Addressing hundreds of congregants on a late summer day at Guru Nanak temple in Surrey, B.C., Hardeep Singh Nijjar called on Sikhs to join him in a cause that had animated most of his life: the creation of an independent Sikh state, in Northwest India, known as Khalistan.
Speaking in Punjabi, he invoked the use of weapons against Indian adversaries: “We will have to take up arms,” he said. “We will have to dance to the edges of swords.” He turned his ire toward Sikhs who support independence but prefer to achieve it through activism and politics: “Those who advocate peaceful methods, we need to leave them behind. What justice will we get this way?
