FRESNO, Calif. — Rajinder Singh Chauhan has walked over half a dozen miles every day since Oct. 9. He started in Bakersfield, and expects to reach his 350th mile when he reaches Sacramento on Friday.
He’s doing this because he is a survivor of anti-Sikh killings that took place in India in 1984. And he’s not alone — neither in the march nor escaping violence.
A number of activists in California’s Punjabi Sikh community are marching to the state’s capital. They’re crossing small towns and large cities and stopping at gurdwaras — Sikh temples — and meeting Sikhs along the way.
This month, Sikhs are remembering 40 years since mass killings spread within their community. A wave of mob violence starting on Oct. 31 lasted for days and killed thousands.
The killings were sparked by the assassination of India’s prime minister, Indira Gandhi, by her two Sikh bodyguards. The assassination followed a series of other violent clashes between the Indian government and Sikhs, including an attack on one of the holiest temples for Sikhs in a search for separatists. Sikhs say there’s been no justice for the mass killings and violence against their community.
Chauhan, of Bakersfield, learned about the so-called “Fearless for Justice March” on the radio. He started training for the long miles as soon as he signed up.
Speaking Punjabi, Chauhan said he’s walking to honor others who weren’t lucky like him – to be alive today. As the group marched in its halfway point from Fresno to Madera on a recent Saturday, Chahaun remarked he wasn’t tired “for even a second,” and even felt a push to go even faster.
The route he and others are taking largely mirrors farmworker marches that were historically seen in this part of California through the labor movement.
Historical violence still felt today
Sikhs are a religious minority originating from India’s Punjab region. In California’s Central Valley, their temples stand out in the vast inland stretch.
Bright Nishaan Sahibs, small yellow flags that symbolize the Sikh community worldwide, poke out from temples among the trees of the Valley, and are visible from highways and city roadways.
The community’s roots in California date back at least 100 years by some estimates. Some Sikhs migrated from their own farming regions in Punjab, seeking opportunity. But many are here directly as a result of the 1984 killings.
“There is still this feeling that is desiring recognition” for the killings, Naindeep Singh, executive director of the civic group the Jakara Movement, said.
And even today, there continues to be concern that Sikhs have not fully escaped persecution. This month, The Sacramento Bee reported the former Fresno police chief Paco Balderama was asked by supporters of the Indian government to monitor people, like Singh himself.
Singh was being painted as a terrorist or having criminal links. Fresno police reportedly denied the request. But this happened just a year ago — the same year a Sikh activist was shot dead outside a temple in Canada.
The Canadian government also expelled six Indian diplomats this month after an investigation found the assassination had ties to the Indian government.
Legislation seeks to curb Sikh repression
Singh says there’s a term for this: Trans National Repression (TNR).
Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, California’s only Sikh legislator from Kern County, drafted legislation to combat this type of new aggression against Sikhs from foreign countries. But her bill, AB 3027, is currently stuck in committee hearings.
This long march by Sikhs will culminate with a stop at the state capital building, seeking to keep this issue in the spotlight. But other legislators are already taking notice of the Sikh struggle.
Last week, a bipartisan group of congressional officials from the San Joaquin Valley introduced a bill to officially commemorate the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as genocide. This follows the state legislature’s own recognition of genocide last year, and major cities like Fresno doing so in years prior.
The effort was led by Republican Rep. David Valadao, and co-sponsored by Democrat Jim Costa and Republicans Vince Fong and John Duarte
Young people like high school student Gurpartarp Grewal joined the march to further these types of actions. He says the march is a way to make his community’s voice heard.
“This is my generation’s duty to continue this forward. And I feel like this is a part of our history. This is our footprint in history,” Grewal said.
Sikhs draw from past struggles
On a recent chilly morning, Sikhs gathered to sip hot Indian tea before embarking on their eleventh day of marching.
Eventually, they stepped onto a long rural road, where vineyards and irrigation canals sat below a wide blue sky. A tractor slowly rolled by, next to Sikh marchers who then passed almond orchards and scattered ranch homes.
The image resembles historical scenes of United Farm Workers who also marched northward in their own struggle for justice – the first time in 1966, and then again in 2022.
Before, labor activists Larry Itliong, Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta marched along the Valley’s cracked roads. Today, the shadows that line the roadways belong to young people like Jaskeet Kaur.
On this march, Kaur walked through downtown Fresno, passed the Gurdwara she visits on a weekly basis, passed Jaswant Singh Khalra Neighborhood Park and passed Central East High School.
Those are “areas that the West Fresno Punjabi Sikh community just knows the inside and out,” Kaur said. She called it an “amazing feeling.”
Another who joined the march was Gurminder Sangha, dean of the West Fresno Center, a satellite campus of Fresno City College.
He shared the success of the campus he oversees. It's attracting students from an area that historically has not had a college campus. It’s a form of justice in itself, Sangha says.
He also takes pride in his community’s roots in the Valley. Many have taken up jobs in farming and trucking and education, like him.
Sangha says if Sikhs can’t make it here, then where can they?
He believes the march he and others are on has a deeper meaning.
“This is a historical moment for us to learn from our mentors. The people who have walked this walk before us. We are trying to follow in their footsteps to make sure we fight for what is right and what is just.”
