Punjab: Federalism, elections, suppression

Abstract

Between 1981 and 1993, a movement for an independent, Sikh-majority state, dubbed Khalistan, resulted in more than 20,000 deaths in north India and elsewhere. Those who died as a consequence of this insurgency included the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, murdered in October 1984, and 329 people on an Air India plane destroyed by a bomb off the coast of Ireland in June 1985. By 2012, however, the 'Punjab insurgency' (or 'Khalistan movement') had vanished from the world's news reports, and even a website devoted to the cause - www.khalistan.net - carefully noted that its supporters fought 'the tyranny and terrorism of the Indian state' using 'peaceful, democratic and political means'. The Khalistan insurgency had subsided bewilderingly quickly in 1993 and nearly 20 years later shows few signs of revival.