What is the Khalistan separatist movement and will it succeed?

What is the Khalistan separatist movement? Before we begin, a brief history.

Khalistan, or ‘Land of the Khalsa’, is the name given to a proposed new sovereign state in North India, particularly the Punjab region. This new state would serve the purpose of a homeland for the Sikh people, currently a religious minority in India with a significant diaspora across the world, totalling to around 30 million people. It is the fifth largest of the world religions. Since the concluding years of the British Raj, calls for a separate Muslim state (Pakistan) were joined by somewhat quieter demands for a separate Sikh state, made up of regions in the north of India where Sikhs were in the majority.

In the years leading up the Millennium, grievances of Indian Sikhs grew, and exploded in the aftermath of the Indian Army’s deadly attack on Sikhism’s holiest site: Sri Harmandir Sahib (the Golden Temple), under Operation Blue Star. This culminated in violent incidents, from the world’s deadliest aviation attack pre-9/11 (the downing of Air India Flight 182) to the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi and the resultant 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India killing thousands of innocent civilians.

However, despite these hugely significant events in the latter quarter of the twentieth century, calls for an independent Khalistan seemed to have decreased. Could an independent Sikh state could be feasible?

At a first glance, it seems quite clear why the Khalistan movement has received support. India is a state dominated by a Hindu religious minority, even if it is constitutionally secular. ‘Hindustan’ (the translation of ‘India’ in some Indian languages) literally means ‘Land of the Hindu’, and so it is understandable that a large proportion of Sikhs feel alienated by this. Where Pakistan and Bangladesh exist for Muslims, Sikhs have no such sovereign state where they are in control. This is why Khalistan was proposed.

Indeed, there have been many instances since the independence of India which demonstrate that those who argued Sikhs could not be safe within a Hindu-controlled state, were correct. The two most notable ones are previously mentioned Operation Blue Star, and the Anti-Sikh Riots, both of 1984. The first saw the storming of the Sri Harmandir Sahib gurudwara in Amritsar, Punjab, by the Indian military. They used lethal force not only on the separatists seeking sanctuary but also against the unarmed pilgrims who had gathered at the place of worship. This, the culmination of months and years of emergency laws, crackdown measures, and suspension of habeus corpus, saw Sikhs across Punjab and North India increase their support for autonomy in swathes.

The assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards later in the year, in retaliation for Operation Blue Star, sparked the infamous 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. These deadly riots had a profound effect on the Khalistan movement, demonstrating to Sikhs across India that harmonious relations with their neighbours could not be taken for granted. Sikhs remained a minority group with very little ability to protect themselves against a dominant majority. It is clear then, why these events demonstrate to Sikhs in India that they need a separate sovereign state in order to be safe and secure.

It is now clear why so many Sikhs advocate for a separate state, but will this ever be a reality? In the near future, probably not. The Kashmir conflict is comparable to Khalistan. India has fought against Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists for decades in the region and has demonstrated its willingness to use force against militants and civilians. India has been condemned by the UN for its committal of human rights breaches in the region and remains willing to deal with the international scrutiny to ensure it does not face territorial loss. Reacting to hegemony challenges on the subcontinent from Pakistan, and a greater power struggle with China too, it would be completely untenable for India to cede a large territory in its northern provinces to separatists.

It is from this analysis of the Kashmir conflict that we can see why India, at least in the foreseeable future, would never succumb to calls for Punjab’s independence, because it would create the exact same problems as in Kashmir- to weaken India to the benefit of its neighbour-competitors. Furthermore, allowing a secession which would be based almost entirely on religious lines would be detrimental to multicultural relations across the country. If India could not guarantee the security and safety of Sikhs, so much so that they declared independence, then how could it claim to be a truly secular country to the other significant religious groups of India (notably Muslims, but also Christians and others)?

Therefore, it is clear that the Khalistan movement, despite its strong arguments that Sikhs are unsafe within India, will not succeed in the foreseeable future.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.