- I think it is Trudeau government's perverse politics that is now being brought into the spotlight in this part of the world.

I don't think this is about India or Indians having any problems with Canada.

[upbeat rhythmic music] - Hello and welcome to GZERO World.

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today, they were the gunshots heard all around the world.

An assassination in cold blood that is causing major geopolitical tension for India and Canada.

Who is responsible for the murder of a Sikh leader on Canadian soil and could the blame reach all the way up to India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

And as the war between Israel and Hamas continues to escalate, an update on the more than 200 hostages kidnapped on October 7th.

All that is coming up in just a moment.

But first, here's a word from folks who help us keep the lights on.

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Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... [upbeat rhythmic music] [air whooshing] [upbeat rhythmic music] - [Ian] On June 18th at a Vancouver suburb, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh leader and a Canadian citizen pulled his gray pickup truck out of a parking space at his local temple.

In a security video viewed by the New York Times and the Washington Post, but not yet released to the public, a white sedan can be seen cutting off Nijjar's truck as two men in hooded sweatshirts emerge from a covered area and they fired a reported 50 bullets into the pickup truck's driver's seat, killing Nijjar instantly.

Gurkeerat Singh, a spokesperson for Nijjar's temple, told Canadian media this was no random attack.

- From watching that video, we could tell that this wasn't something that was done abruptly or it wasn't a random act, that this was well planned, orchestrated.

- [Ian] It was a claim that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau substantiated weeks later in a bombshell accusation on the floor of Canada's parliament.

- Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.

- Just to give you a sense of how serious this announcement was, imagine if the journalist Jamal Khashoggi had been an American citizen and the Saudis had killed him in New York City.

Canada is home to the largest Sikh community outside of India.

Sikhs are a religious minority that make up less than 2% of the Indian population.

A militant wing of the community has long called for the creation of a Sikh state called Khalistan.

1984, Sikh bodyguards assassinated India's prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

Nijjar was a supporter of the Khalistan movement who migrated to Canada in the 1990s.

He's been accused by New Delhi of involvement in terrorist acts in India.

That's an accusation that he and his supporters have denied.

It's a challenging time for Canada-India relations, to be sure.

Trudeau personally raised Nijjar's assassination with Modi at the G20 Summit that India was chairing back in early September.

The answer he got in private was wholly unsatisfactory.

He decided to go public.

All this puts the United States in a tough spot.

Washington has been cultivating India as a much needed partner against China, but New Delhi has now allegedly ordered the murder of a Canadian citizen in Canada, one of the United States' closest allies.

It's a staggering violation of international law and norms, especially between two democracies.

And it's a position the Biden administration never expected to be in.

And then on October 7th, Hamas militants murdered over 1,000 Israelis, setting off a bloody war between Israel and Hamas that overshadowed the India-Canada news.

But the killing of Nijjar and its geopolitical reverberations have not gone away.

And it's the subject of my interview today with Samir Saran.

He's president of the Observer Research Foundation, a Delhi-based think tank.

[air whooshing] Samir Sarin, so good to see you, my friend.

- Great to see you, Ian.

- So you're actually in Poland right now, but of course I'm most interested in asking you about India and global geopolitics.

And the story that's been making a lot of news has been this very significant diplomatic dust up that does not appear to be getting any better between your country and Canada.

You wanna give me your perspective on it?

- Well, here, the short answer is that this has been in the making for a while.

And this moment is just when it all blew up.

You have clearly an Indian government that for the last few years has been telling the Canadians to stop supporting and fueling and incubating a movement that has, you know, deep repercussions for India's psyche.

The Khalistani movement, which I'm referring to here, has cost us a prime minister, was a very significant challenge for India's territorial integrity in the- - [Ian] A terrorist attack that cost you a prime minister, yes.

- A terrorist attack, yes.

And of course the bombing of an airplane.

So a very serious terrorist group has been working with impunity in Canada, using the expression and freedoms that the Constitution affords to every comer in Canada.

And they have been using it in a manner that's inimical to India.

Now, this has been in the making for a while, and of course now the fresh allegation is that apparently gang war or gangland killing in Canada is being blamed or is being attributed to the action of the Indian state.

