Manish Kumar runs a car rental service in the city of Jalandhar in the northern Indian state of Punjab. Over the past two weeks, his business has struggled, since March 18, when for four days mobile internet was shut down in large areas of the state on government orders. Many of its customers use Google Pay to pay their bills. “Nowadays, most people prefer to pay via e-commerce,” he said. “The closure meant they couldn’t do that.”

From March 18 to 21, 27 million people in Punjab were left without access to mobile internet, disrupting their lives and activities. In some areas, the outage lasted more than a week. As the government attempted to stop the spread of information – or, in its words, “fake news” – it demanded that Twitter block more than 120 accounts, from those belonging to local journalists to one by Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh.

It was only a matter of searching for one man: a 30-year-old Sikh separatist, Amritpal Singh Sandhu.

Sandhu is a preacher and a prominent figure in a movement calling for the creation of an independent state for the Sikh community, known as Khalistan. The movement has supporters among the large Sikh diaspora, notably in the United Kingdom and Canada, but Indian authorities view it as a threat to national security.

Sandhu’s rise in Punjab politics was rapid. Until last year, he worked in Dubai for the family transport company. Then, in March 2022, he became a surprise choice to head Waris Punjab De, a pressure group founded to defend the rights of Punjab’s farmers. In August, he returned to Punjab.

The manner in which it arrived seemed calibrated to attract attention on social media. He landed dressed as a famous Sikh activist, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was killed by government forces inside the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984. Sandhu’s supporters posted the image on several Facebook pages, attention began to snowball online and his profile grew until his story broke in the mainstream media.

“He was clean shaven until a year ago,” says Hartosh Singh Bal, editor of The caravan magazine, which has written extensively on Punjab. “Suddenly he arrives in Punjab, demands many things, grows his hair, gets baptized and grows among his followers. There is a lot of construction in this man, who has never had support on the ground at a significant level.