Separatist Movements — A Security Concern for India? — The Khalistan Movement
A strong separatist movement is nothing less than a threat to state sovereignty than an all-out war. “Khalistan” a word for “Sikh Homeland” is based on the Sikh Ideology of “Khālsā” meaning “Pure”. Khalistan movement is a separatist movement in India, with an aim to create an independent state for Sikhs. The territorial definition of the proposed country Khalistan consists of Punjab, India, and includes parts of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Rajasthan. It is difficult to identify the exact date for when this separatist movement really started but one can find traces of “Khālsā” ideology till 1699 when Gurū Gobind Singh declared his religiopolitical vision based on the belief that it was their God-given right to rule Punjab. One can also get a fixed time frame for the Khalistan Movement by identifying the events in a chronological order that happened from 1981 till 1993. The roots of Sikh separatism are long and contested, although it is clear that plans for an independent Sikh state did exist in the final years of British rule over the subcontinent.
The Khalistan movement is one of the strongest separatist movements that are active in India — the largest democracy in the world. India had to face an insurgency from this movement as well because of the heightened level of religious militancy with an estimated death toll of over 25,000 resulting from the associated violence from 1981 to 1993. This movement by Sikh leaders for a separate homeland and autonomy started to create serious problems when some rebellious Sikh elements started killings of gazetted officials, civil servants, and Hindu and Sikh citizens. One of the most vivid episodes of the militancy of that period was the Indian army’s raid on the sanctum sanctorum of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, codenamed Operation Blue Star. The operation’s aim was to rid the Golden Temple of its “secessionist elements,” who were accused of inspiring acts of anti-Hindu terror across Punjab. The raid, carried out in early June 1984, sent echoes throughout India and the rest of the world, particularly in countries with substantial Sikh populations such as the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada. In these attacks, thousands of civilians were killed most of them were Sikhs. This operation outraged the whole Sikh community at large and the demand for an independent state of Khalistan caught boom. As a result of it on 31 October 1984, two Sikh bodyguards assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the consequences of her death were so bad that there was widespread killing of Sikhs in the Indian capital, New Delhi, and in other cities of India.
As an independent political entity since 1947 India has been the testing ground for a large number of such claims and movements. India has failed to develop or properly implement structures for post-independence cooperative living and is experiencing challenges brought on by ethnic conflicts on their soil. These separatist movements have always been a security concern for the state of India and still remain so. With the current extremist policies of the Modi Government in India, any activity from these movements will only result in violence from both sides. This security issue will become a bone in the throat with its current policies.