In 1899, eminent novelist and writer Rudyard Kipling made an appeal to the United States, calling it to shoulder its imperial responsibilities:
Take up the White Man’s Burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons in exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Take up the White Man’s Burden
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard…
About 125 years later, one doesn’t expect a country to believe in the phenomenon of the “White Man’s Burden”. But, if Niall Ferguson is to be believed, as he writes in Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, the United States has “taken up some kind of global burden, just as Kipling urged”.
As one ponders over Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ‘juvenile diplomacy’ with India, tearing apart the relations between two democratic countries, it becomes obvious that the United States has indeed taken up the task of the “White Man’s Burden”, as Kipling desired. One can still understand Trudeau’s domestic vote-bank compulsions—as per a latest survey, the Prime Minister’s wipe-out in the 2025 elections seems imminent as only 15 per cent Canadians believe that the current Liberal dispensation deserves to be re-elected—but for the United States to come out in support of Canada on this issue defies logic.
One, the person whose assassination is at the centre of the geopolitical storm is a dreaded Khalistani terrorist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who in the first place entered Canada illegally and got its citizenship in a dubious manner. The hurried transformation of a terrorist into a plumber-cum-Sikh activist suggests Nijjar was a deep state asset, which further got vindicated when reports appeared about the Canadian agencies being in touch with his family soon after his death.
It is difficult to believe that the American administration, which has come out in support of Canada, has been in the dark about Ottawa’s dubious connections with Khalistani terrorism. There has been a flourishing Khalistani ecosystem in Canada since the 1980s, when incidentally Justin Trudeau’s own father, Pierre, first gave it a booster shot.
In fact, the Indira Gandhi government had sought the extradition of a dreaded Khalistani terrorist, Talwinder Singh Parmar, who had warned three years before the 1985 Kanishka bombing that “Indian planes will fall from the sky”, but the Canadian government refused to entertain the Indian demand, saying the extradition protocols between Commonwealth countries would not apply with India as it had not been deferential enough to the British Queen, the Head of the Commonwealth!
Then, of course, there is the Kanishka Air India bombing, which was the deadliest terrorist attack before 9/11. But while the September 11, 2001, attack saw the initiation of the global “war against terrorism”, the 1985 tragedy went largely unnoticed in the West, despite the fact that of the 329 dead, 268 were Canadian citizens, mostly of Indian descent. Forget Indian observers, even Canadian commentators and journalists have questioned Ottawa’s dubious role in the 1985 bombing. One can read Canadian journalist-author Terry Milewski’s 2021 book, Blood for Blood: Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project, for details on the Canadian omission and commission on the issue.
Trudeau has for long been indulging in a hitjob against India. He has been making wild allegations to suit his domestic agenda, and when asked to provide evidence, he says that his charges have been based on “primarily intelligence, not hard evidentiary proof”. The United States, by standing with such a slippery man, is putting its own long-term national interest in jeopardy.
Here, it should be understood that at the centre of the controversy lies the assassination of a terrorist who openly advocated violence against his opponents and endorsed terrorism to achieve his aims. His death was no loss for a free, democratic world, just the way the killing of Osama bin Laden strengthened the forces of democracy and liberalism.
In fact, the Nijjar issue should be a wake-up call for the American administration that has been indifferent to Khalistani terror operating on its soil, too. How else can one explain the presence of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the founder of the banned Sikhs for Justice, in the US as he openly threatens to bomb the Indian Parliament, dismember India, and kill and maim Indian citizens? The issue gains further significance after a direct link has emerged between Trudeau and Pannun. On Wednesday, Pannun admitted that he has been in regular touch with Trudeau’s office over the past several years. The days of one person’s terrorist being another person’s freedom fighter are over, after all.
It has been interesting to see Trudeau desperately reaching out to the Five Eyes partners—comprising the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada—seeking support on the issue against India and how Ottawa was not let down by the exclusive Anglosphere boys’ club. On the face of it, there may be some truths in Americans earnestly believing in the White Man superiority phenomenon and thus spontaneously coming out in support of a Western country, especially when it is caught up in a confrontation with a South Asian nation.
However, the story gets complete only when one looks at the traditional anti-India posturing of the US State Department and the Deep State, on whose cue the American media and intelligentsia largely operate. The US administration needs to realise that it has to shun the 20th-century Cold War mindset if it is serious about tackling the 21st-century challenges emanating from Beijing. Canada may be America’s neighbour and second-largest trading partner, but it is its ties with India that would define which way the global balance of power tilts in the 21st century.
The US cannot have India by its side when it is covertly trying to corner it—or, worse, attempting a regime change, as many in the country suspect the Americans tried doing during the 2024 general elections. It’s a self-goal of epic proportions for the American government which has a lot to gain from its ties with India. Delhi needs Washington as much as Washington needs Delhi.
Time has, thus, come for the US to make a shift from “taking up the White Man’s Burden” to conceding that “the White Man is a Burden”. In a world order based on democracy, mutual respect, non-interference, and fair play, Trudeau’s ‘juvenile diplomacy’ has no space.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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