilateral relationship.
The question of India’s exclusion from the summit had been causing embarrassment to the Modi government, even as it put the Canadian government in a spot. Although it is not a member of the G-7, India has been a regular attendee at its summits. India has participated in 11 G-7 summits so far, with Modi attending five of them.
The upcoming G-7 meeting will be Modi’s sixth. It almost didn’t happen, given the troubled ties between India and Canada.
Invites to other G-7 members and non-members had already gone out, and as late as June 5, there was no official word about Canada inviting India.
This caused major embarrassment to Modi at home. While analysts drew attention to the Canadian “snub,” political rivals mocked him for not being invited and interpreted the non-invitation as evidence of his foreign policy blunders. For Modi, who takes great pride in his global image, this was a major blow.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Canadian-Sikh groups and Liberal Party politicians opposed Carney’s invitation of Modi to the country. Yet Carney was under pressure to invite India to the summit; all the other G-7 members were reportedly keen on India’s participation. Canada itself, especially amid deteriorating relations with the U.S., is looking to deepen economic cooperation with countries like India. Carney said it didn’t make “sense” to exclude India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, which is “at the heart” of global supply chains, from the G-7 summit.
Finally, on June 6, Carney telephoned Modi and invited him. The latter announced his participation in the summit through a post on X soon after.
So, what broke the logjam?
It appears that the Modi government finally came around to agreeing to cooperate with Canada on a probe into the June 2023 killing of a Canadian citizen and Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on Canadian soil. Law enforcement cooperation was reportedly a “condition” that Carney laid down for inviting Modi to the G-7 summit.
Soon after his June 6 call to Modi, Carney told journalists that the two leaders had agreed to continue “law enforcement dialogue and discussions addressing security concerns.” “So, there’s been some progress on that. That recognizes issues of accountability [in the case of the killing of Nijjar],” Carney said.
India’s willingness to cooperate with Canada on establishing accountability in the Nijjar murder marks an important shift.
Soon after the killing, Canada’s then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that there were “credible allegations potentially linking” Indian officials to the Nijjar killing. However, India dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and politically motivated. Canada was not providing proof to support its allegations, New Delhi said.
Yet an official in the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi told The Diplomat in mid-October 2024 that Canadian security and diplomatic officials had, in fact, provided evidence to India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval during a meeting in Singapore on October 12. This evidence, the Canadian official said, related to “the involvement of Indian officials and criminal gangs in attacks and murders on Canadian soil.”
Trudeau upped the ante in October 2024, when he stated in Parliament that his government had “clear and compelling evidence” of Indian government agents engaging in “activities that pose a significant threat to public safety” in Canada. Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison went further. He revealed to a parliamentary committee that Indian Home Minister Amit Shah was among those who authorized intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists in Canada. (Morrison had made this claim to a Washington Post reporter earlier, albeit anonymously). Shah is the de facto number 2 in the Modi government and a close confidante of the Indian prime minister.
When the United States government had accused Indian agents of involvement in the attempted murder of pro-Khalistan separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the U.S., India cooperated with U.S. federal agencies. No such cooperation has been evident with regard to the Canadian probe into Nijjar’s killing.
Could that change now?
When relations hit rock bottom in October 2024, India and Canada engaged in tit-for-tat expulsions of their high commissioners and other diplomatic officials. It was only after Trudeau’s resignation early this year that space for talks between Indian and Canadian officials opened up. Trudeau’s association with known Sikh separatists and megaphone diplomacy on Nijjar’s killing had riled India so seriously that a reset in relations when he was at the helm had become impossible.
But with Carney in office, there were quiet talks between Indian and Canadian law enforcement officials in January. In March, Canadian spy chief Daniel Rogers attended a meeting of intelligence chiefs in New Delhi that was chaired by Doval.
In a campaign speech during the April general election, although Carney did refer to Canada’s frayed relationship with India – he spoke of “strains on that relationship that we didn’t cause, to be clear” – he repeatedly stressed India’s importance as an economic partner. While speaking on the need for Canada to diversify its economic partnerships by working with “like-minded countries,” he specifically mentioned “opportunities” with India in this regard.
His “pragmatic” and non-confrontational approach to India was noted in Delhi. Then, when Carney won the general elections, Modi congratulated him on social media. Officials of the two sides have reportedly been in discussions throughout May.
However, it was with the telephonic conversation between India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and his Canadian counterpart, Anita Anand, on May 25 that the first real signs of a thaw became visible. It led to Carney’s invitation to India over a week later.
While recent events suggest that the two sides are looking to reset relations, there is a need for cautious optimism. To what extent India will cooperate with Canada on the Nijjar case remains to be seen, as does the kind of “accountability” that Canada will insist on. Will they find common ground, especially since the top echelons of India’s leadership were allegedly involved in the Nijjar murder?
Importantly for India, will Carney act against Sikh separatist activism on Canadian soil? In Canada, Modi is expected to have a bilateral meeting with Carney on the G-7 summit’s sidelines. Officials say he is likely to press Carney on long-pending requests from New Delhi for extradition of 26 fugitives, including some top Khalistani Sikh terrorists operating from Canada.
Sikh separatist groups, including the banned Sikh for Justice, have threatened to protest Modi’s presence in Canada during the G-7 summit. All eyes will be on the steps Canada takes to avoid a showdown.