Estimated 40,000 Sikhs vote in Sac to support independence from India
SACRAMENTO — In a remarkable display of democratic aspirations, an estimated 40,000 Sikh Americans lined up around the state Capitol on Sunday to enter a tent and cast a vote for independence.
The voting is part of a non-binding election being held by Sikhs around the world who aspire to break away from India, and form in what is today the Indian state of Punjab an independent nation called Khalistan.
On Sunday, amid a sea of bright yellow Khalistan flags, volunteers kept spirits up among the electorate by passing out sweet and savory snacks and pouring pitchers of hot chai tea.
For Bhupinder Singh, Sunday marked a second attempt to cast his vote. His initial journey in January, traveling six hours from his home in Oregon to San Francisco for an earlier vote there, was thwarted by overwhelming turnout organizers say exceeded 100,000. Lines stretched to six hours, leaving thousands unable to vote.
In response, the organizers of the referendum, the Punjab Referendum Commission, a panel of direct democracy experts chaired by Dane Waters, a former official in President George H. W. Bush’s administration, added a second day of California voting in Sacramento.
An estimated 250,000 people of Sikh descent
live in California, with most in the Central Valley.
Looking on as Sikhs entered the voting area Sunday, Waters said that everything was “going smoothly” and he expected, unlike in San Francisco, everyone who wanted would be able to cast a ballot.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Western intelligence agencies alleged in September that evidence suggested India’s government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was behind the assassination of Nijjar.
In November, U.S. officials unsealed an indictment alleging that another Khalistan referendum backer, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a lawyer for an organization Sikhs for Justice, was also the target of an India-backed assassination plot. The alleged plan was exposed after the plotters offered $100,000 to an undercover American agent they thought was a hitman, to
kill Pannun.
The threat to Sikh activists has also been felt in Sacramento.
Bobby Singh, a local activist and Sacramento State student who was close to Nijjar, received a chilling death threat days after the Sikh leader was killed. Since then, the FBI has been in touch with Singh frequently. Recently, the FBI urged him to limit his movements in public, Singh said.
Heeding those warnings, Singh stayed away from the Capitol Sunday, observing from a few blocks away. He said he was proud as he watched streams of “my Sikh brothers and sisters,” heading to vote.
Last month, Indian officials, according to a report by Bloomberg, informed U.S. authorities that an internal investigation revealed that rogue elements of India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), were behind the plot to kill Pannun.