Collection of write ups by various people who were present and witnessed Operation Blue Star as it happened, and are telling what they knew of events leading up to it, along with the operation itself and aftermath. There is a diversity of opinions and experience here, which gives perspective, but more importantly, there are details not generally publicised then or later in the media of the nation for a long time. Those were days prior to opening up of the economic map of India, and also days prior to cable and consequent plenitude of news channels vying for more and better look at events.
This book shares a surprising little detail with another one read shortly before, about Sanjay Gandhi by Vinod Mehta - namely, both books are reissues of publications post enormous events that the people living through couldn't have been expected to know would be shadowed or at least added to or even pushed aside by events following soon thereafter. Sanjay Gandhi's death in the plane crash accident post Indira Gandhi's return to power hugely overshadowed his stature and effects stunningly, while Indira Gandhi's assassination by a Sikh bodyguard of her own with a rifle pumping some thirty bullets into the frail elderly prime minister of India forever overshadowed Operation Blue Star, making it a mere signpost to events leading up to aftermath of her assassination.
Since then it has become increasingly apparent that major role in events of this book was played by the same rogue nation in the region that is responsible for terror export not only in Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Kashmir and generally the region, but indeed in the whole world with possible exception of Arab nations, if that. That the Sikhs indoctrinated across the border seemed to forget their lost kingdom of yore had its capital in Lahore, and the most important place of pilgrimage Nankaanaa Saheb which is sort of Bethlehem of Sikhs, is also across the border, speaks much for the naivete of Sikhs.
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05/01/2016
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As one reads these accounts of the events leading to Operation Bluestar, so far, descriptions of Bhindrawale by various writers do invariably evoke someone very similar to one familiar with that part of history by not merely name but ideology and aims of expansion by a small insignificant person who led a violent cult movement establishing an emotional following and evoking contempt or fury in others who were revolted by the violence of the cult against rest; Bhindrawale did it against a billion Hindus, and Hitler against the whole world. Fortunately Bhindrawale was checked early, comparatively, and for this one is grateful to India, her culture and spirit. It wasn't merely a leader or a party that could do it, it was the military, and significantly, despite this military being heavily composed of the same community that Bhindrawale counted on to split the army and cause confusion and damage, playing into his hands. Instead they were far wiser, steadfast in their values and innate wisdom in crushing this manifestation in India of a disease that had caused such havoc in Europe and across the world, then barely for decades ago.
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Quoted from Forward by "K.P.S. Gill, New Delhi, June 2004":-
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K.P.S. Gill is a respected officer of Indian security forces.
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"Indeed, if any evidence of the Khalistani fervour survives, it is among a handful of lunatic expatriates, entirely divorced from the realities of the ground in Punjab. Even this lunatic fringe has been shedding regularly, as some of its leading oddballs crawl shamefacedly back into the country to ‘rejoin the mainstream.’ Others continue to rant ineffectually in their safe havens in Pakistan, or in their adopted countries abroad, increasingly discredited among those who lent them some credence in the past."
"It is useful at this time, consequently, to remind ourselves that it was precisely this pattern of venality and neglect, combined with some of the gravest and most unprincipled political misadventures by the leadership of that time – both at the state and national level – that had given rise to the terror towards the end of the 1970s. For many, it is still a matter of complete amazement that Punjab, with its booming economy and a people so generous and open-hearted, could have been seduced by the narrow-minded and mean-spirited ideology of communal ghettoization that went by the name of ‘Khalistan.’ But those who have closely studied the dynamic of the emergence and consolidation of the terror in the early 1980s will understand that a comparable failure of political imagination, in combination with a sustained pattern of administrative incompetence and cynical manipulation, can bring about future disasters as well."
"The redundancy of Operation Bluestar was, in any event, demonstrated in 1988, when Operation Black Thunder - ...... Black Thunder and the counter-terrorism campaign that followed put the terrorists to flight by the end of 1989; but politics intervened once again, and vacillation, the failure of political imagination, and the outright incompetence of the national leadership at the highest level, again wasted the advantage that had been gained through the enormous sacrifices of the security forces. Thousands of lives were still to be lost on both sides of the battlelines before sense eventually prevailed, and the last phase of the counter-insurgency campaign brought the terrorists to their final defeat."
