North American government officials and reporters have leveled accusations over the past few months that the Indian government plotted to assassinate certain members of the Sikh diaspora, whom India deemed to be dissidents for their agenda of Sikh separatism.
In a memo written in April and released on Sunday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) instructed officials in the country’s North American consulates to enact a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” against Sikh diaspora organizations for acts of propaganda, arson, and vandalism targeting Indian interests. The memo also listed several Sikh individuals by name, including Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh person who was shot outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, in June.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged in September that India orchestrated the murder of Nijjar. Two months later, an indictment unsealed on November 29 revealed that US prosecutors filed charges against an Indian national, claiming that he offered $15,000 to a hitman to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. The indictment stated that Pannun, an attorney, “has publicly called for some or all of Punjab to secede from India and establish a Sikh sovereign state called Khalistan.”
Shri Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for the MEA, denied the claims that MEA wrote a memo targeting members of the Sikh diaspora. “This is part of a sustained disinformation campaign against India,” Bagchi said in a press release. “Those who amplify such fake news only do so at the cost of their own credibility.”
What are the origins of the Sikh separatist movement?
Experts said that the beginning of the movement for Sikh separatism varies according to one’s perspective. Some devotees trace the concept of a separate Sikh state to the birth of the religion itself, in the 15th century.
From a political standpoint, scholars also say that support for Khalistan was prominent around 1947, when Britain ended its rule on the subcontinent and partitioned the land into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
“There was this dialogue going on between different parties, different communities, and of course all Sikhs also wanted a say in those talks,” said Shinder Thandi, founder of the Journal of Punjab and Sikh Studies, an organization whose work centers on human rights in Punjab, where most Sikhs in India have lived for decades. “They were also asking for a Sikh-majority state.”
Most experts agreed that the movement reached a peak in the 1980s and 1990s, following the 1984 assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards and the subsequent anti-Sikh riots that claimed the lives of thousands of Sikh people. Members of the Khalistan movement organized multiple attacks during this time—the most infamous being the bombing of an Air India flight in 1985, which killed over 300 passengers.
“The militant movement for self-determination began in earnest in 1984,” said Sukhman Dhami. “Prior to that, I would say that it was certainly an idea and concept, and people were agitating for it in different forms.”
The desire for a separate Sikh state arose from a legacy of persecution of Sikhs in India. In addition to the anti-Sikh riots, Dhami said that the Indian government’s redirection of Punjab’s river water in 1976 and the lack of educational resources in Punjab were examples of human rights abuses endured by Sikhs.
“They don’t feel that you can find a solution within India’s framework,” Dhami said. “They believed that if there were an independent Punjab, they would have greater surety that these human rights would be protected.”
How prevalent is the movement for Sikh separatism in the US today?
Despite the recent spotlight on Sikh separatism, the movement represents a small proportion of Sikhs in the United States, some experts say.
“It’s true that there’s been a surge in pro-Khalistan activism, most of it non-violent, in the US and other Western states in recent years,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center. “But we’re still talking about relatively small numbers. Protests tend to be in the dozens, not hundreds or thousands.”
Thandi stated his belief that the Indian government crushed the movement by the end of the 20th century. “The Khalistan movement does not exist,” he said. “Yes, of course, there will always be individuals who would harbor that thought. But as a movement, as an organizational kind of movement, it died a long time ago.”
Still, Sikh Americans do express discontent with India’s treatment of Sikhs and a desire for the political autonomy of Sikh people. “The sentiments around self-determination are quite prevalent,” Dhami said. “But a sentiment doesn’t necessarily translate to a political movement.”
Public manifestations of the Khalistan movement in the US have included two attacks on the Indian consulate in San Francisco: once in March after the Indian government’s attempted arrest of separatist leader Amritpal Singh, and the other in July following the death of Nijjar. The group Sikhs for Justice, headed by Pannun, has also been active, organizing a referendum in California to vote on the independence of Punjab next January.
How has India responded to expressions of Sikh separatism in the US?
Despite the small scale of the Khalistan movement abroad, concern has mounted for the safety of Sikh American activists following the murder of Nijjar. Over the summer, FBI agents visited at least three Sikh organizers to inform them of threats against their lives, The Intercept reported.
On November 17, multiple Sikh diaspora organizations signed a letter addressed to two US congressional committees. “We are writing to express our grave concerns over transnational repression and its impact on the Sikh community in the United States,” wrote the letter signed by the Sikh Coalition, Ensaaf, Jakara, and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
“Members of the Sikh community, including an elected official, have courageously spoken out about threats that could be traced back to the government of India or may be the result of Hindu nationalist extremism,” the letter stated.
Dhami speculated that the attention given to Sikh separatism is an intentional move by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration to bolster support for the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. “It’s Indian electoral politics to raise the specter of separatism and terrorism to kind of galvanize the party’s voting base,” Dhami said. “Nobody’s more obsessed with Khalistan than the Indian government.”
The response from Sikh American communities has been a revival of conversations around the need for a Sikh separatist movement, added Dhami.
“If we had an independent state, this would not have happened,” he said. “These abuses would not have happened, [Nijjar] would not have been assassinated. Or at the very least, there would be an ability to respond at a diplomatic level.”