The Sikh separatist movement — Khalistan — peaked in the 1980s and early 1990s in Punjab, India. The idea of Khalistan is complex and multi-layered and rooted in India’s colonial past, specifically in the 1947 partition of India, the political and religious conflicts post-partition, and a variety of incidents in the 1980s, in particular Operation Blue Star1 and the 1984 Sikh Massacre. Khalistan activism, which tapered off in India by the mid-1990s, has resurfaced several times since then, particularly in Canada.