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Quoted from "Genesis of the Hindu-Sikh Divide" by Khushwant Singh:-
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Khushwant Singh was known for his editing a magazine, apart from journalism and writing, and the fact that his father and grandfather were the builders used by British to build New Delhi, for which the father was knighted; he, the father, also used the opportunity to buy large tracts of land in the new capital, and construct the family home, apart from an apartment complex built for his descendents.
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"Sikhism was born out of Hinduism. All the ten Sikh gurus were Hindus till they became Sikhs. The Granth Sahib which Sikhs regard as the ‘Living Light’ of their gurus can be described as the essence of Vedanta. Nevertheless like other reformist movements Sikhism broke away from its parent Hindu body and evolved its own distinct rites of worship and ritual, its own code of ethics, its separate traditions which cumulatively gave it a distinct religious personality"
" .... they continued to be regarded as the militant arm of Hinduism. This was reaffirmed in the martyrdom of ninth guru, Tegh Bahadur, known popularly as Hind di chaadar – Protector of India in AD 1678. The guru had appeared before the Mughal court as a representative of the Hindus of northern India to resist forcible conversion to Islam."
Khushwant Singh's bias shows when he states:-
"Banda and several hundred of his Khalsa soldiers were captured and executed in Mehrauli, near Delhi, in March 1710. Their blood created fertile soil for the sprouting of Sikh political power.",
where he is not memtioning who was responsible for the execution, although its obvious it was the islamic regime; he's quite happy to exhibit his disparaging, and ignorance thereby, of the mainstream culture of India which is labelled Hinduism, in various remarks so far.
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In the following, as before, he strains to enforce the separate identity that never was separate until goading of anti Indian campaign by forces attempting to exact revenge about India not allowing a total massacre and genocide of East Bengal, and Khushwant Singh attempts to enforce this separate identity which as a thought in the first place gave space to separatist and terrorist activities at all, however much due to the machinations of the terrorist factory across border that is mistakenly branded a nation but is merely a suitable military base for war against USSR as per design by Churchill and maintained by U.S. with billions of dollars of aid that simply disappeared in deep pockets of high up military echelon, but as a land or people remains the tourniqueted part of India thst suffers a loss of identity due to the separation from heartland that is India.
"The relationship between the Hindus and the Khalsa remained extremely close as long as they were confronting the Mughals, Persian and Afghan invaders. Hindu youths coming to join the Khalsa simply let their hair and beards grow, accepted pahul (baptism) without breaking their family ties, it was during this period that the custom of bringing up one son as a Sikh grew amongst many Punjabi Hindu families. When Sikhs assumed power in Punjab under Maharaja Ranjit Singh (AD 1780-1839), Punjabi Hindus had even more reason to turn to the Khalsa. The Maharaja, though a devout Sikh, would also revere Brahmins, worship in Hindu temples and bathe in the Ganga. He made killing of cows a criminal offence punishable with death. Although he rebuilt the Harmandir in Amritsar in marble and gold leaf, when it came to disposing the Koh-i-Noor diamond his first preference was to gift it to the temple at Jaganathpuri."
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"British realized the advantages to them in keeping the Sikh identity separate from the Hindu. Assured of Sikh loyalty during the Mutiny of 1857 they rewarded Sikh princes and zamindars with grants of land and recruited Sikh soldiers in large numbers into their army provided they had taken the pahul and were orthodox Khalsa. An economic incentive was thus added to Sikh separatism."
"The British gave the Sikhs a vested interest in retaining the Khalsa identity distinct from the Hindu.
"Relations between the two communities remained cordial, even intimate, as much as matrimonial alliances between members of the same caste living in urban areas continued as before. As Muslim pressure for a separate state mounted and Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in many parts of northern India, Hindus and Sikhs once again formed a united front the same way their forefathers had done to face Muslim invaders and tyrants. When Partition of the country became a reality both Hindus and Sikhs living in the part of western Punjab which went to Pakistan left their lands, hearths and homes and emigrated to India."
