Amid renewed Khalistani threat, it is imperative to gain clarity about who is on which side

It was a Thursday. The Punjab Police had picked up one Lovepreet “Toofan” said to be an aide of separatist leader Amritpal Singh. Outside, his supporters snapped their fingers and summoned a mob of thousands. They set a one-hour ultimatum for the police. In videos that have since gone viral, we then see the mob storm the police station and free their man. We know that this was a mob of Khalistani separatists. Because they said so openly. And they just concluded a successful daylight raid on a police station in Amritsar. Even the most renowned “fact-checkers” cannot spin their way out of this one. But then, they probably do not need to. Because we have reached that stage of guerilla war against the Indian State where the attackers feel bold enough to show their hand. Their overground supporters are no longer needed to make excuses for them. But it is not like they sneaked up on us. When they laid siege to the borders of Delhi, we could have seen it coming. When they stormed the Red Fort on Republic Day in 2021, they were obvious about what they wanted. These people were not there to protest some agricultural reform. They wanted to take down the Indian State. If we had a broad political consensus back then, we could have nipped this problem in the bud. Who are the people that prevented us from having this unity? At what point does dissent, even mindless rage against a democratically elected government means becoming a tool in the hands of anti-India forces? Who created puff pieces making the separatists into heroes on TV and the internet? Who gave them intellectual covering fire? Some of them might just have been “useful idiots”. But how many were actively collaborating? And how many of them just did not care as long as they could oppose a government they hate? To fight the new Khalistani threat, we need some clarity about who is on which side. A hybrid war against the Indian State Much like the “new” Taliban, the new Khalistanis understand the importance of a media strategy. They understand exactly how to carry out targeted violence and how to whitewash it using “woke” rhetoric. The attack on the Red Fort was a perfect example of this. They wrapped their agenda inside the covering foil of “dissent” against farm laws. They have learned to use terms like “self-determination” that are palatable to the academic and activist class everywhere. Just last month, Khalistanis in Melbourne announced a compact with indigenous peoples’ groups in Australia to support a referendum in Punjab! In this hybrid war against the Indian State, the Khalistanis have two important assets. First, they have unprecedented access to the Sikh diaspora in countries such as Canada, England and Australia. We saw this during the so-called farmer protests. People flew in and out from Canada to the protest sites. Rappers and musicians in England crafted songs to keep the protesters motivated. In the coming days, expect the Khalistan issue to be raised in parliaments from England to New Zealand. As well as some city councils in the United States. Why is this particularly dangerous? In the 1980s, Punjab used to be India’s richest state. Now it is barely in the top 15. The state has failed to industrialise. Nor has it adapted to the new knowledge economy. After four decades of economic underperformance, going abroad seems like the only promise of a better life. The diaspora maintain close ties with their communities back home, and they have enormous influence within these communities. Second, the Khalistanis will plug into the readymade anti-India (primarily anti-Hindu) hate network now established in media and activist circles everywhere. These days, public intellectuals worldwide are busy tossing out Nazi comparisons for anything that happens in India. Farm laws? Fascism! Giving citizenship to persecuted Hindus (and Sikhs too!) from Pakistan? Nazism! Since 2014, the government of India has celebrated Oct 31 as “Rashtriya Ekta Diwas” in honor of Sardar Patel’s birthday. Coincidentally, Oct 31 also happens to be the day that Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Last year, a prominent Indian liberal news portal picked up on this coincidence, and suggested that “Rashtriya Ekta Diwas” was actually a trick by the Hindu nationalist government to celebrate the anti-Sikh riots of 1984! The propaganda is wicked, and very clever. Classically, the blame for the shameful events of 1984 used to be on the Congress. This is now cleverly shifted to Hindus as a whole, and to the current BJP government as well. That way it can be used as fodder for Khalistani separatism today. The Khalistanis have also picked up on an obvious trick now perfected by Islamists everywhere from old Delhi to Leicester. It is okay to raise genocidal slogans against Hindus, attack their temples, or beat them up on the streets. Just say that you are fighting “Hindutva.” The Lashkar terrorist who carried out the Pulwama attack said he was taking revenge against the “cow urine drinkers.” The cow urine jibe has been picked up and normalized by everyone from trolls to opposition members of parliament. The “bhakts” had called it correctly from Day 1 It was the early days of the so-called farmers’ protest. A well-known journalist was livestreaming an interview with one of their leaders. Towards the end, she asked if he would like to clear the air about allegations on social media about him being a Khalistani sympathizer. To her surprise, as she later claimed, the man openly declared that he was a fan of Bhindranwale. She also admitted that many of her young associates were complaining about her for asking this question. By letting the world know, even if by mistake, that the man was a Khalistani, she had hurt the ‘cause.’ What ‘cause.?’ Apparently, anything that is against Modi is a good cause, by definition. What do we learn from this incident? And from everything that followed, from the attack on the Red Fort to the raid on the police station in Amritsar? That the much reviled common BJP supporter had identified the threat correctly from Day 1. It was obvious from the moment the cameras zoomed in on the guy who said they could do to Prime Minister Modi what they had done to Indira Gandhi. It was obvious that he was not alone. Else, he would not have dared to express such a sentiment openly. But ‘civil society’ refused to believe this. The usual insults were tossed out: “bhakt,” “IT cell” and “Whatsapp University.” Those who toss out these insults operate at an unbelievable level of arrogance. There were obvious questions. If the outrage against the farm laws was universal, why was the protest so regional? And why was it so focused around one religion? And why had farmer unions been advocating almost these exact reforms for decades, even the latest Congress party manifesto? But for the unbelievably arrogant, facts don’t matter. All that matters is opposing Prime Minister Modi. Everything else is “Whatsapp University”. No, every single protester at the site could not possibly have been a Khalistan supporter. But it was also clear that Khalistani elements were using the protests to gather support. The arrogant thought leaders of the liberal establishment will never accept it, not even now. And they will never apologise. Liberal rage is getting unhinged, and it is hurting India For a number of people, the current episode can be a useful awakening, even if a rude one. Since 2014, a class of academics, intellectuals and activists has locked large numbers of people into an echo chamber. Inside this echo chamber, all sorts of lunatic theories dominate. India is no longer a democracy. Everything that the Modi government does is Nazi and/or Fascist. Anyone who disagrees with you must be from  “Whatsapp University.” This mindless rage creates a chorus, one which India’s enemies can easily exploit. There is the conflict in Ukraine, for instance. India’s foreign policy here is about a delicate balance between Russia and the West, putting our interests first. If you are in a highly charged emotional state and you believe that everything that the Indian government does is ‘fascist,’ you play into the hands of those who want to drag us into their war. Right now, they are attacking India for abstaining from a UN resolution that calls for “a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine. Sounds bad, for sure. But did you know that every year Russia proposes a UN resolution against glorification of Nazism, and every year the Western countries abstain from that one? Last year, they all voted against it, even Germany. Yes, Germany voted against a UN resolution to stop the glorification of Nazism. The reasons are complicated, and every country is putting their own geopolitical interests first. Or take the matter of Article 370. There are three players in that region: India, China and Pakistan. China is never going to be democratic, and Pakistan will always be run by its military. If India is constantly defamed as a fascist state, who does that help? This liberal rage is now so out of control that a few days ago, when billionaire George Soros all but declared war on India, several people actually played down the threat. Soros is a shady hedge fund manager, a criminal convicted of insider trading in France, and known for ‘breaking’ the Bank of England. Now he runs a vast international influence network, in which he has invested $32 billion with the aim of controlling people everywhere. It is estimated that he invested as much as $128 million into the most recent election cycle in the US. He does much of this through dark money outlets known as “Super-PACs” used to get around limits on campaign finance. It is illegal of course for these to coordinate with candidates, but you could never prove anything in court. And now we know Soros has declared his intention to spend up to 1 billion dollars: almost 8 times as much, in order to stop Prime Minister Modi. This is not dissent. This is dangerous foreign intervention. And supporting this is neither edgy nor cool. The US is freaked out about “Russian disinformation” right now. It is not paranoid to be aware of the fact that we have enemies. In hindsight, withdrawing farm laws was a mistake In November 2021, when the prime minister announced the decision to take back the farm laws, he said it had been done in “national interest.” It is almost certain that this was a reference to the spread of Khalistan sentiment from the protest sites, deep into the interior of Punjab. When the protests began in late 2020, the separatists had sometimes tried to stay in the background. By 2021, the movement had become much more hardline, and its tone explicitly religious. But the concession has only made them bolder. They had tested their system of creating a media spectacle, and putting pressure on the Indian government through foreign capitals and foreign newspapers. And it worked. They had found too many ready allies within civil society in India. People who were ready to forget about everything else as long as they could strike a blow against the Modi government. They were not going to stop now. Since that day, Punjab has been taken over by a culture of protest. Industry has fled. Drugs are everywhere. Rappers know how to reach out to unemployed youth through flashy displays of wealth, and glorifying gang culture. It is a fake reality in which the Indian state is blamed for all the problems in Punjab. Last year, we learned that there is a disturbing subculture of video game fantasies about the assassination of the prime minister. The fact that such videos were being made and posted online, and watched by lakhs of people, shows that something has gone badly wrong. You cannot expect the AAP government in Punjab to do much about anything. They are inexperienced. And we cannot be sure if they even care. The AAP has a history of gaining from chaos and anarchy. Therefore, the onus is fully on the central government to sort out this mess. Two things are clear. First, in the desperation to oppose Prime Minister Modi, much of Indian civil society has helped push a sensitive border state into real danger. In this, they have collaborated with anti-national elements. Whether this was deliberate or not is up to their conscience, if they have one. The second thing is that the Khalistanis won’t win. They could not beat us in the 1980s and the 1990s, when the Indian state was at its weakest. They have no chance now. The problem though is the cost. This will take resources away from India’s rise. And it will ruin a lot of innocent lives. The writer is an author and columnist. He tweets @AbhishBanerj. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .