Sikhs Must Stand With All Resistance: From Punjab to Kashmir"Indian media and politicians manipulate Sikh pain to pull Sikhs into Hindutva jingoism - to turn us into defenders of an empire that once sought to annihilate us."
Shamsher Singh The recent attack in Pahalgam, where 26 people - including Indian tourists and a Kashmiri civilian - were killed, has triggered the Indian state into yet another campaign of nationalist retaliation. Though details about Pahalgam remain murky and as yet unconfirmed, one thing is certain: Delhi will continue to use the attack, as it has many times before, to tighten its imperial grip over Kashmir and broaden the conflict - and to discipline the resistance of all borderlands it claims, including Punjab. This is not just about Kashmir. Nor is it only about a supposed “security failure” or one attack or “retaliation”. This is about a decades-long pattern of state violence and psychological warfare waged by the Indian state to mask its colonial foundations with the language of “national unity” and “development”. It is a pattern Sikhs should know all too well, and must never forget. Kashmir continues to stand today as one of the most militarized regions globally. Since India revoked Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in 2019, the region has witnessed an explosion of Indian military presence and installations, and the deployment of surveillance technology, ecological devastation, and demographic engineering. Mass arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and brutal suppression of political organising, which calls for Kashmiri liberation, are the daily reality of Kashmiris - yet Indian media portrays it all as “normalisation.” Indian media is not merely reporting on Kashmir; it is weaponising Kashmir’s portrayal in its media and political rhetoric. TV anchors, Bollywood actors, and social media influencers relentlessly dehumanise Kashmiris, priming the Indian public to accept - and even celebrate - mass violence. This mirrors the Zionist occupation of Palestine, where media frames genocide as "self-defense," and oppressed resisting people are reduced to "terrorists." When Sikhs fall for Indian media narratives, we are not just being misled - we are being weaponised against other colonised peoples, and ultimately against ourselves. The Indian state openly dreams of turning Kashmir into Gaza. Settler colonialism, siege tactics, land theft, ethnic cleansing - these are not isolated policies; they are the Indian vision for occupation in Kashmir and Punjab. The so-called 'Israel model' is not a threat - it is already a blueprint being followed. Sikhs must recognize that Delhi's enthusiasm for the 'Israeli solution' reveals not strength, but desperation: the desperation of a colonial state trying to crush indigenous resistance wherever it rises. Sikh Memory and Indian Violence The Sikh experience under Indian rule is not separate from what Kashmir endures - it is deeply connected. From the invasion of Sri Harimandir Sahib in 1984 to the systematic theft of Punjab’s river waters, the undermining of Punjabi language, agriculture, and self-governance, Sikhs have lived the violence of India’s so-called sovereignty. Our resistance was not met with dialogue that centers our sovereignty - instead it was criminalised and was met with state violence and the criminalisation of Sikhi itself. Just as Kashmiris are framed as threats to India's 'national fabric,' Sikhs were framed as terrorists during the 1980s to justify massacres and disappearances. Dehumanisation, whether in Palestine, Punjab or Kashmir, lays the ground for genocide. Yet, Sikhs accepting the yoke of Indian nationalism are still drawn into mourning when Indian soldiers or tourists are killed, never when our own communities resist - and certainly never when Kashmiris or Palestinians do. This selective grief is not accidental. It is designed to fold us into the narrative of Indian jingoism: a story in which India is a normal, natural, and eternal entity, and in which those who resist its dominion - whether in Kashmir, Punjab, Nagaland, or Manipur - are painted as threats to “national security.” The patterns of state repression as seen in Kashmir draw clear parallels with Punjab. During the 1980s and 1990s, in response to the Khalistan movement, the Indian government launched extensive counterinsurgency operations under the banner of "national security". These operations led to widespread human rights violations, including state-sanctioned killings, torture, and enforced disappearances of resistance fighters, their families and Sikh civilians suspected or accused of providing sympathy or support to Sikh fighters. Notably, Operation Woodrose targeted politically active young Sikh men, whether involved in political parties, student organisations, or religious organisations, families of activists and guerrillas, and any Amritdhari (initiated) Sikhs or those who maintain the dastar (turban) and beard, resulting in thousands of police detentions and killings of Sikhs. Regarding Indian violence in Kashmir, history