"Of the five million Sikhs, the prosperous half had their lands and homes in the part that went to Pakistan. They were the worst losers in the division of the country. This had serious impact on their fortunes as well as on their psyche. The two-and-a-half million that were expelled from Pakistan had been the richest peasantry of India owning large estates in the canal colonies. They changed places with the largely landless Muslim peasantry of east Punjab and had to take whatever little land that was made available to them as Muslims evacuee property.
"Besides losing their land and properties Sikhs had to come to terms with secular India. Privileges they had enjoyed under the British rule by way of reservation of seats in legislatures and preferential treatment in the recruitment to the armed forces and civil services were abolished and they had to compete with other communities on the basis of merit.
"Sikhs who had observed the Khalsa symbols of unshaven hair and beards only for the economic advantages that accrued began to give them up. Their numbers began to dwindle."
Here Khushwant Singh brings up the question of separate piece of India, forgetting that the partition wasn't between Hindu and Muslim, it was between those Muslims that wouldn't tolerate others living alongside versus everyone else - India had at least eight major religions of the world, unless one begins to count various churches as separate and similarly distinguishes between various branches of muslims, when the number goes up to well over two dozen. To be specific, after partition India still has all those various religions and their followers, including muslims of more variety than elsewhere since Islamic nations often do not tolerate more than one, and if Sikhs did not have a separate piece of India, nor did Buddhists or any churches, or Jews or Parsis or followers of any other sects of any other religion.
But obviously all this is understood in India, until this question of a separate piece which is not indigenous but something used from across border to foment trouble in india, by the separated piece of india thst seeks to break up India completely, in an attempt to revenge it's identity as a small forgotten piece of India rather than the heir to the mughals.
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"Sikh fundamentalist movement began to build up under the leadership of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (1947-84). It had begun with the confrontation between orthodox Khalsa and Nirankaris in Amritsar on 13 April 1978 in which 13 lives were lost, mainly of Bhindranwale’s followers. The Nirankaris put on trial were acquitted by a judge who found that they had acted in self-defence. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale swore vengeance. The Akalis lent their support to him. From the Akal Takht the Nirankaris were proclaimed as enemies of the Khalsa Panth. On 24 April 1980, Baba Gurbachan Singh, the Nirankari guru, was assassinated in Delhi by Bhindranwale followers. This was followed by the killings of many Nirankaris in different parts of Punjab. Nevertheless, Bhindranwale was allowed to go about freely, toured Bombay and Delhi and when arrested was let off. He became a formidable force and gathered round him groups of terrorists mainly from unemployed youths belonging to the All India Sikh Students Federation. From slaying Nirankaris, terrorists expanded their ‘hit lists’ to include Nirankari sympathizers, dissident Akalis and Congress party members. Their chief target was the Hindu-owned Jullundur based chain of papers. On 9 September 1981, Lala Jagat Narain, chief editor of Punjab Kesari, was shot dead. A year later Jagat Narain’s son, Ramesh Chander, fell to their bullets. Amongst those killed were H.S. Manchanda, president of the Delhi Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, DIG of Police A.S. Atwal, Dr V.N. Tiwari, nominated member of parliament and Gyani Pratap Singh, a retired priest. Many Hindu temples were desecrated and innocent Hindu and Sikhs killed in cold blood. It was obvious that the terrorists’ ranks had been infiltrated by Pakistani agents, smugglers, Naxalites and common dacoits. The police were rarely able to identify or arrest the culprits."
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From "Akali Dal: The Enemy Within" by Amarjit Kaur.
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Amarjit Kaur was a Member of Parliament of India.
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"The phenomenon of Khalistan has been there ever since the partition .... The British had, in fact, encouraged this line of thinking. Fortunately, the older generation of Sikh leaders: the Akalis led by Master Tara Singh, the feudal elements led by the former rulers of the states of Patiala, Kapurthala, Jind, Faridkot and Nabha, and the old Sardari clique led by people like Sardar Baldev Singh, Raja Harinder Singh and Sardar Hukam Singh, in their wisdom, decided not to fall in with the designs of the British rulers and to cast their lot with India."
