Amrita Bhinder
The so-called movement for Khalistan checks all the necessary boxes to be an ‘ideal' issue for agencies like Pakistan's ISI to attack India
William Faulkner's observation that “the past is never dead, it is not even the past' holds for issues that enemies of India exploit to fuel unrest. The resurgence of the talk surrounding ‘Khalistan' indicates how those interested in harming India never stop sowing seeds of discontent.
For any strife to continually ‘catch the fancy' of the people, it has to appear personal and immediate. Such issues can find easy access in India with many societal, caste, religious, and sectarian fault lines. The abundance of youth is a bonus for those looking to take advantage. The radicalisation of youth to be used as cannon fodder is commonplace across strife-driven regions like in Syria where the social unrest originated from college campuses. The JNU protest is another illustration where sloganeering against a fee hike soon transformed into a demonstration of whatever was the ‘flavour of the month protest'
The so-called movement for Khalistan checks all the necessary boxes to be an ‘ideal' issue for agencies like Pakistan's ISI to attack India. It is well-documented that ISI pumped monetary and arms resources and provided a haven for extremists who propagated the demand for a separate State of Khalistan.
In the last few years, long-standing issues like left-wing extremism or Islamist terror are being called out or are past their sell-by date. The significant churn in the United States and Australia, and the United Kingdom against Chinese influence in college campuses has shaken things up. The crackdown by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in 2017 on Islamist terrorists unleashed significant changes in how Jihadist terror operated across the globe. Vowing to galvanise an Islamic military coalition that aimed to counter “terrorism and extremism,” Mohammed bin Salman led a series of high-level meetings of an alliance of Muslim nations against terrorism funding and the day-to-day disruption of al-Qaida, the Islamic State, and like-minded jihadists. In this atmosphere, global entities that benefit from strife, such as the military-industrial complexes, need to fan new issues to survive.
One of the reasons why Khalistan is a red-flag issue unlike ever before is the global support that has come its way in the recent past, with significant ramifications. In a recent Club House chat, a young person of Indian origin based in Europe and dedicated to the Khalistan cause claimed that the movement aimed at the physical separation of Punjab from the Indian union in less than two generations. The support for the separatist elements of the Khalistan movement, especially amongst the second-generation Punjabi youth based in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, has gained momentum as it ostensibly seeks to correct a historical wrong. However, the danger has increased manifold due to a successful shift in the perspective. The anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 is not attributed to Congress but the ‘Indian State.' As a result, the Khalistan issue now targets the Indian government and propagates a ‘revolt' as the only way out.
This status transition is strategically designed and it would be foolish to think otherwise. It is similar to the Israel-Palestine issue and the desire of vested parties to replicate the model where a narrative would constantly stoke fires of how the Indian state has unleashed a flurry of horrors upon the ordinary citizens of Punjab. The narrative-building machinery is also in place, with socio-cultural events such as literary jaunts with authors and think tanks disseminating ideas and information to that end.
One can see how global concepts such as critical race theory, a 40-year-old idea that believes racial division to be a social construct instead of a personal bias, arepromogulated locally. The ongoing farmers' protest is a testimony to the same, where a broad idea – farmers opposing the three laws – has been rejigged to make it region-specific – how the state has primarily targeted the farmer of Punjab.
The Khalistan issue is also being pitched as a shared narrative at a global level, claiming to echo the sentiments of the Sikh community, even though the citizens of Punjab rejected the very idea of a separate State. The local view is routinely, and even vehemently, dismissed on public platforms and social media by radicalised elements based outside of India. While Indians wave off the issue as bunkum or pointless wishful thinking of a handful of wavered NRI youth, global media picks on that point of view and furthers it. The physical or virtual protests also have many Pakistan-sponsored implants disguised as Sikhs. The cycle is then completed when such news is peddled for domestic consumption as the local view that an authoritarian government has suppressed.
The propagators of Khalistan are quick to portray Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the all-powerful fascist responsible for the subjugation of Punjab, even though the actions of the current Indian government tell a completely different story. In 2018, a Delhi court awarded the first death penalty to two persons in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in the cases that were probed and re-opened by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the Modi government in 2015. In 1994, the two had gotten away due to lack of evidence, and their conviction became possible only due to the evidence provided by the BJP state government.
The Khalistan issue is a testing ground for other pan-India strifes that can be used against the country. It is in tandem with a 2016 Pakistan Senate recommendation to the then Nawaz Sharif government to play up caste and religion issues in India to curb India's global influence. A 13-member committee of the Senate, Pakistan's equivalent to the Rajya Sabha, asked the government to talk about ‘Dalits, unhappy Muslims, and encourage those opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi' to destabilise India. It also made some tactical recommendations to “hire International lobbyists and strategic communication firms and reactivate Pakistani community living abroad to change the global narrative”.
The narrative-building efforts to push Khalistan or any exploitable local fault line to the forefront as a global agenda cannot be ignored or undermined. One is reminded of how the US attack on Iraq in 2002 also resulted from a complex narrative-building exercise. India's stature as a geopolitical player on the global stage has only increased in the recent past. Whether it is Asia or the Indian Ocean Region, India's significance is now key to shaping the world as it has also emerged as a natural counter balance to China. This reality does not suit traditional foes such as China and Pakistan and their new supporters, namely, Turkey and Iran.
Rest assured, any narrative that thwarts India would be ready to pick for them. Khalistan was never a domestic issue, but its play has only increased, and the sooner the average Indian realises it has the potential to change the world, the faster we can counter it. The reason that we cannot take all of this to be an overstretching of one's imagination is staring us in the form of a simple fact – the world has shifted from ‘conventional warfare' to the unconventional. While we might not comprehend the severity of unconventional warfare, it surely is at play around the world by those interested in it.
(The writer is a lawyer and columnist. The views expressed are personal.)