And that's what Trudeau's recent allegation is, which of course has been denied by the Indian government.

But I think this is a great time for the Indian government to turn the screws and actually to bring the core issue back to the center, which is the terror factories in Canada.

- I noticed at the opening that you said that the Canadian government was "incubating and supporting this movement."

Do you mean to say that your belief, the Indian government's belief, is that Canada is actively promoting terrorism against India inside Canada?

Or are you saying they're allowing these radicals to persist unmolested?

Those are two different things, of course.

- Yes, absolutely, and I don't want to err to the side of actually saying that they are commissioning the acts.

I don't think that would be proper without having more concrete evidence.

But by their very omission of overlooking of what is happening there, they are abetting it.

- We have heard from the Canadian government, from the US government and others in the Five Eyes that this intelligence, credible intelligence from their perspective, that has directly linked the Indian government and its intelligence officers to this killing, before and after.

Again, are you saying that what the Canadian government has presented to India, what the American government has presented to India falls inadequate?

That this is fully denied that involvement by the Indian government?

- Ian, I am not privy to what they have spoken about.

I know for sure that they have had a conversation, the Canadians and the Indians on this matter more than once.

I'm also pretty sure, and what has been reported in the newspaper, attributed to a Canadian official, that the evidence that was presented was oral.

So obviously, no evidence has been given, something has been narrated to the Indian government, which falls far short of the standards of evidence and therefore, the gravity of the matter is still to be uncertain in some sense.

But I do know that on record the Indian government has clearly stated that this is not our policy and we don't do this.

So there are two distinct sides to this.

I would also argue that the Five Eyes have also been rather muted.

I do not believe that either of the other countries hold this evidentiary claim of Canada to be anything more than preliminary or perhaps pointing towards something that may or may not be true.

And if you heard the British or the Americans or even the Australians, they have repeatedly said that the investigation must be supported.

That's what they're saying.

None of them have said that they already know what the outcome is.

And I think that's the big claim.

What is not known is whether this was pure, simple gangland killing or was there something deeper to this.

I think that deeper part is not yet been substantiated with anything more than just a claim made by Trudeau in the Parliament.

- So, question two, Samir, if it is substantiated by the West, do you believe that the Indian government at that point, it would be appropriate for them to proceed with an investigation?

- Look, if it is substantiated, I think the foreign minister of India has gone on record, then of course, why will we not engage with it?

If you are giving us something which is substantive, we will engage with it.

But I do not believe the Canadians have thought it, deem it even fit to share that so-called purported evidence in any significant manner with the counterparts.

- Understood.

- So I think there is an obfuscation of something and I don't know why.

I am worried about why now and for what purpose.

Friends don't do this in public.

The Canadian Foreign Minister just said yesterday that we have to have private conversations.

This was something that should have always been in the private conversation mode.

It should never have been brought into the public domain.

And that is why I think there is something more that is happening, which I'm not getting right now.

- I've noticed that Modi's response has been very widely and strongly supported in India, not just by his own party, but also by the Sikh community and also by the opposition, by the Congress Party.

So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that because, you know, politics are pretty divisive in India.

It's unusual when you have everybody agreeing on something.

- I mean, that's one good thing Trudeau has done through his many years of being the Prime Minister of Canada, created a moment of Indian unity.

I think he doesn't have too much else to write home about.

But having said that, look, I started by saying this is a deeply problematic movement for people in India.

And this is something that troubles all of us across the length and breadth of this country.

There is going to be no compromise on this matter.

There is going to be no looking away from the challenge that this is posing to us.

So in India, either way it goes, the Prime Minister has support, and I think that's important.

He did not make this, he did not want this.

But since it has come out, he is not going to lose anything from Trudeau going public.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

- How far might this go?

Because again, as you say, the domestic politics only point in one direction.

Do you think that we could end up with a cutting off of diplomatic ties between Canada and India?

A severing of the economic relationship?

It's not the biggest in the world, but there's a lot of portfolio investment as well.

Where do you see this going?

- No, I think that would be disastrous for both countries.

