SYUK Trial: Sikh Activism & The UK-India “Counter-Terrorism” Agenda

"SYUK was not a registered charity, yet it is being treated, audited, and criminalised as one."

Shamsher Singh
September 24, 2024 | 7 min. read | Analysis

The United Kingdom has a long history of targeting Sikh activists, which has intensified in the last few years as the government employs creative state-sanctioned methods of surveillance and criminalisation. Most recently, Sikh Youth UK was placed on trial as a result of the West Midlands Police Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) arguing SYUK was “misleading the Charities Commission.” However, SYUK was not a registered charity, yet it is being treated, audited, and criminalised as one. 

This trial and criminalisation of SYUK is a warning to all grassroots, community, religious, and other unapologetically panthic organisations about the mechanisms and strategies being deployed against Sikh activists who engage in panthic organising. To understand the trial against SYUK, we must contextualise it within the eight years of collusion and intelligence exchange between the Indian and UK governments, Jagtar Singh’s case, and the failed extradition of the West Midlands 3.

Between January 2016 and October 2017, there were a series of assassinations of high ranking right wing Hindutva figures in Punjab. In total, nine individuals were assassinated including Shiv Sena leader Durga Parsad Gupta, Jagdish Gajneja RSS vice president, and Vipan Sharma, the head of the Hindu Sangarsh Sena. At the time, the Indian establishment was in a state of shock that prized cultivated assets were being eliminated and did not know who was responsible. As a result of these assassinations India would claim there was an international conspiracy to revive Sikh militancy in Punjab.

India alleged that resources, support and coordination for these assassinations came from the UK and other countries with large populations of the Sikh diaspora. In November 2017, Jagtar Singh Johal was arrested and charged with multiple cases relating to what the Indian media would come to refer to as a wave of “target killings” in Punjab. Jagtar Singh’s charges were twofold: 1) radicalising Sikhs, and 2) conspiracy to commit assassinations. Outside of India, Jagtar Singh’s arrest and continued detention would be termed arbitrary and politically motivated, and Sikhs all over the world expressed support for his plight.

The Indian security establishment needed to show strength following the audacious assassinations of leading Hindutva figures. After Jagtar Singh's arrest, India made more arrests and would pin the assassinations on the Khalistan Liberation Force. India used the ‘target killings’ to push their domestic security rhetoric of “Khalistani terrorism” into foreign policy initiatives that could be used to target Sikh activists within India’s borders and beyond. Subsequent revelations, particularly around the assassination of Bhai Hardeep Singh in Canada and the attempted assassination of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in America, have made it clear that India regards all Sikh activism and support for Khalistan, peaceful or not, as terrorism and support for terrorism.

On September 18, 2018, the homes of five Sikh activists were raided by CTU officers acting on information from India. The 2018 raids were directly linked to the ongoing arbitrary detention of Jagtar Singh Johal, as all five Singhs were actively involved in the #FreeJaggiNow campaign. On September 19, West Midlands Police, the force leading these raids, publicly tweeted that the raids were to investigate “allegations of extremist activity in India” and “fraud offences,” which they would claim was money laundering to support “terrorism” in Punjab.

On September 26, 2018, immediately following the raids, the Hindustan Times published a puff-piece in which they made a series of claims: 1) the Indian establishment was “upbeat over anti-terror raids,” 2) the raids were an “outcome of diplomatic pressure created by the Indian agencies on Britain about the involvement of those living the country in ant-India[sic] terror activities,” and 3) the “National Investigating Agency (NIA) and the Punjab Police have decided to make fresh bid seeking extradition.”

In addition to these claims, the Hindustan Times article went on to name all five Singhs who were raided in the UK. This is significant as only two Singhs, Deepa Singh of Sikh Youth UK and myself were public. This raises questions about who shared the full names of the all five Singhs with the Hindustan Times. One can infer that the names may have been released by the West Midlands Police themselves, contrary to the College of Policing guidelines which prohibits names of people under investigation being released to the media until charges are filed, and no charges were filed. 

The Hindustan Times was one of a number of Indian news media outlets that were celebrating the raids and targeting of Sikh activists. At the time, the Indian media was openly crediting the raids to diplomatic pressure from the Indian government. Although, the West Midlands Police denied any such links. 

The fall-out from the 2018 raids was decisive as hundreds of Sikhs turned up to protest over the raids. Understanding the UK’s police’s role in surveilling and targeting Sikh activists, naujawan organised to ban police presence and recruitment in Sikh spaces and Gurdware, which was endorsed by major Sikh organisations in the UK. This position would be vindicated in August 2022 when reprieve would point to the role of MI5 in the arrest of Jagtar Singh.

The 2018 raids marked a turning point in relations between Sikhs and the UK establishment.

At the centre of this was the organising capacity of Sikh Youth UK, specifically their public facing sevadaar, Deepa Singh. As decisive as the 2018 raids were for Sikh activists and panthic Sangat in the UK, they marked an escalation in the UK government’s approach to Sikh activism. 

Following the 2018 raids, the UK government arrested and tried to extradite three Singhs (the West Midlands 3) in December 2020. Two of the three were previously raided in 2018. This high-profile yet ultimately unsuccessful extradition was foreshadowed by Indian media in September 2018. The lawyer of the West Midlands 3 made a statement outside Westminster magistrates court, drawing the link to Jagtar Singh's arbitrary detention, previous trials of the same discredited evidence in India which resulted in acquitals.

