It has been two days since Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in India on his first official visit to the country. He got a cold shoulder instead of a warm welcome as he began his week-long trip to India on Saturday. On his arrival, MoS for agriculture Gajendra Singh and Indian ambassador to Canada Vikas Swarup received at the Delhi airport. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has broken protocols to receive leaders from other countries in the past, is yet to meet the Canadian prime minister.
Not only PM Modi, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath didn’t accompany Trudeau when he along with his family visited the Taj Mahal in Agra on Sunday. On Monday, the Trudeaus visited the Gandhi Ashram at Sabarmati. Interestingly, when prominent dignitaries have visited his home state Gujarat, PM Modi escorted them more often than not.
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So, does the lacklustre welcome come against the backdrop of Trudeau fighting off disquiet in the Indo-Canadian community and concerns in India that his government is enabling pro-Khalistan elements?
"Yes, this is a major snub. The fact that a junior minister was sent to receive Trudeau and his family is most definitely a snub," columnist and economist Vivek Dehejia told the BBC.
Dehejia added that the reason for Trudeau's lukewarm reception could well be that several members of his government were closely allied with a Sikh independence movement - the Khalistan movement - which seeks to create a separate independent Sikh homeland in Punjab.
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Outlook in one of its recent cover stories, Panth And A Foreign Hand, had said that “A new real threat of Khalistani terror, fuelled and funded by foreign gurudwaras patronised by liberal white politicians, has revived memories of a blood-drenched era of Punjab’s history”.
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The magazine also reported that the December-end ban by a number of gurudwaras in Canada on Indian officials and elected representatives has raised the spectre of a new revival of the Khalistan spirit. Though many gurudwaras in Canada and elsewhere have ignored the ban and questioned its validity, several have enforced, sparking off serious disquiet in the Indian establishment.
Trudeau also attended a Khalsa Day event in Toronto where Khalistan flags and the portrait of former Khalistani militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale were displayed. Reports suggest he may not meet Punjab's Congress CM Amarinder Singh.
NDTV, however, reported top government sources have strongly dismissed speculation, mostly in the Canadian media, that PM Modi's absence is a snub for Trudeau amid India's concerns over Sikh radicalism in Canada and support for a separate Khalistan state.
India's former high commissioner to Canada, Vishnu Prakash, denied that Trudeau was being "snubbed".
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"According to protocol, it is a cabinet minister who receives a visiting foreign leader, and this courtesy was extended to Trudeau," Prakash told the BBC.
PM Modi had accompanied Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014 during their visits to his home state. It is surprising that the PM has not tweeted even once on the Canadian Prime Minister's visit since he arrived on Saturday with his wife and three children.
