ABSTRACT
Between 1978 and 1993, India’s northern state of Punjab was riled by violence perpetrated by groups seeking to create a Sikh state called Khalistan.1 The year 1978 is generally taken to be the insurgency’s starting point. In that year, Sikh extremists attacked an annual gathering of Nirankaris (a sect Sikhs believed to be heretical and even apostates) in Amritsar, the most important city for Sikhs.2 Many analysts put the insurgency’s end at 1993, following the restoration of normal electoral cycles, the near cessation of violence, and the absence of new militant recruitment (Gill and Sahni 2003). Few analysts outside India are aware of this insurgency, but it claimed many lives-far more than the fatalities in all Indo-Pakistan wars combined.3
