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Comment by eureka-belief | Hacker News Reader

India’s government is apparently confidently enough in India’s global influence to be putting pressure on Canada and Facebook.

Just thinking out loud, if some parts of India started breaking away from India, that could start a chain reaction. India has incredibly diverse sets of citizens, each with their own set of cultural identities and historical grievances. Maintaining national unity has been a struggle since India become its own country. And it’s two enemies to the north would love to see India divided. Violent suppression of separatists is apparently a necessity evil for them.

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> suppression of separatists

If true, this was a stupid move. They’ve martyred a separatist while bringing him and his cause international sympathy and attention. The assassins have carried out an action resembling an attack on a founding member of NATO and close ally of America’s. In North America. This is a line even the Soviets and Chinese respected. Not out of fear, but rational self interest.

If true, New Delhi’s best move is to find the perpetrators and make an example out of them. (My guess is a security element went rogue and the diplomats were too incompetent to keep it quiet.)

> In North America. This is a line even the Soviets and Chinese respected

When it comes to assassination, maybe. But China conducts extra-judicial operations in Canada, and even deport citizens (send back to China), with little respect for Canada's sovereignty.

* Search for china+secret+police+canada and make your own mind. Obviously the CCP denies it and the Canadian government is mute. So you only have the mainstream media's word to go on.

At least in the US the Chinese government is letting their (supposed) agents dangle for doing this: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-are-chinas-allege...

So there are 2 differences here: - targeting their own citizens rather than the host nations - not killing them

Those are pretty big differences for international relations purposes.

They have these "global police" units in the US too to go after political expatriates and god knows what else.

> This is a line even the Soviets and Chinese respected.

Well, Russia is pretty fine with carrying out extra-judicial assassination attempts of undesirables on UK soil, so it's not clear this line is true any more.

And Russia is paying for it in weapons from UK to Ukraine.

Also remember the killing in Turk soil by Saudi Arabia

> And Russia is paying for it in weapons from UK to Ukraine.

By all accounts that was caused by the Ukraine invasion rather than the assassination.

>Also remember the killing in Turk soil by Saudi Arabia

What end up happening to them? Seems like they got off pretty light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Khashoggi#U.S._response

> By all accounts that was caused by the Ukraine invasion rather than the assassination.

It's not either/or, it's both.

The counter example is USA (I'm american). USA had such a "good guy" track record post WWII that we invaded numerous countries and fucked around all over the world and we didn't get coalition'ed against.

Somehow this connection never crossed my mind between the UKs gun-hoeness and the assassination.

The “in North America” bit matters. This took place a couple hours’ drive north of Seattle.

> This is a line even the Soviets and Chinese respected

Partly because they were on the other side. It's different here (if true) because, as the BBC points out -

"Western powers would have to make a choice between backing Ottawa or New Delhi, a choice between supporting the principle of the rule of law or the hard necessity of realpolitik."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66856568

India isn’t really an ally of the west.

For example, it was historically non-aligned but on friendly terms with the Soviet Union:

> In 1954, the United States made Pakistan a Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) ally. As a result, India cultivated strategic and military relations with the Soviet Union to counter Pakistan–United States relations.[2] In 1961, India became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement to abstain from aligning with either the US or the USSR in the Cold War.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–United_States_relation...

Pakistan is/was a closer and more reliable ally for the United States.

For another example where India disregarded the interests of the west:

> In 1970, Indira Gandhi enacted legislation which barred medical products from being patented in the country.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry_in_I...

Of course, India would seem to be a natural ally given that both countries are committed democracies and there is massive immigration from India to the United States, but in practice the United States likes the reliability of less-democratic states and India likes to control its own affairs and is powerful enough to do so.

So it goes.

True that India isn’t strictly an ally of the west. And even now India is importing oil from Russia. Though, I’d say much of these differences with the west are not ideological as much as the result of India applying realpolitik to their geographic circumstances. And after being screwed by the British for centuries, India doesn’t feel like owes any favors to the west. If India were located in Europe, without needing to deal with Pakistan and China, I think they’d have a lot in common with other European nations. I know that’s a bold claim. At least on paper, Indias government was formed based on principle of equality and self-determination. Obviously, populism and corruption have caused the government to veer slightly off course, but India is nothing like countries like Russia or China, at least.

>If India were located in Europe, without needing to deal with Pakistan and China

Because of the Himalayas, China can't interfere with India any more than it could if India were in Europe. (Yes, I know about the recent deadly skirmishes on their shared border. They involved small numbers of soldiers and even getting large numbers of soldiers to the border would be arduous, let alone anything like a tank.)

> This is a line even the Soviets

The Soviets regularly murdered dissidents from the Soviet Union in western countries. That's like half the reason the KGB existed. You can read about it in The Sword and the Shield by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, a book directly referencing KGB archives.

The Sword and the Shield is _great_. It's been a long time since I read it but I don't remember it outlining murdering western citizens who were just dissidents. I do remember a few plots to kill KGB defectors. The more interesting part of that book about assassinations were how many foreign leaders (including nominal allies) they contemplated killing and how close they got to some of them.

> Soviets regularly murdered dissidents from the Soviet Union in western countries

American citizens in North America?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive

They did a lot of shit in North America but one of the points of Sword and Shield was explaining how assassinations were mainly directed towards ex-Soviet dissidents and not American citizens. I'm not excusing what the Indian Government did here, I'm just saying that the Soviets (and the United States for that matter) regularly performed actions on this level in a number of western countries.

> the Soviets (and the United States for that matter) regularly performed actions on this level in a number of western countries

Sure. But America didn’t assassinate Russians in Russia. And the Soviets reciprocated. This is a bright line that someone stupidly crossed. Rogue elements happen. That New Delhi appears blindsided is the concerning bit.

> If true, this was a stupid move. They’ve martyred a separatist while bringing him and his cause international sympathy and attention.

The heyday of the Khalistan movement was decades ago. It has petered out and lingers only at a minor, ineffectual level similar to how left-wing militants or Basque separatist violence still simmered for a while in Europe but achieved nothing. Plus, Western audiences are still poorly informed about ethnic and sectarian differences within India, there’s nothing here easy for them to grab on to. I wouldn’t expect this event to bring any new impetus to the Sikh separatist cause.

> The assassins have carried out an action resembling an attack on a founding member of NATO and close ally of America’s. In North America.

Even assuming it is sanctioned killing, how would that be an attack on Canada?

Killing a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil seems like an obvious attack on Canada, I don't think there's any question on this.

> necessity[sic] evil

The Khalistani movement is pretty weak, and as Pakistan shows, repression is counterproductive in that it is makes ethnic identity more salient not less. (At least in the Kashmiri case there is already a substantial terrorist movement that can’t be ignored; the Khalistan movement is a joke and certainly can be. Turnout in the last Assembly elections was ⩾70 per cent.) Even the Akali Dal was in alliance with the BJP. (See e.g. Jaffrelot's The Pakistan Paradox for an account of the radicalisation of Bengali, Muhajir, and Sindhi nationalists, inter alios.)

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