Modi’s Top Aide in Spotlight as India-Canada Feud Worsens

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(Bloomberg) — A dramatic political rupture between India and Canada has cast a spotlight on a top confidante of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been mentioned as a possible successor to lead the world’s most populous country.

India’s Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah was accused last week by a senior Canadian government official of authorizing a wave of alleged crimes — including extortion and homicides — against overseas dissidents. The allegations are a significant escalation in a dispute between the two countries that began in September last year when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first accused Indian government agents of involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada. 

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India’s government on Nov. 2 dismissed the allegations against Shah as “absurd and baseless,” and have repeatedly denied Canada’s accusations that officials were involved in alleged crimes against Sikhs in that country. New Delhi has consistently maintained that Trudeau’s government hasn’t shared any evidence of its claims, although Canadian officials have said they’ve shared information with their counterparts.

A longtime ally of Modi, the allegations against Shah, 60, may do more damage to India’s image abroad than to the minister’s personal reputation back home. 

“It’s more of an attack on India than on an individual,” said Amit Ranjan, a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. “If suppose tomorrow the case proves correct, India will be declared as a rogue state.” As home minister, Shah is “representing India, he’s not representing himself,” he said.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has come out in support of Shah. “Pinpointing any home minister without proof is wrong,” Fateh Singh Bajwa, a BJP leader in Punjab — a northern Indian state where Sikhs are a majority — said on Nov. 3. “All political party leaders should stand together and show Canada that India will not tolerate the disrespect,” he added.

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Shah’s political rise in India is closely tied with Modi. The two men met in the 1980s in the western state of Gujarat, where they were members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a pro-Hindu group that is the ideological parent of the BJP. They became close allies despite very different backgrounds: Modi is the son of a tea stall owner, while Shah comes from a wealthy family and previously worked as a stockbroker. 

Known as a savvy political strategist, Shah was instrumental in helping Modi and the BJP take power in 2014, and return to office in subsequent elections. Political experts consider him a potential successor to Modi, 74, as prime minister.

Over the years, Shah has gained a reputation for toughness and for being politically divisive. In 2010, federal investigators under a government run by the Indian National Congress party — now the BJP’s main opponent — charged him with running an extortion racket and ordering three murders. The alleged crimes took place while Shah was a government official in Gujarat state, which was led by Modi as chief minister at the time. Shah denied wrongdoing, but was forced to resign in 2010, and briefly spent time in prison.

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Political Rise

The allegations didn’t stop Shah’s political rise. During national elections in 2014, Modi tapped Shah to help run the BJP’s election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. After the party swept the state and came to power in a landslide, Modi rewarded Shah with the post of BJP president. Later that year, a court threw out the murder and extortion charges against Shah. 

As home minister, Shah was instrumental in some of the party’s most controversial pro-Hindu nationalist policies. He played a key role in revoking the autonomy of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state. He was also instrumental in amending the law to grant citizenship to only non-Muslim migrants from neighboring countries. 

Shah has spearheaded other moves to please the party’s Hindu base, often using inflammatory language. At a campaign rally in 2018, he described Muslim immigrants living in India illegally as “termites” who were “taking our jobs.”

The latest allegations by Canada won’t change Indians’ attitudes toward Shah, according to Harsh Pant, vice president of studies and foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. 

For Modi and Shah, it “only burnishes their credentials as strong nationalist politicians who care about Indian interest and who are willing to take on a very powerful country,” he said.

—With assistance from Sudhi Ranjan Sen.

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