It would be really difficult to count the number of times the US has violated international laws and conventions to go after those it has considered its enemy or declared as terrorists – there have been so many. And, yet, consider the hypocrisy – it not only harbours terrorists, it even provides the full weight of the legal system to protect them. These double standards have now been directed at India, the consequences of which are not going to be good, to say the least.
In the allegations regarding India’s attempts to take out the deluded ‘Khalistani leader’, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, charges are being framed against one Nikhil Gupta. He reportedly was working at the behest of an Indian intelligence official. If these charges have been conveniently cooked up merely to provide credence to earlier allegations made by Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, it would be a gross violation of human rights. The shady elements in the US intelligence community are not above doing this – again, there are many such instances in the past. Hopefully, steps will be taken in the US by human rights organisations to ensure Gupta is not victimised, or coerced into making confessions through the usual ‘deal’ offered by the prosecuting agencies to achieve higher objectives.
In the larger perspective, what is it that prompts the US to jeopardise diplomatic relations with India at the present juncture? It would be facile to claim that the move is driven by high principles. It would be particularly awkward on the day that Henry Kissinger – that nation’s most cold-blooded practitioner of self-serving realpolitik – passed away. It is obviously an attempt to embarrass the Indian Government for basically not playing according to the US rules in the present internationally difficult times. Or, does it come from the belief that it would help the forces in India that the US backs?
Should President Joe Biden be playing this game at a time when he will soon be seeking re-election? Is he underestimating the clout of the Indian community in the US? It is not just their numbers, but also their influence that matters. They, too, have faced harassment from the small band of aggressive separatists, particularly with the attacks on the Hindu temples. Are Biden and Trudeau playing a political game to suppress the natural conservative tilt of Indian-origin voters? All of this needs to be factored into the Indian response to this latest attack.
As for Pannun, it’s his own karma that will get him!
