Many Sikhs still are campaigning for justice for victims of the violence and the political and economic needs of the Punjab espoused in the Khalistan movement.

Other violent secessionist movements in Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Punjab ( known as the Khalistan movement ), Mizoram and Tripura were also formerly active, while Tamil Nadu had a non-violent movement in the 1960s.

The Khalistan movement reached its zenith in 1970s and 1980s, flourishing in the Indian state of Punjab, which has a Sikh-majority population and has been the traditional birthplace and homeland of the Sikh religion.

Following her death, thousands of Sikhs including those opposed to the Khalistan movement, were massacred in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, termed as a genocide by the Sikh groups.

However, the issues raised during the Punjabi Suba movement were later used as a premise for creation of a separate Sikh state by the proponents of Khalistan.

India has accused Pakistan of supporting the Khalistan movement in the past, to allegedly seek revenge against India for its help in creating Bangladesh and, according to India, to " destabilize " the Indian state.

In 1988, Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul met with Bhutto and advocated for a plan supporting the Khalistan movement, a Sikh nationalist movement.

Zia also bolstered ties with China and emphasised Pakistan's role in the Islamic world, while relations with India worsened amid the Siachen conflict and accusations that Pakistan was aiding the Khalistan movement.

The Khalistan movement inside India largely ended with the Indian military Operation Blue Star against Sikh militants and the retaliatory assassination of the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi.

Later, the Khalistan movement arose to create another Sikh homeland in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan, harking back to the 18th century Sikh Empire.

Canada's RCMP Security Service had followed the Khalistan movement since 1974, but did not consider it to be a threat until 1981.

On 3 – 6 June 1984, the Khalistan movement was sparked into action as Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi ordered Operation Blue Star, the storming of the Golden Temple.

Although often associated with the Khalistan movement, he neither opposed nor supported the formation of Khalistan.

Though journalist Khushwant Singh believed himself to be on Bhindranwale's hit list, he allowed that the Sikh preacher-become-activist genuinely made no distinction between higher and lower castes, and that he had a restored thousands of drunken or doped Sikh men, inured to porno films, to their families, and that < nowiki ></ nowiki > Operation Blue Star < nowiki ></ nowiki > had given the movement for Khalistan its first martyr in Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

Category: Khalistan movement people

The crackdown on Sikh militant organisations by the Indian Government in the early 1990s, followed by government infiltration of the Khalistan movement and the various militant organisations respectively, greatly weakened the Babbar Khalsa, ultimately leading to the death of Sukhdev Singh Babbar ( 9 August 1992 ) and Talwinder Singh Parmar ( 15 October 1992 ).

In 1986, as the Khalistan movement ( Sikh separatist movement within India ) exerted an increasingly divisive role in the Sikh community by splitting Sikhs between those who demanded an independent homeland using violent means if necessary to achieve that goal and Sikhs who wished to work toward a peaceful resolution, Singh acknowledged Bhai Sahib Bhai Jiwan Singh of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha as Jathedar ( Secretary ) of Sikh Unity.

* June 23-Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747, crashes into the sea 190 kilometres south-west of the Irish coast as the result of a bomb thought to have been planted by the Khalistan movement.

It was brought to wider attention by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala and the Khalistan movement.

Indian security forces suppressed the insurgency in the early 1990s, but Sikh political groups such as the Khalsa Raj Party and SAD ( A ) continued to pursue an independent Khalistan through non-violent means.

He is president of a Sikh political party, Shiromani Akali Dal ( Amritsar ), that used to advocate Sikhs sedition from India and form a separate Sikh Nation-State, Khalistan.

The Dal Khalsa and National Council of Khalistan were banned by the Indian government in May, 1982 after which the Dal Khalsa went underground.

In May 2006 the Vice-President of the Dal Khalsa, Jaspal Singh Dhillon, paid a visit to London, UK where he had been invited to attend and deliver a speech on Self-determination for Khalistan at the inaugural launch and conference of a new lobby group called Parliamentarians for National Self-Determination ( PNSD ) which was held on May 11 at the British Parliament in Westminster.

A proposed flag for Khalistan, the independent Sikh state.

The term Khalistan was coined by the Sikh leader Dr. Vir Singh Bhatti in March 1940.

He made the case for a Sikh state in the pamphlet Khalistan, published as a response to Muslim League's Lahore Resolution.

While the majority of the Akali leaders pursued the idea of a more empowered Sikh-majority state within India, some other Sikh leaders such as Jagjit Singh Chauhan pursued the idea of a sovereign Khalistan.

Operating from a building termed " Khalistan House ", he remained in contact with the Sikh religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

The Akali Dal officially stated that the Sikhs were Indians, and Anandpur Sahib resolution did not envisage an autonomous Sikh State of Khalistan.

The publisher of the " Indo-Canadian Times ," a Canadian Sikh and once-vocal advocate of the armed struggle for Khalistan, he had criticized the bombing of Air India flight 182, and was to testify about a conversation he overheard concerning the bombing.

On 7 October 1987, an American Sikh Gurmit Singh Aulakh established " Council of Khalistan " and appointed himself as its President.

Many Sikh and Hindu groups, as well as organizations not affiliated to any religion, attempted to establish peace between the Khalistan proponents and the Government of India.

The agreement provided a basis for a return to normalcy, but it was denounced by a few Sikh militants who refused to give up demand for an independent Khalistan.

A prominent moderate Sikh in Vancouver, Dosanjh spoke out against violence by Sikh extremists who advocated Khalistan independence from India.

A proposed flag for Khalistan, the independent Sikh state.

" and he never was reported to have demanded for a nation-state but Bhindranwale is widely perceived to be a supporter of the creation of a Sikh majority state of Khalistan.

The Khalistan state proposed by him included parts of present-day Indian Punjab, Pakistani Punjab ( including Lahore ) and the Simla Hill States.

Apart from Punjab, Himachal and Haryana, Chauhan's proposal of Khalistan also included parts of Rajasthan state.

On 29 April 1986, an assembly of separatist Sikhs at the Akal Takht made a declaration of an independent state of Khalistan.

So to make our own state we need an army, we need ammunition, we need rifles to fight with the Indian Government to make our own state, Khalistan ”

The Shiromani Akali Dal ( Amritsar ) has advocated formation of Khalistan, an independent state for the Sikhs.

The primary aim of Dal Khalsa is to achieve the independence of the Punjabi-speaking Sikh majority region of North West India through peaceful and democratic means in order to establish a sovereign Sikh state, Khalistan.

Shortly after activists of the Dal Khalsa again raised the flag of Khalistan at various places in the Punjab state during India's Independence day on August 15, 1980.

The insurgency in the Indian state of Punjab originated in the late 1970s, as the Khalistan proponents turned to militancy.

Almost all of the Sikh militant groups in Punjab aimed to created an independent state called Khalistan through acts of violence directed at members of the Indian government, army or forces.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi led India to victory in 1971 against Pakistan, imposed the Indian Emergency, led it to become a nuclear power state in 1974 and is blamed for the Khalistan insurgency and Operation Bluestar-a controversial blend of nationalism and hard politics.