He added that India is afraid that these groups are making a comeback from their “safe haven” in Canada and other Western countries, where they could potentially have been orchestrating an uprising unhindered.
“India is claiming that this could, in due course, pose another major violent threat to India,” Kugelman told CNA’s Asia First.
“Canada looks at this very differently. It doesn’t believe that it’s sheltering anti-India extremists. It believes … that these are Sikh separatists who are activists, and what they do and say is protected by freedom of speech laws in Canada.”
How does it involve an issue of evidence?
Another issue at the heart of the deepening tensions is one of evidence to support Canada’s public allegations.
While Canada has made several allegations publicly, it has not provided the necessary evidence to back them up, pointing to how doing so could undermine the integrity investigations, said Kugelman.
“But the more allegations it puts out there in the public eye, the more pressure (there is) on Canada to come out with some very specific evidence,” he said.
Ruparelia said the disconnect could be in what counts as evidence.
“It could simply be that … (the) evidence, for the Indian authorities, hasn’t met a threshold that they’re happy with or comfortable with,” he said.
He added that for Canada, the solution is that India cooperates with its investigation and looks into it. For India, the demand is for Canada to share evidence in a way that it deems sufficient to trigger action. “That’s the impasse right now,” he said.
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