India’s Expanding Footprint of Interference: From Canada to Pakistan, a Pattern of Aggression Emerges

In an increasingly unstable global landscape, India’s assertive foreign operations are raising alarms far beyond South Asia. Once viewed as the world’s largest democracy and a rising soft power, India is now being accused of aggressively exporting repression and undermining the sovereignty of other nations. Its growing footprint in foreign affairs, particularly through covert influence and targeted violence, reflects a worrying trend, one that connects alleged election interference in Canada with longstanding destabilization efforts in Pakistan.

Tensions escalated dramatically in 2023 when Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist advocating for Khalistan, was assassinated outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia. Months later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an extraordinary statement in parliament, accusing India of involvement in Nijjar’s killing. The allegation, backed by allied intelligence sources, shattered diplomatic niceties and triggered a spiral of expulsions and denials between the two countries. India’s dismissive response and retaliatory actions pointed less to innocence and more to a familiar playbook of deflection and coercion.

Now, in 2025, concerns have intensified. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) recently warned that India may attempt to interfere in Canada’s upcoming federal elections. This development deepens existing fears about India’s growing appetite for extraterritorial control. Rather than engaging with political discourse, India appears intent on pursuing perceived enemies across borders, especially Sikh diaspora communities that challenge its nationalist narrative. From digital surveillance to diplomatic pressure and even plots of political assassination, the Indian state is operating beyond the bounds of international norms.

This pattern of targeting Sikh activists is not confined to Canada. In the United States, a plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based Khalistani leader, was reportedly foiled by the FBI. Investigations have pointed directly to India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), as being involved. Such incidents suggest a systematic policy of transnational repression, an effort to silence dissent, stifle movements, and reassert a Hindutva-driven worldview on a global stage.

These same tactics have long been employed closer to home. Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of waging hybrid warfare, funding subversion, promoting terrorism, and manipulating narratives to create internal instability. The 2016 arrest of Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav in Balochistan provided material evidence of India’s clandestine operations inside Pakistan. Jadhav’s confession to orchestrating sabotage and terrorist attacks confirmed what Islamabad had long claimed: that India’s intelligence networks actively undermine Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Even beyond espionage, India has deployed disinformation campaigns aimed at maligning Pakistan’s international image. A 2020 exposé by EU DisinfoLab uncovered a vast network of fake NGOs and media outlets operating under India’s influence to spread anti-Pakistan propaganda across Europe. These operations are part of a broader strategy to isolate Pakistan diplomatically while destabilizing it internally through insurgent support, particularly in Balochistan and former FATA regions.

What ties these actions together, whether in Vancouver or Gwadar, is an ideology. At the heart of India’s increasingly aggressive posture is the rise of Hindutva, a majoritarian nationalist doctrine promoted by the Modi-led BJP government. Under its influence, dissent is framed as sedition, minority rights are dismissed as threats, and international criticism is rebuffed as anti-Indian propaganda. This worldview doesn’t stop at India’s borders; it now informs how New Delhi engages with the world, especially where opposition to its internal policies emerges abroad.

India’s transformation from soft power to a surveillance state has serious global implications. When a state begins to treat dissent abroad as an extension of domestic insurgency, it poses a fundamental threat to the international order. The precedent being set of extrajudicial killings and electoral interference under the cover of “national security”, is dangerous not only for countries like Pakistan and Canada but for any nation hosting diasporas critical of authoritarian regimes.

The international community must confront this threat with urgency. Canada’s warnings are not isolated. Pakistan’s long-standing concerns are not exaggerated. Together, they form a coherent picture of a state using the tools of democracy and diplomacy to subvert both. If these actions are allowed to continue unchecked, India will become not a democratic leader in the Global South, but a cautionary tale of a nation where impunity abroad mirrors repression at home.