India Right to Flag Khalistan Issue Amidst Rest in US Ties

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. (PTI/Photo)

With Donald Trump’s return, India raises concerns over the US-based Khalistani group Sikhs For Justice, seeking action against their anti-India activities.

India may have picked the right time to bring up the subject of the Khalistani sympathiser group Sikhs For Justice, which operates from the United States of America, in dialogues with the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence minister Rajnath Singh held.

This is a time of resetting ties with the US under Donald Trump and among a pack of issues it is the festering problem of Khalistani sympathisers who are accused of fostering terror, running arms and explosives and carting drugs across India from Afghanistan and Pakistan that India attaches great importance to.

This group of Khalistani sympathisers who act under the SFJ’s Gurupatwant Singh Pannun — the group’s founder is facing 104 criminal cases, including eight by the anti-terror agency NIA in India — are being pursued for anti-Indian activities. They are known to be an even more insidious influence as they have allegedly tried to sow the seeds of sedition in India by stoking pro-self-rule sentiments in states as far apart as Manipur and Tamil Nadu.
Given their rights under the First Amendment, there may be limits to what the US can do against groups who live on their soil. But the changed equation between India and a Republican regime in Washington gives an opportunity for India to present its case against the separatists and the insidious role they play in encouraging criminal activities while stoking sentiments in India.

Joe Biden’s Democratic regime had no time or sympathy for India’s problem arising from the presence of its diaspora in several countries, but more pertinently in Canada and the US where the movement for Khalistan is being nurtured and may have attained some momentum rather than in India where a majority of Sikha do not support separatism.

 In fact, when Canada’s former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised a shindig in parliament alleging India’s role in the killing of a Khalistan sympathiser outside a gurdwara in British Columbia, the US seemed to play along. It quoted ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence in alluding that India had also tried to kill Pannun in New York. That left India the task of establishing a probe to identify rogue elements from within the intelligence agencies who may have been involved in trying to bring about a ‘hit’.

It may not be just a quirk of circumstance that India’s ties with the US have historically been smoother with a Republican president in the White House. Of course, during Biden’s days India cemented its position in the Quad despite its resistance to a more robust security role in the group.

The return of Trump at the expense of the Democrats means India enjoys this opportunity to try and make its point of view known on the issue of Khalistani sympathisers’ activities on foreign soil.

 During their Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s visit, India also reached out to New Zealand where, too, a sizeable Indian diaspora lives, especially from Punjab, and advocacy and lobbying groups operate freely. The Sikh insurgency may have been defeated in the 1990s after one of the most sordid chains of events in Indian history took place in the 1980s in the wake of Operation Bluestar and subsequent assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with the killing of thousands of Sikhs.

 But it appears the longing for a homeland for Sikhs is now being kept alive only by elements in the Indian Diasporas.