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Concept
Khalistan movement
Summary
The Khalistan movement is a separatist movement seeking to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing an ethno‐religious sovereign state called Khalistan (ਖ਼ਾਲਿਸਤਾਨ) in the Punjab region. The proposed boundaries of Khalistan vary between different groups; some suggest the entirety of the Indian state of Punjab, while larger claims include Pakistani Punjab and other parts of North India such as Chandigarh, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh. Shimla and Lahore have been proposed as the capital of Khalistan.
The call for a separate Sikh state began in the wake of the fall of the British Empire. In 1940, the first explicit call for Khalistan was made in a pamphlet titled "Khalistan". With financial and political support of the Sikh diaspora, the movement flourished in the Indian state of Punjab – which has a Sikh-majority population – continuing through the 1970s and 1980s, and reaching its zenith in the late 1980s. The Sikh separatist leader Jagjit Singh Chohan claimed that during his talks with Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto following the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Bhutto had proposed "all out help" to the Khalistan cause, but this support never materialised. In the 1990s, the insurgency petered out, and the movement failed to reach its objective for multiple reasons including a heavy police crackdown on separatists, factional infighting, and disillusionment from the Sikh population.
There is some support within India and the Sikh diaspora, with yearly demonstrations in protest of those killed during Operation Blue Star. In early 2018, some militant groups were arrested by police in Punjab, India. Former Chief Minister of Punjab Amarinder Singh claimed that the recent extremism is backed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and "Khalistani sympathisers" in Canada, Italy, and the UK. Simranjit Singh Mann, elected in 2022 from Sangrur, is currently the only openly Khalistani MP in the Indian parliament and his party, Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), is currently the only pro-Khalistan party in the Indian parliament.
Official source
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