In Sikh Nationalism, Gurharpal Singh and Giorgio Shani lament the inadequate scholarly literature explaining contemporary Sikh nationalism. This lacuna is puzzling despite the passage of nearly four decades since the tragic events of 1984 that began in June that year, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to attack the Golden Temple, to dislodge militants who made the Golden Temple complex their central command center. In October that year, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, after which Congress Party members organized anti-Sikh pogroms in Delhi, which killed some three thousand Sikhs. It remains debatable whether one could speak meaningfully of a Sikh insurgency prior to these events; however, between 1984 and 1992 the Sikh militancy claimed some thirty thousand lives. These events also galvanized the Sikh diaspora to mobilize for a separate Sikh state, Khalistan, to be carved from the Punjab.
The authors survey the proliferation...
