Khalistan

Khalistan, the land of the Khalsa, is the name given to a proposed sovereign Sikh state. It has no agreed borders. Al Jazeera notes that supporters mostly picture Indian Punjab, while some include parts of Pakistani Punjab or areas of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. The word has meant different things at different times, and the writer Amandeep Sandhu has said that not all of those meanings can be called separatist (The Quint).

Who has made the proposal, in order

• 1940: Dr V. S. Bhatti of Ludhiana published a pamphlet of about forty pages called Khalistan, soon after the Lahore Resolution. Historian J. S. Grewal says it proposed a buffer state between India and Pakistan headed by the ruler of Patiala as a theocratic state. Baba Gurdit Singh took up the idea at a May 1940 convention; the Akali Dal and the Punjab Provincial Congress disapproved. In July 1942 the Akalis put forward a different plan, an Azad Punjab with a balanced population of about 40 percent Muslims, 40 percent Hindus and 20 percent Sikhs.
• 1947: as Partition neared, Sikh leaders opposed Pakistan and proposed a separate Sikh province or state (Penderel Moon in the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism).
• 13 October 1971: Jagjit Singh Chohan, a former Punjab minister living in Britain, published an advertisement in The New York Times proclaiming a Sikh state (Wikipedia).
• October 1973: the Akali Dal adopted the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. As the Encyclopaedia gives the text, it sought an autonomous region that would be "an integral part of the Union of India", with the Centre keeping defence, foreign relations, currency and communications.
• 12 April 1980: Chohan declared a National Council of Khalistan at Anandpur Sahib with himself as president (Wikipedia, citing Kuldip Nayar and Khushwant Singh). He returned to India in June 2001 after about 21 years in exile. Police sources told The Tribune that sedition cases over declaring Khalistan and issuing its currency and passports had ended in acquittal or been closed, and that no case of violence had ever been registered against him. He died on 4 April 2007.
• 29 April 1986: a five-member Panthic Committee, elected by the Sarbat Khalsa of 26 January 1986 at Sri Akal Takht Sahib, issued a Declaration of Khalistan from the Sri Darbar Sahib complex, according to Dal Khalsa's Kanwarpal Singh. Sikh Siyasat notes that the January Gurmata set up the committee but that the declaration was not part of the Gurmata.
• In recent years: Sikhs for Justice has held unofficial, non-binding referendums on Khalistan among Sikhs abroad (Al Jazeera, 2023). At Surrey in September 2023 the organisers estimated that more than 100,000 people took part; no votes were held in India.

The positions. The Indian government rejects the demand. It lists Babbar Khalsa International as a "terrorist" organisation, says Pakistan's intelligence service funds it, which Islamabad denies, and has objected to referendums held abroad (Al Jazeera, The Conversation). Dal Khalsa, Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), Panch Pardani Jatha and the Jathedar Hawara Committee marked the 40th anniversary of the 1986 declaration with an ardas at Sri Akal Takht Sahib on 29 April 2026 and said they would release a policy document on the future of the Sikh sovereignty movement (The Tribune). The Caravan's Hartosh Bal told Al Jazeera that the movement is "virtually non-existent" in Indian Punjab and that the government has "consistently hyped up" the threat. In 1995 the Supreme Court held that raising Khalistan slogans alone is not sedition (The Quint).