(RNS) — Last Sunday (Jan. 28), more than 120,000 Sikhs of all ages and occupations took part in a historic referendum in San Francisco on the creation of an autonomous homeland in northwestern India. They braved hourslong lines after already long commutes, in many cases from neighboring states, to reach the polling place in the City by the Bay. These Sikhs, almost all of them U.S. citizens and residents, were voting aspirationally for the creation of Khalistan — a hoped-for but nonexistent “land of the pure” that would stand separate from the nation of India.
Organized by Sikhs for Justice, an activist group that is banned in India, the vote was aimed at raising the profile of Sikh efforts to convince the government of India to allow Punjab, the state where the Sikhi faith was born, to secede.
Though only symbolic, the vote for self-determination, said Harjeet Singh, a Seattle resident who voted in the referendum, was taken to “shake up and wake up” the Indian government to take accountability for their “historical oppression” and hold a binding referendum in Punjab.
Harjeet Singh at San Francisco City Hall, Jan. 28, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Harjeet Singh)
“There are people who are proposing a solution to a problem. Now they have launched a peaceful, democratic expression of their will through a referendum,” said Singh. “This is a beautiful way to show that Sikhs as a community, we are not happy with the system, and we want change.”
The vote is especially timely, say Sikh advocates, after recent incidents outside of India of surveillance, intimidation and censorship of dissidents, or what several Sikh advocacy organizations refer to as “transnational repression.”
In June of last year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of involvement in the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in a Surrey gurdwara parking lot. In November, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a document revealing an attempted assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in New York — this time the legal adviser of Sikhs for Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who was present at the referendum.
More and more Sikh Americans are fearful about an “alarming rise” in such incidents, which Kavneet Singh of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund said are “indicative of a broader, more systematic threat to the basic human rights of American ci …
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Organized by Sikhs for Justice, an activist group that is banned in India, the vote was aimed at raising the profile of Sikh efforts to convince the government of India to allow Punjab, the state where the Sikhi faith was born, to secede.
Though only symbolic, the vote for self-determination, said Harjeet Singh, a Seattle resident who voted in the referendum, was taken to “shake up and wake up” the Indian government to take accountability for their “historical oppression” and hold a binding referendum in Punjab.
Harjeet Singh at San Francisco City Hall, Jan. 28, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Harjeet Singh)
“There are people who are proposing a solution to a problem. Now they have launched a peaceful, democratic expression of their will through a referendum,” said Singh. “This is a beautiful way to show that Sikhs as a community, we are not happy with the system, and we want change.”
The vote is especially timely, say Sikh advocates, after recent incidents outside of India of surveillance, intimidation and censorship of dissidents, or what several Sikh advocacy organizations refer to as “transnational repression.”
In June of last year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of involvement in the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in a Surrey gurdwara parking lot. In November, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a document revealing an attempted assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in New York — this time the legal adviser of Sikhs for Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who was present at the referendum.
More and more Sikh Americans are fearful about an “alarming rise” in such incidents, which Kavneet Singh of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund said are “indicative of a broader, more systematic threat to the basic human rights of American ci …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]