The earlier Khalistan movement viewed the smuggling and sale of drugs as a lucrative money-making endeavour, something the Khalistani movement today has taken up.
Over the past few years, the Khalistan movement has found support in the most unlikely groups—the ultra-liberal elements in the Western countries, especially Canada, the United States, and the UK. Time after time, one sees the brewing of insurgencies that are being beaten. However, in the case of the Khalistan movement, the external support and, even worse, the legitimacy from outside players is contributing to severe national security issues involving the smuggling and sales of drugs and psychotropic substances in India. The term narco-terrorism entered common use in the 1980s when Latin America-based cartels and drug syndicates started using terror acts to expand their vile business. The US’ support to the Taliban in fighting the Soviet Union in the 1980s further enabled the drug syndicates to develop and flourish. The earlier Khalistan movement, like many other separatist and terrorist groups, viewed the smuggling and sale of drugs as a lucrative money-making endeavour, something the Khalistani movement today has taken up.
DELIBERATE SUPPORT
Support for the Khalistan movement may not be the official policy of the concerned states. Yet, their support is apparent, albeit its nature remains implicit. On the one hand, one sees growing and expanding diplomatic relations between India and the US (and others) regarding defence, trade, technology, and services. However, on the other hand, one sees the fateful support of these terror elements in these countries under the garb of supporting a self-liberation movement. Such support is not full-fledged, but as it turns out, is sufficient for these groups to escape justice and continue their radical agenda.
Be it the case of Pannun in the US or Nijjar in Canada, the nitpicking by the authorities is shameful and, in the long term, detrimental to their relations with India and their own efforts to counter terrorism. These countries may not feel the obvious effect of the support to the Khalistan movement today. Nonetheless, the inevitable consequence of supporting terrorism outside is facing terrorism inside. The regular events of these groups desecrating the Indian flag on India’s national days (Independence Day and Republic Day), especially in the UK, is also a case in point.
LESS TALKED ASPECT
There is a public understanding that the Khalistan movement today is merely political, something many Wokes in Western countries like to believe. Yet, the evidence coming out paints a whole different picture. The narco-terrorism element of the Khalistan movement makes an imperative threat for the governments and its agencies to address timely. An astounding factor one sees emerging is the movement becoming an organized crime-styled cartel with activities spanning voluminously in the sale of drugs, psychotropic substances, kidnapping, money laundering, and human trafficking, among others.
In August, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seized several “secret bank lockers” belonging to Jasmeet Hakimzada in New Delhi and several other cities and discovered smuggled gold and diamonds. Hakimzada is an international drug smuggler and an operative of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), which India labelled as a terrorist organization in 2023. In the last few years, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a charge-sheet against several other individuals of KTF and other Khalistan-linked individuals under narco-terror cases. As per the publicly available information, the modus operandi of these terrorists involves selling drugs and narcotic items in India and laundering the money through hawala using different channels. This laundered money is then used for perpetuating smuggling and narcotics operations, while also funding the Khalistan movement.
The money has been used by the Khalistan movement to influence the vast Sikh diaspora all around the world through coaxing and coercion. The hundreds of individuals that were charged with criminal acts in the 1990s and 2000s were able to find their way to Canada, just like Nijjar, where they interpreted their escape from India as political asylum, not the absconding of justice for criminal acts like theft, murder, possession of undeclared weapons, among others.
The smuggling of drugs as a way to generate money was used by the Khalistan movement in the 1990s. But after the movement was dismantled and delegitimized, such cases were also reduced. The recent invigoration of such measures is rooted in and supported by one crude reality—the demographic strength of Khalistani supporters in several countries where electoral politics has allowed them space to exert influence. For instance, in Canada, no matter the political orientation of the ruling government, one knows that without catering to the Sikh community, they will have a hard time securing a win in the election. Thus, as swing votes, Khalistani supporters use the laundered money to lobby and exert pressure to suit their interests.
SUPPORTING TERRORISM BEGETS TERRORISM
The support for terrorism, explicit or implicit, is terrorism. Be it conflicts in the Middle East, South Asia, South East Asia, or Europe, terrorism is a menace. The supporter of terrorism lives in a fantasy land where they reckon that supporting terrorism elsewhere today will come back to haunt them. How mistaken the policy of supporting terrorism can be understood by the experiences of Pakistan and the US. Their support to the Taliban that the US gave in the 1980s came back to haunt them not long after when the US soldiers were killed by the Taliban. In the same way, Pakistan, which was so comfortable in espousing and supporting terrorism, learned the hard way how dangerous such acts were.
The US claims to be fighting terrorism, but failure to curb the Khalistan movement is the abject failure of its principled stand against terrorism. What’s more hurtful is the implicit support and legitimacy it gave to the Khalistan movement with the Pannun case, where Khalistan terrorists found themselves empowered by such an act. Lest one forget that Pakistan is still a dominant player in espousing terrorism. It refuses to learn from its Taliban adventures and is now instrumental in enabling drug trafficking in India, working with the Khalistan movement. The despicable economic situation did not prevent its support of terror activities. In 2020, the Indian authorities reported the efforts of Pakistan’s ISI to “link” the Khalistan movement with Kashmiri terror groups like Hizbul Mujahideen through narco-terrorism.
To conclude, there is an urgent need to recognize the narco-terrorism dimension of the Khalistan movement to defeat them and their radical agenda. The nonchalance of the US, UK, and Canada is a critical impediment to achieving such a goal. There is no easy way to battle terrorism, and hard decisions have to be undertaken. Working solely for petty electoral politics would bring disastrous dividends to these countries that today so shamefully stand with Khalistani terrorists. The leadership and intelligentsia in these countries should recognise that now is the time to battle these radical ideologies. India’s zero tolerance policy vis-à-vis terrorism is the need of the hour if terrorism is to be subdued and eliminated. The governments in the US, UK, and Canada have to stand firm and not be kowtowing to their pernicious radical agenda that is targeting kids and youth through drugs, which turns out to be more lethal than bullets because it attacks the soul of the nation. Rest assured, support for terrorism today would be a costly payback tomorrow for these countries by the same terror groups that they are so fondly supporting.
Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit is the Vice Chancellor of JNU.