Californians of Sikh descent march Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, on Bradshaw Road toward the Gurdwara Sacramento Sikh Society in Vineyard to conclude a 16-mile trek from Lodi. The group started in Bakersfield on Oct. 9, marching up the Central Valley to mark the 40th anniversary of deadly anti-Sikh riots in India. (José Luis Villegas/The Sacramento Bee)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Tribune News Service) — For the last three weeks, Californians of Sikh descent have been making their way from Bakersfield to Sacramento in a 350-mile march through the Central Valley. Organizers say they expect around 500 Sikhs to walk the final stretch from West Sacramento over the Tower Bridge to the state Capitol Friday.
The Fearless for Justice march was initially focused on commemorating the 40th anniversary of a genocide in India that killed thousands of Sikhs, causing tens of thousands to seek refuge in California.
But current events have altered the focus.
Driven by reports from U.S. and Canadian intelligence agencies revealing assassination plots by the government of India targeting Sikh leaders in California, New York, and Canada, the march has turned into a civil rights demonstration against transnational repression or TNR.
As the march entered Elk Grove Wednesday an emotional Bobbie Singh-Allen, who in 2020 became the nation’s first elected Sikh woman mayor, walked with marchers as traffic whizzed by. “I will always stand with my people,”Singh-Allen said. “We’re commemorating history, but what is happening today is terrifying. People are dying and being threatened.”
U.S. adversaries like Iran and Russia are well known for practicing TNR, which the FBI defines as when a foreign government reaches beyond its border to intimidate, silence, coerce, harass or harm members of their diaspora.
There is a growing body of evidence that Sikhs in California, especially those advocating for an independent nation of Khalistan in what is today Indian Punjab, have been surveilled, threatened, and even shot at in California.
March leaders say California’s response to threats against Sikhs has been muddled, partly because of lobbying from groups with close links to the Indian government. Police chiefs, elected district attorneys and federal officials were told in training sessions run by groups aligned with India, that Sikh activists, the vast majority of whom are law abiding U.S citizens, are linked to terrorism and organized crime.
Although roughly 40% of people of Indian descent in California are Sikhs, with most having settled in the Central Valley, in India they are a minority, comprising 2% of the population. According to Human Rights Watch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP party’s ultranationalist Hindu ideology of Hindu supremacy known as Hindutva, has fueled and encouraged violence against religious minorities including Sikhs.
California’s estimated 250,000 Sikhs have plenty of reasons to be nervous.
Last month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expelled India’s top diplomat along with six other consular and embassy officials for their alleged role in the assassination of a Sikh leader, along with other murders and acts of intimidation.
In June 2023, the Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar a devout Sikh who founded the organization Sikhs for Justice, which advocates for Khalistan, was assassinated in the parking lot of a Sikh gurdwara temple in Surrey, British Columbia.
In announcing the expulsion of diplomats, a visibly shaken Trudeau described criminal syndicates teaming up with diplomats to commit violent crimes.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” said former Canadian intelligence official Dan Stanton, who has helped lead an inquiry into foreign interference in the Canadian Parliament.
“The Indian government was using their embassy and consulates as command and control centers to manage and plan serious crimes, homicides, violence, arson, and extortion, all to create the illusion that Canada is being overrun by criminal gangs and terrorists dedicated to the cause of a free Khalistan,” Stanton said.
Sikh leaders want Governor Gavin Newsom to take a stand.
Leaders at 26 Sikh gurdwara temples in California told Newsom in a letter Tuesday that they are troubled by attempts to spread disinformation to local law enforcement agencies in California.
Referencing a Sacramento Bee investigation last month, the Sikh leaders said they were troubled by law enforcement training by the Hindu American Foundation, which they said was rife with “disinformation being spread about the Sikh American community in California.”
In a statement on its website, HAF defended its outreach to California law enforcement. “HAF does not call for widespread surveillance of the Sikh community. Alleging that HAF supports a warrantless surveillance program of any community is a lie.”
The gurdwara leaders told Newsom that after a TNR bill supported by the state assembly was killed in an appropriations committee after lobbying by Hindu nationalist organizations, they want Newsom to use his influence to fast-track a new bill.
“When we came to the United States, we believed that we were safe from the government-sponsored terrorism of our homeland. However, in recent years, the long arm of the Indian Government has begun reaching into our communities in America and threatening our leaders and advocates, especially in California.”
