Sikh militancy casts a shadow over U.S.-India relations

Sikh militancy may be practically dead in India, but it’s gaining traction among sections of the Sikh diaspora in America and in Canada. With California and British Columbia serving as their operational base, Sikh radicals glorify political violence, including honoring convicted or slain terrorists as “martyrs,” as they campaign for an independent Sikh homeland of “Khalistan.”

Sikh extremists have in recent months erected billboards advocating the killing of Indian diplomats (identified with photos), threatened attacks on the Indian Parliament and New Delhi Airport, staged a parade float on which the 1984 assassination of then–Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was reenacted, and mounted attacks on Indian diplomatic missions in Canada and California.

Cash rewards have been offered for providing home addresses of Canada- and U.S.-based Indian diplomats, who have been labeled “killers.” The militants have also held referenda in Canada on the secession of India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state.

Bands of Sikh radicals staged two separate attacks on the Indian consulate in San Francisco last March and July. The FBI says it is still probing the attacks, which included arson, but it has made no arrests so far. India’s National Investigation Agency, meanwhile, has released pictures of 10 militants it has linked to the first attack on the consulate.

Largely because the anti-India Sikh militants pose no direct threat to American or Canadian security, local law enforcement authorities have treated them leniently. But this approach is only emboldening the extremists, as underscored by the December 22 vandalism in Newark, California, of a Hindu temple, whose walls were defaced with pro-Khalistan graffiti.

Against this background, recent U.S. allegations about an Indian murder-for-hire plot that have buffeted Washington and Ottawa’s relations with India obscure the deep roots of a problem that burst into shocking view in 1985 when Canadian Sikh bombers targeted two separate Air India flights, killing 331 people.

While one bombing misfired, taking the lives of two baggage handlers at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, the other killed all 329 people, mostly of Indian origin, on a flight from Toronto. It was the deadliest act of aviation terrorism until 9/11. Two separate Canadian inquiries found that the bombings were carried out by Canada-based Sikh extremists led by Talwinder Parmar, whose extradition to India on terrorism-related charges Prime Minister Gandhi had earlier sought unsuccessfully.

Eight months before the twin Air India bombings, Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh sentries at her New Delhi residence, almost five months after Indian forces stormed the Sikhs’ Golden Temple to flush out armed militants. But before her assassination, she accused the CIA of seeking to destabilize India by aiding Sikh militancy. In that Cold War era, the U.S. was allied with Pakistan’s military regime, while nonaligned India was viewed in Washington as tilted toward the Soviet bloc.

The dramatic improvement in U.S.-India ties in the 21st century was underlined by President Joe Biden in June when he called the partnership with New Delhi “among the most consequential in the world, that is stronger, closer and more dynamic than any time in history.”

Yet the issue of Sikh militancy is again bedeviling U.S.-India relations today.

Unlike in the 1980s, when they waged a bloody insurgency in Punjab that was eventually crushed, Sikh militants now draw little support in India and are largely based in the Anglosphere, principally the U.S., Canada and Britain. According to data from the Pew Research Center, Sikhs in India are nearly universally opposed to secessionism, with 95 percent saying they are “very proud to be Indian.”

Simply put, Khalistan is almost entirely a demand in the Sikh diaspora. The separatists constitute a small minority of the Sikh diaspora, but wage a strident campaign that seeks to sanctify violence.

In September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada — home to the world’s largest Sikh diaspora, numbering 770,000 — said in Parliament that were “credible allegations” about the Indian government’s “potential link” to the June killing on Canadian soil of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh separatist who had been designated a terrorist by India. Trudeau’s bombshell accusation has strained Canada’s traditionally friendly ties with India, which categorically denied any involvement and forced out 41 Canadian diplomats on grounds that there must be parity in the two countries’ diplomatic staff strength. New Delhi also called Canada “a safe haven for terrorists.”

Then, in November, a potential rift opened in the U.S.-India relationship following an indictment that alleged an unnamed Indian official’s involvement in a failed plot to murder a New York–based Sikh separatist wanted in India on terrorism charges. The larger plot, according to the indictment in Manhattan, was linked to the June killing in Canada. The indictment alleged a murder-for-hire scheme that was remarkably amateurish: an Indian operative, at the Indian official’s direction, tried to arrange the killing on U.S. soil, but the hitman he hired long distance from India turned out to be an undercover law enforcement officer.

Despite the indictment, the White House declared that “we’re going to continue to work to improve and strengthen that strategic partnership with India.” India has set up a high-level committee to probe the alleged plot. But in an interview, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticized the lack of action against Anglosphere-based Khalistan militants who, “under the guise of freedom of expression, have engaged in intimidation and incited violence.”

The episode may just be a wrinkle in the U.S.-India relationship, yet the fact remains that the growing anti-India militant activities of Sikh separatists in America and Canada are starting to cast a shadow over Washington and Ottawa’s ties with New Delhi. They are also reopening old Indian wounds, not least those created by the Air India bombings.

The New York target of the alleged Indian murder plot, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, warned Air India passengers in November that their lives were at risk while threatening not to let the flag carrier operate anywhere in the world. Pannun had previously threatened to also disrupt Indian railways and thermal power plants, according to India’s National Investigation Agency.

How would the U.S. react if an India-based militant designated by Washington as a terrorist were to make such terrorist threats without India seeking to prosecute him? Ominously, mass-murderers, including the mastermind of the Air India bombings, have become the poster boys for Khalistan radicals operating out of North America.

If the U.S. wishes to deepen strategic ties with India — a country central to a stable balance of power in Asia — it must not ignore New Delhi’s growing concerns over the activities of American Sikh militants. By locking horns with China through a border military standoff for over 43 months, India is openly challenging Chinese capability and power in a way no other power has done in this century. India is indispensable to America’s Asia strategy.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground” (Georgetown University Press).