(RNS) — In early October, the Sikh Temple in Fremont, California, posted a statement on its Facebook page denouncing what it called a “new wave of Indian propaganda,” referencing recent allegations by American Hindu groups that which the temple, spiritual home of Sikhs in the Bay Area since 1978, was involved in “organized crime”.

The Facebook post accused organizations “aligned with the Indian government” of labeling Sikhs as extremists amid an ongoing grassroots struggle in northern India to establish an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. “Such efforts to stigmatize Sikhs are both unfounded and harmful,” the statement said. Leaders of the gurdwara, as Sikh temples are known, protested, saying their advocacy for an independent Sikh state was “legitimate and peaceful.”

When India and Canada expelled their respective diplomats in recent days, the exchanges escalated into a brawl following a series of attacks on Sikhs living in Canada in recent years and made headlines around the world entire, many of them trying to demystify the fight for non-compliance with the law. – the existing state of Khalistan involving shadowy intelligence operatives and accusations of government-sponsored murder, in both the United States and Canada.

But for Sikhs in both countries, the controversy is not troubling. The Khalistan movement — a campaign to establish an independent homeland for Sikhs in Punjab, a region divided between northern India and Pakistan — has long been on the minds of Sikh Americans. In 2023, thousands of Sikhs in San Francisco voted in a symbolic referendum on Khalistan, and the cause of Khalistan, these Sikhs say, opposes centuries-old discrimination to demand self-determination and sovereignty.

The movement has been associated with violent rhetoric and actions. In 1985, pro-Khalistan extremists planted a bomb aboard an Air India flight, killing all 329 people on board the plane, in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in history. of Canada.

More recently, Hindu temples in the United States have seen statues toppled and walls marked with pro-Khalistani and anti-Indian graffiti. Anti-Hindu hate crimes, many Hindu Americans say, intensified after an argument between a Sikh man with a Khalistan map on his arm was filmed by a Hindu customer at a Fremont Taco Bell and went viral in 2021 .

The current diplomatic row stems from alleged assassination plots targeting two activists belonging to a group called Sikhs for Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the latter of whom has been accused of helping train others to commit acts terrorists against India. After Nijjar, a 45-year-old Canadian citizen, was killed in a drive-by shooting at his gurdwara in Vancouver in June 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government were involved.

People walk past banners inviting students to study in Canada and elsewhere abroad at a market in Amritsar, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, Tuesday, October 15, 2024. (AP Photo/ Prabhjot Gill)

In August this year, another Sikhs for Justice leader, Satinder Pal Singh Raju, said he too was targeted while driving on a highway near Sacramento, California. On Thursday, October 17, an Indian national, Vikash Yadav, was found guilty of murdering Pannun.

The revelations were “staggering” to Harman Singh, executive director of the advocacy organization Sikh Coalition. “Over the last year and a half, what we’ve obviously recognized is that there is a new threat to members of the Sikh community here in the United States,” he said. “These are threats that are emerging from the Indian government and targeting Sikhs here on American soil.

“We have heard from Sikh places of worship, Sikh academics, Sikh journalists and individual members of the community who have all told us that, in one way or another, they are concerned about the issue of repression transnational,” he said. “Our position is that everyone within a religious community should have the freedom and ability to speak about their political and religious views in a legal manner without being targeted by a foreign government.

The Sikh Coalition, founded after the September 11 attacks in response to “individual and institutional discrimination” among the American Sikh diaspora, has never taken an official position on Khalistan, in part, Singh said, because Sikhs disagree on how it would be created. . But when “all Sikhs are lumped in with Khalistanis and all Khalistanis are considered terrorists,” he said, all Sikhs are at risk.

Tensions are further heightened by the 40th anniversary of Operation Blue Star, the bloody capture of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984 by Indian troops in pursuit of Sikh militants. A few months later, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated in retaliation.

Harjeet Singh, a Sikh who lives in Seattle, said he feels a “sense of relief,” despite the violence, that the Western world is now paying attention to the dynamic. For years, he said, Sikhs have been questioned at customs when entering his home country, India.

“Anyone who says something that the Indian government doesn’t like, whether you support a farmers’ protest or you just support basic human rights, they will put the label of ‘Khalistani’ on that person and then try to make them good. to prosecute them as extremists,” said Singh, the host of a podcast called “Finding Truth with Harjeet.”

Although the movement is made up primarily of Sikhs, Singh does not view the movement as religious but as a push for “decentralization of power from the hands of an authoritarian government.” Supporters hope for control of laws, taxation and resources for the large Punjabi-speaking community. (Not all, he adds, belong to or trust the leaders of Sikhs for Justice.)

Some Sikhs are wary of any form of Khalistani activism. Puneet Sahani is an anti-Khalistani social media activist who works to raise awareness about the dangers of Khalistani ideology. In talking with other Sikhs, Sahani said, he saw a growing discouragement over the politicization of Sikh places of worship. Many in the diaspora are “brainwashed,” he said, with the idea of ​​“revenge for 1984” or “hatred toward Hindus and India.”

Sahani stopped attending her local gurdwara for similar reasons four years ago. “Of course I miss the congregation, because you’re supposed to participate in the community,” he said. “But what the gurus basically say is that you fight for dharma (religious duty). I take inspiration from my gurus, I do my dharma and I wage dharma-yuddha (holy war). Our gurus inspire us to be the first to defend Bharat,” using a Hindu word for India.

Mat McDermott, senior director of communications for the Hindu American Foundation, said in a statement that America’s Hindu and Sikh communities have always lived in harmony and that recent events are not representative.

Canada’s Deputy High Commissioner to India, Stewart Wheeler, speaks to media personnel after meeting with officials from the Indian government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in New Delhi, India, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo )

McDermott said he was surprised by “how highly public and politicized a spectacle this has become,” even as questions about India’s intentions remain unanswered. “This information vacuum,” he said, “combined with the intensity of the allegations and the differing approaches that the U.S. government has employed with various South Asian communities, has understandably created a perfect storm of fear, suspicion and, ultimately, tensions between communities.

“The DOJ cannot be expected to maintain full investigative and enforcement capacity to address such issues if it is out of touch with a community or seen as dismissive of a community’s concerns” , McDermott said. “They must also consider their power to bring communities together, or tear them apart through their actions. Ultimately, this will make more difference to the various dharmic communities here than anything else.

Harman Singh pointed out that Sikhs in the Bay Area helped clean up spray paint from a vandalized Hindu temple. “We have seen the pain felt when houses of worship are targeted,” he said, “in Punjab in 1984 and in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in 2012,” the site of a mass shooting perpetrated by a white assailant. “It’s personal for us.”

Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies South Asia and the Middle East, said U.S. lawmakers have a responsibility to “recognize, map and chart” how pro-Khalistan extremists within the Sikh community “may be at risk of eviscerating or taking power”. the infrastructure and organizations of the largely peaceful and thriving American Sikh community.

“I suspect your ordinary Sikh has more to fear from the Khalistani extremists within their community than from the Indian government,” he said.