Western Worries About Emergence of India as a Rogue State

The Washington Post of 31st December 2024 carried an investigative report of its Bureau Chief in India, Gerry Shih, titled “India carrying out covert assassination campaigns in Pakistan,” which unveiled that India has launched “an ambitious assassination program in Pakistan, with marked similarities to operations in North America.” According to the report, “India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has deployed a methodical assassination program to kill at least a half dozen people deep within Pakistan since 2021.” A similar report, published by The Guardian on 4th April 2024, revealed that since 2020, “India has been involved in the assassination of around twenty Pakistani citizens in Pakistan.”

A news story titled “RAW goes rogue, globally,” carried by The Express Tribune on 21st April 2024, quoted Michael Kugelman, Director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, stating, “from strictly moral and normative, not to mention legal, perspectives, these tactics are deeply troubling. They violate key principles of international law like territorial integrity and national sovereignty, and they are clearly illegal.”

Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said on 18th September 2023, that he had “credible information linking the Indian government to the prominent Sikh leader’s assassination on Canadian soil.” On 14th October 2024, an official announcement was made by Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, that six Indian diplomats and consular officials had received a notice of expulsion from Canada, including the High Commissioner of India, in relation to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens. According to her, the expulsion decision “was made with great consideration and only after Canadian police gathered ample, clear and concrete evidence which identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case.”

On 14th January 2024, an opinion article titled “India is the Latest Member of a Growing Assassination Club” by Justin Ling, a journalist based in Toronto, was published by the Washington, D.C. based Foreign Policy news publication. He underscored that the assassinations of foreign nationals “reveal India’s extraordinary entry into a club of nations that use homicide to advance their international and domestic agenda.” He further noted that “political assassinations on foreign soil are, in light of international law, illegal and by diplomatic convention, they are a cardinal sin and potentially even an act of war.”

Notably, two of the three countries – US and Canada – targeted by India in its recent state-sponsored international terrorist activities are NATO member states, and are protected by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, also known as the “Collective Defense Obligations” clause. This clause states that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”

On 30th October 2024, Canada’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, David Morrison, confirmed in a briefing to parliamentary members of the national security committee that the Indian Home Minister, Amit Shah, had authorized a systematic campaign of violence, intimidation, and intelligence-gathering targeting Sikh leaders within Canada.

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York had issued summons on 19th September 2024 to the Government of India, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and former RAW chief, Samant Goel in Gurpatwant Singh Pannun assassination plot, a lawyer for the Sikh for Justice (SFJ) organization. The summons came after Pannun filed a lawsuit in the US court alleging that the Indian government, specifically RAW, was involved in a conspiracy to kill him, and presented substantial evidence to support his claim of RAW’s involvement in the assassination plot. This proves that India’s top leadership has been complicit in authorizing and operating a covert global assassination program.

Articles carried by The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Foreign Policy have rung alarm bells in key capitals of the world that the growing frequency and sophistication of Indian state-sponsored terrorist activities inside their countries. India’s network of extraterritorial killings have become a global problem that needs to be addressed on priority. Elaine Pearson, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, had warned in December 2023 that India’s “involvement in assassination plots in the US and Canada suggests a new and notorious leap in extrajudicial killings.”

It is no secret that Indian leader, Narendra Modi, under the influence of Hindutva, could go to any lengths to achieve his political objectives. According to a BBC documentary titled “India: The Modi Question”, Narendra Modi was “directly responsible for the 2002 massacre of Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat.” Three years later, in 2005, Narendra Modi was denied a visa by the US Department of State for the same reason.

Given New Delhi’s involvement in and culpability for the sickening killing spree by its state agents in foreign countries, it is imperative for the international community to take appropriate preventive and punitive measures before more foreign nationals fall prey to India’s global assassination program. There is an urgent need to bring the Indian government and its entities to justice, including the decision makers, masterminds, killers, handlers, facilitators and financiers. It is important to discipline India which has turned into a rogue state under the Modi government. India, therefore, is a ripe case for inclusion in the Grey and Black lists of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). This will be an effective way to address Western worries about emergence of India as a state sponsoring international terrorism.