While Canada has arguably 'provided space' for extremists, it is equally apparent that the Modi government has been engaging in illicit acts to stamp out opposition

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Canada is at war — diplomatically at least — with, of all countries, India.

This is the India that fought alongside Canada against the Japanese and Germans in the Second World War; a fellow democracy and member of the Commonwealth that is an ostensible ally against authoritarian states like China.

Yet, relations between the two countries have just turned from bad to worse, with neither government apparently in any hurry to make nice.

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The latest chapter in a saga that is becoming increasingly personal was written on Sunday, when the Indian government released a scathing statement that said New Delhi had received a note from Canada suggesting that its High Commissioner in Ottawa, Sanjay Kumar Verma, and other diplomats are “persons of interest” in the investigation into the killing in Canada last year of a Sikh separatist.

The statement rejected “these preposterous imputations” and blamed the political agenda of Justin Trudeau’s government, which it said “is centred around vote bank politics” in the Sikh community.

The Indians said the Canadian government has still not shared any evidence, leaving no doubt in the mind of the recently re-elected government of Narendra Modi that “there is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains.”

In remarkably undiplomatic language, the statement said that “Trudeau’s hostility to India has long been in evidence,” following his ill-starred visit to the subcontinent in 2018.

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“His cabinet has included individuals who have openly associated with an extremist and separatist agenda, regarding India… (and) his government was dependent on a political party whose leader (the NDP’s........

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