Pro-Khalistan protests: UK not doing enough, say former diplomats

In 2019, then Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi visited Britain. He got only a few meetings with British ministers -- it was not an especially successful diplomatic engagement. But the highlight of his trip was an ‘International Conference’ on Kashmir held inside the British Parliament that was attended by MPs from the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal parties. He thanked the shadow foreign secretary of the Labour Party, Emily Thornberry, and MP Debbie Abrahams. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who served in former PM David Cameron's Cabinet and was also once minister of state for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was present. Britain's first turban-clad Sikh MP of Indian origin Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi was also in the room.

Outraged, Indian diplomats protested. But to little avail. “It is not that difficult to book a room for a meeting in Parliament House. But the Pakistanis feel that they can do these things and there isn’t a cost to them. This strengthens our belief that there is a section in the ‘deep state’ in Britain which is complicit, even content, to let Khalistanis and Pakistanis do whatever they want to do against India in Britain” said a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK.

Earlier this week, India went through the tedium of repeating its concerns about the activities of Khalistanis in the UK, especially on the misuse of the UK’s asylum status to carry out terrorist activities in India, and asked the British authorities to increase “monitoring” and take “appropriate proactive” action during the fifth India-UK Home Affairs Dialogue (HAD) held in Delhi. Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla led the talks on India’s behalf, while the UK delegation was led by Permanent Secretary (Home Office) Sir Matthew Rycroft. This was after protests by pro-Khalistan groups outside the Indian mission in London, which began soon after the Punjab police launched a statewide manhunt for radical preacher Amritpal Singh and his followers. The protesters shouted anti-India slogans and waved Khalistan flags.

Ruchi Ghanshyam, Indian high commissioner to the UK (2018-2020), says:  “I recall similar attacks that we had faced at India House in 2019. Our experience with London’s Met Police was that they would be present when informed, though on almost every occasion, their numbers would be grossly inadequate!”

Diplomats say the activities of Khalistani Sikhs -- not all Sikhs are Khalistanis, they emphasise, adding the ‘radicals’ are a very small proportion of the community – in Britain are tolerated, even encouraged, for a variety of reasons. “What we cannot understand is why they (Khalistani activists) get so much freedom to run around the UK. The tolerance of it by the British government goes up and down from time to time. But activists are well-connected. Their capacity to intimidate moderate Sikhs in gurdwaras should not be underestimated. And of course, these are the elements that get more prominence as speaking for the Sikh community during elections for local bodies. People are nervous about saying anything against Sikh extremists," said a former foreign secretary. “But I do know that their intelligence services have been involved in this: Why? I don’t know, because they have prioritised relations with India. But this is a card that their intelligence agencies are not completely willing to give up."

He adds that mainstream political opinion in Britain is a captive of political correctness. “They are reluctant to call out acts of violence by Islamic or Sikh fundamentalists even though these pose great danger to the stability of their society."

Sikh radicals in Britain are defiant. They say they will never give up their quest for a Sikh state. Incidents of 1984 are repeatedly recalled. Huge pictures of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale continue to be displayed in gurdwaras in Southall and Birmingham. Dhesi, a sitting Labour MP, raised the issue of the manhunt for Amritpal Singh, and his civil rights, in the British Parliament last month. But Indian officials say that as long as Britain’s ‘deep state’ tolerates this, the activity of a fringe group is going to continue.