'My position and Canada's position has always been...': Trudeau clears his stand on Khalistan

Justin Trudeau stated that while there are many individuals in Canada who hold different views, this does not define Canadian policy, nor does it render those views illegal in Canada.

Ottawa: Amid a series of allegations, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has cleared his stance on the issue of "Khalistan". At the Foreign Interference Commission, Trudeau said that his position is clear and that is 'One India'. He said that there are a number of people in Canada who advocate otherwise but it does not make it Canadian policy.

"My position and Canada's position has always been to defend the territorial integrity of India. 'One India' is the official Canadian policy, and the fact that there are a number of people in Canada who advocate otherwise does not make it Canadian policy, but also does not make it something that is illegal in Canada," Trudeau told the commission on Wednesday.

"We don't want to be in this situation of picking a fight with a significant trading partner with whom we have deep people-to-people ties and a long history and our fellow democracies," added Trudeau whose "baseless" statements have damaged India-Canada relations.

India-Canada tensions

Tensions between India and Canada escalated after Trudeau alleged that there were "credible allegations" linking Indian government agents to the June murder in Canada of a Sikh separatist leader campaigning for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland called "Khalistan".

What is Khalistani movement?

It wants an independent Sikh state carved out of India and dates back to India and Pakistan's independence in 1947 when the idea was pushed forward in negotiations preceding the partition of the Punjab region between the two new countries.

The Sikh religion was founded in Punjab in the late 15th century and currently has about 25 million followers worldwide. Sikhs form a majority of Punjab's population but are a minority in India, comprising 2 per cent of its population of 1.4 billion.

Sikh separatists demand that their homeland Khalistan, meaning "the land of the pure", be created out of Punjab. The demand has resurfaced many times, most prominently during a violent insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s which paralysed Punjab for over a decade.

What is India's stand on the Khalistani movement?

The Khalistan movement is considered a security threat by India. The bloodiest episode in the conflict between the government and Sikh separatists occurred in 1984. Then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent the military into the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, to evict armed separatist leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters, which infuriated Sikhs around the world.

A few months later, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards at her home in New Delhi. The army launched operations in 1986 and 1988 to flush out Sikh militants from Punjab.

Sikh militants were also blamed for the 1985 bombing of an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India in which all 329 people on board were killed off the Irish coast. The insurgency killed tens of thousands of people and Punjab still bears the scars of that violence.

(With inputs from agencies)

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