Guru Nanak created the Sikh religion, which has roughly 25 million adherents worldwide, in the Punjab in the 15th century.
In India, where there are 1.3 billion people, Sikhs make up fewer than 2% of the population, yet they predominate in Punjab. The present Khalistan movement has its roots in the period following India’s separation from Britain in 1947, when some Sikhs called for the creation of a nation in the Punjab state specifically for adherents of their religion. Ashutosh Kumar, a political science professor at Punjab University, said that the Sikh community has made a “significant call for better representation in politics,” adding that “the basic idea was the Sikh people should have their own territorial homeland — a Sikh majority state.”
After the Indian subcontinent gained independence, the brutal Partition swiftly separated the former colony along religious lines, sending Muslims to the newly formed country of Pakistan and transferring Hindus and Sikhs to the newly independent India. In the end, the Partition uprooted 9 million Muslims, 5 million Hindus, and 5,000 Sikhs, leaving up to a million deaths. The worst violence was witnessed in the Punjab, which was divided into two regions.
According to Kumar, around this point, Sikhs started to fight for their political and cultural independence more actively, and the Khalistan cause gained popularity. Many people have died in violent fights that have broken out between movement supporters and the Indian government throughout the years. Religion and geography converge in Punjab, according to Kumar. And the ongoing meddling by the national government in local issues was one of the most significant causes of the Khalistan movement.
The Indian army’s invasion of the Golden Temple in 1984 enraged the Sikh community there and abroad and continues to be a simmering source of tension today. According to Human Rights Watch, some Sikh separatists in Punjab engaged in a number of human rights violations at the height of the insurgency in the early 1980s, including the slaughter of civilians, indiscriminate bombings, and assaults on minority Hindus.
In counterinsurgency operations, Indian security personnel also violated the rights of “tens of thousands of Sikhs,” the report continued. Supporters of Khalistan, however, are still “fringe” and “on the margins,” according to Kumar. The Sikh residents of Punjab are aware that they will be the ones to suffer if militancy returns.
The Khalistan movement peaked in the 1980-90s and the violent campaign included bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and selective killing and massacres of civilians. The movement resulted in nearly 22,000 deaths of Sikhs and Hindus alike, including approximately 12,000 civilians. The violence took on an international dimension in 1985 when Khalistani separatists based in Canada exploded a bomb on an Air India flight enroute from Toronto to New Delhi, killing all 329 people on board, including 82 children under the age of 13. That incident remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Canadian history.
According to Human Rights Watch, “Militants were responsible for numerous human rights abuses during the violent separatist struggle for an independent Khalistan, including the killings of Hindu and Sikh civilians, assassinations of political leaders, and the indiscriminate use of bombs leading to a large number of civilian deaths in Punjab and other parts of India. Under the cover of militancy, criminals began to coerce businessmen and landowners, demanding protection money.”
As Canadian Political Science Professor, Hamish Telford, has also noted, “Over time, the Khalistan movement descended into thuggery. The militants increasingly engaged in robbery, extortion, rape, indiscriminate killings and ever-escalating terrorist attacks on innocent civilians. By 1991, Sikh militants were generally viewed as unprincipled criminal gangs.”
In response to the movement, and in an attempt to end militancy in the state, Indian security forces and local Punjab police responded with force, at times committing human rights abuses. Moreover, the Congress Party led central government contributed to problems in the state by undermining democratic institutions and interfering with elections, and failing to adequately address local/state issues and relations between the state and the central government. It is important to note, however, that the majority of the police, security forces, and politicians in Punjab were and are Sikh. In fact, the police captain credited for ending the Khalistan insurgency, KPS Gill, was himself a Sikh. Moreover, Sikh politicians, such as former Chief Minister Beant Singh, were themselves assassinated by militants.
Why does Khalistan receive support from nations other than India?
A number of organizations connected to the Khalistan movement are categorized as “terrorist organizations” under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which makes the movement illegal and is seen as a serious danger to national security by the government.
But some Sikhs, notably in Canada, Britain, and Australia, still have some compassion for it.
The Indian flag was torn down and replaced with the Khalistan insignia at the Indian consulates in the United Kingdom and the United States by Singh’s followers. While the police continue their search for him, protests also started to occur in Canada.
There are substantial Sikh populations in Canada, the US, Australia, and the UK; many of them left Punjab after independence in quest of better economic possibilities. The idea of Khalistan is supported by a tiny but vocal minority of those Sikhs, with periodic referendums held to gain a consensus to create a separate homeland within India. According to Kumar from Punjab University, “possibly the reason for this support overseas is that the migrants are looking for their roots.”
In contrast to India, Kumar notes that the Khalistan operation may operate freely outside.