The Sikh Attempt to Create a Religious State

In the 1980s, a sizable section of the young Sikh population in the rural areas of the north-west Indian state of Punjab became embroiled in a violent confrontation with the Indian government led by the Sikh activist Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.¹ Bhindranwale was a rural preacher who spoke with the conviction of someone who knew the details of his religious heritage.

The Sikh uprising in the 1980s, though violent and dramatic, was not the only time that Sikhs had been politically active in the Punjab. In the 1960s, for instance, another Sikh leader, Sant Fateh Singh, threatened to immolate himself in a vat of boiling oil on the roof of the Akal Takht, one of the main buildings in the precincts of the Harmandir Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple, which is the Sikhs' central shrine, located in the city of Amritsar. Sant Fateh Singh never carried out his threat, but the demands of the moment were met.

This turned out not to be the case. The Sikh militancy in the 1980s was in some ways a repeat of the early movement, but it was also significantly different, in at least two ways. It was more strident, more violent; and its vehemence was aimed against the secular state. The aim was not just to secure more political power for the Sikh community but to reject the secular authority of the Indian government. Hinduism as a religion was not the target, even though some Hindu leaders were seen as cooperative with the state's position, and therefore worthy of attack in the eyes of the Sikh militants. The explicit goal was to reject the legitimacy of the secular state. Though there was controversy within the movement as to what should replace it, many Sikhs who supported the movement thought that its success would lead to the creation of a new religious nation. The proposed new Sikh state was dubbed Khalistan - the land of the Sikh community, the Khalsa. Bhindranwale, the most prominent spokesperson for the movement, said that he was neither for nor against the idea of Khalistan. But clearly he and his followers wanted a new political order, one that would be based on religion rather than secularism.

It may seem preposterous that a religious community could claim the status of nationhood. Where could the Sikhs have got such a remarkable idea? The European Enlightenment model of the nation state presumes a stance of secular detachment from religion. And yet, for the Sikhs, examples of religious nationalism were close at hand. They needed to look no further away than the country that formed the western borders of the Punjab: Pakistan.