That’s the funny thing. As far as I know, you’re completely right. I am not seriously tuned in or anything, but talking to my father-in-law and my wife’s cousin (both Punjab-born Sikhs and no strangers to taking pride in their identities) as well as sort of generally keeping up with the basics in the news, the sense I get is that “Khalistan” as a movement very much peaked in the 1980s with Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the subsequent riots, and culminating in the Air India bombing in 1985. Since then, it’s been a slow erosion as Indian identity has stabilized, as the democracy became a bit more robust (seriously being tested now), and Sikhs felt better integrated into the country. The idea of being effectively a weak buffer state between India and Pakistan just sort of loses its charm when the population doesn’t feel desperately repressed. The first Sikh PM was even a member of the Gandhis’ Congress Party. The diaspora is doing well, and in many western countries Sikhs serve as useful, informal cultural ambassadors for the nation of India.

Many Sikhs even supported the Modi and the BJP at first, but as the Hindu nationalists find success in oppressing Muslims, suddenly there are more voices that the Sikhs in Punjab need to be brought to heel as well, or at least that their concerns are unimportant and do not need to be addressed. Even still, most of the loud separatist voices are outside of Punjab and couching most of their rhetoric in peaceful terms, and the drive for any serious resistance remains fringe. Modi et al are fanning tiny embers of resistance that would normally be unlikely to cause great harm to India or the world. If they don’t stop shooting straw men, they’re going to create the exact problem they claim to be trying to fight.