IN October 2011, addressing the media in Islamabad along with her Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them to only bite your neighbour.”
Clinton’s riposte was in response to a question on terrorism and extremism. Tough and rather blunt, Clinton told her Pakistani interlocutors that Pakistan needed to do more to eliminate safe havens for extremism – not just in the interests of the rest of the world, but, more importantly, for the Pakistani people as well. It was the beginning of the ‘do more’ syndrome in Pakistan with successive governments and politicians, complaining that any conversation with America only brought forth the diktat of ‘do more’
Petulant adolescent
Now nearly 13 years later, what Clinton said in Pakistan could well apply to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau is like a petulant adolescent who knows the peril of playing with fire. But like all adolescents, he believes he is the chosen one who will neither be singed nor bitten by the proverbial snake. Who is to tell him that the undesirable group that he is supping with is feeding him from a poisoned chalice that will bring forth grief, not just for him and the liberals, but for Canada as a whole.
Writing in The Washington Post, JJ McCullough was perceptive: ‘’Though Canadians of Indian heritage are estimated to comprise no more than 4 per cent of the Canadian population, and Indo-Canadians of Sikh heritage about half that, Sikhs are extraordinarily wellrepresented in Canadian Government, a fact easily attributable to the outsize role they play in Canadian party politics – even in communities where their numbers are not extraordinarily high. Trudeau’s current Cabinet includes four Sikh ministers, more, he once boasted, than could be found at the Cabinet-level in India.’’ And Sikh politicians in turn, venal as most politicians tend to be, have outsourced their fortunes to the bouncers in their midst – the Khalistanis!
Losing elections
Now Trudeau by all accounts is likely to lose the elections next year. That’s what the trends (as reported in the Canadian media seem to suggest). But that’s the last thing on his mind, though, as he courts the Khalistani elements in that country.
The Economic Times dissected the Trudeau compulsion: ‘’A vocal supporter of Khalistani politics who has an association with violent Khalistani leaders, Jagmeet Singh (leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) since 2017)
pulls Trudeau’s strings. Before NDP propped up his Government, Trudeau indulged in a competitive patronising of Khalistanis since Jagmeet’s sudden rise threatened Trudeau’s hold on Khalistani votes. Now with his Government dependent on the NDP support, Trudeau has to acquiesce to Jagmeet’s virulent anti-India agenda. If you add to his acquiescing to Jagmeet, his efforts to consolidate his own Khalistani votes, you have a Prime Minister who will jeopardise Canada’s relations with India just for a few votes.’’
Refusing to listen
One of Trudeau’s former advisors, Omar Aziz, in an interview with TV18 said: “What was worrying was that even when the Indian Government wanted to talk or the Indian Foreign Minister wanted to talk, I often felt that we either didn’t want to listen, or we didn’t have the time to listen. So that’s a function of a lack of priorities. Because I saw India as a rising power and that they were bringing this issue to our concern, and so it was worth addressing very seriously. Where we have got to now is a rupture in relationships. This is what happens when you don’t have an interest in a country’s bilateral relationship, where it’s superficial.”
Aziz is right. Trudeau is in love with the snakes. It’s a matter of time before they bite him!
