(RNS) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a contentious bill Monday evening (Oct. 13) that had for months been the focus of Indian diaspora communities across the nation.
The bipartisan bill, known as SB 509, would have required the state’s Office of Emergency Services to develop training for the state’s law enforcement agencies to recognize and respond to transnational repression — the intimidation, surveillance or harassment of a foreign government’s dissidents within the state’s borders. The bill had passed unanimously through California’s Senate and Assembly before being rejected by the governor.
In his veto statement, Newsom said that the state has an existing Transnational Repression Class available to law enforcement and that the issue is “best addressed through administrative action in coordination with federal agencies.” Newsom said the bill was liable to make California less flexible in its response to the issue and might risk further inconsistencies with the federal government’s work on transnational repression.
The bill had starkly divided Sikh Americans from Hindu Americans, who see the bill as aimed at India, and Newsom’s veto further exacerbated the sometimes fraught relationship between the two minority faith groups.
The nation’s most prominent Sikh American organizations, including the Sikh Coalition and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, had championed the bill in the wake of several attempts by the Indian government to silence those who support the creation of an autonomous state for Sikhs in their ancestral homeland of Punjab, in northern India. The hoped-for state is referred to as Khalistan.
Supporters of the bill presented documented threats of surveillance of Sikh Americans living in California, their houses of worship, called gurdwaras, and threats on the lives of pro-Khalistani Sikhs. Some 250,000 Sikhs live in California.
Hindu advocacy groups such as the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America answered that SB 509 would unjustly create suspicion or institutional bias against all Hindu and Indian Americans.
Many of the bill’s opponents oppose the idea of Khalistan as an extremist movement that has inspired violence and terrorism in both India and the U.S. They argue that the bill’s “vague language” could label advocacy against the Khalistan movement as acting “as an agent of a foreign government.”
The Sikh Coalition had been advocating against transnational repression since Canadian authorities found that Indian nationals had been involved in the 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar — a prominent Canadian Sikh member of the Khalistani group Sikhs for Justice. Canada subsequently designated India a “significant threat to public safety.”
The coalition does not take an official position on Khalistan but advocates against “broader narratives that seek to paint some or all of the Sikh community as dangerous extremists on the basis of political views they may or may not hold.”
The organization said it is “profoundly disappointed” by the veto and is in touch with California’s emergency services to review the content of their existing training on transnational repression.
“Even in the face of a lack of political courage and bad faith opposition, we will not stop fighting against the danger of transnational repression, whether by legislation like SB 509 or other forms of proactive government engagement at the local, state, and federal levels,” the Sikh Coalition said on X on Tuesday. “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.”
The Hindu American Foundation, meanwhile, lauded the decision as a “victory for the civil rights of all Californians.”
“We are grateful that Governor Newsom saw the lack of necessity for SB 509 and listened to the civil rights concerns this bill posed to millions of Californians, from a variety of backgrounds,” said Samir Kalra, managing director of policy and programs for HAF, in a statement. “What’s more, SB 509 would have have cost California taxpayers millions of dollars, at a time when state government desperately needs to address other pressing issues.”
Khalistan referendums — nonbinding, symbolic votes for the creation of the separate state — have been occurring in Canada and California over the past few years, garnering support from thousands of Sikhs in the diaspora.
Hindus have pointed to the recent onslaught of vandalism incidents against Hindu temples in the U.S. and Canada, many smearing buildings or statues with graffiti supporting Khalistan and opposing India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, as a direct consequence of a growing pro-Khalistan sentiment.
The partition of India into Pakistan and India by the British Empire along rough Hindu and Muslim lines split Sikh-majority Punjab in half, creating discontent that escalated in the late 1970s and ’80s in India. The conflict peaked in 1984, when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a military assault on the holiest Sikh gurdwara, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, to remove armed pro-Khalistani militants who were hiding there. Operation Blue Star resulted in heavy Sikh civilian casualties. Later that year, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, sparking anti-Sikh pogroms across the country.
In 1985, Khalistani extremists bombed Air India Flight 182 en route to India from Canada, killing 329 people in the deadliest act of aviation terrorism before 9/11.
Jasmeet Bains, a Sikh member of the California Assembly who co-sponsored the bill, said Newsom’s veto decision is reminiscent of his 2024 veto of SB 403, a bill that would have outlawed caste discrimination in the state and was strongly opposed by Hindu advocacy groups
“The Governor rejected legislation to prohibit caste discrimination,” she said in a statement. “Now he has vetoed legislation to protect Californians from transnational repression. I am grateful his signature was not required to recognize the 1984 Sikh Genocide.”