Khalistan Movement | Enlite Cafe

It is a Sikh separatist movement seeking to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing a sovereign state, called Khalistan (‘Land of the Khalsa’), in the Punjab region.

During the time of Independence and partition the Punjab province, which was divided between India and Pakistan, witnessed communal violence and generated millions of refugees.
The historic Sikh Empire’s capital, Lahore, as well as sacred Sikh sites like Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, went to Pakistan but most of sikh population fell in the area of Indian Punjab.
The political struggle for greater autonomy began with the Punjabi Suba Movement for the creation of a Punjabi-speaking state.
The States Reorganisation Commission report (1955) rejected this demand, but the state of Punjab was reorganised (trifurcated into the Hindi-Hindu-majority HP and Haryana, and Punjabi-Sikh-majority Punjab) in 1966.
The Punjabi Suba movement had galvanised the Akali Dal, which concluded the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (1973) demanding autonomy (not secession from India) for the state of Punjab.
This demand had gone global by 1971 – when an advertisement in The New York Times proclaimed the birth of Khalistan.
By the 1980s, the appeal of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had started creating trouble for the government.
He and his followers (mostly from the lower rungs of the social ladder) were getting increasingly violent.
In 1982, with support from the Akali Dal’s leadership, he launched a civil disobedience movement called the Dharam Yudh Morcha and took up residence inside the Golden Temple, directing demonstrations and clashes with the police.

It is a code name given to an Indian Military Operation to remove the Khalistan separatists who were hidden inside the Golden Temple at Amritsar on 5th June 1984.
The operation was ordered by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, primarily to take control of the Harmandir Sahib Complex in Amritsar (popularly known as the Golden Temple).
The Indian military entered into the premises of the temple to drive out the Sikh extremist religious leader, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed followers.
The operation had two components to it
Operation Metal which was the invasion on the temple complex and Operation Shop which was confined to the countryside of the state.
This Operation helped in eliminating Khalistani terrorism.