Signs of progress with India abound, but so do fears that nothing has really changed

However much relations may warm between India and Canada, the country’s new high commissioner in Ottawa has made clear that an apology for the Nijjar assassination or other acts of violence Canada pinned on New Delhi won’t be forthcoming.

“India doesn't do things like this. It has never happened,” Dinesh Patnaik told CBC's Rosemary Barton Live last weekend, describing the allegations made by the RCMP and the Canadian government as “preposterous and absurd.”

The overwhelming body of evidence that contradicts those claims of innocence, due to be aired in a New York courtroom next March, appears to be no impediment to a rapid warming in relations between the two countries.

“Both prime ministers have taken this initiative to project the relationship forward,” Patnaik said following the meeting between Mark Carney and Narendra Modi at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“We are working on all sectors. We are looking at the institutional framework meetings, meeting on nuclear issues, meeting on trade, food and fertilizers, students, education, you name it. Every sector we are discussing, and we're discussing how we can move forward from what had been a chill.”

To some in Canada’s Sikh community, the rapid return to normal ties with India is nothing short of alarming.

“India has recognized that Canada has completely capitulated security, sovereignty, rule of law,” said Balpreet Singh, legal counsel of the World Sikh Organization. “I think India is going to take advantage of that."

Threats and violence haven't stopped

Sikh activists, particularly those involved directly in the Khalistan referendum effort, have continued to receive "duty to warn" letters from the RCMP cautioning them that there are imminent threats to their lives.

Others in the Sikh community say that their community is still subject to a wave of violent extortions that the RCMP last October said was being encouraged by Indian officials.

“We need to see a stop to the shootings and extortions,” said Singh. “We need to have some sort of an explanation from the Indian officials as to how Lawrence Bishnoi, who's been in Indian prison for more than a decade, is able to run this crime syndicate across the world.”

Singh said India’s denials that it ran intelligence operations in Canada ring particularly hollow after this July, when it appointed Parag Jain as head of its overseas intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing. Jain had previously served as a diplomat in Ottawa where Indian media said he “monitored Khalistani terror modules.”

Patnaik said India has always been open about its security concerns in Canada. “For the last 40 years we've been talking about the presence of extremists within Canada. Since the Air India bombing, the Kanishka bombing, we've been talking about it. We've given evidence.

“Both countries are mature enough to understand that we need to have a relationship where we discuss how people can be safe on the streets: Canadians safe on Canadian streets, Indian safe on Indian streets.”

WATCH | New high commissioner to Canada speaks with Rosemary Barton:Chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton speaks with Indian High Commissioner to Canada Dinesh Patnaik about the trade discussions between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the friction still between the two countries.

And he said New Delhi was happy to see Canada recently list the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist group.

“We had the brother of Lawrence Bishnoi, who is in jail. The brother was in the U.S., has just been extradited last week by the Americans to India to face charges. So we are taking action upfront on whatever intelligence we have about the gangs.”

A meeting of pragmatists

Sanjay Ruparelia holds the Jarislowsky Democracy Chair at Toronto Metropolitan University and is the author of several works on Indian politics. He says the rapprochement between India and Canada appears to be forging ahead despite doubts about India’s sincerity.

"The conclusion I come to is that Carney is doubling down on what he said he would do" he said. "Modi practises realpolitik and Carney is a self-avowed pragmatist."

Ruparelia says both sides appear to be in a hurry to turn the page.

“The crucial window is between the G7 and the G20 meeting. You've got new high commissioners, the diplomatic staff is back up. We've had a trade mission under Maninder Sidhu. There's an invitation to Carney to visit India in early 2026, also to attend the AI summit in Delhi, or at least send one of his ministers.

“There's a reciprocal invitation for India to send a delegation to the critical minerals conference meeting in Toronto … you get a sense that they're pushing hard on multiple fronts to revive and restabilize this relationship.”

India’s motives aren't very different from Canada’s, says Ruparelia: "the Trump shock."

While Trump’s second term has brought nasty surprises to Canada, few in this country were expecting his return to be easy. Indian officials, on the other hand, were hoping to be courted by the Trump administration as partners to challenge China.

Instead, their goods got hit with a 50 per cent tariff.

“The tariffs really hit their labour-intensive sectors, in particular textiles and jewelry and so on,” Ruparelia said.

Signs of growing co-operation

Neither Carney nor Modi enjoy a majority government, and both feel pressure to produce wins that can make up for the blows their countries have received from the U.S.

“I imagine in Delhi they'll say, look, this is going on for two years," said Ruparelia of the rupture in relations with Canada. "[Now] we've had someone come into power who we see as a pragmatist, who we can talk to and who can understand our concerns.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with Prime Minister Mark Carney's adviser Tom Pitfield as Carney looks on at the G20 summit earlier this month. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

“There seems to be a lot more co-operation between law enforcement agencies. The foreign ministers have met three times. The national security advisers have met several times. There've been arrests, they've been charges laid, people have been deported, all happening very quickly ever since Modi met Carney on the sidelines of the G7.”

Ruparelia notes that while CSIS still described India as a foreign interference threat in its annual report, it also referred to a Khalistani “threat” for the first time since 2018.

The arrest in September of the Canadian leader of the Khalistani referendum movement Sikhs for Justice would also have been seen in New Delhi as a sign that its concerns were being taken seriously, said Ruparelia.

Former CSIS chief: 'They'll be more careful'

Former CSIS director Ward Elcock told CBC News that Canada simply has fewer choices than it did a year ago.

“Perhaps at an earlier time when the Americans were rational and we had a more trusting relationship with them, we could pick and choose who we wanted to deal with,” he told CBC News.

He said there are "clear economic reasons" why Canada now has to deal with countries that "are prepared to act contrary to our interests."

That includes India, which he doubts has abandoned its old ways.

"I think they will be more careful, having got caught," he said. "But as long as they're concerned about the Sikh community here and its intentions vis-a-vis India, my guess is they will continue to indulge in foreign interference because they worry about things like that."

It will be up to CSIS to make sure Indian diplomats don’t get up to their old tricks, said Elcock.

“Whether we trade with them or not, whether we have a diplomatic relationship with them or not, we're going to continue to have to watch them.”