Gagandeep Singh Khalsa might seem like an unlikely name for a Catalan nationalist. And indeed, before he moved to Barcelona from India nine years ago, Khalsa didn’t even know the region’s inhabitants had their own language, culture and history — or that many of them wanted to break away from Spain.

Today, Khalsa is an independentista, part of a large migrant population whose views Catalonia’s separatists are hoping will prove critical if the region holds a planned referendum on independence on October 1.

The region is “always shortchanged,” says Khalsa, a spokesman for the Catalonian Sikh community. Catalonia, he’s convinced, doesn’t need Madrid. “We’ve got everything,” he says.

At a time of rising xenophobia across Europe, Catalonian nationalists have been remarkably welcoming toward migrants. That stance has the potential of paying off.

Between 2000 and 2010, the region’s population swelled by 20 percent to 7.5 million — an increase driven in large part by immigration. While many of those new arrivals can’t vote, a growing number can.

Between 2009 and 2015, some 220,000 people became naturalized Spanish citizens in Catalonia — equivalent to about 3 percent of the region’s population. Saoka Kingolo, an independence campaigner focusing on migrants, said that up to 500,000 foreign-born Catalans will be eligible to vote in the referendum.

That’s not a big number. But it could nonetheless be decisive. If Catalan’s independentistes are to eke out a victory, it’s likely to be a close one. A recent poll put the vote for leaving Spain at 44.3 percent, just over 4 points behind remaining at 48.5 percent (if the region is able to overcome Madrid’s resistance to holding a referendum at all).

Polls on Catalonian independence are notoriously volatile, but they show a few clear broad trends. Voters with Catalan parents are overwhelmingly for independence, while those with parents from other parts of Spain are cool to the concept.

Recent migrants lie somewhere in the middle, almost evenly split between those who would vote for independence, those who would choose to remain part of Spain and those who would abstain, according to a 2013 poll by the Institute of Political and Social Sciences of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

That makes them fertile ground for those seeking to break with Madrid, and independence campaigners have set out to win over the region’s new arrivals with welcoming rhetoric and promises of policies that would make it easier to obtain work permits and citizenship.

If every legal resident could be granted a vote and convinced to go to the ballot box, the unionists would suffer “a thrashing,” says Diego Arcos, a spokesman for Barcelona’s Argentinian community.

“We’re talking 10 percent of the electorate,” says independence campaigner Kingolo, who is leading a team of 12 people reaching out to migrants at the Catalan National Assembly, a pro-independence grassroots organization. “If they are motivated [to vote], the impact of their vote would be great,” Kingolo says.

Growing participation

Catalans separatists will tell you the independence movement began in the 18th century, when Catalan forces were defeated by the Spanish crown in the War of Spanish Succession in 1714. But as a cause it only really took off in the 20th century.

The region enjoyed a brief moment of autonomy in the 1930s before being brutally suppressed following the Spanish Civil War. The Catalan language was banned from schools and public offices until 1975.

Separatism has taken on new life over the last decade, as Catalans chafe at what they say is heavy-handed treatment by the central government.

"It’s a country that doesn’t ask anyone to get rid of its own identity.” Instead, it encourages them “to be part of a diverse and shared society” — Oriol Amorós, Catalan secretary for equality, migration and citizenship

In 2015, a coalition of pro-independence parties campaigned in regional elections promising to break away from Spain if they won — which they did. Once in power, they promised to hold a binding referendum on independence no later than September this year — a move Madrid says would violate the Spanish constitution.

The approaching vote makes the subject difficult to avoid, even for those who may not be well-acquainted with it.

“Nowadays, you have to say if you are for independence or not,” says Míriam Hatibi, a spokeswoman for Ibn Battuta, an NGO that helps migrants, primarily Muslims, integrate into Catalan society.

More and more recent arrivals are getting involved in politics, she’s noticed. “The first one [to get involved] was 10 years ago. Now you can’t count them, there are so many.”

And as migrants have gotten interested in politics, Catalan parties have sought to harness their participation, painting it as an opportunity to help create an ideal state in which they will be fully represented.

For Ana María Surra, the argument was compelling. Born in Uruguay, Surra moved to Catalonia to be closer to her son, who lives in Barcelona. She arrived in the city to celebrate her grandson’s first birthday in 2005, and never left.

Now an MP for the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) party, a member of the ruling coalition, Surra also founded a group called Sí, amb Nosaltres (Yes, with Us) a pro-independence group of Catalan residents originally from elsewhere.

The (migrant) case for independence

The classic case for Catalan independence, Surra says, is based on two factors: identity and economics. Catalonia is a nation with a distinct language, history and culture. And since the region pays more in taxes to the national government than it takes out, it merits full control over its finances.

For migrants, the case for independence looks a little different. Its appeal lies the promises of employment, papers and dignity.

Free from Spain’s “plunder” of its resources, says Surra, the Catalan government would be able to provide migrants with better employment opportunities.

Under Spanish labor laws, many recent migrants are unable to secure proper contracts with paid holidays. That would be fixed in an independent Catalonia, she claims.

“When we can have papers, we are going to be citizens of the first category, like everyone else,” Surra says. “We will able to vote, we will be able to participate in public life, we will be giving a bonus to the future Catalan republic as migrants.”