shows that Sikhs are drawn into India’s nationalist campaigns whenever Delhi weaponises “Islamist violence” to mask its own brutal policies. In 2000, 35 Sikhs were massacred in Chittisinghpura. At the time, this was immediately blamed on “Islamic militants.” But evidence later pointed to Indian security forces staging the killings to justify crackdowns and reinforce their nationalist faultlines. Today, the same playbook unfolds: whenever Delhi faces resistance, it exploits Sikh pain to shore up its image and pull Sikhs into jingoism against Muslims and Kashmiris. Kashmir, Palestine, and the Logic of Occupation What is happening in Kashmir is not an internal security issue. It is settler colonialism. Since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Kashmir has seen a surge in Indian tourism, land grabs, military installations, demographic engineering, and environmental destruction - all under the cover of “development.” This is not unique. It mirrors Israel’s occupation of Palestine, where tourism, settlement expansion, and brutal militarism go hand in hand. Just as it mirrors Punjab, where “development” and tourism have become the supposed beacon of “peace” in Punjab, this false peace was created in the vacuum left by India's repression of Sikh resistance; manufactured through surveillance, checkpoints, and genocide. This false peace, built on marginalising and erasing Sikh resistance, is more correctly named “the silence of the graveyard” by Shaheed Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra. Sikhs who today support Indian repression in Kashmir forget that the same state once branded the entire Sikh nation as a threat - and treated us accordingly, making genocide a counter-insurgency policy. Just as Gaza is framed as a terrorist stronghold to justify mass killings, India is now openly celebrating its “Israeli solution” in Kashmir. The message is chilling: turn Kashmir into another Gaza. Normalise genocide in the name of security, which should be familiar to Sikhs as it is the mainstay of Indian political rhetoric when India speaks on Sikh resistance. Displace an entire people to affirm a violent idea of nationhood. As Sikhs, we must ask: Will we allow our voice to be co-opted into this machine of erasure? Or will we stand with those who resist it? Indian media and politicians manipulate Sikh pain to pull Sikhs into Hindutva jingoism - to turn us into defenders of an empire that once sought to annihilate us. How can we be tricked by this? Sikh sovereignty demands that we stand apart from Indian nationalism, not be used to strengthen it. The Geopolitical Heart of Resistance: Punjab Punjab is not peripheral; it is central. Strategically, Punjab borders Pakistan and controls the flow of rivers through the Indus Basin. Culturally and historically, it has been the seat of fierce resistance, the homeland of the Khalsa spirit and the beating heart of resistance against imperialist powers. This is precisely why India has always feared Sikh self-determination and worked relentlessly to undermine it - from the Green Revolution that commodified our land, to the theft of our waters, to the suppression of our language, institutions and sovereign Sikh military power. India’s need for Sikh loyalty is not spiritual, cultural, or even symbolic - it is strategic. Sikhs, concentrated in the border regions of Punjab and Jammu, are critical to India’s military infrastructure and its propaganda of national unity. This is why Palestine matters to us, even from a purely self-interested view: it reveals the workings of the so-called international order, the role of resistance, and how complicit imperial powers secure loyalty through spectacle and fear. Today, while Indian missile strikes rain down and India seeks escalation, popular figures like Diljit Dosanjh promote “tourism” in Kashmir, shaking hands with Modi and dancing across the global stage as a sanitized Indian caricature of Sikh-Punjabi identity. This performance is not disconnected from Indian military operations - it is the soft front of Indian hegemony. The attack on a Gurdwara in Poonch is not incidental either. It is part of a pattern of psychological warfare aimed at drawing Sikhs deeper into Indian nationalism, especially through grief. The Delhi-appointed “jathedar” of the Akal Takht, parroting nationalist rhetoric and calling for peace without naming the structure of violence, reduces the Sikh voice to a neutered moralism. If this state stooge, installed to undermine the Akal Takht’s historic authority, echoes Delhi’s narrative, we must be even more suspicious. Why would Pakistan randomly target a village Gurdwara amid retaliatory action aimed at the Indian military? Like Chittisinghpura, Poonch has India’s mark on it. It is a psyop designed to rally Sikh sentiment in favour of the Indian war machine, and many are falling for it. Those not absorbed by Indian nationalism retreat into abstract appeals for peace. In both cases, Sikhs are made pawns or spectators. There is no sovereign Sikh response unless we reclaim it. India’s recent suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty does not solely impact Pakistan. It is a threat to Punjab as a whole. Our rivers, already choked by mismanagement and ecological sabotage, are being weaponised in Delhi’s nationalist drama. It should not surprise us that the same central state that has undermined Sikh resistance in Punjab for decades continues to use counterterrorism as cover to increase its hold over the land and militarise the region further. In reality, when Delhi cries "counterterrorism," it means counter-sovereignty. It means militarisation. It means crushing aspirations under the boot of "national unity." If we remain silent in this moment, or worse, if we side with India, then we are complicit in our own oppression, in normalising the Indian state and its nationalist violence. Already, some well-meaning Sikhs and Sikh politicians in the UK have fallen into this trap. It is not an unfair stretch of the imagination to state that these same politicians would flatten the context of sovereignty, colonialism and resistance to simply condemn Sikh resistance groups if they had carried out operations targeting Indian security forces, as occurred during the peak of Sikh militancy in Punjab. Sikh Sovereignty Means Standing with the Oppressed To be Sikh is to resist oppression in all its forms. We are not nationalists of the Indian variety. We are sovereign people who believe in miri-piri, for us, political and spiritual freedom are inseparable. We do not decide our solidarity based on current state borders or dominant ideals. We stand with the oppressed because we were born from resistance against oppression. We must make our determinations rooted in our resistance and sovereignty. We should stand with the people of Kashmir, as we must stand with the people of Palestine and Sikh resistance in Punjab, and with every community resisting occupation, erasure, and state violence. Let us remember: the first Ghallughara was not in June 1984. Our spirit of emerging defiant from oppression was instilled when Guru Arjan Dev Ji embraced martyrdom and laid down his life against Mughal tyranny, when Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji took up arms, when Guru Gobind Singh Ji raised the Khalsa. We were never meant to be subjects of empires or docile citizens of nation-states. In this moment, we must reject Indian nationalist narratives that shame resistance while glorifying empire, victimising the oppressor whilst seeking to co-opt or annihilate resistance. We must educate ourselves and our communities about Kashmir, Palestine, and the Sikh struggle for Khalistan—not through the lens of Indian media, but through the voices of the oppressed and the histories of resistance. We must organise, speak out, and stand in solidarity, not just when Sikhs are targeted, but also understand the dynamics of colonial violence as they play out continually in front of us. Punjab’s liberation, the call for Khalistan, is not merely a demand for new borders on a map. It is the call for a sovereign Sikh polity rooted in Gurmat—where the Khalsa rises against those that seek to dominate and oppress, a world of justice, freedom, and dignity for all. It demands that Sikhs not become pawns of any empire, but remain torchbearers of resistance against tyranny everywhere. The Sikh struggle is in essence a struggle of asserting and experiencing our patshah, our Guru bestowed sovereignty which emanates from Guru Nanak Sahib’s patshahi, Guru Arjan Dev Ji’s shaheedi, Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji’s sword, from Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s Khalsa—in that regard we cannot elevate Hindutva nationalism, or any colonial framework, to the position of our teacher. Khalistan Zindabad. Shamsher Singh writes from Southall, UK, and is the co-founder of the National Sikh Youth Federation (NSYF). He is an influential Sikh activist and his work centres on Sikh being and Khalistan. Shamsher is currently undertaking an MA at Birkbeck in Culture, Diaspora, Ethnicity. As a naujawan Panthic jathebandie NSYFs work has featured in national and international media, documentary films, books, and academic papers. Shamsher Singh works to build solidarity with racialised communities, and to create space for Sikh expression centring on Sikh sovereignty, and Sikh resistance, pushing back against the erasure of Khalistan and it’s martyrs. He currently works as program director for the newly established Khalistan Centre, which is dedicated to supporting and cultivating Gurmat-driven leadership to further the struggle for Khalistan. You can find him on Twitter at @anandpur_exile. Baaz is home to opinions, analysis, and original reporting for the Sikh and Punjabi diaspora. Support us by subscribing. Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky at @BaazNewsOrg. If you would like to submit a written piece for consideration please email us at editor@baaznews.org. You're currently a free subscriber to Baaz. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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