Jaskaran Sandhu
February 26, 2024 

Between the 2023 draconian operation against Amritpal Singh and the 2024 Farmers’ Protest, essentially every prominent Sikh and Punjabi social media account, both of individuals and organizations, inside and outside of Punjab, has been arbitrarily censored in India.

The silencing of our voices is not happening online alone, as the NSA, a despotic law that allows the Indian government to detain individuals for up to a year without any charges, has been disproportionately used or threatened against Punjabi and Sikh voices on the ground as well, alongside random police raids and abuse.

Coupled with this is India’s foreign interference and international assassination program abroad, which leans into the Indian Government-Criminal Network nexus, meant to silence and chill dissent from diasporic Sikh and Punjabi communities enjoying free speech in functioning democracies.

India is stopping Punjabis and Sikhs from speaking about issues specifically impacting Punjabis and Sikhs, from the economic to the religious to the social. When a people are not allowed to speak about and address the problems directly concerning them freely, what else can it be called other than a sign of slavery?

Punjab has been at the mercy of unprecedented internet blackouts, suspensions of civil rights and democratic norms, and state-driven disinformation campaigns for years now. Sikhs outside of Punjab, speaking for their loved ones still there and various causes near and dear to them, either face murder at the hands of Indian intelligence agencies or the threat of being banned from visiting their ancestral homes and religious sites by the Indian government.

This is not because we have actually broken any laws but because we critique Delhi for the injustices it has levelled against our land. All because we wish to speak about our rights, our history, and our sovereignty.

Ultimately, we are being targeted for who we are.

India’s “democratic” institutions are failing, its press freedom has disappeared, and the persecution of minorities is rampant. This is all very clear and well-documented now. It is not up for debate anymore.

The fact that Indian and Hindu Nationalists applaud and celebrate these tyrannical actions shows how rotten their political mission is as well. The way in which it has become so easy for them to target and malign Sikhs and Punjabis with impunity is a sign of state-sponsored genocidal impulses that we know all too well.

No Hindu Nationalist is being censored for attacking minorities. In fact, they are being given national platforms to continue spewing their violent nonsense. While disturbing, what else can you expect of a movement partly inspired by Hitler and the Nazis to build a Hindu Rashtra?

Also, consider what it says when the secular alternative to the BJP, the Congress Party, is responsible for the Sikh Genocide. What we are facing is not new. It is as old as the modern construct of India. And it does not matter if the left or the right is in charge.

In India, communal majoritarianism is the only law of the land.

Either you’re a hard Hindu Nationalist or a soft one. Anyone challenging or threatening that idea, like the Sikhs, will quickly be dehumanized and erased. It is no coincidence that it is Punjab at the centre of these incidents, over and over again. As long as Punjab is one of two states in India with a non-Hindu majority, it remains a threat to the establishment in Delhi.

We have no real allies in Bharat.

Our problems do not stop with the threats to our free speech or politics. Our free movement is also not guaranteed in India.

Farmers are trying to get to Delhi to exercise what you would think is the fairly basic democratic right to protest in the capital, just like farmers are doing across Europe right now. Unlike Europe, however, our farmers are being treated like foreign invaders by both central and local governments and have been met with Line of Control-esque border blockades between Punjab and Haryana.

Not only that, they have been met with an unprovoked barrage of tear gas shells and rubber bullets at point-blank range, well outside the intended use of these weapons. The intent of the Indian government is to harm, not to disperse. One farmer has died from a gunshot to the head, and others are suffering from serious injuries.

It is as if Punjab is now a separate country, and its residents are not actually citizens of India who should be afforded free movement or free speech there. That’s a choice the Modi regime has made.

Giani Harpreet Singh, the former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, once rightfully said Sikhs would gladly take Khalistan if offered by the Indian government. How are we to read India’s actions and our options in light of everything?

Our economic vitality is being undermined openly. Our legal rights are nonexistent. Our social conditions are crumbling. Our youth are leaving, seeing no hope. Our elders are getting tear-gassed for no reason. Our religious institutions are being attacked.

If our existence can only be secured by keeping our heads down, accepting our place that we have no true agency over our affairs, like slaves, or even worse, allowing our identity to be co-opted by Hindu Nationalists with no history worth celebrating of their own, then what really is our standing or purpose in India?

The reality is Sikhs and Punjabis will never define Indian-ness, no matter how hard we try to drape ourselves with the tiranga and push down our unique identity. We are second-class citizens, seen as a stubborn minority that just won’t submit. We will always be a target of the majority.

When we cannot even openly speak about our condition, how do we expect to actually solve the problems we face? It only makes sense once you accept India does not want us to solve them – at least not on our terms.

Jaskaran Sandhu hails from Brampton, Canada, and is the co-founder of Baaz. He is a Strategist at the public affairs and relations agency State Strategy. Jaskaran also previously served as Executive Director for the World Sikh Organization of Canada and as a Senior Advisor to Brampton’s Office of the Mayor. You can find Jaskaran on Twitter at @JaskaranSandhu_