Weaponising victimhood: How Khalistanis, Islamists exploit the liberal West

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Pro-Khalistan separatist groups and Islamist groups have skilfully exploited the legal, political, and moral frameworks of open societies to embed themselves deeply within the fabric of Western multiculturalism. Image: AFP
In mid-June 2025, 'Pro-Khalistan' group Sikhs for Justice supporters packed Calgary's City Hall square, waving Khalistan flags and chanting 'Kill Modi politics' while demanding that India be 'Balkanised' as Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the G7 summit nearby ( Global News, Canada, June 16). A couple of days earlier in Montréal, thousands marched from the Basilica of Notre Dame in a pro-Gaza rally that degenerated into sectarian sloganeering and intimidation of worshippers ( CTV News, Canada, June 15). Last year, in January, across the Atlantic, Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) activists rallied in London, brandishing a 'Muslim Armies—Liberate Palestine' banner that prompted the UK government's decision to ban the organisation as a terrorist group ( The Guardian, UK, January 15, 2024; GOV.UK, January 19, 2024).
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The episodes above are not rare or isolated. Islamists and separatists around the world are getting emboldened frequently to challenge the government and its institutions. Britain's 2023 CONTEST report confirms that in the UK, the primary domestic terrorist threat comes from Islamist terrorism, which accounts for approximately 67 per cent of attacks since 2018, about three-quarters of MI5's caseload, and 64 per cent of those in custody for terrorism-connected offences. ( GOV.UK, July 2023).
In May 2025, Peel Regional Police in Canada launched Project Pelican, a major counter-narcotics operation that led to the seizure of 479 kilograms of cocaine valued at CAD 47.9 million. The crackdown resulted in the arrest of nine suspects, with investigators revealing that the drug proceeds were allegedly earmarked to finance extremist, anti-India activities linked to Khalistani separatist networks. ( Peel Regional Police, Canada, June 10; Times of India, June 14). The case underscores how criminal enterprise and ideological militancy are increasingly intertwined within transnational diaspora communities.
The article attempts to unpack a three-phase playbook: victimhood, demographic leverage, and ideological assertion, showing how emotive rights claims evolve into organised pressure and, eventually, open rejection of liberal norms. Real-world cases demonstrate that the threat is transnational and adaptive.
Over the past few decades, liberal democracies, particularly Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the United States, and Australia, have unwittingly nurtured fertile ground for extremist ideologues and their divisive, supremacist ideologies. Cloaked in the rhetoric of human rights, asylum, and self-determination, these actors, ranging from pro-Khalistan separatist groups to Islamist groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT), Al‑Muhajiroun (AM), or the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), have skilfully exploited the legal, political, and moral frameworks of open societies to embed themselves deeply within the fabric of Western multiculturalism.
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The result has not been just ideological subversion but the gradual corrosion of social cohesion and national security. These overground Islamist organisations in Europe function as soft power catalysts, lyricising resistance to the West, sowing the seeds of alienation, and conditioning minds for radical shifts. More often than not, their efforts contribute to segregation and identity politics that can isolate segments of young Muslims, making them more vulnerable to recruitment by jihadist networks such as ISIS or Al Qaeda that capitalise on feelings of alienation and anti-West sentiments.
These data points, coupled with the street-level vignettes from Calgary to London, illustrate a pattern showing how radical separatists and political-Islamist networks systematically leverage Western freedoms to embed, expand, and ultimately challenge the constitutional order of their host states.
Victimhood as Strategy
Radical actors often enter Western societies by crafting emotionally charged narratives of persecution. They present themselves as victims of political repression, religious discrimination, or caste and gender-based violence in their countries of origin, be it India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Syria, or across Africa and West Asia. These stories resonate with Western audiences, who are conditioned by decades of human rights advocacy and a sense of colonial guilt. Liberal immigration laws, combined with limited geopolitical literacy among asylum officers and policymakers, result in asylum grants, legal residency, and even state-funded support.