This author seems to credit separatist movement to ignorance of youth in the newer generation post independence, rather than machinations from across border.
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"Bhindranwale had begun his fiery speeches and used to say openly that he would weigh the person in gold who would fetch him the Nirankari chief, Baba Gurbachan Singh’s head.
"The government could have arrested him at that stage but it required somebody saying that they had proof. The government did not want to take the risk, as they had to release him, earlier, for the lack of any legal proof.
"Everybody was frightened because they felt that if they did give any evidence against Bhindranwale or against any of his men, they and their entire families would be killed."
"There were other more complex reasons why Bhindranwale could not have been stopped earlier. Political reasons, shall we say. A cordial relationship between the then home minister and the chief minister might have avoided many mistakes. Sardar Darbara Singh blamed all his misdeeds on the home minister. He kept saying: ‘I wanted to do this but he stopped me.’ When Mr Atwal was murdered, Mr Darbara Singh wanted to enter the Golden Temple but he was, he said, stopped by Giani Zail Singh who was then the home minister."
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About Bhindrawale:-
" .... threat to kill all Congress(I) MPs and MLAs on 5 June and their plan to begin mass killing of Hindus in villages."
"The Patiala gurdwara, Dukhanwaran, was coming up as a sub-centre of the terrorist movement. Harvinder Singh Khalsa was camping in our district and coordinating the activities from there."
"He definitely had links with the Pakistanis and Americans. After all, he had links with Ganga Singh Dhillon and Jagjit Singh Chauhan. I was told many years ago by people who had visited Canada that the Sikhs living in that country had already decided to have a Khalistan in Punjab."
"I would like to know how people who have left India and have become American or Canadian citizens can dictate terms to us. They are no longer Indians. They have no business to act as foreign agents in our homeland.We received Khalistan currency notes a few months ago and pamphlets about how the Sikhs were being discriminated against. Many Sikhs had, in fact, stated that they were being discriminated against and when there was no other way for them to enter other countries they began to use the word, ‘political asylum.’ This was the only way to migrate and get jobs in those countries. By doing this they disgraced our community and our country."
"Ever since Tohra took up the SGPC presidentship, he has concentrated on bringing politics into the gurdwaras instead of preaching the Sikh religion from there."
"The Sikh intellectual tends to see Hindu communalism behind every bush. He aggravates this feeling of insecurity by immersing himself even further in ritualistic dogmas, adhering to the letter rather than the spirit of the law. He is deliberately throwing himself backwards in time to the seventeenth century just at the moment when we are on the threshold of the twenty-first century."
"Where is the danger to the Sikh community? What was the need for the dharamyudh? Who is asking us to change? Who is converting us?"
"We are now shouting and screaming after the army action. We say our sentiments are hurt. These are hollow sentiments. Where were these sentiments when Hindus and Sikhs were being killed? Why were we silent when Hindus were pulled out from buses and shot like dogs on the street?"
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Quoted from "Terrorists in the Temple" by Tavleen Singh.
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Tavleen Singh has been one of the most reliable journalists in India. She incidentally is a niece of Khushwant Singh, that is to say, her grandfather was the builder employed by the British to build New Delhi, and knighted for it.
Here she begins with seeing the Golden Temple after Operation Blue Star and recalling her meeting with Bhindrawale.
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" ... ‘Call Leher Singh,’ he shouted, ‘You want to know what they do to the Sikhs, let me show you.’ A few minutes later, a rather large man of about 30 was brought in. He was dressed in traditional Sikh clothes but his beard had been hacked off, as if with a knife. He said that he was from Jatwali village in Fazilka and that Thanedar Bicchu Ram of Sadar Police Station had held him down and chopped his beard off and told him to go and tell Bhindranwale. Six months later Bicchu Ram was shot dead by terrorists and it was then that I realized that I had witnessed the signing of the death warrant.
