Khalistani Extremism: A Growing Threat in the U.S. and Canada

There are certain Rubicon that even money-hungry U.S. politicians do not cross. Hence, when Vice President Kamala Harris learned that Minnesota Imam Asad Zaman endorsed Adolf Hitler’s mass murder of Jews, she returned his donation check. Within Washington, DC, however, there seems to be a certain exception granted to Khalistani extremists.

Khalistan today is as artificial as Pakistan was in its infancy. Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Choudhry Rahmat Ali and Muhammad Ali Jinnah created the concept of Pakistan to be a separate state for Muslims upon India’s independence. The name Pakistan, coined by Rahmat Ali, was completely artificial: It was both an anagram, taking the P from Punjab, A from Afghan, K from Kashmir, S from Sindh, I from the Indus River Valley, and the last four letters from Baluchistan, and a pun: Pakistan is both a Persian and Urdu word meaning “land of the pure.”

Khalistan, likewise, has no historical basis. As with Pakistan, Khalistan literally means “land of the pure,” although it substitutes the Persian/Urdu “Pak” for the Punjabi/Arabic “Khalis.” Khalistani separatists use the term to frame their demand for an independent Sikh state in Punjab. Sikhs comprise slightly over half the population of Indian Punjab; their population is now near zero in Pakistani Punjab due to decades of Pakistani sectarian cleansing.

Even with half the population in Indian Punjab, though, the Khalistani platform is wildly unpopular, notwithstanding violence in 1984 that culminated in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Most Sikhs seek integration into India, where traditionally they thrive. Manmohan Singh, prime minister for a decade beginning 2004, was a Sikh. So too was JJ Singh, chief of the army staff between 2005 and 2007, and numerous other military and business leaders.

Ignorance is no excuse. On June 23, 1985, a bomb placed by Khalistani terrorists downed Air India Flight 1982 over the North Atlantic Ocean, killing all 329 passengers and crew. It was single greatest airplane-involved terror incident until Al Qaeda transformed commercial jets into flying bombs on September 11, 2001. The attack helped inspire the Pan Am 103 bombing three years later over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Imagine the uproar if the president welcomed Hamas cheerleaders to the White House immediately before meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That is exactly what Joe Biden did last month just hours before meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he welcomed Khalistani militants previous month.

While Khalistani terrorism and gang violence has made headlines in Canada, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accusing India—apparently falsely—of assassinating a Sikh extremist and wanted terrorist on Canadian soil, Khalistan extremism has become an increasing problem in America as Khalistan activists use false asylum claims and chain immigration to build large communities in California and New York.

Americans remember with outrage Iranian students seizing the U.S. embassy in Tehran or Libyan militants attacking the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, but few realize that Khalistani militants have twice attacked India’s consulate in San Francisco.

Likewise, the national media rightly describes Islamist attacks on American synagogues to be hate crimes, but remain too silent when Khalistani extremists vandalize Hindu temples from Melville, New York to Sacramento, California.

Extremists exploit ignorance. Many college students chanting “from the river to the sea” cannot name either the river or sea between which they seek to make Judenrein, nor do they know enough basic history to understand Zionism is not a “settler-colonist” movement, but rather the original anti-colonialist undertaking to return people to their native land.

The attraction of causes like Palestinian nationalism and other liberation movements to the young, progressives, or those who embrace intersectional theory lies in the notion of supporting the underdog or repressed. Sometimes, there is true repression, for example, Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia’s onslaught against Ukrainians, or China’s efforts to eradicate Uyghurs. At other times, though, adversaries seek to take advantage of American generosity of spirit to bestow terrorists and their sympathizers with false legitimacy. Sometimes a mafia is just a mafia, even if it dresses itself as a national liberation struggle.

The White House and State Department cannot control the absurdity of some college campuses, but they need not fall into the same trap. Not every cause has legitimacy, but the embrace of some promises more violence. As Khalistani activists expand through Canada and the United States, they hijack local institutions and acculturate a new generation to violence.

Three decades ago, counter-terror analysts laughed off the concept of Al Qaeda to America’s peril. Today, the same is happening with the Khalistan movement. Then, Muslim Brotherhood-run umbrella organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations or the Islamic Society of North America labeled any criticism of Islamic extremism “Islamophobic.” Today, Khalistani militant organizations lob the same accusations of religious bias against those who would call out Sikh militancy.

The United States should not fall for such traps. Extremism in any form and deriving from any religion can pose a danger, but Khalistani extremism, with its Pakistani backing, poses a grave and growing threat. Many Americans may never have heard of Khalistan, but American permissiveness to its militants increasingly could cost American lives.

About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and pre-and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For over a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism to deployed US Navy and Marine units. Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics. The opinions and views expressed are his own.