KG Suresh
Even as India’s security forces were dealing with the insurgents in the North-East and ceasefire violation by Pakistan on the western front, two ominous developments took place which both the government and the people can ignore only at the nation’s peril.
In Jammu, posters of slain Khalistani leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale came up for the first time and Sikh protestors with naked swords clashed with police raising pro-Khalistan slogans. A sub-inspector was critically wounded after he was attacked with a sharp-edged weapon by some Sikh youth. The protestors blocked the Jammu-Pathankot highway and authorities had to impose curfew. Schools and colleges were closed for some days to avoid any untoward incident.
Not far off, at the Holiest Shrine of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple at Amritsar, at least two persons were injured in a clash, on the 31st anniversary of Operation Bluestar, between a group of Sikh radicals and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee officials. The radicals were raising pro-Khalistani slogans while brandishing swords and other sharp-edged weapons at the Akal Takht.
Contrary to the widespread impression that the Khalistan movement has died and is now confined to a small section of the expatriate Sikh community in Canada, the US and the UK, the separatists, who were dealt a death blow in Punjab in the early 1990s by security personnel led by gallant officers such as Mr Julio Ribeiro and Mr KPS Gill under the political leadership of Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and Sardar Beant Singh in Chandigarh, are making a desperate bid to revive themselves with the covert support of some neighbouring countries, known for fishing in troubled waters.
With the intelligence agencies and police maintaining a strict vigil and the majority of the enterprising Sikh community opting for peace and progress, the frustrated and politically marginalised elements are now making strategic moves, distinctly different from the movement of the 1980s, so as to avoid public glare and media attention and consequently state action. The focus now is on building organisational base both in India and abroad, and channels to funnel money for the movement.
The three key players trying to revive the Khalistan movement are sections of the Sikh diaspora, Khalistani separatist leaders based abroad and of course Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence in cohorts with Pakistan-based groups.
Recent reports suggest an upsurge in the Khalistan movement among the diaspora community. A large number of pro-Khalistan groups are re-emerging and engaging in aggressive political campaign, propaganda, and lobbying as well as legal initiatives against the Indian Government and political leaders on the grounds of anti-Sikh discrimination. They are also reportedly providing overt and covert financial and material support to fringe separatist outfits in India. The growing influence of the Sikh diaspora among the political circles in the US can be gauged from the emergence of the first ever American Sikh Congressional Caucus in April 2013 involving over two dozen lawmakers, some of them known for their vocal support to the Khalistan movement in the past.
According to Dalwinder Singh Dhoot, Chairman of the North American Punjabi Association, which claims to be the mouthpiece of the overseas Punjabi community, “Sikhs who were present in the Sikh Congressional Caucus event in Washington were of the ideology of pro-Khalistan.”
The new modus operandi of the separatist diaspora is to globalise the issue with emphasis on alleged human rights violation and humanitarian assistance. Various radical, pro-Khalistan groups such as the Sikhs for Justice have sued many Indian politicians mostly from the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal in the US. Recently, a US Appeal Court decided to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit against Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The SFJ lawsuit alleges that Ms Gandhi shielded and protected the perpetrators of the riots that followed the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
Similar cases have been filed against Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and former Union Minister Kamal Nath. The strategy behind such moves is to embarrass the Indian political class abroad to perpetuate the impression of alleged discrimination against the Sikh community in India. Such propaganda wars, where these groups manipulate the democratic institutions of foreign countries, are aimed at enhancing their support base within the large expat community. The other objective is to articulate the community’s perceived grievances in terms of discrimination and injustice and thereby legitimise the demand of a separate Sikh homeland.
A joint note prepared by Union Ministry of Home Affairs and Punjab Police few years back revealed that there were over 30 pro-Khalistan terrorists staying in the UK alone. Another report by the Punjab Police disclosed that 125 out of the 290 listed terrorists are operating from abroad.
In December 2013, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Balwinder Singh aka Jhajj aka Happy aka Possi, an Indian-American, on charges of providing material support to Sikh separatist groups such as the Babbar Khalsa International and the Khalistan Zindabad Force. The support was intended for a planned bomb blast in India. Similarly, in September 2013, eight people were arrested from Gurdaspur district in Punjab allegedly for planning to carry out terrorist acts in Punjab with the financial help provided to them by associates based in the United Arab Emirates and New Zealand.
In November 2013, a National Investigation Agency team was sent to UK to investigate BKI. The team was sent under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the two countries after identifying many accounts used by various terrorists groups to channel funds for militancy in Punjab and other parts of India. The team also looked at the alleged funding received by the outfit, estimated to be around Rs100 crore over the last several years. Two UK-based outfits, Akhand Kirtnee Jatha and Sikh Organisation for Prisoners Welfare, are alleged to have transferred money to Sikh terrorists groups to revive terrorism in Punjab.
It has also been reported that a joint committee to coordinate the activities of the major pro-Khalistan terrorists groups has been established, with the ISI playing a key role.
According to reports, the ISI is pushing BKI chief Jagtar Singh Tara to re-organise and coordinate the pro-Khalistan terrorists groups, terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir and some fundamentalist groups to revive the militancy in India. It is also providing active material and logistic support along with funding BKI to attain its goal. The then Minister of State for Home Affairs RPN Singh had said quoting NIA inputs that ISI operatives have assured moral and financial support to
pro-Khalistan elements for anti-India activities.