Trade Deals and Land Swaps
Canada's prime minister has led a trade delegation to India. One commonwealth country paying a courtesy visit upon another. Earlier it was India's prime minister who visited Canada, when a trade agreement was signed. The urgency now is to finalize a free-trade agreement. To strike an agreement with India to come into effect in the new year. Which would triple annual bilateral trade to $15-billion in two years' time. And, that agreement would protect investors' legal rights in both countries.If and when it eventuates. In the meantime, the two countries have surmounted previous difficulties surrounding the nuclear issue. Dating back to Canada's reaction when India had used Candu reactors to achieve their goal in nuclear warheads, an event that contravened the agreement for the sale of those reactors. An event, moreover, that touched off a dangerous regional response, with Pakistan determining that it too should possess nuclear warheads.
Even more dangerous the fact that Pakistan, India's resentful neighbour with its penchant for unleashing terror strikes against those it distinctly detests, also achieved nuclear weapons status. And since Pakistan is a notoriously unstable country politically and socially and theocratically, ownership of such mass-destruction devices was no good news for anyone.
An opinion not shared by Libya, North Korea and Iran with whom Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, the celebrated-infamous A.Q. Khan shared vital nuclear formulae. The India-Pakistan-Afghanistan triangle is an unstable, violent geography. All the more so when the contiguity of Iran is factored in. With its own insistence on its right to nuclear independence - and nuclear warheads.
For the time being, however, India's attention is focused on its own interior problems with Sikh militancy. Which appears to have settled down somewhat after dreadful mutual massacres between Hindus and Sikhs but which has resurfaced in Canada, with militant Canadian Sikhs calling for a new battle for Khalistan. An as-yet imaginary homeland, but one yearned passionately after.
A homeland of their own in the Punjab is the dream of Indian Sikhs. And it was that dream turned nightmare that occasioned Canada's first terrorist attack when radical Sikhs planned to destroy Air India Flight 182 where 329 Canadians of Indian extraction died. Since Canada has a large population of both Indian Hindus and Sikhs there is ongoing tension between the two, and rumours of continuing Sikh provocations among extremists.
"We have, after very hard times, got a good situation of peace and progress back in Punjab and in India and we would like that to continue, so it does concern us I think, and we do appreciate very much that you have been very forthright and open about your stand on this" stated Preneet Kaur, minister of state for external affairs, in a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"India and Canada are nations built on shared values that celebrate democracy, inclusiveness and diversity. We have similar concerns in combating terrorism, extremism and radicalism. The prime minister and I agreed to deepen our counter-terrorism co-operation", said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during a signing ceremony.
"We have over a million people who trace their origins to the Indian subcontinent and among my very large delegation on this trip are a considerable number of prominent Indo-Canadians and certainly the support for the great progress India has made over the past generation is virtually universal in this community", Prime Minister Harper assured his hosts, in response.
Adding to that reassurance that Canada is fully in favour of a "united India", an obvious message to Canadian Sikhs agitating for a separate Khalistan in the Punjab. The Punjab was divided in 1948 when Pakistan separated from India and became a nation state of its own. Within the Pakistani Punjab exists some important Sikh heritage areas.
If Indian Sikhs think that India is unfairly recalcitrant to allow them to take a chunk of its geography for its own, they might try persuading Pakistan to render them that great favour. Say, for example, to return to them the city of Lahore, traditionally majority-Sikh-populated in the 18th and 19th Century.
Along with Nankana Sahib, birthplace of Gugu Nanek Dev Ji, founder of Sikhism.
Labels: Canada, Government of Canada, Human Rights, India, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, November 07, 2012
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