"After several visits to the Golden Temple it slowly became clear that this was how the hit list was prepared. Bhindranwale dispensed his own version of justice. People would come from all over Punjab with complaints against policemen, officials, judges or just other people. Their complaints would be carefully noted down by Racchpal Singh and action taken of one kind or another. If the complaints were against Hindus the punishment was generally death; Sikhs could sometimes be let off if they came and begged forgiveness. If someone received a favour from Bhindranwale then it was understood that in future he would consider himself one of his men to be called on if the need arose. By the end he managed to establish a network of spies in the villages through whom he silenced those who did not believe in him."
"Inside the Golden Temple, however, a campaign was mounted against them by the extremists who mocked them for even thinking of a solution that did not include all the demands in the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. In what looked like an almost deliberate attempt to destroy any alliance they might be considering with the national opposition parties Bhindranwale made his first blatantly anti-Hindu statement around September when he said he would kill 5,000 Hindus if the police did not release a minibus of his that had been impounded.
"It was around this time that dead bodies started appearing in the sewer in a street directly behind the Guru Nanak Niwas. The first one was discovered some time in August or September when a terrible stench hung over the street and filtered through to the SGPC office. Bhan Singh, the SGPC general-secretary, telephoned the senior superintendent of police and reqested a police party to come and ‘look in the sewer where there appeared to be a body.’
"The police party, after taking special permission from the SGPC to enter ‘their territory,’ opened up the manhole and fished out the body of a youth who appeared to have been tortured to death.
"In the next few weeks three or four more bodies were fished out of the same sewer in similar conditions. Inquiries inside the Golden Temple were answered with sullen stares in the direction of the Guru Nanak Niwas. Those who were prepared to talk only did so in whispers. They said that the victims had betrayed Bhindranwale and had been tied in sacks and beaten to death. Nobody dared to even remember their names. They were just traitors. The police, of course, could do nothing at all because the murders had taken place in ‘their (extremists’) territory.’ A section of the Brahma Boota Bazaar had already become part of extremist territory, as had a couple of streets in the immediate vicinity of the temple.
"The police behaved as if they needed a passport to enter this area. One senior officer said he had tried driving into the Brahma Boota Bazaar late one night but the minute he got within firing range of the Golden Temple’s entrance he had noticed a machine-gun pointed at him from the roof of the Akal Rest House."
"Slowly the venom that was being spewed out every day from the Golden Temple started to get into the very blood of Punjab and this culminated inevitably and horribly in the killings of six Hindu bus passengers in Dhilwan village, near Jullundur on 5 October 1983. The men were singled out by Sikh terrorists and shot dead for the simple reason that they were Hindu.
"The following day a terrified administration handed in its resignation and the state was put under president’s rule. While the whole country reacted with shock and horror, the extremists in the Golden Temple showed neither remorse nor sorrow."
"‘Our guru,’ said one Sikh, ‘could fight, 125,000 (sawa lakh sey ek ladaoon). We have calculated that with a total Hindu population of 66 crores, it comes to only 35 per Sikh. Imagine only 35, not even a hundred. So don’t think of yourselves as weak.’"
" ... Bhindranwale’s death squads continued to spread destruction. On 28 March the Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee president, H.S. Manchanda, was killed at one of Delhi’s busiest traffic intersections. Two weeks later on 16 April, 38 railway stations in Punjab were set on fire in a carefully synchronized pre-dawn operation. An organization called the Dashmesh Regiment took credit for both acts of terrorism and it became clear that a trained military mind was behind them.
"Bhindranwale had no dearth of military minds to call on. In December 1982 when Sant Longowal called a convention of ex-servicemen inside the Golden Temple, 170 officers over the rank of colonel were among the approximately 5,000 ex-soldiers who came forward."
"In the month before 6 June there was constant activity inside the extremist camp. Gun battles with the para-military forces had by now become a daily occurrence and these necessitated fortifications which seemed to come up overnight.
"Slowly the gun battles became longer and more serious and the security forces started setting up positions on rooftops overlooking the temple. The extremists responded by occupying some houses themselves so that the immediate environs of the Golden Temple became a war zone at least ten days before the last battle.
