Lentil Exports: In a soup over India-Canada diplomacy row

Lentil exports from Canada to India have slowed down amidst the two countries' watering down of diplomatic ties ever since the Canadian PM accused India of assassinating its citizen, a Khalistani leader, on its soil. Amidst rising tensions from virulent anti-India protests in Canada and feared fallout from trade restrictions, there's no prize for guessing who will get affected by a price rise in dal, a commodity as common and essential as salt in India

By Madhu Kapparath

Published: Sep 29, 2023 12:55:48 PM IST

Updated: Sep 29, 2023 03:22:07 PM IST

Image: Shankar Mourya/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

A file photo of school kids eating dal and chapati served under a mid-day meal scheme at Mahudiya Dev village school in Agar, Madhya Pradesh, India. According to a survey conducted in 2022, around 89 percent of schools in rural areas of India had a kitchen shed for cooking mid-day meals for children in primary and upper primary classes.

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Canada only began growing lentils in the 1970s, and now they are the biggest supplier to India, having exported around 4.85 lakh tonnes of lentils last fiscal year, which was worth $370 million. According to a Royal Bank of Canada report, Canada needs 30,000 immigrant farmers over the next decade to take over existing farm operations or to start their farms. The labour shortage in the Canadian agricultural industry is among the worst in the world, and it is already increasingly turning towards immigration to resolve it. The Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) program remains a critical source of low-skilled labour.

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Migrants, including undocumented people, students and refugees, marched in Toronto, Canada, to demand permanent residency status for all on September 17, 2023. The protest comes after Canada's temporary foreign worker program was labelled a "breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery" by a United Nations official earlier this month. There are 1.7 million people in Canada on temporary study or work permits, growing Canada's food, caring for children and working in essential frontline jobs.

Image: NARINDER NANU / AFP

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau and their two children, Ella-Grace and son Xavier, pose for a family photo at the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar, India on February 21, 2018. When the young Trudeau was still an MP, a video circulated on YouTube of him dancing to Dil Bole Hadappa at an event in Montreal, earning him the moniker 'Justin Singh Trudeau'. So it was no surprise when Trudeau inducted four Sikhs in his 30-member cabinet soon after coming to office in 2015, given his comfort level with the community. The fact that a bearded, turbaned Sikh heads the military of a Western country is a matter of great pride to Sikhs.

Image: Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu via Getty Images

Police officers stand guard as pro-Khalistan supporters—and pro-India supporters opposing them—gather for a demonstration across the Indian Consulate in Toronto, Canada, on July 8, 2023. In 1971, two years before a separatist resolution formalised the purported demand for Khalistan in India's Anandpur Sahib, Dr Jagjit Singh Chauhan, a politician and dentist residing in Canada, declared himself the president of Khalistan. Proclaiming the birth of Khalistan, he ran an ad in NYT declaring, "We are going to wait no more. Today, we are launching the final crusade. We are a nation in our own right."

Image: Chris Helgren / Reuters

A poster featuring Hardeep Singh Nijjar at The Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara where he was killed on its grounds in Surrey, Canada, September 18, 2023. The poster features photos and names the Indian commissioner and consul general as 'wanted' for the killing of Nijjar in June 2023. Referred by Western media as a 'Sikh separatist activist', Nijjar used his credentials to turn the gurudwara into a "prominent centre of Khalistani activities and build a community of radically-inclined Canadian Sikhs", as per a TOI report. Nijjar, who headed a group called the Khalistan Tiger Force, was designated a terrorist in 2020 by Indian security agencies who sought his extradition from Canada in 2022.

The official map of Khalistan as published by the banned organisation Sikhs For Justice (SFJ). Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the founder of SFJ who practices law in New York, held a meeting at the Lahore Press Club to announce the date (January 26, 2023) for the 'Punjab Independence Referendum'. The map, strangely, leaves out 'Kartarpur Sahib' a key holy place for Sikhs, and seeks none of the Pakistani Punjab territory, not even Lahore, which was the erstwhile capital of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Or the holy Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak.

Image: Carlos Osorio / Reuters

A file photo of overseas science students attending their convocation ceremony at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, Canada. According to Canadian government data, in 2022, 2.26 lakh students out of 5.5 lakh international students, or 40 percent of the total, were from India. And 3.2 lakh Indians were staying in Canada on student visas. According to the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Resource Center, students from India are choosing to study in Canada over the United States due to its open immigration policies and Canadians' openness to people from diverse cultures.