Who knows when we may need friends.

According to all pundits, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's week long visit to India starting on 17 February was an unmitigated disaster. He came with his whole family, visited various tourist attractions, like the Taj Mahal, and met with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, the day before his departure from India. C Malcolm, a journalist with the Toronto Sun, was scathing in her criticism, calling him a "performance artist". "The Canadian prime minister's success to date can be traced more to his talents as a performance artist than to an understanding of statecraft, economics, or diplomacy. When posing in a costume he is at his best. But without a scripted narrative to follow, he lacks the depth and the sophistication to grasp when the show has gone on too long," she wrote. He is said to have received "a royal snub" from the Indian government, which sent a junior minister of agriculture to receive him at the airport, whereas Prime Minister Modi personally received Xi Jinping, Shinzo Abe and Benjamin Netanyahu at the airport with his personal hug, wrote Prof R Mukherjee. The reason for India's displeasure is Trudeau's apparent proximity to Khalistani Sikhs living in Canada. The Modi government believes in the ancient Indian saying of 'atithi devo bhava' which means a 'guest is divine'. Modi personally arranged programs for Abe's visit to India, despite Japan holding up a deal with the Nuclear Suppliers Group because it wanted "parallel safeguards in perpetuity", a demand already dropped by Canada. The government was furious at an invitation to Jaspal Atwal, a convicted terrorist, to a dinner at the Canadian High Commission in honor of Trudeau. If he is such a bad chap how did he receive a visa to come to India and why did this government drop him from the blacklist in the first place? If Atwal is welcome to travel anywhere within India, meet anyone he pleases and invest in businesses then why the sulk? Indian politicians apologized for Operation Blue Star on the Golden Temple in Amritsar which appeased all the Sikhs in India, wrote S Shakhar. Khalistani terrorists now exist only in Canada so Trudeau should not associate with it. Shekhar seems to have completely forgotten the massacre of Sikhs following Indira Gandhi's assassination, and that Khalistanis were wiped out by KPS Gill by 1995, using extreme methods. No one has been punished for the Sikh massacres and Sajjan Kumar, a prime accused, has been granted 'anticipatory bail', a mockery which exists only in India. Besides, when our government is forever 'reaching out' to Pakistan which continually sends terrorists into India the churlish behavior dished out to Trudeau seems completely inexplicable. Hope they know what they are doing.