Manish Kumar runs a car rental company in the city of Jalandhar in the northern state of Punjab in India. His company has struggled for the past two weeks, starting March 18, when mobile internet was shut down in large parts of the state for four days on government orders. Many of its customers use Google Pay to pay their bills. “Most people today prefer to pay via e-commerce,” he said. “The closure prevented them from doing that.”
From March 18 to 21, 27 million people in Punjab were without mobile internet, disrupting lives and businesses. In some districts, the blackout lasted more than a week. As the government tried to stop the spread of information – or “fake news” in its words – it demanded that Twitter block more than 120 accounts, from those of local journalists to those of Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh.
It was all to hunt down one man – a 30-year-old Sikh separatist, Amritpal Singh Sandhu.
Sandhu is a preacher and a prominent figure in a movement demanding the establishment of an independent state for the Sikh community known as Khalistan. The movement has sympathizers among the large Sikh diaspora, particularly in the UK and Canada, but Indian officials view it as a threat to national security.
Sandhu’s rise in Punjab politics has been rapid. Until last year he worked in Dubai for his family’s transport company. Then, in March 2022, he became a surprise choice as the head of Waris Punjab De, a pressure group set up to advocate for the rights of farmers in Punjab. He returned to Punjab in August.
The manner of his arrival seemed calibrated to attract attention on social media. He landed dressed as a famous Sikh militant, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was killed by government forces at the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984. story broke out on the mainstream media.
“Until a year ago, he was clean-shaven,” says Hartosh Singh Bal, editor-in-chief of The Caravan magazine, who has written extensively about Punjab. “Suddenly he enters Punjab, claims many things, grows his hair, baptizes himself and gains a following. There’s a ton of construction going on in this guy, who’s never had any major level support on the ground.
His reach also grew among the huge Sikh diaspora. Many families have members abroad, the result of waves of emigration – one of which came after massive riots sparked by Bhindranwale’s death. Money from the diaspora supports charities and politicians, making overseas Sikhs influential in the political life of the state.
Then, in February, Sandhu and a group of armed supporters stormed a police station in Ajnala, 24 kilometers from Amritsar in West Punjab, in retaliation for the arrest of one of his aides. Six police officers were injured. The event gave Sandhu an aura, Bal said. But it took a while for authorities to finally begin their operation to find him.