While the clearest evidence of violence sponsored by India has occurred in Canada, home to the largest population of Sikhs outside of India, evidence of India-sponsored TNR in California is abundant.
Sikh activists have been shot at on freeways, surveilled at their homes, and threatened with immigration consequences by a man claiming to represent the Indian consulate of San Francisco.
That incident, which happened at a Stockton gurdwara, was more than a year ago. Despite video evidence, which showed the man and the license plate of the SUV he was driving, no evidence of a federal or state investigation has publicly emerged.
“On the one hand, we’re grateful. I mean the FBI thwarted assassination attempts. But there’s anxiety out there. We want to see results,” said Naindeep Singh, a march leader and the executive director of the Jakara Movement, a civil rights and youth empowerment non-profit with programs in 90 high schools across California.
Singh, also an elected school board official in Fresno, appears to have become a target of TNR.
Calls for surveillance of local Sikh activists
The Bee previously reported that Singh was labeled a terrorist with links to organized crime by a group of Hindus last October who met with the mayor and police chief of Fresno. The visitors insisted that Singh and another respected local Sikh leader, Gurdeep Shergill, a third-grade teacher and radio host, should be followed by law enforcement, former police chief Paco Balderrama said.
Singh said he is not active in the Khalistan cause, but believes he attracted the attention of Hindutva organizations, and the Indian government, because he is a key leader in the push for recognition of a Sikh genocide.
Balderrama said the meeting atendees were alarmed that both men attended a demonstration in Fresno last year protesting the involvement of India in the assassination of Nijjar. They provided photographs of Shergill interviewing Singh at the Nijjar protest, along with internet clippings suggesting that Nijjar and others in the Khalistan movement were terrorists.
“The sense I got was that they wanted us to somehow stop these kinds of demonstrations from happening in the future,” Balderrama said.
After The Bee revealed the undisclosed meeting, Fresno’s mayor Dyer met with Sikh leaders and said he opposes transnational repression and stands with local Sikhs.
Fresno, with a population of around 50,000 Sikhs, has the largest population of Sikhs of any major city in the United States.
Indian officials have long taken an interest in Sikh activism in Fresno. In 2016, the Fresno Bee reported that the top official from the Indian Consulate of San Francisco met with every member of the city council to convince city leaders not to approve a resolution recognizing the deaths of thousands of Sikhs in India in 1984 as a genocide. The lobbying effort delayed the vote, but the resolution eventually passed.
In April, India’s Consul General, Srikar Reddy traveled to Fresno to meet with Mayor Dyer. It’s unclear if concerns about Sikh activism in the city came up.
Dyer’s meeting with the Indian diplomat came six months after the October 2023 meeting when the two local Sikh leaders, Singh and Shergil, were described as nefarious actors.
A photograph taken that day at city hall, and sources familiar with the meeting revealed who some of the participants were. They included a prominent doctor, Harsh Saigal, his wife Sue Saigal (a former city council candidate), Anand Kapoor, a senior manager for CalTrans.
Kapoor did not return messages from The Bee. Anthony Presto, a spokesperson for CalTrans said the meeting was not connected to their agency.
Sue Saigal said in a brief phone interview, that there was no mention of Sikh activism at the meeting and called it a “meet and greet” focused on cleaning up Fresno.
Balderama stands by his account. He said Saigal and others described Shergill and Singh as extremists who should be surveilled.
Arjun Sethi, a Georgetown Law Professor and expert in TNR who advises Congress on the issue, said the Fresno meeting with police and other lobbying in California raises the possibility of violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. U.S Justice Dept. officials use FARA to prosecute espionage and secret lobbying by foreign governments.
“Certain individuals and organizations met with law enforcement, prosecutors, and lawmakers, and peddled the very same disinformation as the Modi regime, namely that Sikhs who engage in peaceful activism, are criminals and terrorists.” Sethi said the question is whether “there is coordination between these individuals, organizations and the Indian government, and why the misinformation and demands are exactly the same.”
Being described as a terrorist wasn’t the only disturbing thing that happened to Singh in Fresno over the last year.
Singh said after the meeting between the Hindu representatives and the mayor and police chief, he was followed for about a month. He kept notes of the encounters, noting a partial license plate of a car that repeatedly followed him.
