Sikh Americans take precautions after alleged murder plot
In California and New Jersey, some Sikh temples are rushing to add security cameras and hire night patrols.
Bobbie Singh-Allen, the outspoken mayor of Elk Grove, California, said she had started toning down her social media posts that could be seen as critical of India. And dr. Pritpal Singh, an American Sikh activist in California, said he was ready to turn to a particularly American form of self-defense: using a gun.
“We know there is a Second Amendment,” said Dr. Singh, who was told months ago by the FBI that his life may be in danger because of his support of Sikh separatism. “We will keep that in mind.”
Sikh Americans have been on edge for months since the Indian government was accused of killing a prominent Sikh separatist and community figure in Canada, another country where Sikhs believed their activism was protected from interference by the Indian government. Their concerns increased last week after federal prosecutors in New York unsealed an indictment accusing an Indian government official of another assassination plot, this time one that was foiled, in the US.
For many Sikh Americans, the indictment – which alleged a brazen murder plot against a Sikh separatist in New York – seemed to confirm the suspicion they had harbored for years that the Indian government would be monitoring their actions. The vast majority of Sikhs live in India, where they make up less than 2 percent of the population.
The court documents described a wad of cash, surveillance photos of the murder target, and a hired hitman who turned out to be an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent. US government officials have confirmed that the target was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based Sikh separatist who holds dual US and Canadian citizenship.
“The community has long understood that their dissenting voices have been silenced,” said Kiran Kaur Gill, executive director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a Washington-based civil rights organization. “But to see the community’s fears come true in such an extreme way with the allegations of the possible murder of a Sikh American is deeply traumatizing.”
The first Sikh immigrants arrived in North America in the early 20th century and worked in sawmills, railroad construction, and later agriculture. Most Sikhs in America today came after 1965 for higher education, professional jobs, or to reunite with family.
Now, around 500,000 Sikhs live in the United States, with the largest communities in the Bay Area and Central Valley of California, as well as in New Jersey and New York. Some have helped build powerful agricultural lobbies in California and elsewhere.
They have faced discrimination and hate attacks for a long time. They are easily recognizable by the beard and turban, which are a religious requirement for observant Sikh men, but are often mistaken for Muslims by other Americans. After the September 11 attacks, there was an alarming increase in hate crimes, including the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man, outside his gas station in Arizona.
In 2012, a white supremacist shot and killed six people at a gurdwara, a Sikh house of worship, in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. After that, many gurdwaras, also called gurudwaras, strengthened their security systems. And last year, a series of hate crimes against Sikh men in New York’s Richmond Hill left the Sikh community deeply shaken.
The details in last week’s indictment point to a different kind of threat, one from overseas aimed at suppressing political dissent. Prosecutors said in court documents that the plot against Mr. Pannun was linked to the June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the Sikh separatist in Canada. Both men called for the creation of an independent nation, Khalistan, that would include parts of Punjab, a northwestern state in India where Sikhs are the majority.
The Indian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. The Indian government has denied any involvement in Mr Nijjar’s killing in Canada, which has the largest Sikh population outside India.
This was said by a spokesperson for the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rack last week that the Indian government had constituted a “high-level committee” “to investigate all relevant aspects of the case”, an apparent reference to the plot against Mr Pannun.
Sikh Americans have varying opinions on whether Sikhs should secede from India. The dynamics of the diaspora changed in the mid-1980s, as many fled anti-Sikh hostilities in India following a separatist uprising in Punjab and the 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
At the time, Sikh militants had been waging a violent campaign for an independent state for more than a decade, including attacks that killed civilians. At Mrs Gandhi’s direction, Indian soldiers responded by raiding the religion’s holiest place of worship, the golden Temple in Amritsar, to remove Sikh separatists, killing hundreds, according to official figures. Sikh groups say the death toll is in the thousands.
Mrs Gandhi was subsequently murdered by two of her bodyguards, who were Sikh. That led to widespread anti-Sikh violence in northern India. Thousands of Sikhs were massacred in organized pogroms. In 1985, Khalistani separatists were accused of detonating a bomb on an Air India flight between Toronto and London, killing more than 300 people.
The Sikh secessionist movement in India has since faded. But memories of the violence and political repression of the mid-1980s are still “strong in the minds of Sikhs” in America and their American-born children, says Nirvikar Singh, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. and co-author of “The Other One Percent: Indians in America.”
“I think many Sikhs feel there was no justice,” Mr Singh said.
Sikh Americans have grown wary of the Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who they say has portrayed the Sikh separatist movement at home and abroad as a more serious threat than it is.
For Modi, beefing up the threat could help cement his status as a political strongman ahead of next year’s national elections. The Sikhs of Punjab have been a thorn in his side since they led protests that thwarted his plans for 2021 Indian agricultural reform.
Like most Sikhs in India, many Sikh Americans believe that Punjab should remain under the control of the Indian government but have greater autonomy. Some support the status quo. Others – a small minority, community leaders say – are convinced that an independent Sikh homeland is necessary for Sikhs to flourish.
India has declared Sikh separatists abroad terrorists, and Indian officials have accused their counterparts in Western countries of being too lax when Khalistan supporters destroyed Indonesian embassies and consulates and threatened Indian diplomats. Officials in Western countries see the separatists as activists who have sometimes crossed a line with calls for violence, but whose right to freedom of expression has been eroded. protected by law.
Some American Sikh leaders want a stronger public rebuke of India from the Biden administration, which has responded behind the scenes as it tries to cement an alliance with the Modi-led Indian government as a wedge against China and Russia.
“As an American citizen, I demand an investigation,” said Ms. Singh-Allen, the mayor of Elk Grove, California. “This is unacceptable that a foreign government can threaten American citizens. Would this have been increased if it were Russia? We must treat it with the same care.”
Deep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, a nonprofit that works in Punjabi Sikh communities in California, said the indictment had already sent a chill through the community. “We had people who signed a letter seeking some form of redress from Congress and later called and said, ‘Please remove our names, we are too concerned about our family in India,’” he said.
Still, some Sikh activists have vowed to continue their advocacy for an independent state, including Sikhs for Justice, the group for which Mr. Pannun, the target of the killing, serves as general counsel.
Bobby Singh, an American Sikh youth activist in Sacramento, said he changed his usual driving routes after being warned by the FBI several months ago that his life may be in danger. But he said he would continue his work by traveling to college campuses to promote the Khalistani cause among Sikh youth.
Others in the community have pledged to continue lobbying local institutions in Western countries passage resolutions officially recognizing the violence against Sikhs in 1984 as genocide.
“Sikhs are warriors,” said Dr. Pritpal Singh, the Sikh activist. “It’s in our genes, it’s in our blood.”