Khalistani Separatists Cannot Separate From India-UK Friendly Ties.
We have long raised concerns about such demonstrations being staged by local anti-India elements affiliated with Pakistani-origin Muslims with ties to Pakistani intelligence agents. Still, the UK authorities have not taken our concerns seriously.
Usually, the UK authorities respond to our protests asserting that they recognize the right to protest and freedom of speech and that, by law, they cannot ban such demonstrations.
Accordingly, under what legal requirement does such a demonstration with potential for violence have to occur in front of the mission and not at a distance to minimize the possibility of a violent attack on us or our property?
Our officials should not be placed under stress and subjected to offensive slogans, placards and abuse due to a sense of siege inside the mission.
The UK authorities might be compelled to allow a demonstration to express public sentiment if a significant high-handed action against international law has violated British citizens or vital interests in a foreign country. Neither Indian citizens nor British interests have been attacked.
According to the UK authorities, the Khalistani cause in India is a British cause because they permitted rabble to protest in front of our High Commission without causing any harm to British citizens. Why should such a protest be allowed if it’s not required?
Due to connections with the Indian diaspora, the UK side uses the specious argument that what happens in India affects Britain.
It believes it must interfere with our internal affairs because they interfere with its own. British citizens are right to protest what happens in some internal matters in India.
These British citizens are extremist Sikhs, extremist Muslims of Pakistani origin with links to Arab extremists, as seen in the Leicester riots, Pakistani-origin MPs whose electoral votes depend on the Muslim vote in marginal constituencies, and Labour MPs fueling the Kashmir campaign against India.
There is also a British press campaign against India. What prevents the British argument from working in reverse? No demonstrations are organized against the British High Commission in India, despite protests against our High Commission in London.
When India is attacked in the British parliament on Kashmir-related issues or minorities and human rights issues with equivocal responses from government ministers, there are no protests.
Indian business people who are wanted by Indian law and charged with major economic crimes are given shelter by the British government. Specifically, no transparency is provided on why Vijay Mallya’s extradition is stalled.
Even though India has raised the issue at the highest political level, the British government refuses to elaborate on the legal hurdle.
Using British law, demonstrators opposing our mission are denied a ban on their actions. Similarly, Indian economic offenders are protected from Indian laws under British rule.
In India, the Indian high commission has not been attacked for these provocations. Specifically, the UK Foreign Office Minister of State, Lord Ahmad, described the action against our mission as entirely unacceptable.
Under the Vienna Convention, the UK is responsible for providing security to foreign missions on its soil, so nothing should be done about it. The UK government has yet to take the security of our mission seriously in the past or even now.
Indian officials have been indifferent to our repeated concerns because of pent-up rage against their indifference. India summoned the UK Deputy High Commissioner to lodge our protest in the absence of the High Commissioner.
UK authorities are requested to immediately identify, arrest, and prosecute those responsible for the incident. It is unclear which group vandalized the mission, and Lord Ahmad did not mention arresting and prosecuting the perpetrators.
Most protestors had dispersed before police arrived, and a man was arrested for violent disorder, according to London police. CCTV cameras in London make it easy to identify those participating in the demonstration, especially those who climbed up the balcony to remove our national flag and replace it with a Khalistani flag.
It has not been revealed that he has been arrested despite his photograph being available on social media.
It is regrettable, in this regard, that the person who came out to retrieve the flag removed by the intruder and prevented him from raising the Khalistani flag did not pull him inside to detain and question him before presenting him to the police.
The mission’s security staff cannot assume responsibility for the actions of any individuals outside the mission’s boundaries but can detain those who have trespassed on its grounds.
UK authorities are unlikely to take serious action, as their laws prohibit such measures.
Furthermore, they will not want to be attacked by certain parliamentarians, anti-Indian lobby groups, civil society activists, and the media for abridgement of safe protest rights under Government pressure. In the UK establishment, there is quite a solid anti-Indian attitude among the BBC.
As a result, the one who appears to be reluctant to chastise the extremists in the Sikh community displays partiality toward the community for historical reasons, is vulnerable to the demands of the anti-Indian diehards within it for Sikhs to be classified separately from Hindus, and is partial to the community due to historical reasons.
It explains why the UK has given them so much latitude. San Francisco in the US, Canada, and Australia also suffer from this Khalistani contagion.
In response to this targeting of Indian missions abroad by separatists who are encouraged to promote violence in Punjab, India should take decisive steps. Although they are few, they are a threat to national security.
As a result, our government should identify separatist elements, suspend their entry into India, revoke their OCI cards, and confiscate their property in India by adopting necessary legislation.
We may be unable to offer the electronic visa facility to travellers from Britain because of a lack of coordination between our missions overseas and our Home Ministry about not allowing undesirable elements into the country.
Holding off on bilateral official and ministerial visits and FTA negotiations might pressure the UK government to take action against Khalistani elements.
