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It seems likely that India was behind it (as you say, nobody else has a motive; unlike Islamists, Hindu nationalists aren’t generally hardcore enough to carry out this kind of ‘direct action’ without government sanction on foreign soil), apparently the Canadian opposition has been shown the evidence and has found it convincing enough, as have foreign governments.
I’m surprised, given the context, that the Indians did it though. Khalistan independence isn’t a major threat, the movement has been neutered in the way you describe, and so this guy wasn’t capable of causing real trouble anymore. The only reason to do it was national pride. Perhaps Indian intelligence is becoming more culturally Pakistani.
Still, the US takes international political assassinations on North American ground very seriously, there’s a reason the Russians are happy to go full polonium in all of Western Europe (most notably the UK) but haven’t dared a single unambiguous (ie signed) extrajudicial assassination on American or indeed Canadian soil. The reaction will be tempered so as not to get Modi to posture with Putin for a big photo op and trading partnership, but I think it’s still pretty serious and surprising.
Even Erdogan isn’t hellbent on assassinating Gulen in Pennsylvania, it’s not worth it. I wonder why the Indians thought it was worth it with this guy.
Any big country with a load of active separatist movements, including ones who can actually credibly threaten war and secessions, seems to be naturally intent on coming down like a ton of bricks on all of them, including the moribund ones with no hope of actualizing their goal, since doing otherwise would likewise strengthen all of the separatists and give them hope, including the active ones. The Russian state also continuously harasses utter no-hoper movements, like the Karelian independence movement and so on.
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If we can use the words of the Indian Political Commentariat (at least the ones who did not predict a landslide win for INC in 2019) as a proxy for what the Indian Government thinks.
Punjab is a border state. Even worse, on the other side lies Pakistan. Separatism in Punjab is believed to have received significant support from the Pakistani ISI as part of their sponsorship of cross border terrorism in India like in Kashmir. There have been seriously worrying flare ups regarding this issue in the past culminating to the assassination of a Prime Minister.
Punjab, while rich compared to many other Indian states has stagnated in recent decades. Unemployment among the youth, cross border drug and weapons trade. It is addicted to Environmentally damaging state subsidized agriculture that is not sustainable or scalable if you want to reach first world living standards and industrial capacity. But, the status quo is a pretty comfortable one for a few rich Punjabi landlords/middlemen leaching off the rest of the state. The system of state subsidy came into place due to governmental efforts to guard against potential food scarcity that's no longer an issue. They now produce too much rice or wheat.
Attempts by the Indian government to move away from this led to the 2020-2021 Farmer Protests. The state lies right next to Delhi, the Indian capital, which they blockaded for months. The proximity allows them to wield disproportionate influence on Indian politics. Us folks down South can't march to the Capital to protest on a whim.
Despite the protest starting for other reasons Separatists who had found refuge in Canada and other countries quickly found the discontent to be a useful lever to push their goals. The Dollar even Canadian goes a long way in a poor country like India. A middle class family in Canada or the US is filty rich in India and can gets disproportionate financial leverage.
The Indian Government squashed the bill despite the need for agricultural reforms to avoid it being used to inflame Separatism. We have had serious material and political consequences as a result of a bunch of Canadians still stuck in the 1980s.
And, as @self_made_human said Indian think tankers seem to be of the opinion "Doubtful that we did it, but good riddance".
I strongly endorse this, as a rather fair and even assessment.
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