A row between India and Canada surrounding Sikh independence, commonly referred to as the Khalistan movement continues to cause tensions. Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of playing a role in the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead in June in British Columbia state.

The Indian government has dismissed Ottawa’s allegations as “absurd”.

In this infographic series, Al Jazeera takes a look at the movement and its origins.

What is the Khalistan movement?

Khalistan is the name of the proposed state envisioned by some Sikhs, incorporating the Indian state of Punjab as well as other Punjabi-speaking areas of northern India to establish a Sikh nation.

The ethno-religious liberation movement gained traction in the 1970s and early 80s in India. It later died down but has developed momentum among the Sikh diaspora in recent years.

What would Khalistan look like?

There is division among supporters of Khalistan on the boundaries of a sovereign Sikh state, but most agree that it would encompass the state of Punjab in India.

The historical Punjab region is located in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent and includes modern-day eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. In India, it includes cities like Ludhiana, Amritsar, Chandigarh and Jalandhar; and Lahore, Faisalabad, Nankana Sahib, Rawalpindi and Multan in Pakistan.

Some Khalistan supporters have called for the incorporation of the Pakistani side of Punjab, while other groups argue that some areas of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, states surrounding India’s Punjab, should also form part of the proposed nation.

How many Sikhs are there in India today?

According to the 2011 Indian census, the last when it was held, there are about 20.8 million Sikhs, making up 1.7 percent of the country’s population.

The majority of Sikhs, about 16 million at the time of the census, live in the northern state of Punjab where they make up about 58 percent of the state’s population.

What is the history of the Khalistan movement?

The notion of Khalistan is rooted in Sikhism, a faith that arose during the 15th century when northern India was under Mughal rule.

Led by Guru Gobind Singh, the faith was recast in 1699 under Khalsa, a word derived from Arabic meaning pure, to incorporate a political vision to protect Sikhs and other religions from religious persecution and to establish Sikh rule.

Following the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, the Punjabi Suba movement emerged which called for the establishment of a Punjabi-speaking autonomous Sikh state.

In 1952, the then-Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declared he would suppress the demand for a Punjabi-speaking state, leading to divisions between Sikhs and Hindus.

Ultimately, in 1966, the state of Punjab was created with Chandigarh as its capital.

In the 1970s and 80s, following for the Khalistan movement re-emerged among Sikhs in India and the diaspora. Spurred by the Sikh rebel leader, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the movement became an armed rebellion.

The rebellion lasted more than a decade and was suppressed by a violent crackdown by the Indian government, in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.

In 1984, Indian forces stormed the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest site, in Amritsar, Punjab to flush out separatists who had taken refuge there. The operation killed about 400 people, according to official Indian government figures, but Sikh groups say thousands were killed.

The dead included Bhindranwale, whom the Indian government accused of leading the armed rebellion.

On October 31, 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had ordered the raid on the temple, was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards.

Her death triggered a series of anti-Sikh riots, in which Hindu mobs went from house to house across northern India, particularly New Delhi, pulling Sikhs from their homes, hacking many to death and burning others alive.

The following year, on June 23, 1985, a bomb exploded on Air India Flight 182 over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 329 people on board.

An investigation into the bombing revealed that it was orchestrated by Canadian-based Sikh fighters as revenge for the Golden Temple operation.

Where does the Khalistan movement stand today?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has intensified the pursuit of Sikh separatists and arrested dozens of leaders from various outfits allegedly linked to the movement.

Hartosh Bal, executive editor of The Caravan magazine in India, told Al Jazeera the Sikh separatist movement has been non-existent for decades in India.

“The Khalistan movement has a long history, and during the 1980s, there was a violent military movement on Indian soil. But ever since – at least in India, in the state of Punjab, where the Sikhs are the majority – the Khalistan movement has been virtually non-existent, enjoys no political support and goes up and down depending on the attention the Indian government pays to it,” Bal said.

“But the Modi government has consistently hyped up the Khalistani threat to India. I think, again, because it suits them domestically to talk about security threats to the Indian nation, rather than the actual measure of threat on the ground from the movement.”

The Khalistan movement has seen some support in diaspora Sikh communities, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.

Where are the largest Sikh diaspora populations?

There are an estimated 26 million Sikhs around the world, according to the London School of Economics (LSE). Canada has the largest Sikh community outside India, with about 770,000 people having reported their religion as Sikh in the 2021 census.

According to the 2021 census in Egland and Wales, about 524,000 Sikhs are living in both countries. About 210,000 live in Australia, according to its 2021 census.

While the US census does not record religion, it is estimated that there are anywhere between 200,000 to 500,000 Sikhs in the country.

In the past three years, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) has organized unofficial referendums on the establishment of Khalistan in a number of countries. In Australia, the vote, held in January, led to clashes between pro-Khalistan and Hindu supporters.

India has requested that Canada, Australia and the UK take legal action against Sikh activists, especially in Canada where Sikhs account for nearly 2 percent of the country’s population.

