Khalistan’s Forgotten Dream: The Diplomatic Crisis in Canada and India

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in June. His death has become a political issue, causing a diplomatic crisis between Canada and India.

Because Nijjar was a Canadian citizen. And Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly accused the Indian government of killing Canadian Nijjar. As a result, diplomatic tensions between the countries are increasing.

But what is it all about?

Hardeep Singh Nijjar belonged to the Sikh religious community and was well known Supporter of an independent Sikh state, Khalistan called. He wanted to hold a referendum on the creation of an independent Khalistan; activists in the diaspora repeatedly hold such referendums in different countries.

But before that happened, he was shot dead in June outside a Sikh cultural center he was president of in Surrey, near Vancouver.

The explosive thing is that Nijjar was labeled a ‘terrorist’ by India before his death. He was accused of being a co-conspirator in a 2007 bombing of a cinema in Punjab. India wanted the Canadian Sikh arrested. Nijjar had been warned by Canadian intelligence that he was in danger.

Canada now accuses India of Nijjar’s murder and has expelled a senior diplomat in connection with thiswhich Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly described as the “head of Indian intelligence in the country”.

India immediately dismissed the allegations, calling them “absurd and motivated.”. At the same time, India said Canada was trying to distract the Khalistan movement with accusations of “terrorists and extremists.”

India subsequently also expelled a senior Canadian diplomat from the country. Indian authorities also warned their countrymen and advised them to exercise extreme caution during their stay in Canada. This is done with alleged politically sanctioned hate crimes and criminal violence in Canada justified.

Meanwhile, Canadian officials have canceled a long-planned trip to Mumbai for trade talks.

To understand India’s current conflict and stance, it is worth looking at the history of the Sikh religious community and the Khalistan movement in particular.

‘Khalistan’ means ‘land of the pure’ and is the name of a hypothetical, independent Sikh state in the Punjab region. This historic region in the north of India and Pakistan was divided between the two countries when they gained independence: the Muslim majority west of the Punjab region was given to Pakistan, and the Sikh majority in the east was given to India.

The Sikhs are a monotheistic religious community with approximately 23 million people in India and approximately three million people in the diaspora. It originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region, which was then under Muslim rule by the Mughals. The dream of an independent Sikh state was already present when India was partitioned in 1947, but was hardly realistic.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the desire for an independent Khalistan became alive again. Many Sikhs were enthusiastic about it, especially in the diaspora in Canada and Great Britain. In India at the time, many people in the Punjab were campaigning for more autonomy – this vision was also violently pursued in the 1980s.

In the early 1980s, the movement had a charismatic leader, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who proclaimed that Sikhs were “slaves in independent India” and should return to the basic principles of religion. He was not directly in favor of an independent Khalistan, but was not averse to the idea of ​​one either. His appearances were soon followed by outbreaks of violence.

In 1984 the situation escalated completely. Bhindranwale gathered a group of followers and set up an arms depot in the main Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple, in Amritsar. From there they wanted to lead an uprising. As violence increased and separatists murdered political opponents and Hindu civilians in the struggle for an independent Khalistan, the Indian government decided to storm the temple to drive out the terrorists. This was called Operation Blue Star and resulted in approximately 3,500 deaths, including hundreds of government soldiers and pilgrims. Bhindranwale was also killed – becoming a martyr to many Sikhs.

But the situation continued to escalate. Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who ordered the operation, was then shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards as she walked through the garden. This led to even more violence. Sikhs were attacked across India and thousands were killed.

This led to more and more Sikhs within and outside India supporting the idea of ​​an independent Khalistan. There was increasing terrorist violence. In 1985, Khalistan terrorists detonated a bomb on an Air India flight from Montreal to London, killing all 329 people on board, most of them Canadians. The violence continued into the 1990s.

The movement has now lost much support. Most sympathizers are in the diaspora, especially in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. The suppression of the insurgency and economic growth have meant that the vision of an independent Khalistan no longer plays a role in India. The only remaining party in favor of this received only 3 percent of the votes in the elections.

In March this year, however, mobile internet in the Indian Punjab was disabled for several days for the 27 million inhabitants in order to locate a fugitive leader of militant Khalistan supporters. He was arrested along with 200 alleged comrades in arms.

Also in March, a demonstration was held outside the Indian High Commission in London, where an Indian flag was lowered and a Khalistan flag was hoisted on the roof of the building instead.