Sikh separatist contests India election from jail, a worry for government

KHADOOR SAHIB, India: A jailed Sikh separatist leader is contesting India’s general election from prison and drawing good support, his campaign managers said, in what could become a concern for New Delhi which has sought to stamp out any revival of Sikh militancy.

Amritpal Singh, 31, is detained in a high-security prison in Assam, nearly 3,000 km (1,865 miles) from his Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab state, where villages and towns are dotted with posters depicting him with swords and bullet-proof vests.

Singh was arrested last year and jailed under a tough security law after he and hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station with swords and firearms, demanding the release of one of his aides.

A win for him in an election to parliament could give Singh some legitimacy and spark concerns of a revival of a militancy that killed tens of thousands of people in the 1970s and 1980s.

“People will make their decision on June 1,” Singh’s father Tarsem, 61, said referring to the voting in the constituency on Saturday. “They will send an important message to those who have maligned his image, to those who are defaming our community and our Punjab.”

Tarsem Singh spoke inside a Sikh temple set beside wheat fields and a river canal. Portraits of Sikhs who were killed during the militancy in Punjab, called “martyrs” by Singh’s supporters, were pinned on the walls.

Sikhs are the majority community in Punjab but they constitute just 2% of India’s 1.4 billion people. Sikh militants began agitating for an independent homeland in the 1970s but the insurgency was largely suppressed by the early 1990s with harsh crackdowns. However, Sikh separatism has made global headlines in the last year as Canada and the United States have accused India of being involved in assassination plots against Sikhs in those countries, charges New Delhi has denied.

Singh said in a 2023 interview that he was seeking a separate homeland for Sikhs and the people of Punjab, where the religion was founded more than 500 years ago.

To be sure, Singh’s campaign is focused on fighting Punjab’s drug problem, freeing former Sikh militants from prison and protecting the Sikh identity in Hindu majority India. His father and aides are careful to avoid any mention of the idea of a Sikh homeland. “There is a tsunami in the name of Amritpal Singh, anyone who stands against him will be swept off,” said Imaan Singh Khara, 27, Singh’s lawyer.