What does a terror group branding entail?

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar joins SWIFT CEO Marianne Demarchi, Fincantieri CEO Pierroberto Folgiero, Joel Kaplan and Journalist Palki Upadhyay for a conversation on Politics, Business, and New World Order at Raisina Dialogue 2025, in New Delhi. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

The story so far:

Amid the din around the Raisina Dialogue this week, the government put a spotlight on its demand for the banning of the separatist Khalistani group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), with the U.S. and New Zealand. On Sunday (March 23, 2025), the SFJ will hold a “referendum” in Los Angeles among the diaspora Sikh population for its secessionist demands.

What happened this week?

At a press meet after talks with New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised concerns about “illegal activities by anti-India elements”, referring to pro-Khalistan groups, in particular the SFJ that has, since 2021 been holding what it calls “referendums” for a separate Khalistan state carved out of India.

In another conversation with U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh raised the same concerns and demand for the U.S. to designate the SFJ a terror organisation and ban it. The SFJ referendums are held almost always in cities of Western democracies, that have large Indian diaspora populations, as well as strong laws guarding “freedom of expression”. However, the number of votes, and the unverifiable identities of voters, raises questions over whether this is a serious process or one intended to irk India. On Sunday (March 23, 2025), the group plans to hold another such “vote” in Los Angeles. Thus far, however, none of the countries India has posed such requests to has complied. In an interview to The Hindu, Mr. Luxon stressed that New Zealand is a “liberal democracy”, where lawful protests are part of protected speech.

Since 2023, when both the U.S. and Canada began trials that implicate Indian “government agents” for an assassination plot against Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, and the killing of Canadian Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar respectively, the government has stepped up its campaign against the group. The view is that a ban on the SFJ would considerably mitigate the harshness with which such cases are being viewed, and would vindicate India’s concerns about the group.

What would a ban mean?

While each of the countries that India has put in a request with has a different procedure to evaluate and ban groups, a ban by any of the powerful “Five Eyes” Intelligence network of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand would likely be followed by all, as they share information regularly. The U.S., for example, has a set procedure for designating Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO).

A ban determined by the U.S. Secretary of State would entail a funds and asset freeze, curtailing the movements of its key figures, including SFJ founder and immigration lawyer G.S. Pannun, as well as prosecute them. Under the Terrorism Act, the U.K. Home Secretary is similarly empowered to designate groups, and in Canada, the procedure involves a listing under its Anti-Terrorism Act. If India were successful in any of these countries, a ban request on SFJ could potentially be taken to the UN Security Council (UNSC) to be listed under its resolution 1373, which would make these countries liable to prosecute the group according to its Financial Action Task Force (FATF) obligations.

Why haven’t other countries complied?

For India, the fact that SFJ activities are seen as “incendiary, but not illegal”, with the group operating freely in countries that are supposedly India’s closest strategic partners, is both insulting and worrying. Mr. Pannun is often regarded by other countries as a non-serious figure. His videos cast India as a perpetrator of human rights atrocities, and he makes wild threats against Indian embassies and its diplomats, the Indian Parliament and Air India flights. New Delhi has maintained that these threats must be taken seriously and investigated, pointing to similar Canadian apathy in the 1980s, which allowed for the 1985 bombing of the Air India Kanishka flight, in which 329 people were killed. The SFJ has glorified the Kanishka bombing mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar as well as other terrorists responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

State police forces and the National Investigation Agency have registered at least 122 cases against SFJ since 2018 and 105 people have been arrested, while the government recently renewed a 2019 ban on its activities under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Indian authorities accuse SFJ and Mr. Pannun of instigating violence, sabotage of railway operations, gun-running in conspiracy with Pakistan’s ISI, as well as trying to provoke Sikh soldiers in the Indian Army to desert it.

A ban by any of the powerful “Five Eyes” Intelligence network of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, would likely be followed by all, as they share information regularly