Why was there a Sikh car rally in Indianapolis? The Khalistan referendum, explained

Why was there a Sikh car rally in Indianapolis? The Khalistan referendum, explained

Sikhs living in the Indianapolis area will vote on an unofficial referendum in August calling for a separate country within India where Sikhs can live without persecution.

Indianapolis residents may have seen advertisements for the event, from the convoy of cars waving yellow flags on the city's highways Aug. 1 to the billboards springing up across town.

Organized by the international group Sikhs for Justice, the event will make Indianapolis one of a growing number of U.S. cities to hold an unofficial referendum for the creation of Khalistan, a proposed independent Sikh country centered in India's Punjab region. Referendums have previously been held in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Seattle and Washington, D.C., as well as in cities in Canada, Australia and Europe.

Sikhs consider Punjab their homeland and they make up a majority of the state's population. Supporters of the Khalistan movement say Sikhs have faced discrimination and persecution by Indian authorities, a characterization rejected by the Indian government.

The vote will be held Aug. 16 at the Richard G. Lugar Plaza in downtown Indianapolis, said Jagdeep Singh, a Sikhs for Justice organizer.

Indianapolis was chosen for its prominent Sikh community, Singh said. There are more than 15,000 Sikh families in Central Indiana.

The referendums are nonbinding, he said, but the group hopes to use their results to convince President Donald Trump to help introduce a framework for a binding referendum.

Why do Sikhs want their own state?

The push for a Sikh state intensified in 1984 after a wave of targeted violence killed thousands of Sikhs in India. The killings followed the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards after she ordered a military operation to remove a militant Sikh leader and his followers from a Sikh holy site.

Though all major political parties in India oppose creating a separate state, the persecution of religious minorities in the nation persists, according to human rights groups.

"They took our waters, they took our resources, they took our land and they took our religious identity," Singh said.

The Indian government has banned Sikhs for Justice, the group advocating for secession, and recently escalated its war on what it calls "Sikh extremism." In February, an Indian man pleaded guilty to charges that he tried to assassinate a Sikh separatist in the U.S. with backing from the Indian government, which denied involvement.

Singh said that the vote in Indianapolis will be recorded and overseen by the Punjab Referendum Commission, which bills itself as an independent group of political and direct democracy experts and is headed up by a former political appointee in then-President George H.W. Bush's administration.

Singh said the vote, as well as the car rally, aligns with American values.

"That's the beauty of the United States, that gives you freedom of speech, gives you freedom of assembly," Singh said.

IndyStar reached out to the India's U.S. embassy for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.

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Contact breaking politics reporter Marissa Meador at mmeador@indystar.com or find her on X at @marissa_meador.