That process began in late 2015, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited London and met with, among others, Jasdev Singh Rai, director of the Sikh Human Rights Forum based in the United Kingdom, who later began back-channel discussions with separatists in Canada, visiting the Greater Toronto Area or GTA and the Metro Vancouver region. In a statement released in April 2016, Rai said he “raised issues of black lists and visas with representatives of Indian High Commission in Canada” and that “These are being taken seriously. Some people have already been taken off the lists”.

It was part of an attempt to reset the relation between New Delhi and Khalistani sympathisers overseas, particularly in Canada, by the new government after it assumed office in 2015. There was plenty of suspicion present. The secessionists sought a neutral venue for the dialogue, outside India, “in a place where all parties are free to express themselves.”

Opposition was already evident. Even when the initiative undertaken by Rai commenced, it met with swift condemnation from hardline groups. Soon after the first contacts were established and he visited Canada, Sikhs for Justice or SFJ “challenged Jasdev Rai’s claim that Canadian Sikh community is ready to dialogue with Modi Government after the abolition of black lists. Sikh cause cannot be undermined by raising of non-issues by individuals like London based Jasdev Rai.”

But the process continued and several persons were removed from the blacklist.

Among them, notably, were Jaspal Atwal and Ripudaman Singh Malik. Atwal was convicted in Canada for the murder of visiting Punjab Minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu in Vancouver Island in 1986. Malik was among the principal accused in the bombing of Air India flight 182, the Kanishka, by Khalistani terrorists in June 1985, which claimed 329 lives and remains the worst-ever terror attack in Canada history. However, lack of sufficient evidence led to his acquittal in 2005.

Atwal famously turned up at a formal reception in Mumbai during Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s troubled trip to India in February 2018. Atwal was photographed with, among others, Trudeau’s then wife Sophie Gregoire, causing a firestorm in Canadian media. Ottawa later blamed “rogue elements” in the Indian Government for subverting the visit without explaining how they managed to plant Atwal at an invite-only event organised by the Canadian Government.

Malik, meanwhile, wrote a laudatory letter about Modi in January 2022, visited India that summer, and was murdered in July 14, 2022. Two persons, Tanner Fox and Jose Lopez, entered guilty pleas before the British Columbia Supreme Court in New Westminster. But no motive was made public for the killing.

But even before Trudeau landed in New Delhi in February 2018, his government had blocked Rai from visiting the country again, by refusing him an electronic travel authorisation, as its High Commission in London rejected his application, deeming his inadmissible. That was in January 2017, after Rai’s talks became public and attracted a furious backlash from pro-Khalistan hardliners in Canada.

Rai told the Hindustan Times in February 2018, “It is astonishing that there is a ‘blacklist’ of Sikhs in Canada since 2016 while India is taking its own list down. Does Canada know more about us than India? It is even more shocking that this list has been formed when for the first time four Sikhs are in the Canada government, including the defence minister, a position that is part of the security group”.

That reference was a Harjit Sajjan, who was later moved from that portfolio but remains a cabinet minister. Trudeau’s Government had four Sikhs in the cabinet formed in 2015 – Sajjan, Navdeep Bains, Bardish Chagger and Amarjeet Sohi. Currently, it has two – Sajjan and Kamal Khera.

The generous approach towards visas still continued. In fact, even as thousands of Indian nationals, currently temporary residents of Canada including international students, have applied for asylum in the country, New Delhi, according to a senior official earlier this year, continued to process passport renewals for some to travel to India even as they waited for their refugee claims to be cleared.

But that may be history soon, due to cratering of the bilateral relationship after Trudeau’s statement in the House of Commons on September 18 last year that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, three months earlier. Matters worsened this October, when Canadian authorities accused six Indian diplomats and officials of being linked to violent criminal activity in the country. That resulted in New Delhi withdrawing the six, including then High Commissioner to Ottawa Sanjay Kumar Verma, and expelling six Canadian diplomats.

It has precipitated a rethink over granting of visas. A person familiar with the development pointed out that India will err on the side of caution in issuing visas and Overseas Citizen of India or OCI cards, the lifelong travel document. In fact, perusal has commenced for cancellation of some OCI cards for those suspected to being aligned with the Khalistani separatism in Canada.

A reversal to the pre-2016 scenario is likely. With pro-Khalistan radicals being hailed as “activists” in Canada and a movement steeped in violence normalised, the amnesty scheme that was launched to mainstream those willing to renounce secessionism, is liable to become a casualty of the bilateral meltdown.