Commentary
The Sikh religion was founded in Punjab in the 15th Century by Guru Nanak and has about 25 million followers worldwide. Sikhs are a minority group in India, comprising less than two percent of the country’s 1.3 billion population, but they form a majority in Punjab.
The origins of the modern-day ‘Khalistan’ movement trace back to around the time of India’s independence from Britain in 1947 when a handful of Sikhs demanded that a nation be carved in the state of Punjab for followers of the faith.
When the Indian subcontinent won its independence, the bloody Partition hastily divided the former colony along religious lines—sending Muslims to the newly formed nation of Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to the newly independent India….