A bill vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom on October 13 marks a significant setback for Sikh American activists who have been pushing for greater protection following attacks and threats they allege are linked to the targeting of Khalistan separatists in North America by people linked to the Indian government.

The legislation, known as SB 509, would have trained local police officers to recognise and respond to threats by foreign governments against diaspora communities in California.

The bill had passed both chambers of the California state legislature unanimously but faced fierce opposition from Hindu American groups who argued it would unfairly target Hindu and Indian Americans.

The veto is “a victory for the civil rights of all Californians”, said Samir Kalra, Managing Director of the Hindu American Foundation, a not-for-profit group that says it advocates for Hindus in the United States.

The foundation had argued the bill’s vague language could have “institutionalised bias against Hindus, Indian Americans, and other ethnic minorities”.

The Sikh Coalition, an influential organisation advocating for Sikhs in the United States, said on X that it would not stop fighting transnational repression. “We will continue to insist that everyone has the right to practice their faith and express their views without the threat of violence or intimidation from foreign governments, their agents, and their proxies,” it said.

What the bill proposed

The bill would have required California’s Office of Emergency Services – a state agency that coordinates disaster response and public safety – to develop training programmes for law enforcement officers to identify what experts call “transnational repression”.

The term refers to a situation in which foreign governments reach beyond their borders to intimidate, silence or harm members of diaspora communities.

According to the bill’s supporters, the training would have helped officers recognise tactics such as online harassment, surveillance and physical threats orchestrated by foreign governments. The estimated annual cost to implement the programme was $572,000 (approximately Rs 4.8 crore).

“This training will give officers the tools and context they need to understand when a crime may be transnational repression,” the Sikh Coalition had said in a statement about the bill.

California is home to an estimated 250,000 Sikhs and they represent 40% of the US Sikhs – who first arrived in the state more than a century ago. Many live in the state’s Central Valley, a vast agricultural region that includes cities like Fresno, Bakersfield and Modesto.

Khalistan campaign

While SB 509 did not name any specific country, the bill was introduced against the backdrop of allegations that the Indian government agents have targeted Sikh activists in North America who support the Khalistan movement – a decades-old campaign for an independent Sikh homeland carved out of India’s Punjab state.

The Indian government considers the Khalistan movement a serious threat to national security and has designated several Sikh separatist organisations as unlawful.

In June 2023, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh separatist leader, was shot dead outside a gurdwara in Surrey in Canada’s British Columbia. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly accused Indian government agents of orchestrating the assassination, a charge India has vehemently denied.

Four months later, in November 2023, US federal prosecutors said they had disrupted a plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based Sikh activist and lawyer who holds dual US-Canadian citizenship. The plot was exposed after an alleged Indian agent accidently hired an informant of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the hit job.

Pannun leads Sikhs for Justice, an organisation advocating for Khalistan that India banned in 2019.

Several Sikh activists in California have also reported being followed, threatened or warned by the FBI about potential threats to their safety.

In August 2024, Satinder Pal Singh Raju, a Sikh activist who lives in Woodland, California (about 100 kilometres northeast of San Francisco), was shot at while driving on a highway. Raju was an associate of Nijjar. The shooting remains unsolved. Raju claims it was politically motivated.

In Fresno, a group of Hindu leaders met with the city’s mayor and police chief in October 2023. According to former police chief Paco Balderrama, more than a dozen Hindu leaders alleged that two local Sikh community leaders had ties to terrorism and organised crime, and suggested they be monitored.

Balderrama told the Sacramento Bee that he found the allegations “strange” and that he did not pursue them.

Newsom’s statement

In his veto message, California governor Newsom said that California’s Office of Emergency Services has already developed a Transnational Repression Awareness class for law enforcement, created in coordination with federal partners.

“While I appreciate the author’s intent to enhance the state’s ability to identify and respond to transnational repression, this issue is best addressed through administrative action in coordination with federal agencies,” Newsom wrote.

The bill enjoyed strong support in the California state legislature, both in the Senate (upper house) and Assembly (lower house). The bill passed the California Senate on June 3 year with a vote of 38-0. It passed the California Assembly on September 10 with a vote of 47-0, though 21 Assembly members abstained from voting.

This made Newsom’s veto all the more surprising to the bill’s supporters. “When lawmakers from both parties vote 38-0 and 47-0 to defend vulnerable communities, Californians expect their governor to do the same,” said Pritpal Singh, who heads the American Sikh Caucus Committee.

The bill had been supported by several diaspora organisations, including Hindus for Human Rights (a progressive Hindu organisation in the US) and the Indian American Muslim Council, as also the California Police Chiefs Association, which represents law enforcement leadership across the state.

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