Sikhs march across California urging protections against threats from India on U.S. soil

About 30 people are walking along a dirt path between a rural road and a persimmon orchard, kicking up dust with each step. Children run towards the front of the march, where a group of older men with turbans and thick beards keep the pace at a steady clip.

For three weeks in October, a group of Sikhs — some joining for just an hour or a day — have walked 350 miles up the spine of California’s Central Valley from Bakersfield to Sacramento. They stopped at Gurdwaras, or Sikh temples, along the way. The journey, organized by the Sikh advocacy group Jakara Movement, ended on Friday with a rally that drew a crowd at the state capitol.

The events commemorated a Sikh massacre that happened in India 40 years ago. Organizers also sought to call attention to growing threats the Sikh community says have followed them here in the U.S.

Sikhs have been farming in the Central Valley for over a century, but many fled here in the years after 1984. That is when former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent the army to occupy the Golden Temple, the holiest of Sikh sites, to rout out separatists who were agitating for their own Sikh state, a place they called Khalistan. In response, Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards assassinated her. What followed were anti-Sikh riots that killed thousands, and a decades-long effort by the Indian government to stamp out an armed Sikh insurgency.

Read more: NPR