Switzerland

Switzerland is a small, rich, landlocked state in Europe. For the Panth it matters in two ways: as the home of a small Sikh community, and as an example in the argument over what a Sikh state could live on.

Sikhs in Switzerland. Jean-François Mayer of Religioscope, reviewing a 2019 book by Christoph Peter Baumann on Sikh religion in Switzerland, estimates about 1,000 Sikhs today.

• 1944: 80 to 100 Sikh soldiers of the British army escape German captivity and reach Switzerland. No lasting community follows.
• About 1960: roughly 30 Sikhs, mostly working for international organisations in Geneva.
• The 1980s: young people flee India for political reasons, against the background of the Khalistan movement, the June 1984 operation and the anti-Sikh violence after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Many asylum seekers are refused refugee status.
• 1988: regular gatherings begin in the Basel area, after a Guru Granth Sahib is brought from Southall in London.
• 1 November 2013: Sikh groups file a petition of about one million signatures at the UN human rights office in Geneva, asking for an investigation of the November 1984 killings.
• Today: four active centres, at Langenthal (building opened 2006), Däniken (inaugurated 2015), Bassersdorf near Zurich and Geneva. The Geneva community, about 50 families, has rented a space since 2016 while raising money for a permanent gurdwara.

A debating example. In an interview with The Panjab Forum, put on YouTube on 19 April 2026, the host relayed an objection attributed to Sukhbir Singh Badal: that Punjab produces nothing but wheat and paddy, so a state could not pay its employees or run a country. Paramjit Singh Mand of Dal Khalsa replied that Badal goes to Switzerland on holiday, and should first say how much wheat and paddy is produced there. Wikipedia, citing the CIA World Factbook, puts agriculture at 0.7 percent of Swiss GDP and services at 73.7 percent in 2017.