Separatist yes. I wouldn't go as far as calling him a terrorist until allegations of planned terrorist attacks are confirmed by neutral parties. While he's running an org that has voolent clashed with police, there hasn't been any proper terrorist attacks by Khalistanis this time around a la the bombing of Air India Flight 182 (and attempted bombing of Flight 301) back in the day.
More accurate to just call him a violent separatist.
Definition of a domestic terrorist per the FBI: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.
I feel a lot of arguments on “that’s not terrorism” come in when it doesn’t affect the western countries. Just because an organization hasn’t committed any recent acts doesn’t mean they’re not terror organizations.
The FBI uses an expansive definition of "terrorism" for obvious self-serving reasons. In reality, violent criminal acts to further ideological goals aren't terrorism unless done to actually spread terror.
If the violence is directly in service of their goals without relying on the spread of terror, e.g. environmentalists blocking loggers, labor strikers shutting down a factory, or separatists setting up checkpoints and attacking government soldiers to create their own statelet.
And why would UK govt be the purported neutral source ? They have a political interest in India and consequently interest in not ruffling the political class in power in India.
This is even more ridiculous than calling Amritpal Singh a terrorist. The pogroms / religious riots in 2002 weren't genocide, and Modi did not perpetrate them, though he should bear responsibility for allowing them to happen on his watch either out of malice or incompetence. This has been well established by court inquiries.
Precisely. Out of no malice at all, the bodies ended up incinerated, the incriminating evidence, files, phone call records some how managed to get lost, police staff working on the case transferred, whistle blower minister pursuing the issue died out of not at all mysterious circumstances [0]. All in all it set a new standard on how pogroms are to be run.
But the bottom-line lies in the fact that it had implicit support of the majority, and the party had a keen ear for that.
No. All I am saying is that multiple strange coincidences happens all the time, just a collection of many many coincidences, and bodies missing or charred beyond recognition, whistle blower deaths [0]. Move along, nothing to see here.
Coincidences like speeches getting cut out at the parliament when a opposition party member was speaking, no malice at all, just a well timed 'technical error'[1]
It depends on the reader how far they wish to take this quote literally, but I'm pretty sure somebody who used rehabiliation centres to recruit suicide bombers [0, 1] would be termed a terrorist by most people today.
Yes, but if those viewpoints come from “reputed” media organizations, there’s a problem.
Like if bbc called bin Laden an “activist”, I’m sure we’d have a very different reaction. It’s just unfortunate, that western media organizations paint people as “activists” or “freedom fighters” if it affects countries they don’t like, but the same acts would receive very different labels if this individual was doing something that affects the Us or Europe.
The guy was trying to get people away from drugs and to help them find a spiritual path using the native religion of the land Sikhi.
He asked for debates on national media which irked many and this led to them deciding to vanish him by sending 80k troops.
For example imagine you are part of the USSR, but not Russia, instead you are in Latvia. Not wanting to be part of USSR, makes you are a separatist. Is there something bad in it?
Not necessarily, but can be. What if instead of USSR, you substitute US or Sweden? What if you some (not all) of the Muslims in Sweden want a separate Muslim country from Sweden? Or some (not all) of the Mormons one day decide they want a separate mormon country away from United States?
Fair. How do you propose a vote looks like? Who gets to vote and who doesn’t?
Say a specific ethnicity is 2% of the population in Sweden and they want a separate country. How do you propose the vote goes through? Who gets a say in this?
That’s not a made up scenario. Sikhs are less than 2% of the population of India. And the Khalistani movement does not even represent majority of the Sikhs in India. And the movement has a notorious past of conducting violent activities that can be described with the T word.
So it’s not at most stupidity. The stakes are higher. And you can be jailed for being associated with that.
I’d welcome any debate and am open to changing my mind, but you’ll have to answer questions that do matter before you dismiss them.
There's nothing to argue about. The fact that "being associated with a movement" is a crime you can be jailed for just shows you live in a totalitarian country.
Every single movement has violent elements, that's not a sufficient ground to jail for participation.
The Wikipedia article is biased and naively relies on Indian state media. Singh is not a terrorist which is an easy call since he’s never committed any acts of terrorism. He’s a preacher and most of his sermons are the sort of benign stuff you’d expect (stop doing drugs, be a good member of the community, etc). Definitely a separatist but given the inhumane torture and imprisonment India has inflicted on everyday Sikh activists (see Jaggi Johal) not to mention the genocide in the 80s, separatism is probably the reasonable way out here
40 years is nothing. So if you father was assaulted, your mother was harassed, your son was killed, or your daughter was raped, you’d forgive and forget in your lifetime? Every Sikh knows someone that suffered unimaginably and the Indian state police was either the direct perpetrator or knowingly refused to stop it. Those kinds of scars won’t heal quick and anyone that expects them to is hopelessly naive
Separatist movements start when people are oppressed and their grievances aren't addressed. Everyone acts like lines drawn on maps 60+ years ago are some holy sacrament. Let the region hold self determination votes.
Separatists movements don’t always start with oppression and grievances, they also start as a way to gain power, wealth or other benefits, be it individuals, groups or political parties.
If Luxembourg can be it's own country, surely Punjab can be too. Why would you want to force people that have nothing in common with you to be in the same state? It defies all logic, unless the capital is exploiting those people in some way (likely).
Unfortunately India is no longer a democracy. The religious nuts took over and it already had a history of old British laws about "purity" and things not to say.
It is really sad to see the world's largest democracy fall.
Scams, poor work ethic in the populace, and a lack of a country wide shared belief structure caused all this.
> It is really sad to see the world's largest democracy fall.
The last time I voted it was still a democracy. Did someone come along and destroy the whole election process. If not stop being overdramatic you are just embarassing yourself.
Did you just compare Russia which is a dictatorship to India which still regularly holds election and has seen leaders from different political parties come and go in the last 20 years. Putin has been the president since 2000. You the type of person to regurgitate Twitter news.
Gell-Mann Amnesia again. You lot have complained bitterly about misrepresentation of facts by mainstream media. And take the commentary of the same media on other countries as gospel.
If there is anyone living in Punjab here you should probably add your opinion here to enlighten others (and possibly me).
From my perspective some Canadian Sikhs seem to have an axe to grind and seem to be completely out of touch with the sentiment of the Sikhs actually living in Punjab. A lot of Punjabi Sikhs seem to be unhappy with how some of n-th gen diaspora folks with no connection to the land (have never lived there) are claiming to speak for the whole of Punjab.
It is a shame, what is the harm in giving Khalistan maybe not a national sovereignty but at least a statehood. The same has been denied to several areas, bundelkhand, mithilanchal, are a few that come to mind. Why does jharkhand and telangana get to have a claim to statehood but these other regions do not. Let the people vote and ratify it or else let the fight continue.
Maybe you don't know that there's already a state named Punjab with Sikh majority population. Khalistanis wants to create a separate country with Sikh majority.
Well I think the trickier part in all honesty is that the proposed region includes part of Pakistan. Won’t hold my breath on that one, but best of luck.