In particular, the UK is interested in the defence domain, for which a relationship of trust is the primary requirement. Khalistani separatists cannot be isolated from friendly ties between India and the United Kingdom.
By reducing security outside the British high commission and the envoy’s residence, India signalled to the British government that India’s interests would be harmed in the West.
Following a violent protest outside the Indian mission in London over the weekend, these developments came to light.
The Khalistani separatists may have pulled down the Indian flag from the top of the India High Commission in London on Sunday in an apparent act of vandalism.
Nevertheless, it is more of a case of the State refusing to take action against the Khalistani thugs and their sympathizers than of the State encouraging them to act in the same way as they did in London this Sunday, hoping to appease the substantial voter base for Labour, but also to derail the India narrative.
A hitjob documentary funded by the British government targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Gujarat riots in 2002 despite the Supreme Court giving him a clean chit following an exhaustive investigation.
There is no exception to this in the UK. The British record is the most pathetic and hypocritical despite the West’s utter incompetence, if not indifference, in containing anti-India forces on its territory.
Modi’s government had warned Whitehall and MI-5 of the planned Khalistani demonstrations on Sunday, so there was no reason for them to be caught this Sunday unawares.
Even more interesting is that this happened under the watch of a person of Indian origin who is the Prime Minister of Britain.
It will strike as much at the image of new India, which just overtook the British economy to become the fifth largest economy in the world, as it will place Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on a slippery slope.
The UK has allowed such anti-India forces free reign before. Following the abrogation of Article 370, a 10,000-strong mob of British Pakistanis attacked the Indian High Commission in London.
Moreover, the political-administrative will to deal with these arsonists was lacking. The police did nothing to stop the targetting of Hindus in the UK during the 2022 Leicester violence.
Khalistani sympathizers control the majority of Sikh groups in the West, especially in the UK and Canada, and Islamist outfits partly supported, promoted and patronized by Pakistan’s diplomatic mission there.
Pakistan’s ISI is now covering any shortfalls to fund Khalistani militancy in India and abroad while the West provides safe passage and refuge for them.
Nevertheless, British policies are even more complex due to their inherent bias against India and their pro-Pakistan bent. Europeans were overwhelmed by its socio-cultural and economic superiority when they discovered India.
Agra, India, was a searing experience for Sir Thomas Roe as the first accredited English ambassador to the Mughal Empire, arriving in 1616.
Nevertheless, Indians and their way of life were looked down upon by the early 19th century, especially after the 1857 mutiny. In the Congress era, the British saw the freedom struggle primarily as a Hindu movement for independence, which led them to deride Indians with Hindu venom.
Despite Gandhi, Patel, and Nehru being innately secular, the British and Muslims considered them Hindus. According to them, the Congress was a Hindu party, and thus ‘Hindu India’ was never forgiven by the British.
Aside from that, the British establishment went traditionally soft on Pakistan primarily because the formation of Pakistan was almost entirely the result of the British geopolitical strategy to maintain some of the subcontinents, if not all, to avert an expected Soviet threat.
After pursuing a broadly anti-Western, pro-Soviet foreign policy under the Nehruvian dispensation, the British distrust of ‘Hindu India’ intensified.
British establishments, especially Deep State, still betray anti-India bias; in fact, it has only intensified in recent years, especially now that Modi’s India is the only bright spot in a gloomy economic environment, defying the Churchillian doomsday scenario.
Western countries are further concerned that Indians tend to go solo in geostrategic affairs, as demonstrated by Ukraine. Seema Sirohi has used the term friends with benefits for her latest book on the India-US relationship. According to this writer, the West and India are best friends with benefits.
The relationships between friends based on benefits tend to swing as the issues change. While the West desires India as a counterweight to China, there is also a fact that it is deeply wary of India’s rise.
Once again, the London High Commission scandal reveals the British establishment’s distrust of India. In this environment, anti-India elements can be easily found in the UK and have safe havens.
While Prime Minister Modi is sincerely trying to bridge the gap between India and Britain through a free trade agreement (FTA), the typical British distrust for him and his idea of India has only intensified at the same time, even though the UK is likely to gain the most from the deal.
In response to India’s friendly policies and gestures, Britain rescinded the CAA and Article 370 (when it opened supported Pakistan on Kashmir) and stormed the Leicester, BBC, and London High Commission.
The hitjob against India and PM Modi has only increased since India took over the G20 presidency and is preparing for its national elections early in 2019. The British might see India’s friendly gestures as a weakness.
A few Khalistanis stormed India’s London High Commission in the name of democracy and free speech with mere dandas, so why do Argentineans and Scottish separatists in New Delhi not get the same democratic rights?
Plenty of free-spirited Englishmen and women enjoy dining with Islamists and Khalistanis. In reducing security outside the British mission in Delhi, India indicates to the West that it has run out of patience. Regardless, friendship cannot be one-way.
Edited by Prakriti Arora