I hope there's a off-ramp, and I think rather than Five Eyes in this case behaving like the eyes, they should be actually investing in finding a way to pacify the situation and move on and try to get both parties to get into a side room and find ways of dealing with this situation.

Canada is a very big investor in India.

Canadian pension funds have invested in our roads and highways and ports, and something that has been one of India's stellar successes in the last decade.

And Canada has been a part of that story.

And I don't think this is about India or Indians having any problems with Canada.

I think it is Trudeau government's perverse politics that is now being brought into the spotlight in this part of the world.

Canada and Canadians have very deep relationships, family ties, diasporic ties, people-to-people links.

It's not just the Sikh community in Canada, it's all communities in Canada.

It's a very deep Indian diasporic link that defines the partnership.

And for me, I don't see this as anything more than a troubled period of a few weeks, maybe a few months before we actually see a renewed vigor in the bilaterals.

I think perhaps we have ignored each other's concerns and perhaps this is that moment which may make us more empathetic to what bothers the other.

So for me- - Okay, let's hope you're right about that.

- I hope this is the turning point.

- Let's hope you're right about that.

Let's move on to a relationship that is not at a turning point: the India-China relationship.

Where do you see the state of play more broadly geopolitically between India and China?

- I think, Ian, this relationship, again, the bilateral between India and China are at a precarious stage.

At one level, you still have thousands of troops, barely few meters from each other on the Himalayas.

And nobody's talking about it, but it's a tense battlefield in the Himalayas with lots of soldiers with great disregard and dislike for each other facing off.

I think that's on one end of that relationship.

The other end of the relationship is that in some paradoxical manner, we are still growing the trade partnership and the Chinese are still having a perverse trade benefit from us.

They have $100 billion trade surplus vis-a-vis India.

So you have Chinese troops that are seeking to redraw the map and you have Chinese trading relationships that are favoring Beijing significantly, and it's only becoming worse in the last few years.

So I think we have a double challenge for the Indian establishment, that how do you continue to flex your muscles on the borders to prevent expansionism of the Beijing variety?

And on the other hand, how do you rebalance your economic ties with them so that it is a more natural trading relationship rather than this perverse one?

And in many ways, China is unrelenting on both fronts, neither is it willing to course correct its trading engagement with us, which means allow more Indian goods into their market, and in a sense, import more from our part of the world.

And neither is it showing any signs of a thaw on the Himalaya borders.

And therefore, I think in some sense, a dangerous stalemate persists of epic proportions.

It can go south very quickly.

The problem is, Ian, and I'll end here, the problem here is that we are not Xi Jinping's biggest problem today.

So perhaps he is not even spending time to find a solution to this or, you know, he is trying to fight the fires within China.

- India, historically was, you know, we're not picking any favorites, we're not playing any sides.

We don't do any global geopolitics.

India is now coming out not only as increasingly a leader of the global south, but also leaning more heavily into the relationship with Japan, with the United States, the Quad and the rest.

Samir, how much of this, in your view, is a reaction to China, and how much of it is a natural evolution of India's growth and opportunities?

I understand it can be both, but if you had to weight that for me, what would you say and why?

- So Ian, it is both and I would lean towards a natural evolution and a natural progression rather than too much of a China hand in what's happening.

India was already so deeply integrated with the West, even before the Berlin Wall fell down.

So we were already through our people, through our institutions, through our education, through even our industry and Green Revolution, we were already far more inclined to partner with the United States, France, UK, and other Western capitals than we were with Beijing.

And perhaps in relative terms, even with Moscow.

So I think there was already something happening over the decades that was moving India into the same ecosystem of growth and future development with the Western powers.

And I think that has really catalyzed post-India's economic liberalization, late '90s, early 2000s, through three prime ministers, Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, and Prime Minister Modi.

All three of them have made the big bet on America, have made America their priority over the last 20 odd years and we see the results today.

Now of course, what China has done has infused an element of strategic coordination within this relationship.

So the economic and trade ties were already growing on their own.

China has put an urgency on security coordination, on security partnerships, on sharing of information and intelligence.

By the way, that's happening in the Himalayas even now.

And of course, the induction of key American strategic weapons in India's arsenal.

So I think the Chinese may have catalyzed the security and defense element of it.

