Monitoring Desk
MELBOURNE: The Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) announced the other day that voting for the Australian chapter Khalistan independence referendum will be held at the venue of Federation Square in Melbourne on the 29th of January.
A representative of the Miri Piri Gurudwara of the Sikh temple in Melbourne, Ravi Inder Singh, told the Australian media that the voting exercise, known as the ‘Khalistan referendum’, would be a crucial step towards ‘self-determination’ for the millions of Sikhs around the globe.
Purpose of the Referendum in Melbourne
He said the main purpose of the referendum was to find out a consensus among the Sikh community to establish a separate and independent homeland within India and to determine the extent of the demand for this independent and separatist state that would be called Khalistan (land of the pure), an Australian news outlet SBS Punjabi quoted him as saying.
The voting in the referendum, which began in October 2021, had so far been conducted in the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, and Switzerland.
Earlier in a press conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, SFJ co-founder and general counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun said that the Indian government was trying to “criminalize” the attempt of Sikhs to demand an independent state adding that they were calling the Khalistan referendum an act of terrorism and illegal.
Sikh Community in Australia
As reported by media, Australia is home to about 209,000 Sikhs, which stands for 0.8 percent of the total population in the country, and is the fifth largest and fastest-growing religious group in the country, as per the 2021 census.
Throwing light on the ‘Khalistan referendum’ in Australia, SBS media outlet quoted an official from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and added that Australia valued diversity and inclusion, with respect to the right of individuals to have peaceful protest and supports the non-violent expression of their views.
About Khalistan, the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) had proposed that this would be possible by carving out the north Indian state of Punjab, parts of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, and several other districts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
