By ​Ranjona Banerji​
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to India has captured air time, social media time, web space and newspaper space. For some, it was about his colourful outfits. And really, could they have been more colourful? He and his delightful family wandered around India dressed for The Great Indian Wedding. The mehndi, the sangeet night (don’t get angry with me, these are now very different ceremonies for some), the baraat, the pheras and the reception were all covered by the Trudeau famille.
Politicians, the general public, Twitter, were all either charmed or amused by this remarkable display of the best of garish, gaudy and chamak-dhamak that Indian “celebration†clothes have to offer. Next time, perhaps Karan Johar and Manish Malhotra can be advisers? Or why not Sabyasachi Mukherjee who might suggest some saris and dhotis as well? Just saying.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43151115
For others, it was why Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not received Trudeau at the airport, why he had not hugged Trudeau and so on. This was either a diplomatic faux pas or a deliberate snub or just par for the course depending on which side of the political spectrum you sat on. However, given Modi’s propensity to receive and hug, some felt that Trudeau had been shortchanged. How the Canadian prime minister himself felt about this was not told to us.
However eventually Modi did hug Trudeau and as the link below shows, oddly, the most colourfully dressed man in the picture, given both the prime ministers’ sartorial choices, was the person who had opened the car doors.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/canada-prime-minister-justin-trudeau-visit-to-india-highlights/articleshow/63038813.cms
But there was something far more serious and dangerous lurking in the background. One of the invitees to a dinner thrown by the Canadian prime minister at the Canadian high commission in Delhi included businessman, Jaspal Atwal, convicted for the murder of Malkiat Singh Sidhu, a Punjab minister, on Vancouver Island in 1986.
Canada is home to several Khalistani separatists. And Canada has an enormous Sikh population. And an important part of Trudeau’s visit to India is to cement the Sikh vote in Canada.
However, Atwal’s inclusion in the dinner crossed several lines. For India, the situation was equally embarrassing: How did Atwal get a visa? The Indian Express says that Atwal’s name was dropped from the list of extremists ahead of the Punjab elections in 2016, by the Indian government, to get closer to “moderate†Khalistani elements.
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/khalistan-activist-jaspal-atwal-with-justin-trudeaus-leaves-canada-india-red-faced-5074733/
The international press and the Canadian press have been scathing:
The Toronto Sun’s Candice Malcolm, who tweeted her findings all day yesterday: http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/malcolm-trudeaus-global-sensation-comes-crashing-down-in-india
The Atlantic:Â https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/justin-trudeau-india-trip/553958/
The Washington Post:Â https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/22/india-to-justin-trudeau-stop-trying-so-hard/?utm_term=.0ac1f9d75c48
CNN:Â https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/22/asia/extremist-scandal-trudeau-india-visit-intl/index.html
**
All in all, this was a fine diversion from the rest of whatever is plaguing India and the world. One more school shooting in the US and the recalcitrance of the gun lobby and the amazin
​g ​
pronouncements of the US President Donald Trump. AAP fighting with the Delhi chief secretary or is it the other way around. The Army chief shooting his mouth off. The UP chief minister posing with a gigantic bottle gourd (sometimes, one just should not ask). Aadhaar hearings in the Supreme Court (not that the media is really that bothered). The Maharashtra government giving Rs 35000 crore to a man who built a plane (that has never flown) on his terrace, to start a plane-building factory.
And of course, the biggest news of all: the Nirav Modi and Punjab National Bank fraud case. Lest we forget.