The UK government was willing to arrest and extradite three Singhs based solely on Indian intelligence in a legal case without basis that would eventually be dropped. It is vital to note that if the Sangat did not raise the £250,000 bail amount, the three Singhs would have spent a year in prison – a year of family separation and disruption in their lives. The UK government was happy to proceed because the intended objective was to disrupt and harass, and the Sangat, knowing this, stepped in to stop them.

The organising capacity of Deepa Singh and SYUK was at the centre of pushing back against the extradition, effectively highlighting the underlying collusion between the UK and the Indian government that enables, facilitates, and legitimises such blatant anti-Sikh activity. The collusion of the UK establishment and the Indian state is long-standing, documented, and deeply perverse and has to be understood in detail and context to understand what the trial of SYUK really is - furtherance of a counter-terrorism agenda - to disrupt and discredit Sikh activism in the UK.

During the late 80s, a peak of Sikh militancy in Punjab, a team from the West Midlands Police led by Chief Constable Geoffrey Dear (now Lord Dear) visited “Punjab to exchange information with security forces about Sikh terrorists and their supporters.” The visit was made “at the invitation of the state government after the force expressed concern about Sikh extremists whose activities in Britain have extended into extortion and other crimes.”

At a time when India had instituted genocide as a counterinsurgency tactic, the British government actively sold arms, exchanged information, shared and acted on intelligence, and offered military support to India. The arrest of Jagtar Singh, the raids, and extradition brought this reality back into focus. SYUK were so effective at highlighting the collusion between the UK and India that the February 2023 government review of Prevent addressed this directly and called collusion a “false narrative” spread by “pro-Khalistan extremists.”

Two things become clear when you read the indictment papers against SYUK: 1) the CPS view the case against SYUK as tied to Jagtar Singh, and 2) the UK government thought about pursuing multiple angles for prosecution. The link to Jagtar Singh goes beyond a simple desire to punish SYUK for their advocacy. From the Indian government-prompted raids and media narrative, it is clear that Singhs’ in the UK are viewed as co-accused. This link becomes even more clear in the fact that Jagtar Singh was shown photographs of Singhs in the UK, including Deepa Singh, during interrogation, a fact revealed by Jagtar Singh to his legal team. 

It is well known that SYUK is a prominent Khalistan-supporting organisation. Many events, programs, and literature produced by SYUK feature shaheeds and an unapologetic stance on Khalistan. Additionally, SYUK organises around key issues within the UK Sikh diaspora, including grooming cases and interfaith Anand Karaj. 

If we take the above context of a counter-terrorism agenda, coupled with the nature of SYUK activities and look at the April 2023 “Bloom Review” into “faith engagement,” the picture becomes more sinister. The Bloom Review seeks to profile the Sikh community and create a justification for using anti-terror laws to target Sikh activism, Khalistan and Gurdware. The Bloom Review problematizes Sikhi parchaar, Khalistan, Sikhi camps, maryada, and Sikh organisations and Gurdware that support grassroots efforts under the guise of “extremism/sectarianism.” Much of the activism mentioned in the Bloom Review can be directly linked to SYUK. At the time, SYUK made content to draw attention to this wide-ranging agenda.

Since 2017 and into the present moment, the UK government has become more aggressive in its targeting of Sikh activists. In recent months, Schedule 7, a provision under the Terrorism Act 2000, has been used to stop multiple Sikh activists. Sikhs associated with SYUK and Deepa Singh have been stopped under this provision.

SYUK will issue its clarification on the legal aspects of its trial when proceedings come to a conclusion, but in the meantime, the sangat must understand the environment within which the trial took place. This was never about the Charity Commission regulations; instead, the Charity Commission regulations were retroactively applied to a non-charity entity to pursue a conviction that otherwise would simply not exist.

In the coming future, we will see more Charities Commission and criminal law driven investigations and trials to further an anti-terrorism agenda. Currently, Gurdware and Sikh organisations already fall foul of UK law and charity rules in their promotion i.e. “glorification” of the Shaheeds of Khalistan. Sikh Shaheeds and Karku Jathebandia are considered terrorists and terrorist organisations, which places all organisations and Gurudware who proudly display Shaheeds photos or engage in discourse about Khalistan at risk of state repression and criminalisation.

Considering this, it would be wise for Sikhs to put any differences aside and support Sikh Youth UK. This trial is a test case, a panthic issue, and a wake-up call for everyone who wants to take a stand on Khalistan and Sikh parchaar in the diaspora and beyond. 

Shamsher Singh writes from Southall, UK, and is the co-founder of the National Sikh Youth Federation (NSYF). He is an influential Sikh activist and his work centres on Sikh being and Khalistan. Shamsher is currently undertaking an MA at Birkbeck in Culture, Diaspora, Ethnicity. As a naujawan Panthic jathebandie NSYFs work has featured in national and international media, documentary films, books, and academic papers. Shamsher Singh works to build solidarity with racialised communities, and to create space for Sikh expression centring on Sikh sovereignty, and Sikh resistance, pushing back against the erasure of Khalistan and it’s martyrs. He currently works as program director for the newly established Khalistan Centre, which is dedicated to supporting and cultivating Gurmat-driven leadership to further the struggle for Khalistan. You can find him on Twitter at @anandpur_exile.

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