Following the arrest of Amritpal Singh, a 30-year-old separatist leader who had revived calls for Khalistan, protesters in London pulled down the Indian flag from the high commission and smashed the windows of the building.

New Delhi also accused Khalistan supporters of attacking India’s High Commission in Ottawa and its other offices earlier this year, as well as of vandalizing Hindu temples.

Which prominent Khalistan activists have been killed recently?

Hardeep Singh Nijjar

On June 18, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, was shot dead outside a Sikh gurdwara in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb with a large Sikh population, three years after India had designated him a “terrorist”.

Nijjar supported the demand for a Sikh homeland and was reportedly organizing an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of his death.

Nijjar was born in 1977 in Punjab’s Jalandhar district and he moved to Canada in 1997. He was initially associated with the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) Sikh separatist group, according to India’s Counterterrorism National Investigation Agency.

New Delhi has listed BKI as a “terrorist organization” and says it is funded by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, a charge Islamabad denies.

Avtar Singh Khanda

In June, Avtar Singh Khanda, 35, the alleged head of the Khalistan Liberation Force and aide to Amritpal Singh, died in the UK, following a diagnosis of terminal cancer. But the circumstances of his death were described as “mysterious”, with some attributing his demise to poisoning.

His funeral was attended by thousands. However, his mother and sister living in India were denied visas to attend the funeral by the UK Home Office.

Paramjit Singh Panjwar

Paramjit Singh Panjwar, 63, was the alleged head of the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF), a Sikh Khalistani armed organization operating in Punjab.

Panjwar was gunned down in Lahore, Pakistan by two unidentified gunmen in May this year.

Panjwar played a significant role in the Sikh rebellion in India during the 1980s and 90s. He was known for his involvement in numerous acts of political violence, with the Indian government making extensive efforts to capture him.

Harmeet Singh

In January 2020, the alleged leader of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), Harmeet Singh 38, was killed near Lahore, Pakistan.

He was succeeded by Avtar Singh Khanda, who took over as the KLF leader in 2020, according to reports. Singh was accused of murders in India and training fighters for the Khalistan movement.

How is the row affecting Canada-India relations?

Following Trudeau’s claims that India had a role in the killing of Nijjar, tensions between Canada and India have escalated.

India suspended issuing visas to Canadian citizens amid the escalation, citing “security threats” disrupting work at its missions in Canada. Also, in a tit-for-tat move, India expelled one of the top Canadian diplomats last week after Canada’s foreign minister expelled Pavan Kumar Rai, the most senior member of India’s foreign intelligence agency operating in Canada.

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On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described in parliament what he called credible allegations that India was connected to Nijjar’s assassination in British Columbia state in June.

The Indian government dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and asked Canada instead to crack down on anti-India groups operating in its territory.

The row centers around the Sikh independence movement, commonly known as the Khalistan movement. India accuses Canada of sheltering Khalistani activists.

Here’s all you need to know:

What triggered the tensions?

Najjar, 45, was shot dead outside a Sikh temple on June 18 in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb with a large Sikh population, three years after India had designated him as a “terrorist”.

Nijjar supported the demand for a Sikh homeland in India’s northern state of Punjab, the birthplace of the Sikh religion, which borders Pakistan. He was reportedly organizing an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of this death.

Trudeau on Monday said any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen was “an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”.

On Tuesday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said allegations of India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada are “absurd and motivated”.

It said the “unsubstantiated allegations” sought to shift focus away from “Khalistani terrorists and extremists who have been provided shelter in Canada”.

Indian authorities announced a cash reward last year for information leading to Nijjar’s arrest, accusing him of involvement in an alleged attack on a Hindu priest in India.

A sign outside a Sikh temple after Nijjar’s killing in Surrey, British Columbia [File: Chris Helgren/Reuters]

Trudeau said he brought up Nijjar’s killing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in New Delhi last week. He said he told Modi that any Indian government involvement would be unacceptable and that he asked for cooperation in the investigation.

“In the strongest possible terms, I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter,” he said.

How did India respond?

The MEA dismissed the accusation that India was linked to Nijjar’s killing.

“Such unsubstantiated allegations seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a ministry statement said.

On Tuesday, the foreign ministry said it had given a senior Canadian diplomat five days to leave the country, without disclosing his name or rank.

“The decision reflects the government of India’s growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities,” it said.

The ministry had summoned Cameron MacKay, Canada’s high commissioner in New Delhi, to notify him of the move, it added.

Earlier, New Delhi urged Ottawa to take action against anti-Indian groups in Canada.

“Allegations of the government of India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada are absurd and motivated,” it said, adding that similar accusations made by Trudeau to Modi had been “completely rejected”.

Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar?

Here is what is known about Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the man at the center of the India-Canada row.

Najjar was born in 1977 in Jalandhar district in India’s northern state of Punjab and moved to Canada in 1997, where he worked as a plumber, according to the Khalistan Extremism Monitor of the New Delhi-based independent Institute for Conflict Management.

