ABSTRACT
Punjab through social, cultural and religious ties. Chapter 4 chronicles the evolution of diaspora political associations and their impact on Punjab up to the 1980s, including an assessment of the origin and support for the idea of a Sikh homeland before 1984 and the campaign for Punjab's autonomy during 1981-4. The following two chapters describe Sikhs' mobilization as a response to Indian army action on the Golden Temple, Amritsar, and subsequent events in the Punjab. This is followed by a chapter devoted to implications of diaspora Sikh mobilization in terms of intergovernmental relations. The final chapter advances some hypotheses for understanding the nature of mobilization, in terms of the leadership's perception, their understanding of the "critical event", discourse on "Sikh homeland" and utilization of international institutions by the diaspora community leaders. The study advances the understanding of the Sikh diaspora through a synthesis and new data, generating propositions which require further elaboration and validation. Hence any results or assertions are quite tentative and rather modest.
