New Delhi [India], April 6: ‘Bleed India with a thousand cuts’ – the age-old Pakistani military doctrine is still the country’s modus operandi and the recent Khalistani protests are an example of the Pakistani deep state hard at work.
Pakistan, a country inherently inclined towards the manifestations of radicalism, where religious fanatics rule the roost, is attempting to sow unrest and discord in India by activating its agents and stooges in the West.
Khalistanis outside of India, suffering a diminished interest for their cause, squeezing of their funds and the steady economic decline of their masters in Pakistan…are now on a ‘now or never’ mission. Pakistan’s desperate bids to revive the secessionist Khalistan movement in India have, however, gathered no real or noticeable traction, with brave patriotic Punjabis pushing back against any such intentions
Pakistan, a country on the cusp of failure on all fronts is relentless in its conspiracies and attacks against India and why, despite its best nefarious efforts, is bound to fail again and again.
Pakistan’s nefarious designs were countered in a tremendous show of solidarity, hundreds of people gathered in different cities around the world, chanting pro-India slogans.
They also called out Pakistan’s insidious plans of exploiting gullible Sikh youths under the pretext of Khalistan to further its agenda of labelling India with the tag that Pakistan itself is oft accused of–“a state against minorities”.
These events were organized at the heels of the unrestrained display of hooliganism by paid Khalistani thugs who attacked several Indian missions in different cities of Europe and the United States of America.
Jasdeep Singh, a Sikh Leader from the US while commenting on the Khalistan situation said, “Whatever you see in media that there is Khalistan movement going on outside India, in America, in Canada, is all hyped up, there are more than a million Sikhs who live in North America and out of that only 50 show up outside Indian Embassy to protest. And if you combine them, they are not more than 250 people, and this is like jeopardizing the whole Sikh community in India and outside India who love India and who support India and who love Punjab”.
The Khalistani movement, which seeks a separate Sikh homeland in the sovereign Indian state of Punjab, has re-emerged after successive military operations in the 1980s suppressed the movement from getting further traction.
In what appeared to be the well-coordinated execution of a nefarious plan, a trained Khalistani, Amritpal Singh, descended on Indian soil last September, allegedly after his successful indoctrination by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the later tenure of his over a decade-long stint in Dubai.
The self-styled preacher and leader of ‘Waris Punjab De’ a secessionist group, quickly ascended the infamy ladder thanks to his proclivity for rabble-rousing and his anti-India speeches. Abhijit Iyer Mitra, an Expert on Geopolitics from New Delhi elaborated on how Amriptpal Singh, a Khalistani formed his image and grabbed attention.
“He can speak to Social Media, he is very pleasant on TVs and cameras and this really sells. You look at his initial popularity, it was all on the clubhouse, right, he was coming to the clubhouse, he was making these points, he was very articulate in Punjabi, he could understand the nuance and the jargon, sort of new political jargon, that decolonisation, privilege, even woke talk, he understood that.”
Currently, Amritpal Singh is at large. He has been in hiding since Indian agencies launched an operation to arrest him following his purported role in anti-India activities. Indian agencies have already arrested dozens of his aides, associates, and financiers.
This turned out to be a major setback for the ambitions of Khalistani operators, who are based out of Pakistan, as their plans were nipped in the bud. Their concepts, ideas, and agendas failed to resonate with the masses in Punjab. The international Khalistani ecosystem wanted a repeat of the 1980s when thousands of innocent Indians in Indian Punjab lost their lives to Pakistan-backed Khalistan terrorism.
Unnerved by India’s proactive actions, Khalistanis quickly turned to their propaganda armies in Europe, Canada, and the United States. However, the Khalistani attacks on embassies outside of India instead united individuals and groups within India.
The Indian state has never treated Sikhs as second to anyone. Irrespective of the hues and ideologies of different governments, Sikhs have enjoyed all the benefits accorded to a minority as enshrined in the Indian constitution.
The Sikh-dominated state of Punjab has remained one of the most prosperous states of the country for the majority of India’s seventy-year history as an independent nation. One must be incredibly ignorant to peddle or believe the narrative that Sikhs have been marginalized in India or have not received what they deserve.
On the other side, Sikh valour is as inherent to India as any of the country’s other innate characteristics. Sikhs’ contribution to Indian growth across sectors, especially in India’s mighty military, has been exemplary.
Explaining about the Sikh valour Satnam Singh Sandhu, Founder Chancellor of Chandigarh University had previously said, “nobody can be as patriotic as the Sikhs. More than 70 per cent sacrifices were of the Sikhs for the Independence of India. So many Sikhs have sacrificed their lives for the pride of the National Flag. Sikhs are an integral part of India and we cannot support this kind of activity at any cost.”
The Khalistan movement’s agenda is both farcical and questionable. Khalistani- secessionists have conveniently ignored that Pakistan controls more territory of the erstwhile Punjab province than India.
Sikh shrines such as Gurdwara Panja Sahib, Nanakana Sahib, and Kartarpur Sahib are in Pakistan. Khalistani propagators have been trying to feed false histories and their versions of contemporary India to the section of youth they want to brainwash.
If there is one country in which Khalistanis should be claiming separate territory, it is Pakistan. Why has this demand never arisen? Because the entire Khalistani separatist movement is staged and funded by Pakistan itself.
There is much evidence available in public discourse to corroborate Pakistani involvement. From the 1970s and 1980s to the present, and from the then Khalistani secessionists to today’s international groups such as Sikhs for Justice, these groups are associated with Pakistan, And the economically crumbling country that has lost all four of its battles with India is attempting to rely on its proxies in other parts of the world.
While Pakistan’s acts are known and manageable, a more worrisome trend that has emerged as of late is the silence of Western countries, despite the proliferation of Khalistani incidents on their soil.
Abhijit Iyer Mitra also said, “Justin Trudeau’s own rise within the party has been thanks to Khalistanis and he has a vested interest in you know, sort of keeping this entire Khalistan thing on the boil because like all, you know, base level identarian politicians, which Trudeau is probably the worst kind of, his political survival depends on feeding this”.
It was, in fact, the British who first tried to drive a wedge between Sikhs and Hindus in India. Pakistan, which cannot face or defeat India through conventional warfare capitalised on the opportunity to exploit any tensions between the two groups.
The rise of Khalistani Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in the 1980s was also a result of domestic political tussles. In the end, it was the Sikhs, Hindus, and the country that suffered. This has been Pakistan’s greatest victory against India to date.
However, the state capacity of both provincial Punjab and the Indian government has grown enormously since then and Delhi is able to quell any such anti-India movement quickly.
Pakistan, a country where leaders buckle under pressure and give in to the deep state of the army’s intimidation, will be well advised to abandon such proxy wars and to focus on their own issues, for India today is completely different from how it was in the 1980s.
Pakistan and its ISI cannot make an Indian Shikh lose his or her faith in the country’s establishment. Pakistan-backed Khalistani breakaway plans will never resonate with Indian Sikhs and will instead unite the country against their abhorrent neighbour.
