According to a report published by Macdonald Laurier Institute, a reputed think tank based in Ottawa, Canada, ‘Khalistan’ project is sponsored by Pakistan, and it is detrimental to the national security of not only India but Canada as well, reports The Tribune on December 18. Terry Milewski, one of Canada's veteran journalists, who authored the report reveals how Pakistan launched the ‘Khalistan’ insurgency using Indian Sikhs in Indian Punjab to avenge its own defeat in the Indo-Pak 1971 war.
Interestingly, the report points out how Pakistan viewed the ‘Khalistan’ project as a strategic buffer and how an independent ‘Khalistan’ would end India's land access to Kashmir to the north, another key interest of the Pakistan Army since 1947. The report claims that the western democracies with large Sikh communities like Canada, the UK and the US are aware of this absurdity and therefore, skeptical of the ‘Khalistan referendum’, planned for November 2020.a