Oriol Amorós, the Catalan government’s secretary for equality, migration and citizenship, says the ERC intends to grant immediate citizenship to all legal residents living in Catalonia when it becomes independent.

Even if legal residents can’t vote in the referendum, “they will be immediately added to the new Catalan electoral body to express their opinion in the, for example, the referendum for a new Catalan constitution.”

He also intends to provide visas for people searching for job opportunities, as well as group visas to help citizens and residents bring their families over — all within EU parameters — he added, since the region hopes to maintain its membership in the bloc after independence.

Catalonia is a ‘nation of immigrants’ much like the United States, Amorós says. “Catalonia has been built thanks to many waves of migrations.”

People come to Catalonia — and end up staying — “because it’s a country that doesn’t ask anyone to get rid of its own identity.” Instead, it encourages them “to be part of a diverse and shared society — that is, to become Catalan.”

When the ERC had to appoint a senator in Madrid earlier this year, it chose Robert Masih Nahar, an Indian who moved to Barcelona 12 years ago. In office, Nahar has worked to convince fellow parliamentarians to allow the referendum to take place later this year.

“When you are living here, the emotion that you feel, the strong feeling of … self-determination is very strong,” says Nahar.

Hands to hands, we join we raise our voices, for our rights, to want we give in our work, we have the right to make our own choices. pic.twitter.com/qhrvHQTnyY — Robert Masih Nahar (@rmnahar) May 1, 2017

Avui ens hem trobat amb la comunitat punjabi a vic amb @ERCVic @Esquerra_ERC @ERCbcn @immigracio_erc gràcies a tothom per ser hi pic.twitter.com/AAiG8Qgz95 — Robert Masih Nahar (@rmnahar) May 6, 2017

Catalonia Dreaming

Marta Pascal, the secretary-general of the ruling Partit Democrata, the ERC’s coalition partner, outlined Catalonia’s pro-migrant philosophy, what she calls “the Catalan Dream.”

“This is a prosperous and interesting territory in the south of Europe where the Catalan Dream … works,” Pascal says. If you come to Catalonia and speak Catalan, Pascal says, you will belong.

“In my city, Vic, you can see students in the school, boys and girls in the streets … coming from different nationalities, and speaking lovely Catalan.” She smiles. “You say, something is working.”

For Khalsa, the Sikh spokesperson, the path to separatism also passed through the language. Now 31, Khalsa quickly picked up Spanish after first arriving from India in his early twenties. His teacher recommended he learn Catalan and help his community — Punjabis from India and Pakistan — acclimate to life in Catalonia.

For Khalsa, switching from Spanish to Catalan was not only expedient, but also transformative.

When he started out, “they [Catalan people] appreciated me for speaking only two to four words of Catalan.” He was amazed.

“I thought my beard or turban would create distance, but they are very happy to hear Catalan,” he says. “I have never seen a country love its language so much.”

He soon stopped speaking Spanish altogether.

Does he feel Catalan? “The feelings inside me are mixed. I am Sikh, I am Punjabi, but I think I am now Catalan as well.”

Any Spanish feeling? “Nothing at all.”

Khalsa won’t be able to vote if there’s a referendum; he’s not yet naturalized. But that doesn’t stop him from campaigning for separation. On May 9, he was joined on stage by Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who had written a foreword to Khalsa’s new book — a Catalan language guide for the region’s Punjabi community.

Picking a fight with Madrid

For many migrants, however, promises of self-determination have a double edge.

Campaigning for independence is an act of privilege, says Huma Jamshed, a naturalized Catalan resident from Pakistan and the head of ACESOP, a Barcelona-based NGO that helps integrate Pakistani women into their new communities.

“You need financial independence, you need an aptitude for language, you need to have been culturally integrated, you need to be young [the process for Spanish citizenship takes up to 10 years], maybe you’ve married a Spanish woman, so have no further family members to bring.”

Despite the success of many integration schemes, racism still haunts the lives of many new Catalans.

Only then, she says, can you “pick a fight with the government.”

The Pakistani community in Catalonia have “got their own problems,” says Jamshed. The activist spends most of her time fighting against the eviction of families who find themselves on the wrong side of Barcelona’s gentrification or “urban renewal” schemes.

Many migrants fear reprisals, imaginary or not, from the national government for supporting independence. Madrid could withhold passports from legal residents, or not issue visas to loved ones abroad, Jamshed argues. And the Catalan government doesn’t have embassies in India or Pakistan.

Despite the success of many integration schemes, racism still haunts the lives of many new Catalans. Jamshed says she was discriminated against at her former position in the Barcelona city council.

Fatima Taleb, a city councilor in a Barcelona suburb, was subjected to a wave of racist and Islamophobic abuse related to her Moroccan heritage and Muslim faith since she took office in 2015. Khalsa says he has to issue statements in defense of the Sikh community whenever there is an Islamic terror attack. He complains that many compare his appearance to Osama bin Laden’s.

Nahar, the senator, attributes the abuse Taleb faced to the suburb’s former conservative mayor, Xavier García Albiol, a unionist belonging to Spain’s ruling Popular Party, who was charged — and later acquitted — of racism after his government spread pamphlets that equated Roma people with delinquency.

Referring to racist abuse he suffered after being appointed senator, Nahar attributed it to people from outside the region.

“It’s not Catalan to be exclusive like that,” he said.

Gašper Završnik contributed to this report.