According to their website, The Sikh Coalition was established in 2001 immediately after hate attacks on Sikhs in the US in the aftermath of 9/11. They are a volunteer organisation but receive funds from billionaires and foundations such as George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and via NEO Philanthropy funded by Pierre Omidyar’s Luminate, Gates Foundation, and CIA-linked Ford Foundation. As per their website, The Sikh Coalition “does not take an institutional position on Khalistan, but firmly believes that all people have a right to free speech and to lawfully advocate for their beliefs.” The Sikh Coalition Executive Director, Harman Singh, said their position on Khalistan is “because Sikhs disagree on how it would be created.” Some Sikhs seek to carve out a separate Sikh homeland from India called Khalistan.
The Sikh Coalition regularly gets funds from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. George Soros famously said that he had set aside a fund of USD 1 billion to tackle the spread of nationalism.
The Sikh Coalition’s founders are Hardeep Singh, Sikh Chaplain at Harvard University, Narinder Singh, Deepak Ahluwalia, Managing Partner of Singh Ahluwalia Attorneys at Law, Harsimran Kaur and Amardeep Singh Sidhu, Partner at Winston & Strawn LLP.
The Sikh Coalition, headed by Executive Director Harman Singh, previously served as the Policy & Education Director of the Sikh Coalition. Earlier, Anisha Singh served as the Executive Director. Before joining The Sikh Coalition, Anisha Singh was the Policy Attorney and Project Manager with United Sikhs, another Khalistani group. Open Society Fellowship winner Simran Jeet Singh is a Senior Fellow at The Sikh Coalition.
The Sikh Coalition
The Sikh Coalition
Although The Sikh Coalition claims to maintain a neutral stance on Khalistan, in February 2025, The Sikh Coalition Co-founder and Harvard Sikh Chaplain Hardeep Singh led a backlash to withdraw an article published by Harvard International Review that criticised the Khalistan movement. Due to the pressure, Harvard International Review ultimately removed the article. The article is archived here.
In an article for the Time magazine “Why India Is Targeting Sikhs At Home and Around the World“, Simran Jeet Singh makes a case for Khalistan. He describes Khalistani terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale as a “charismatic Sikh leader”. He is economical with the truth of Hindus in Punjab, the storage of arms and ammunition in the Golden Temple and the rape of Sikh women inside the Temple. The website, Punjab Files, has collated information from Indian newspapers about Khalistani attacks on Hindus. Simran Jeet Singh also doesn’t mention the deadliest terror attack on Canadian soil by Khalistani terrorists, the bombing of Air India Kanishka 182 on 23rd June 1985, which killed 350+ passengers and 2 Japanese baggage handlers at Narita Airport, Japan.
The Sikh Coalition presents Sikhism as a monolithic, distinct, independent religion – like Abrahamic religions disregarding the Sikh Guru’s worship of Hindu Gods and Goddesses like Devi and Lakshmi.
George Soros also very famously said
Nationalism, far from being reversed, made further headway. The biggest and most frightening setback came in India, where a democratically elected Narendra Modi is creating a Hindu nationalist state, imposing punitive measures on Kashmir – a semi-autonomous Muslim region, and threatening to deprive millions of Muslims of their citizenship George Soros at World Economic Forum at Davos 2020
In 2023, The Sikh Coalition came out in support of Khalistani fugitive Amritpal Singh Sandhu. Amritpal Singh had said that despite having an Indian passport, he doesn’t consider himself an Indian citizen and that “The idea of Khalistan is so pure, it’s idea is the raj of Khalistan”. Amritpal also said, “Sikhs have their aspirations and Hindus have theirs, while they [Hindus] can freely talk about theirs, we can’t. So, I firmly believe that the Khalistan movement can’t be stopped from flourishing”.
In 2023 Seattle’s anti-caste discrimination bill was brought in by radical communist Council member Kshama Iyengar Sawant, The Sikh Coalition joined anti-Hindu forces to pass the bill. The Sikh Coalition has also supported the California caste discrimination bill brought in by Afghan Senator Aisha Wahab.
In 2022, The Sikh Coalition introduced a resolution at the New Jersey Senate to commemorate and condemn “India’s state-sponsored violence of 1984 against Sikhs as genocide”. The contents of the bill are problematic. As per Justice Nanavati Commission’s Enquiry on anti-Sikh riots victims in Delhi, 2,146 persons and 586 persons were said to have been killed in other parts of the country during that period. The resolution of The Sikh Coalition states a number at 30,000 and gives no evidence of how they arrived at that figure. The second issue with the resolution is that the Indian states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana Tripura are mentioned where violence against Sikhs took place. There is no record of violence against Sikhs in those states while Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Uttarakhand didn’t exist as separate states in 1984.
Since 2021, The Sikh Coalition has been recommending India be placed under ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ for being “engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.” They also claim Sikhs are being persecuted in India even though India has had a Sikh Prime Minister, President, Governors, Chief Ministers, Cabinet Ministers, Army Chiefs, doctors, engineers, lawyers, sports team captains, actors, singers, etc.
The also claim India’s anti cow slaughter law, anti-conversion laws, laws to restrict interfaith marriage with the sole purpose to convert are “undermine freedom of religion or belief; they also contribute to a climate of hate, intolerance, and fear.”
The Sikh Coalition also protested against India’s Farmers Bill and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The Sikh Coalition termed India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which accelerates citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs and Christians facing persecution on religious grounds in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, as “discriminatory” and added, “in conjunction with the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) requiring residents to provide proof of citizenship, risks subjecting Muslims and others to statelessness, deportation, and prolonged detention.”
While India has been evacuating and resettling persecuted Sikhs from Afghanistan, The Sikh Coalition rumoured that Sikhs fleeing violence in Afghanistan are “facing the same” at an increased risk” of the same violence in India.
Though The Sikh Coalition has protested against the Farmers Bill calling it “unfair”, nowhere specifically about the Farmers Bill they are against. In a thread posted on their Twitter handle, The Sikh Coalition said they lobbied with policymakers and press in the United States to “encourage coverage of this historic movement”.
Further in the above post, The Sikh Coalition repeat that 3 farm laws are discriminatory and should be repealed but again, no mention of what specifically in the bills they find discriminatory or unfair. They further say that the Indian government is repressing the farmers and are facing violence from the government
In a 2021 Twitter post, The Sikh Coalition stated that the 1984 Operation Blue Star against Khalistani terrorists was a “coordinated operation to decimate the community” even though in 2004 India had it’s first Sikh Prime Minister.
The Sikh Coalition has opposed the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A by the Indian government in Kashmir. In another Twitter post, they said, “Tensions in Kashmir continue to escalate w/ ongoing reports of media blackouts, lockdowns, & troops patrolling the streets. There are serious concerns about these conditions mirroring those imposed by the Indian govt in the aftermath of 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms.”
Below are some of their social media posts.
STOP HINDU HATE ADVOCACY NETWORK 