With the Florida GOP scandals, war in the Middle East and the clownish behavior of Donald J. Trump it might have flown under the radar, but India has been accused of something unbecoming of a liberal democracy. India feels it can do what it wants, where it wants to stifle domestic opposition – including on foreign soil.

On Wednesday, the FBI accused India of commissioning a hit man to conduct an assassination on American soil. This comes just months after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau similarly accused India of successfully conducting an assassination of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.

At issue is the attempts by India to stamp out support from western-based Sikh diaspora for an independent Punjabi state (Khalistan).

The indictment from DOJ of Nikhil Gupta is below:

The Indian public and media reacted with anger towards Canada, because how dare a nation protect its own citizens and sovereignty against foreign-driven assassinations! It’s almost sure to do the same this time against the US, which is historically always a target of Indian elites, no matter how much the USA accommodates them.

In the interest of fairness, India claims to not be behind either assassination effort. But I for one, knowing the situation, do not believe any denial coming from New Delhi.

Here’s why

Elite Indians (the ones in government and the media) constantly think the rules should not and will not apply to them because:

1) They were oppressed by the British as a colony and thus are permanent victims.

2) The west “needs” India because China is a mortal threat to the existence of all of the entire human race.

3) The west because of their legacy of colonialism and “racism” has no right to lecture India about morality or ethics and India’s own colonial-like and ethnocentric behavior should be excused because the west did it to them first.

4) India is the largest “free” market for western corporations (although India is an incredibly protectionist country) so assuming capitalism and money drives every decision in the west (which in fairness, it might!) the west will never confront India.

Therefore India in their mind is empowered to do what it wants, where it wants, when it wants. Because THE CHINESE MIGHT KILL US ALL! AND WE HAVE A HUGE CONSUMER MARKET WHERE YOU CAN MAKE MONEY!

Okay, let’s get serious again…

India always let off the hook by the US and UK

Interestingly, India never supports self-determination for oppressed people’s if they feel the west is behind it (examples: Kosovo and Ukraine). They’ve never once sided with the west in serious foreign policy crisis that doesn’t involve China. Yet the west, particularly the administrations of George W. Bush, David Cameron(UK), Boris Johnson (UK), Donald Trump and now Joe Biden have bent over backwards to excuse India’s bad behavior. Bush even felt it was a good idea to exempt Indian from the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty. That deal hasn’t been made for a single other rogue nuclear power.

Hopefully this indictment changes the game on that front. I am hopeful it will shake people up because India’s behavior in this case is the type of thing we’d expect from the likes of Stalin or Putin.

If India’s great rival, Muslim-majority Pakistan had tried to assassinate someone on American soil we’d quite possibly be sending bombers right now to hit Islamabad or Peshawar.

Instead the west is almost sure to let India off-the-hook again, but it’s about time the western public woke up. India has a lot of soft power its exploited in the west via India diaspora being in prominent positions in prestigious fields. The impact of Indian movies and music has also penetrated the west, creating a sympathy in our views toward India’s cultural attitudes and ambitions that are not serving us well.

India’s tone is long in the making

The problem is the tone was set years ago and while I am a critic of Narendra Modi, this culture predates him and his right-wing Hindu fundamentalist BJP being in power. India in its desire to manufacture unity (India is a nation-state where 28 different local languages are spoken by at least a million people and their are as many as 100 definable ethnic groups with significant population pockets) has suppressed identity in favor of “Indianness,” as well as forcing a single language – Hindi, on the 58% of the country’s population who do not have it as a native tongue.

While identity politics is something I am not comfortable with in the US since it’s becoming the dominant strain of our politics, I am NOT comfortable with completely suppressing it anywhere on the globe, either.

Increasingly thanks to the BJP “Indianness” is becoming equated with religion – specifically Hinduism, leaving India’s 180 million Muslims, 35 million Christians and others including the Sikhs in an increasingly uncomfortable position.

But the Indian elite response when questioned on these things is ultimately everything is the fault of the British, or the Americans, because of colonialism and exploitation and all that stuff.

Is China really worse than India?

Indians are taught from a young age to resent the west and blame the west for their problems, yet we’re expected to cow-tow to them because of…China.

I am not a fan of communism, militarism or imperialism. So all of that stuff makes me not like China currently. But is India really preferable? I suppose for western businesses it’s a more “open” market but not an entirely open one by the way. In fact India has its own empire so to speak it’s protecting, from Kashmir where their has been an insurgency for 35 years, to the the Northeast states that are constantly in some sort of tumult. And as we’ve detailed time and again, India has backslid dramatically since 2014 in terms of democracy, freedom of the press, an independent judiciary and religious toleration.

But all that aside, for US interests is it a good partner?

My opinion is no. India is a potential enemy along the same lines as Russia or China. The fact they are a democracy that has a huge diaspora in the US, Canada, UK and Australia impacts how we view them as does their cultural influence via Bollywood and music.

But make no mistake about it – India resents the west, currently wants to use the west and has a different code of ethics and values than we do – and will stop at no end to promote its interests even if that means killing foreign citizens in their country of citizenship.

My view is the US should be deepening engagement with Pakistan and Afghanistan while using Russia’s bad behavior to create more strategic alliances in Central Asia…a hedge against Russia, China and India.

The world after all does revolve around the Silk Roads.

In any event, my distinct hope is that this week’s events wakes the American public up about India.

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