This provides the rationale for the book and outlines the main argument. It provides a synopsis of the eight chapters and the conclusion. The central argument of the book is made explicit: the need to move beyond existing tropes, especially religion, that have defined Sikh subjectivities. It outlines the integrated approach to Sikh nationalism, identity and diaspora which offers a more comprehensive understanding of Sikh aspirations for self-determination since the late nineteenth century. The Sikh case, it suggests, provides new insights into minority religious nationalism in the colonial and postcolonial contexts and questions the centrality of the homeland in the discourse of long-distance nationalism in a globalised world, thus making possible de-territorialised nationalism.

In this chapter, we examine Operation Blue Star, its aftermath, the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and the Indian state’s efforts to find a negotiated solution up to 1987 with the Rajiv-Longowal Accord. We then evaluate the shift in strategy to combat antiterrorism (mid-1987 to mid-1991). This is followed by a review of the counter-insurgency operation from the end of 1991 to early 1993 which defeated the Sikh militancy and led to the restoration of ‘normality’. After 1993, we outline how the moderate Sikh political leadership re-engaged with the political process in the state and won a landslide victory in the state elections in 1997. In conclusion, we reflect on the competing explanations offered in the literature on the defeat of the militancy associated with the movement for Khalistan.

In this chapter we provide a brief overview of the size and distribution of overseas Sikh communities. This is followed by a review of early forms of mobilisation by Sikh overseas communities before 1984. We then examine the main organisations that led the campaign for Khalistan during the turbulent decades of the 1980s and 1990s, focusing on their strategy and tactics and broader engagement with the community. With the decline of militancy in the Punjab in the 1990s and 9/11, new organisations emerged to actively engage with the ‘politics of recognition’ in the host states. We examine in detail the US-based Sikh Coalition and the UK-based Sikh Federation as organisations that are redefining the politics of the diaspora. The chapter concludes with reflections on the changing role of the diaspora in defining Sikh nationalism. As a small, self-conscious diaspora, the Sikhs are always prone to a critical event like 1984, a periodic tsunami that regularly restructures its politics and social life. The Sikh diaspora has the potential to lead the emergence of a global panth. It is also, however, a weather vane that continues to reflect the turbulent winds from South Asia.

Recent decades have seen the rise of violence related to Hindu nationalist movements in India, the Muslim Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the militant Khalistan movement of Sikhs in India’s Punjab, and Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka and elsewhere in the region. These movements have competed in the context of a secular political order that was the legacy of British colonial rule, once embraced by founding leaders such as Pakistan’s Muhammad Ali Jinnah and India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, who advocated the nationalism of ‘secularism and socialism’. Though each of these political ideologies has its own history and internal dynamics, each is also related to the others. They have arisen as mutual responses to one another and to the global influences of colonialism, transnational religion, and globalization that have buffeted South Asian politics in recent years.