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The Canadian case is worth mentioning here. During the 1980s and 1990s, several Sikh extremists affiliated with Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) fled India and obtained refugee status in Canada. Claiming 'state persecution', they gained access to welfare and protection. The consequences were tragically revealed in 1985, exactly 40 years ago, when Khalistani terrorists (or more correctly, Canadian Sikh terrorists) orchestrated the Air India Flight 182 bombing, killing 329 people, mostly Canadian citizens. ( New York Times, June 23, 1985). Despite this, Canada continues to witness anti-India, pro-Khalistan activism, now repackaged as, for example, 'Referendum 2020' or 'Death to Modi politics', with little or no state pushback under the rubric of free speech. ( Independent, September 23, 2022).
Similarly, in Europe, the 2015 migration crisis allowed large numbers of asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, and North Africa to enter Germany, France, and Sweden. While many were genuine refugees, others were affiliated with jihadist networks. The Islamic State (ISIS) exploited this opening, inserting operatives who later carried out the 2015 Paris attacks, killing 130 people and wounding hundreds more. These terrorists had posed as refugees and entered via Greece using forged documents. ( Guardian, November 14, 2015). In mid-February this year, an Afghan national rammed his vehicle into a labour union demonstration in Munich, injuring 36 people. German authorities confirmed later that the attack was ideologically motivated by Islamist extremism, underscoring the persistent threat posed by underground networks and the narratives that radicalise them. ( Politico, February 15).
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What starts as a tale of 'survival' and 'refuge' quickly becomes the framework for more intense ideological interference.
Demographic Mobilisation
After settling in, the next phase focuses on consolidating communities based on ethnicity, religion, or language. These groups tend to become insular, creating parallel societies that resist integration. Chain migration and higher birth rates increase their demographic influence, as found by the Pew research on Europe's growing Muslim population in 2017. In due course, migrant or minority religious groups begin to mobilise politically, initially through cultural and religious advocacy, and later by demanding political representation and policy exemptions related to their religious or ethnic identities, as seen in the UK and other European countries.
In the UK, the grooming gang scandals in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale, and Telford exposed how elements within Pakistani-origin Muslim communities abused vulnerable girls over the years, while local authorities hesitated to act, fearing accusations of racism or Islamophobia. The Jay Report (2014) concluded that over 1,400 children had been subjected to exploitation between 1997 and 2013, with authorities complicit in their silence. ( Rotherham.gov.uk, August 2014). After a decade of debate and diversion, the latest investigative report has also made disturbing revelations in the UK grooming gangs scandal ( Casey Report, June 16, 2025). However, the 197-page report prepared by Baroness Louise Casey underscores that a 'culture of blindness, ignorance, and prejudice' allowed continued failures to investigate cases of minors being sexually abused by grooming gangs comprised of Pakistani Muslims. What allowed this to happen was not just the criminality of a few Pakistani (or what Casey reports broadly and wrongly mentions as Asian Muslims) but a sociopolitical culture that protected abusers under the umbrella of minority sensitivity in the United Kingdom.
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Across France, Islamist groups, particularly those affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, have successfully taken control of religious and educational spaces in Muslim-majority suburbs, or banlieues. The 2020 beheading of Samuel Paty, a schoolteacher who dared to discuss freedom of speech using Charlie Hebdo's Prophet Muhammad cartoons, was not an isolated act but a culmination of radicalisation nurtured in enclosed, theologically rigid environments. ( New York Times, October 26, 2020; Le Monde, December 20, 2024). French President Emmanuel Macron called it a wake-up call, warning of 'Islamist separatism' that threatened to fracture the French Republic. ( The Guardian, October 2, 2020).
In Germany, although Hizb ut-Tahrir has been officially banned since 2003, the group continues to operate covertly, primarily through online platforms targeting disaffected Muslim youth. Its messaging—anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, and hostile to Western values—forms part of a broader transnational effort to revive a global Caliphate, directly challenging the constitutional order of liberal democracies.
Ideological Assertion and Cultural Rejection
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In the final stage, assimilation is rejected outright. What began as integration morphs into an assertion of supremacy based on faith, ethnicity, or political ideology. Some segments begin to demand exceptionalism, pushing for the enforcement of Sharia law, territorial separatism, or religious censorship, often backed by veiled or overt threats of violence.
