Khalistan movement
Khalistan ( Punjabi: ਖਾਲਿਸਤਾਨ, " Pure Land "), even Sikh Republic of Khalistan or Sacred Kingdom of the Sikh Khalistan; is arisen from the early 20th century idea of a nationalist movement among the Sikhs, to establish an independent state in India and Pakistan, which should include the present Punjab and surrounding areas.
Khalistan emerged as insurgency in the environment of other religious nationalist groups, which were directed against the British colonial administration. The project of the foot attributable to democratic principles theocratic nation-state was named by Jagjit Singh Chauhan.
The separatist movement for the establishment Khalistans reached its heyday in the India of the 1980s and has since lost much of its momentum, albeit in circles of Sikhs living abroad still to a limited extent support for it exists. Before the terrorist attack on Air India Flight 182 Khalistan had enjoyed in parts of the North American Sikhs considerable support. The Khalistan movement is now primarily viewed as insignificant separatist movement, which is supported primarily by not living in the Punjab Sikhs. Existing pro- Khalistan groups monitored by European and American governments.
Among the political advocates of the idea in the U.S. were once the politician Dan Burton, Jesse Helms and Edolphus Towns. Furthermore, are found among the sympathizers Eric Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury and Lord Nazir Ahmed from the UK, as well as the late General Muhammad Zia -ul- Haq, Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army and President of Pakistan.
The Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh (d. 1839), a secular and religiously tolerant within limits monarch, ruled in the 19th century became an independent kingdom with Lahore as its capital. In 1849, his empire was annexed and made part of the British Empire. According to the Treaty of Amritsar, the area of the monarchy should be returned as soon as a member of the ruling family called Duleep Singh would have reached the age of majority. Nevertheless, he is widely considered irrelevant and rejected his political exploitation by the Khalistan movement.
Its heyday was the violent struggle for independence in the 1980s, when the Indian Army in 1984 in the Operation Blue Star stormed the Golden Temple. As a result, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. In 1986, Arun Vaidya, the Chief of the Indian Army was in Operation Blue Star, Harjinder Singh Jinda of murdered, Sukhdev Singh Sukha and Ranjit Singh Gill. The Pakistani intelligence service ISI introduced in the 1990s, the operation by K2 in the hope that cleave both Kashmir and the Punjab region of India and Pakistan to affiliate.