Sikhs have been concentrated in the Punjab regionof South Asia.[13] Before its conquest by the British, the region around Punjab had been ruled by the confederacy of Sikh Misls founded by Banda Bahadur. The Misls ruled over the entire Punjab from 1767 to 1799,[14] until their confederacy was unified into the Sikh Empire by Maharajah Ranjit Singh from 1799 to 1849.[15]

At the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849, the Sikh Empire dissolved into separate princely states and the British province of Punjab.[16] As a result of the British 'divide and conquer' process, which involved differentiating and designating religions into communal boundaries, many religious nationalist movement emerged among the Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and the Sikhs. .[17]

As the British Empire began to dissolve in the 1930s, Sikhs made their first call for a Sikh homeland.[4]When the Lahore Resolution of the Muslim Leaguedemanded Punjab be made into a Muslim state, the Akalis viewed it as an attempt to usurp a historically Sikh territory.[18][19] In response, the Sikh party Shiromani Akali Dal argued for a community that was separate from Hindus and Muslims.[20] The Akali Dal imagined Khalistan as a theocratic state led by the Maharaja of Patiala with the aid of a cabinet consisting of the representatives of other units.[21]The country would include parts of present-day Punjab, India, present-day Punjab, Pakistan(including Lahore), and the Simla Hill States.