BHARSINGHPURA, India – A bitter row between India and Canada over the murder of a Sikh separatist is being felt in Punjab.

Sikhs in the north-western Indian state fear both a backlash from the country’s Hindu-nationalist government and a threat to their prospects for a better life in North America.

The slain Sikh separatist was Mr Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who left Punjab a quarter century ago and became a Canadian citizen.

Mr Nijjar advocated the creation of an independent Sikh state out of Indian Punjab. India labelled him a terrorist in 2020.

He was shot dead in June outside a temple in a Vancouver suburb.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week Ottawa had “credible allegations” that Indian government agents may be linked to the killing.

India angrily rejected the allegation as “absurd”, expelled the chief of Canadian intelligence in India, issued travel warnings, stopped visa issuance to Canadians and downsized Canada’s diplomatic presence in India.

Sikhs make up just 2 per cent of India’s 1.4 billion people, but they are a majority in Punjab, a state of 30 million.

Outside of Punjab, the greatest number of Sikhs live in Canada, which has been the site of many protests that have irked India.

Dream of Canada

An insurgency seeking a Sikh homeland of Khalistan, which killed tens of thousands in the 1980s and 1990s, was crushed by India.

But embers from the flame of the drive for independence still glow.

In the village of Bharsinghpura, few people remember Mr Nijjar.

But his uncle, Mr Himmat Singh Nijjar, 79, said locals “think it was very brave of Trudeau” to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of potential involvement in the killing.

“For the sake of one ordinary person, (Mr Trudeau) did not need to take such a huge risk on his government,” the uncle told Reuters, sitting on a wooden bench by a tractor in his farmhouse, surrounded by lush padi fields and banana trees.

Still, though, the elder Mr Nijjar said he is worried about deteriorating diplomatic relations with Canada and declining economic prospects in Punjab.

Once a prosperous bread-basket of India, Punjab has since been overtaken by states that focused on manufacturing, services and technology in the last two decades.

“Now every family wants to send its sons and daughters to Canada, as farming here is not lucrative,” said the elder Mr Nijjar.

India is the largest source of international students in Canada, with their numbers jumping by 47 per cent in 2022 to 320,000.

‘Atmosphere of fear’

“We now fear whether Canada will (withhold) student visas or if the Indian government will create hurdles,” said undergraduate Mr Gursimran Singh, 19, who wants to go to Canada.

He was speaking at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, where many students go to pray or give thanks for student visas.

The temple became a flashpoint for Hindu-Sikh tensions when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allowed it to be stormed in June 1984 to flush out Sikh separatists.

That move angered Sikhs around the world. Her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her later that year, in October 1984.

Ties between Sikh groups in Punjab and Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government have been strained in recent years.

Sikh farmers led a year-long protest against farm deregulation in 2020 and blocked the capital.

The protest eventually forced Mr Modi to withdraw the measure, in a rare political defeat for the strongman.

Mr Modi’s government has created “an atmosphere of fear”, especially for young people, said Mr Sandeep Singh, 31, from Mr Nijjar’s village.

Parents “wouldn’t like their children to participate (in protests) because they are afraid their children could meet the same fate”, he said, referring to Mr Nijjar’s death in Canada.

Mr Kanwar Pal, political affairs secretary for the radical separatist Dal Khalsa group, said: “Whosoever fights for Khalistan fights for rights to self-determination (and) rights for plebiscite in Punjab. India perceives those Sikhs as their enemies and targets them.”

A BJP spokesperson declined to comment on the accusations.

Senior BJP leaders have said there is no wave of support in Punjab for independence, and that any such demands are a threat to India.

At the same time, the party says no one has done as much for the Sikhs as Mr Modi. REUTERS