"In a funny kind of way the extremists seemed to think that they would succeed in holding off an attack. Somehow, they seemed prepared to fight but not to die. Bhindranwale, himself, gave the impression of being confident till the very end. On 3 June, which was the last day that journalists were allowed in, he was seen personally loading guns and handing them out to his followers.
"But after curfew was declared that night and the entire state was closed down for 36 hours it became clear that the army meant business. It was at this stage that a large number of Bhindranwale’s men are believed to have escaped through the more obscure exits from the temple."
"Whoever they were, the army believes that they were up against at least 1,500 extremists of whom about 500 were the really motivated ones. Some hid in tunnels and manholes and continued fighting till two days after Bhindranwale was killed. A couple of shots were even fired at Zail Singh when he visited the gurdwara on 8 June. On the morning of 6 June, while the fighting continued in the Akal Takht and the Harmandir Sahib, army troops surrounded the Teja Singh Samundari Hall and the Guru Ram Das Serai and took Longowal and Tohra into custody. Bibi Amarjit Kaur was arrested at the same time from a room near the Sikh reference library which was later destroyed in a fire."
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Blood, Sweat and Tears by Shekhar Gupta
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Shekhar Gupta has been editor of Indian Express.
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"‘Let the army come, we will teach them the lesson of their lifetime,’ Bhindranwale often used to say. But his bravado was evidently in the hope that, first, the government would be hesitant to use the army, fearing large scale mutiny by Sikh soldiers and secondly, even if it did, the ‘inevitable’ revolt by the Sikhs not only in the army but in all civil, paramilitary and police services would help him turn the tables. He had told me confidently just a fortnight before the assault: ‘Even if that Brahmin’s daughter (as he sneeringly referred to Mrs Gandhi) sends in the army, there is no doubt that the Sikh soldiers will keep out of it. And we are absolutely good enough to deal with the topi wallas (Hindu soldiers).’ It was the same wishful thinking that obviously added to his men’s overconfidence.
"But on this day, they were in for a rude surprise. Commandants of four of the six assault battalions were Sikhs, two of the three commanding generals, Division Commander Brar and Western Command Chief of Staff Ranjit Singh Dayal were Sikhs. And the battalion that launched the first assault, the 10 Guards, was a mixed unit containing a generous sprinkling of Sikhs and led by Lt Col Israr Khan, a Muslim. But the same bravado had left the thousand-odd men to the right of the bungas untouched. Most of these consisted of Akali Dal and SGPC officials and workers, and over 500 pilgrims who had come in on 3 June, the martyrdom day of Guru Arjun Dev. Though they all took the warnings seriously, there was no getting away without risking one’s life as bullets flew all over. Only 117, including a large number of labourers engaged by the SGPC, took the risk of walking out and surrendering to the army. As subsequent events proved, they were the ones who weighed the odds correctly. Of those who chose to stay inside, no less than half never came out and many ended up maimed for life."
"The danger of jawans getting caught in fellow units’ crossfire was real and officers in the Parikrama recall the silhouetted figure of Diwan blinking a torch and shouting at the men of Madras and Kumaon regiments, ‘Don’t shoot, I am the Deputy GOC.’ Diwan’s providential arrival on the scene was to have decisive impact on the situation as it helped control the confusion with jawans from various units crammed on the Parikrama floor. With the infantry busy clearing up the Parikrama, the task of ‘contacting’ the Akal Takht was left to the highly-trained commandos of Special Frontier Force (SFF), the secret outfit run by the RAW at Chakrata near Mussoorie."
"Later, the heavily chipped pillars bore ample evidence of the fire which could, in all probability, have come in only from the temple. But that was one fire the troops were prohibited to return and officers recall situations of near insubordination as they tried to prevent their men from firing back. In the last-minute address to the troops before the assault, Brar had said: ‘In no circumstances are you to fire at the temple. I know this amounts to sending somebody to the boxing ring with one hand tied behind his back. But here, this will have to be done.’ The orders to officers were to hand out summary punishment, even dismissal to anyone violating this order and it is only because of this that the temple still stood after the operation more or less intact, barring some bullet marks that could have resulted from strays in the heavy crossfire."