He was initially associated with the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) Sikh separatist group, according to India’s counter-terrorist, National Investigation Agency. New Delhi has listed BKI as a “terrorist organization” and says it is funded by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, a charge Islamabad denies.

Nijjar later became chief of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) group and was “actively involved in operationalizing, networking, training and financing” its members, according to a 2020 Indian government statement.

New Delhi officially categorized him as a “terrorist” in the same statement, saying he was involved in “exhorting seditionary and insurrectionary imputations” and “attempting to create disharmony among different communities” in the country.

For supporters demanding a so-called independent Sikh state of Khalistan, Nijjar was a prominent leader and a strong voice for the cause.

He was elected head of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurudwara, a Sikh place of worship, in Surrey, the Vancouver suburb where he lived. He held that position at the time of his death.

Nijjar was shot dead outside the same gurudwara on the evening of June 18.

Hundreds of people protested outside the Indian consulate in Vancouver after his murder, alleging foreign hands were involved in his death, local media reported at the time.

What is the Sikh separatist movement?

Sikhism is a minority religion originating in northern India that traces its roots back to the 15th century and drew influences from both Hinduism and Islam.

Its adherents make up less than two percent of India’s 1.4 billion people but Sikhs are nearly 60 percent of the population in the northern state of Punjab, the faith’s heartland.

India won its independence in 1947 but immediately suffered through the blood-soaked Partition that divided the former British colony along religious lines.

Muslims fled to the newly formed nation of Pakistan while Hindus and Sikhs fled to India in the ensuing violence, which killed at least one million people.

The historical region of Punjab was split between the two countries and was wracked by some of the worst violence of Partition.

Since then, some Sikhs have called for the creation of “Khalistan”, a separate sovereign nation and “land of the pure” carved out of Punjab and governed by the faith’s precepts.

Those calls grew louder in subsequent decades as Punjab became one of the wealthiest states in India, owing to an agricultural revolution that dramatically lifted farm yields.

The separatist movement began as an armed rebellion in the late 1980s among Sikhs demanding a separate homeland. The violent movement lasted more than a decade and was suppressed by an Indian government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.

Hundreds of Sikh youths were also killed in police operations, many of which were later proven in courts to have been staged, according to rights groups.

In 1984, Indian forces stormed the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine, in Amritsar to flush out separatists who had taken refuge there. The operation killed about 400 people, according to official figures, but Sikh groups say thousands were killed.

The dead included Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, whom the Indian government accused of leading the armed rebellion.

On October 31, 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had ordered the raid on the temple, was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards.

Her death triggered a series of anti-Sikh riots, in which Hindu mobs went from house to house across northern India, particularly New Delhi, pulling Sikhs from their homes, hacking many to death and burning others alive.

Canadian-based Sikh extremists were also accused of carrying out the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight, killing 329 people, for the Khalistan cause.

Is the movement still active?

There is no active rebellion in Punjab today, but the Khalistan movement still has some supporters in the state, as well as in the sizable Sikh diaspora overseas.

The Indian government has warned repeatedly over the years that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback. Modi’s government has also intensified the pursuit of Sikh separatists and arrested dozens of leaders from various outfits allegedly linked to the movement.

But Hartosh Bal, executive editor of The Caravan magazine in India, told Al Jazeera the Sikh separatist movement has been non-existent for decades.

“The Khalistan movement has a long history and during the 1980s, there was a violent military movement on Indian soil. But ever since – at least in India, in the state of Punjab, where the Sikhs are the majority – the Khalistan movement has been virtually non-existent, enjoys no political support and goes up and down depending on the attention the Indian government pays to it,” Bal said.

“This attention has gone up considerably since the Modi government came to power in 2014. It does have strong roots both in Canada and the UK, where things like referendums are held, but given that the vast majority of Sikhs are on Indian soil and are not participants in this referendum, these could have ideally been easily ignored.

“But the Modi government has consistently hyped up the Khalistani threat to India. I think, again, because it suits them domestically to talk about security threats to the Indian nation, rather than the actual measure of threat on the ground from the movement.”

How strong is the movement outside India?

India has been asking countries such as Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom to take legal action against Sikh activists. It has particularly raised these concerns with Canada, where Sikhs make up nearly 2 percent of the country’s population.

Earlier this year, Sikh protesters pulled down the Indian flag at the country’s high commission in London and smashed the building’s window in a show of anger against the move to arrest Amritpal Singh, a 30-year-old separatist leader who had revived calls for Khalistan and stirred fears of violence in Punjab.

Protesters also smashed windows at the Indian consulate in San Francisco and skirmished with embassy workers.

The MEA denounced the incidents and summoned the UK’s deputy high commissioner in New Delhi to lodge a protest against what it called the breach of security at the embassy in London.

The Indian government also accused Khalistan supporters in Canada of vandalizing Hindu temples with “anti-India” graffiti and of attacking the offices of the Indian High Commission in Ottawa during a protest in March.

Last year, Paramjit Singh Panjwar, a Sikh separatist leader and head of the Khalistan Commando Force, was shot dead in Pakistan.

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