The alleged surveillance stopped in November 2023, after U.S. justice officials thwarted an assassination attempt against the U.S. leader of Sikhs for Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. That plot was linked to the Indian government and a top intelligence official who was indicted for being part of the conspiracy.
FBI warned California Sikhs about threats
Other prominent Sikhs said they have been surveilled.
The Bee reviewed security videos that show chilling footage at the home of Dr. Pritpal Singh, an influential Sikh who met White House officials to discuss the TNR threat to Sikhs in October, according to reports from Reuters.
Pritpal Singh, director of the American Sikh Caucus Committee, attends the Yuba City Nagar Kirtan Sikh parade on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (Sara Nevis/The Sacramento Bee)
Days after the Nijjar killing, Singh, who lives in the Bay Area, received a call from an FBI office in Dallas. He says an agent identifying himself only as Jason told Singh that his life was in danger. After the call, Singh reviewed security footage and discovered chilling surveillance of his home.
The June 2023 video was not the only surveillance of Singh. Security cameras captured another incident involving two men in a Tesla in November 2023 hurriedly taking cell phone photos.
Singh provided a license plate number to the FBI that The Bee traced to a Bay Area man.
Singh said since then he has not heard from the FBI or California law enforcement about the incident. “I’m grateful to the FBI for saving so many Sikh lives. At the same time, it’s disconcerting. We want to know what’s going on.”
Weeks after the second surveillance of Singh’s home, federal law enforcement officials announced they had thwarted the assassination plot against Pannun. According to that same indictment, there were additional targets in California. One of those targets may have been Singh.
‘Khalistanis are terrorists’
Legislation aimed at training law enforcement to recognize transnational repression died in the Senate Appropriations Committee. It’s unclear why. The legislation had passed the California Assembly 72-0 and had the support of the California Sheriff’s Association.
One thing that is clear is that non-profit organizations linked to the Indian government worked hard to oppose it by claiming it was Hinduphobic and in the interest of Khalistani terrorists.
“Legislation is being proposed by terrorist and separatist supporters under the guise of stopping transnational repression,” read one communication, which said Assemblywoman Dr. Jasmeet Bains, D-Delano, who authored the legislation, was giving cover to terrorists.
The document came from the Hindu American Political Action Committee, which is closely tied to the Hindu American Foundation.
Federal Election Commission documents show the Hindu American PAC was initiated by several board members of HAF. Texas businessman Rishi Bhutada who also provided over a million dollars to HAF, regularly infuses the PAC with funds, hosts the email server and pays for the PAC’s PO box.
Momentum builds builds in California for a renewed TNR bill
Although it received scant attention at the time, accusations made in August that California’s failed TNR bill, AB 3027 was giving cover to Sikh extremists, has recently created a stir in the state legislature.
The California Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus (AAPILC) released a letter last month denouncing any organization that says a California legislator is associated with terrorism. “The Hindu American PAC has used dangerous rhetoric to mischaracterize Assembly Bill 3027, which received bipartisan support in the state legislature, regarding transnational repression that was introduced by Assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains,” the letter said.
There are other signs that the pushback against TNR is having an impact. State Senator Anna Caballero, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee has not explained what happened with the previous bill. As appropriations chair, she would have almost certainly signed off on any decision not to advance the legislation.
But march organizers Caballero plans to march with the Sikh activists on Friday. In a letter she sent to Sikh leader Dr. Pritpal Singh, stated she would like to see new legislation soon.
“The rise of transnational repression,” she said, “is unacceptable in any society and highlights a larger pattern of harassment and threats directed at individuals based on their political and religious views.
“I support the overall goal and intention of Assembly Bill 3027 and have committed to work with Assemblywoman Bains and my colleagues in the legislature to take swift and immediate action to ensure the health and safety of members of the Sikh American community.
When asked in an interview if he was weary from the nearly 350 miles of walking alongside freeways and farmland in the Central Valley, Naindeep Singh,said he was more energized than exhausted.
The march leader, whose Sikh identity and pride in his heritage led to unfounded allegations that he is a terrorist, and alleged encounters with cars following him on California highways, says the fight against repression will lead to a safer environment in California. “Because of the way we have pushed back, in a peaceful but forceful way, there is a growing awareness about this issue.
“Maybe the governor will even meet with us.”
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