The bruising diplomatic battle between India and Canada over the killing of a Khalistan activist is a testament to the events of 1984 still haunting us 40 years later. Nineteen eighty-four witnessed the death of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who terrorised Punjab as he resuscitated the idea of Khalistan. It was also the year the Golden Temple was militarily attacked, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. It was the year of a pogrom against the Sikhs, underscoring the emergence of the Hindu card and the Indian State’s vicious conduct against its religious minorities.

Yet 1984 might not have been as cataclysmic as it was. The genesis of the Punjab militancy lay in the battle of supremacy between the Akali Dal and the Congress there. The grand old party patronised Bhindranwale to weaken the moderate Akali leadership, a story vividly recounted in former Research and Analysis Wing official G B S Sidhu’s The Khalistan Conspiracy.