NEW DELHI: A heated diplomatic dispute between India and Canada has brought the marginal separatist movement for an independent Sikh homeland in Punjab into global focus.
The “Khalistan” campaign, which traces its roots to India’s independence in 1947, has been linked to significant acts of violence, including the assassination of a prime minister and the bombing of a passenger jet. This contentious issue has strained relations between India and several Western nations with sizable Sikh communities.
India is urging these countries to take a firmer stance against the Khalistan movement, which is banned domestically and whose leaders are accused of terrorism.
Tensions escalated when Canada alleged that India was involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old naturalized Canadian citizen and Khalistan advocate, in Vancouver in 2023. Four Indian nationals have been arrested in connection with the case. New Delhi, which sought Nijjar for alleged terrorism offenses, dismissed Canada’s claims as “absurd.”
In another incident, the United States has accused India of orchestrating a failed assassination plot in New York in 2023 targeting another Khalistan supporter, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen. The US State Department reported that India confirmed the intelligence operative linked to the plot is no longer in government service.
Sikhism originated in northern India in the 15th century, influenced by both Hinduism and Islam. Sikhs make up less than two percent of India’s 1.4 billion population, but in Punjab, a prosperous northern state with around 30 million residents, they account for nearly 60 percent.
The Punjab region was significantly affected during the violent partition of 1947, which divided the British-ruled Indian subcontinent along religious lines, leading to mass migrations: Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India. This division resulted in some of the most severe violence of that time.
In the years following, some Sikhs have advocated for the establishment of “Khalistan,” a separate Sikh nation within Punjab. In the early 1980s, the prominent Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale led a violent insurgency aimed at achieving this goal. The conflict escalated in 1984 when Bhindranwale and his heavily armed followers took refuge in the Golden Temple, the holiest site in Sikhism, locatedin Amritsar.