India-Canada row: Risks of dissent
Political activists in foreign lands often make for heat, not light
Welcome to This Week, Those Books, your rundown on books new and old that resonate with the week’s big news story.
The few minutes it takes to read this newsletter will make you smarter, faster…guaranteed. If you’d rather listen, click on the audio button above for a human, not AI, voiceover. These book suggestions — complete with summary, quotes and a visceral response rating — could point you to your next read or sort out watercooler convo and supper small talk. Please share. Find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube.
Yours,
The Big Story:
The continuing international row over Canada’s accusation that Indian government agents were behind the murder of an Indian-Canadian in British Columbia this summer.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a vocal advocate for Khalistan, a separate homeland for the Sikh religious minority that makes up roughly 2% of India’s population and the same in Canada. India had declared him a terrorist, while in Canada, his activism was seen as protected speech.
- This is the first time that India is accused of a political assassination on the soil of a Western country. It denies it.
- Political dissidents in foreign lands are a familiar story as is the reality that their presence and politics often causes tensions between home country and host country.
The Backstory:
- India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly accused Canada of not doing enough to quell Sikh protests and “anti-India” activities within its borders.
- China has long resented India’s hospitality to Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
- In the 1990s, French intelligence services contemptuously dubbed the British capital ‘Londonistan’. It was a reference to UK-based Middle Eastern and North African dissidents campaigning against the governments of Egypt, Yemen and Algeria, among others.
- Some 80 years ago, the former Soviet Union had Russian Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky assassinated in Mexico because of his opposition to Stalin.
This Week, Those Books:
- A novel that covers Trotsky’s exile in Mexico and Communist witch-hunts in 1950s America.
- The autobiography of Tibet’s most famous refugee.
- A chronicle of the peripatetic existence endured by Reza Shah, who was forced to abdicate the Iranian throne.
Originally published at https://thisweekthosebooks.substack.com.
