On February 22, the Harvard International Review (HIR) did the unthinkable: it caved under pressure from Khalistani extremists and removed an article that critically examined the Sikh separatist movement. The piece, titled “A Thorn in the Maple: How the Khalistan Question is Reshaping India-Canada Relation,” was an informed analysis of how the Khalistan movement operates within the diaspora and the serious allegations of terrorist affiliations linked to key figures in the movement.
The article’s author, Zyna Dhillon, a Sikh woman from Punjab, stood by her work. She was asked to modify her article in response to complaints, but she refused, rightly asserting that it already reflected a balanced perspective. But balance and facts are apparently irrelevant when confronted by an online mob that prefers censorship over debate.
Harvard’s decision to erase her work is a disgrace. It is nothing less than an institutional surrender to extremist propaganda. The campaign against Dhillon was spearheaded by Hardeep Singh, co-founder of The Sikh Coalition and Harvard’s Sikh chaplain. Under his leadership, a flood of outrage, complaints, and intimidation tactics were deployed to strong-arm the HIR into retracting a well-researched article. This is the modus operandi of Khalistani extremists: bullying, harassing, and silencing dissent until their narrative is the only one left standing.
The implications of Harvard’s capitulation are chilling. Universities are supposed to be bastions of free thought and academic rigor, not spaces where extremist pressure groups dictate what can and cannot be published. Yet, here we are—one of the world’s most prestigious institutions bowing to the demands of a radical movement that has long sought to impose its revisionist, separatist agenda on the Sikh diaspora and beyond.
Even more egregious is the fact that Dhillon, a Sikh herself, became the target of vicious harassment simply for writing an article that didn’t conform to the Khalistani propaganda. What kind of movement attacks its own people for refusing to embrace its fringe ideology? This alone should be enough to demonstrate the movement’s extremist nature.
Let’s call this what it is: an infiltration of higher education by radical forces who use intimidation to dictate discourse. Harvard’s failure to defend an independent student journalist against these tactics sets a dangerous precedent. It tells activists that with enough outrage, they can silence anything that challenges their worldview. It tells academics and journalists that the pursuit of truth is secondary to the appeasement of organized online mobs.
Harvard had a choice: uphold free speech and intellectual inquiry or bend to the will of extremist bullies. It chose the latter, and in doing so, it has betrayed the very principles upon which it was founded. This cowardice is a warning sign—not just for Harvard, but for all institutions that claim to value academic freedom. If we do not push back against these encroachments now, we risk losing the ability to speak the truth at all.
