Indian and Canadian leaders and diplomats have never really engaged; rather, they have talked passed each other. This is occurring today too. For decades, India has felt that Canada has shown scant respect for its interests, especially on the Khalistan issue. On the other hand, Canada believes that India displays little understanding of its laws and governance system, which prevents it from taking actions that India wants. These differing perceptions have been accumulating over the years and a trigger was needed to publicly bring them out. The Nijjar case has been just that.
Significantly, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Canada has shared the credible allegations that I talked about... with India. We... are there to work constructively with India and we hope that they engage with us so that we can get to the bottom of this very serious matter”. The operative words here are “constructively” and “engage”. For India, the problem is that Canada has never shown a willingness for a constructive engagement on its concerns.
