On the three hundredth anniversary of the Khalsa there are approximately 25 million Sikhs. About 17 million live in Punjab, the Sikh homeland, about five million in other parts of South Asia, and three million in other parts of the world, from Australia to the Zambia by way of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Kenya, Malaysia and Singapore.

Many of the challenges now facing them are similar to challenges facing other peoples, including the issues around globalisation of culture and what this actually means which is a monoculture of fashion and musical expression, promiscuous sexuality, consumerism, irresponsible violence and 'me first and last' ideology. In this context, the turban is a quiet statement of enduring elegance, spiritual permanence, and human diversity and pluralism. However, rather like Christians at the time of Nero or the Dalai Lama, Sikhs today are best known for the tragic invasion of the Golden Temple and Akaal Takht and its military aftermath.

Within South Asia, Sikhs remained opposed to the partition of the sub-continent in 1947. A religion whose founding principle was that the mystic essence of faith pervades all religions could not do otherwise. Indeed, when partition took place Punjab suffered ethnic cleansing and Sikhs found themselves as refugees in east Punjab, as did Punjabi Muslims in west Punjab. The Sikhs were party to the negotiations with the British, along with Hindus and Muslims. The Sikhs agreed to join India subject to approval of the constitution. This never happened and Sikhs never approved the Indian constitution.

Since then there have been peaceful movements calling for a review of the situation. In the 1980s the Anandpur Sahib Resolution called for radical decentralisation of the Indian state, a return to the federalist vision of the Indian freedom movement for almost a century before independence in 1947.

In 1984 the attempt to raise the international profile of the movement by blocking grain exports out of Punjab was scuttled by military intervention in the Golden Temple and other places of worship on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Guru Arjun. As armed groups developed to protect the people the government could claim that they were involved in a war to keep the state's integrity and introduced laws suspending rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and indeed, right to life.

The military campaign was extremely brutal and involved gross violations of human rights on a mass scale and was 'worse than genocide' according to India's own Supreme Court. Between 60,000 and 150,000 people were killed by government forces in this period. Amnesty International recently repeated its demand that allegations of mass cremation grounds, which prompted the comments by the Supreme Court, be examined. As state human rights agencies fail to document the problems, civil society responded with a People's Commission, convened by veteran human rights activist, Ram Narayan Kumar. The interim report provided documentary evidence for hundreds of "disappearances". Equally disturbing is that of those close relatives interviewed or those close to them, approximately one hundred or one in ten have gone on to commit suicide.

When democratic opportunities have presented themselves the Sikh nationalists have availed themselves of the opportunity. In 1989 they swept the board winning all seats in the election. The response of the government was to deepen the crackdown. As a reaction, the nationalists called for a boycott in 1991, which was heeded by the people, with the result that the winning party was elected on only 9% of the votes. However, the government then launched a brutal crackdown with the resulting human rights catastrophe slowly emerging before the world.

To prevent a peaceful and democratic movement the government makes it criminal and seditious to discuss issues of self-determination. The British allowed the Indians to engage in peaceful struggle for independence, but the Indians have failed to extend that courtesy to the Sikhs, and indeed other groups in India.

Due to this history, Sikh demands now include an international investigation into the disappearances and mass cremation grounds of Punjab, and UN peacekeepers and monitors to allow free elections, as we recently saw in East Timor. Whether Sikhs choose to opt for a looser federalist model with protection for all religious, ethnic and linguistic and other minorities, or for secession, the right of self-determination is the basis for democracy. For if a state does not enjoy the consent of the governed, what basis does it have left, except military violence?