And by the way, not through its actions against India.

I would say even its expansive nature in the East China and South China Seas.

So even Americans were looking at building a coalition or a new sort of an arrangement to manage that Chinese politics.

So I think the growth is natural.

The Chinese have certainly catalyzed the security and defense partnership to a great extent.

- Samir Saran, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Thank you, Ian, for having me.

[air whooshing] [bright music] [air whooshing] - On October 7th, as Hamas militants launched a brutal and deadly attack in Israel, more than 200 people were taken hostage, citizens of as many as 30 nations.

Now more than three weeks later, the fates of many of the captives remains uncertain.

Here's GZERO's, Tony Maciulis, with the story of one family still desperately hoping for the safe return of a child.

- At this time, only a small handful of the hostages being held by Hamas have been released, including of course recently, an American mother and daughter who were dual citizens of both Israel and the United States.

The hostages range in age from babies all the way to elderly people, and among them is a young boy who turned nine in captivity this week.

His name is Ohad Munder-Zichri.

And joining me now is Ohad's brother, Roy Zichri.

Thanks so much for doing this at what I know is a difficult time for your family.

- Thank you for reaching out.

- Roy, first, can you describe what happened on October 7th and the circumstances of Ohad's kidnapping?

- Since the tragedy, we only got a few bits of information that we've gathered through rumors.

We directly contacted them on October 7th at 6:40 in the morning via a WhatsApp message where my dad messaged Karen and she told him that they hear gunshots fired and they are hiding in the mamad, which is like a safe room.

And that was the last time we've heard from them.

After very long hours, later that day, we found out that Nir Oz was attacked severely.

We didn't know the severity of the attack until a day afterwards when the IDF managed to seize control over the kibbutz.

We heard horrific descriptions of the kibbutz being completely burned and with houses burned and almost no people left in the kibbutz.

At Wednesday, we got informed that they have been captured by Hamas and they are located in Gaza.

- And Roy, you mentioned Karen, that's Ohad's mother.

And she was taken hostage along with Ohad's grandparents.

We've heard from other families of hostages that there's obviously understandably enormous frustration and anger right now.

There's also been an ongoing debate about what Israel's next course of action should be.

I'm just curious what you're hoping to see from the government as they attempt to rescue the hostages.

- That's a tough question to ask.

As a non-political person, the only thing that we want is to get some sort of clarity or anything, any bit of information that will get us out of this state of endlessly waiting for some sort of life signs from our relatives.

As of now, we did not get anything that would give us enough hope.

So we're still remain in a constant state of worrying and stress and chaos.

As for what we should do, I'm not a strategic person.

I just want to feel that we are being taken care of by our government.

And as for the IDF, I have full support for the action.

I'm sure that, you know, some of the actions that people might do in order to get our captives back might be covert, possibly.

We might hear about some sort of a bold action that has been taken behind the scenes, and hopefully, we will get our captives back that way.

So if that's the case, we don't mind remaining in this state for a few days more in order to get them back.

- And your brother's story made global news this week because he turned nine in captivity.

What do you want people to know about the kind of boy he is?

- Well, he's very gifted.

He has a lot of potential.

He is a kid that, he is being celebrated through all of our extended family.

So he has a lot of adults that are celebrating him.

He plays chess with adults.

He plays Rubik's Cube.

He teaches adults how to play Rubik's Cube.

He corrects adults if they spell something wrong, you know?

He is a very gifted child and he also is very active in sports.

And him and I, we have a very strong connection.

We have our own jokes and our own games and he is very lovable and adorable.

- What message would you send the terrorists who are holding Ohad hostage right now?

- No, no message, no message.

Just bring them back as soon as possible.

- Roy, thank you so much for doing this and all of our best to your family.

- Thank you for your time.

[air whooshing] [bright music] - That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

If you like what you've seen and you know there's more conflict out there for us to cover, why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com?

[bright music] [upbeat rhythmic music] [upbeat rhythmic music continues] [upbeat rhythmic music continues] [upbeat rhythmic music fades] [bright music] - [Announcer] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint [dramatic music] and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... [gentle upbeat music] [bright music]