ABSTRACT
India is the largest federal state in the world. This chapter examines three cases within the Indian federal system where demands for independence have been made and find that in two of them, those of the Muslim inhabitants of the Vale of Kashmir and the Christian inhabitants of Nagaland. The third instance is that of the Sikh demand for Khalistan and for an independent Sikh state to be carved out of the existing state of Punjab. The problem of the Sikh minority in India is a very different one from that of either the Vale of Kashmir or Nagaland, and cannot be dealt with through a system of a sovereign land in the single larger state of India. The Sikhs constitute 2% of the total population of India, and are far from being a disadvantaged community. The Sikh minority in India has presented grave political problems, even after the creation of the Punjab state in 1966.
