The Biden administration‘s delicate courting of India has a new wrinkle in the form of accusations from the Canadian government.
India is widely seen as a regional partner for the United States against China, and President Joe Biden has worked overtime to build that relationship. Biden met with Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at the White House in June, visited him in New Delhi earlier this month, and is considering another visit in January.
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Yet those meetings have always come with awkward questions about Modi’s attitude toward press freedom and political dissent, which only grew more pointed this week.
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government had “credible” evidence linking the Indian government to the assassination of a Canadian citizen.
BREAKING: Canada’s PM Trudeau accuses India’s government agents of involvement in killing of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjarpic.twitter.com/nEgm1SEv9e
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) September 18, 2023
The Canadian government is pursuing a possible link between the Indian government and the June murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader who was killed in a British Columbia parking lot. India denies involvement and has accused Canada of harboring terrorists.
The dispute ties into decades-old tensions between India and Canada, but for the U.S., it pits the interests of one of its closest allies against the interests of a crucial regional partner and counterweight to China.
“They’re totally caught between the two,” said Manjari Chatterjee Miller, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “For the Biden administration, this is an incredibly difficult situation to be in.”
Biden, like former President Donald Trump before him, has worked hard to build a close relationship with India. Coincidentally, Biden and Modi have met twice within the last three months.
Modi visited Washington in late June, speaking before a joint session of Congress, appearing at the State Department, and hosting a joint press conference with Biden.
In nine years as Indian prime minister, Modi has not held a press conference in his home country. When he appeared with Biden, Modi was asked about the alleged backsliding of democracy in India. Modi responded that “democracy is in our DNA,” but the reporter was later harassed online, a development the White House condemned.
Biden flew to India earlier this month for the Group of 20 meetings and met with Modi with no journalists present, causing more awkward questions for administration officials.
“We consider this a serious issue,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said when pressed on it. “You guys have raised it with us. We take that extremely seriously. I personally take it extremely seriously. We are doing what we can, but at the end of the day, we will have to kind of work through the parameters and protocols of these meetings in coordination and consultation with the host.”
But with tensions between the U.S. and China so high, the partnership with India is of paramount importance.
“The U.S.-India relationship has now spread across so many different sectors,” Miller said. “China is a thread that connects the sectors, but it’s not the only issue.”
The latest situation has led to some harsh criticism of the White House.
“Will Biden close his eyes to India’s apparent murder of a Sikh activist in Canada in order to cozy up to Modi, just as he closed his eyes to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in order to cozy up to the Saudi crown prince?” former Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Washington Post reported that Canada had sought allies, including the U.S., to take joint action, but the allies declined. The Canadian government denied those claims.
Canada has so far refused to release its evidence in the murder accusations.
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Sullivan was asked repeatedly about the situation during Wednesday’s White House press briefing. He referred back to previous statements from the State Department but stressed that the U.S. is taking the situation seriously.
“We have been and will be in contact with the Indians,” Sullivan said when asked if Biden would speak to Modi about the matter. “It’s a matter of concern for us. It is something we take seriously, something we will keep working on. And we will do that regardless of the country.”
