After a month-long chase and a nationalist media frenzy, Amritpal Singh, a 29-year-old pro-Khalistan preacher and leader of Waris Punjab De, surrendered to police forces on April 23 in the northwestern Indian border state of Punjab. During the search for Singh, 353 Sikh youth were arrested, out of which only 10 had cases filed against them. The internet was blocked across Punjab while a state-wide cordon and search exercise was conducted – 1,900 Central Reserve Police Force security personnel and an anti-riot Rapid Action Force were dispatched. This was in addition to the fact that Border Security Forces are deployed within 50 kilometers of the international border, resulting in almost half of Punjab being under heightened state surveillance. Even Nepal was asked to put Singh on its surveillance list.
Meanwhile, commercial media outlets were flooded with allegations of Singh’s links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling party, was lauded for his ultimate arrest.
Singh revived calls from the 1980s for Khalistan, a sovereign Sikh state in the northwestern regions of India. From the Indian state’s perspective, that made him a dire national security threat. While the Khalistan movement does not have mainstream support in Punjab, a sect of Punjabi youth looked to Singh as a source of hope and leadership amidst decades of discontent in the state surrounding unemployment, environmental degradation, corporate farm laws, drug use, and a lack of basic welfare delivery. Both in the 1980s and today, New Delhi has taken a security-first approach in Punjab, often using force to address the state’s long-standing economic and environmental issues.
Over a month after Singh’s arrest, the news cycle has swiftly moved on, but the root causes of tensions in Punjab remain largely ignored by New Delhi. Instead of securitizing the Punjab issue and creating national alarm, New Delhi should view the Amritpal Singh episode as a wake-up call to address the long-standing economic and environmental issues in the state.
Read the full article on The Diplomat.
