Never before had India experienced such a serious crisis of political legitimacy as it encountered while dealing with the Sikh militancy in the 1980s. Never before had a state in postcolonial South Asia so calculatingly exploited the service of smugglers to further its strategic ends. This period is important to explore, not only because of the latter point but because it also initiated the erection of border fencing that slashed contraband trade, ending the self-proclaimed ‘golden phase’ of 40 years history of smuggling between India and Pakistan along the Punjab border. Drawing upon the hitherto unexplored reports of the FIU at the 10-Wing Sutlej Rangers at the PR archive, this chapter reveals how the border institutions made use of the pre-existing blackia, or ‘smuggling communities’, who for decades had trafficked contraband along the Punjab border. They put their cross-border personalised trading relationships, shared networks, creative methods and knowledge of local geographies to profitable use for arms and narcotics smuggling to India, returning to Pakistan laden with escaped Sikh militants. Motivated by profit, protection and patronage, they served as privateers recruited by the Wagah authorities for their makeshift border force.

What relationships emerged from this? This final chapter reveals that this incredible collusion served the interests of all Pakistani stakeholders and opened fresh opportunities for criminal enrichment and new possibilities for reconciliation. The blackia managed to situate themselves as influential facilitators of cross-border exchanges between the government of Pakistan and the ‘Khalistan Movement’, thereby skilfully diversifying their contraband capital accumulation into new economic activities and reinforcing their political dominance. Ultimately, the Pakistan state, somehow, not only evaded the Indian government's outcry for transgression but its support for Sikh militancy also offered new possibilities for interactions and reconciliation with some sections of the Sikh community for the first time since Partition.

There are a variety of scholarly approaches to the ‘Sikh militancy’ or ‘Khalistan Movement’, emphasising the internal dynamics of the problem, the issue of Pakistani involvement and the Sikh diaspora factor. The new academic interest generated by the 1980s crisis became institutionalised in the global academy. The agenda of ‘Punjab studies’ has also seen a significant shift during this period.