Sikhs: Khalistan vote push is ‘the last battle’

Tensions hit Melbourne’s Indian population as Sikh campaign for separatist state in India intensifies on local shores.

A poster promoting the pro-Khalistan campaign by Australia's Sikh community. Picture: Supplied

A Melbourne-based Sikh organisation pushing for the creation of a separate state in India has branded its campaign “the last battle” as tensions within the Indian Australian community intensify.

A poster promoting a Sikh community vote next month over the proposal to establish a Khalistan state in the Punjab region of India has also glorified the killers of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.

The poster, which is being shared on social media, uses images of two assassins, Shaheed Satwant Singh and Shaheed Kehar Singh, and describes the vote as “the last battle to kill Indian-Hindutva system responsible for Sikh genocide”.

The campaign in support of Khalistan is escalating with a car rally planned for Saturday between Sikh temples in Craigieburn and Tarneit.

Posters promoting that event are whipping up support by using the slogan “13 days old baby of a Sikh army officer was burnt alive by Hindu mobs in Kanpour” and “1984 yes it’s genocide”.

Melbourne Sikhs will have the chance to vote on Khalistan on January 29 and there was a strong display of Khalistan flags at last month’s Indian Humanity Walk, which was funded with a $25,000 Andrews government grant.

The Indian figure whose mobile phone number was published on the pro-Khalistan posters defended the use of the killers’ images in the material.

“These are our martyrs,” the activist said. “Somebody from the community had to stand up and you must admit the fact that when such an atrocity on a genocidal scale has taken place, someone has to stand up.”

The activist described the shooting of Gandhi as a “political assassination” that was in retaliation for the Indian government’s repression of Sikhs.

Despite drawing on inflammatory language in its posters promoting the car rally and January 29 vote, the activist said that the Australian pro-Khalistan campaign would be “democratic and peaceful”.