Another example of ideological assertion masked as activism has emerged in the wave of pro-Gaza and anti-Israel protests that have swept across Western capitals, particularly following the October 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict. While peaceful protest is a cornerstone of a democratic society, many such demonstrations were co-opted by radical Islamist groups and far-left agitators. In late 2023 and throughout 2024-25, mass protests in London, Paris, Berlin, and New York, ostensibly in solidarity with Gazans, were repeatedly hijacked by Islamist blocs shouting 'From the river to the sea' and calling for 'intifada'. ( AP News, November 11, 2023; NPR, June 04, 2024). Police documented antisemitic graffiti, harassment of Jewish businesses, and open praise for Hamas. At the same time, banned outfits such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir used the marches to recruit and to glorify armed jihad. These rallies underscore how humanitarian discourse can become a Trojan horse for extremist propaganda within liberal public spaces.
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Similarly, the Khalistan movement in Canada, the UK, or the USA has moved well beyond cultural pride. Recent years have seen calls for secession, glorification of Indira Gandhi's assassins, and vandalism of Hindu temples and Indian diplomatic missions (e.g., attacks on the Indian diplomatic missions in the US, the UK, and Canada in 2023). Pro-Khalistan groups such as Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) have even openly issued death threats to Indian political figures, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, all while operating under the protections of Canada's speech laws and political patronage.
In France and Belgium, Islamist no-go zones (eg, Molenbeek near Brussels), where secular state laws are weakly enforced, have allowed radical clerics to preach jihadist ideology and enforce parallel justice systems. France's attempt to legislate against 'Islamist separatism' and show concerns about Islamist 'entryism' are cases of political pushback, though that has invited domestic and international backlash. ( BBC, May 2025).
Sweden, known for its generous welfare and open immigration policies, now faces rising gang violence and religious radicalisation in suburbs like Rosengård and Rinkeby ( BBC, 2022). According to Sweden's Sapo intelligence agency (2017) report, over 2,000 radical Islamists are active within its borders, most either second-generation migrants or radicalised after arrival. ( SVT, June 16, 2017).
In Australia, Uthman Badar, former spokesperson for Hizb ut-Tahrir, stirred controversy by publicly defending honour killings and promoting anti-Western, anti-democratic ideologies, all while taking advantage of Australia's constitutional protections on free speech ( Herald Sun, June 25, 2014). His rhetoric, which often blurred the line between religious critique and incitement to hostility, remained largely unchecked by legal or civic institutions. Over the years, HuT has consistently denounced Australia's democratic system, labelling electoral participation by Muslims as 'shirk' (a grave sin) and an insult to Islamic teachings, particularly during campaigns aimed at mobilising the Muslim vote ( , July 23, 2024). In a parallel development, overground Islamic organisations in Australia, including the Australian National Imams Council, have called for significant amendments to the country's counterterrorism framework, demanding the removal of the term 'religiously motivated terrorism' from existing counterterrorism legislation. ( ABC, April 26, 2024).
Liberal Societies at a Crossroads
Liberal democracies, such as Canada and the UK, must confront an uncomfortable truth. Their openness can be weaponised. While most migrants seek peace, safety, and a better life, a small but organised segment exploits the very ideals of freedom, diversity, and tolerance to subvert them. The latest anti-Modi protest in Calgary, where Khalistani supporters openly called for India's 'Balkanisation', and the Hizb ut-Tahrir rally in London, which demanded Muslim armies rise for Palestine, are not just isolated flashpoints. They exemplify a broader trend of extremist actors functioning within liberal democracies, leveraging asylum protections, political freedoms, and multicultural policies to advance agendas that are inherently opposed to their host states' values.
The path from victimhood claims to calls for violent separatism or global jihad is no longer hypothetical. It is already evident in riots and rallies, targeted killings, and the gradual decline of religious tolerance and civic unity. Recognising this progression is crucial. The recent events in Calgary and London are not just protests or warnings; they indicate widespread social and religious chaos gripping the world.
Animesh Roul is Executive Director of the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict (SSPC), New Delhi. He specialises in counter-terrorism and strategic affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.