"But there was yet another surprise in store for the troops as the militants unleashed a surprise weapon, a 40 mm, Chinese-made RPG-7 and one of the first shots bored through the side of the lead APC, wounding Captain Jagdev Singh, in command. The immobilized vehicle was now a sitting duck and the commanders ordered the troops to abandon it. It was in that process that the driver, while alighting, was shot in the eye and killed. The generals had by now begun to realise that they had miscalculated the determination, firepower and the skill of the defenders and that could no longer delay the inevitable, the use of tanks."
"All along the day on 5 June, helicopter reconnaissance patrols had been spotting mob formations all over the district. One mob that got perilously close to Amritsar town in the direction of the Raja Sansi Airport was intercepted in the nick of time by a column of jawans who overcame it only with the use of intense automatic fire. Much of it was, however, directed at the mob’s flanks, killing just eight persons."
"The exhortation taken out of the holy Sikh scriptures later became the militants’ code-word to begin slaughtering Hindus and to march to the Golden Temple as soon as the siege began, and it had apparently gone around even on the morning of 3 June, hours before the first columns of the army moved in. On that quiet morning, India Today photo editor Raghu Rai and I had gone to the small mandi-town of Rayya, nearly 40 km from Amritsar, to look at the impact of the Akali call to blockade the transport of wheat at the mandis. On the way back, we decided to take a detour via the village of Nagoke, about 20 km from the Grand Trunk Road. Nagoke has been the cradle of militancy and Kulwant Singh Nagoke, one of the first Bhindranwale men to have died at the hands of the police, hailed from here. My idea was to visit his place as part of a continuing study of the phenomenon of extremism. But the atmosphere in his house was tense, with his widow doing all the talking and a bunch of eight young men keeping absolutely quiet. The truth dawned on us as we were leaving. One of the youths took me aside and dropped the bombshell, saying: ‘I have seen you with Santji (Bhindranwale). So we feel sorry for you. Please run away as soon as you can. Word has gone round to kill all the pandits (Bhindranwale’s favourite expression to describe all Hindus). No one will even bother to stop your car, they will just shoot. And I am afraid I cannot help you beyond the boundaries of this village.’ And then he added, as an afterthought, ‘Hun kam shuru ho giya hai (now the campaign has begun).’"
"Thus, while the commanders battled with the option of sending in the tanks, the ‘campaign’ had been on for over 60 hours and sheer providence had so far prevented a large-scale massacre. While the local authorities were getting increasingly worried, pressure had been mounting from Delhi as well to achieve results quickly as curfew could not be maintained for an indefinite period and a relaxation was unavoidable the following day."
"The first indications of a capitulation came around 11 a.m. Officers recall the strange spectacle of about 25 militants rushing out of the building, firing at random and running straight into death as troops opened up in all their pent-up fury. ... The generals guessed that the mad dash was an indication that Bhindranwale was either dead or wounded or had, confirming their worst fears, escaped. Yet the situation was considered reassuring enough to allow the district authorities to order a two-hour relaxation in curfew in the afternoon.
"And how Amritsar came to life in just those two hours! No vehicles were allowed; there was thus a procession of thousands of men on all roads, out shopping for food, vegetables and medicines. Rotting, week-old dussehri mangoes sold for Rs 12 a kg. There were long queues even in front of a group of shops selling fodder for cattle – so acute had fodder shortage been during the curfew that, with restrictions on movement making it impossible for them to take their cattle out for grazing, many in Amritsar had taken the painful decision of leaving their cattle astray, to fend for themselves."
"From a purely military point of view, an operation of this kind had never been carried out anywhere in the world and the lessons of Bluestar would be analyzed not only in the Indian Army’s College of Combat at Mhow but perhaps also at numerous military academies all over the world. It is often said in diplomatic and international military circles now that an operation of this kind could have been carried out much more effectively and with much less bloodshed by a specialized force like the British army’s SAS. But Indian commanders point out that even the best commando outfit in the world, whether SAS or American Green Berets, would have found it difficult to break through such fortifications while facing constraints of saving a whole lot of sensitive buildings and installations. Besides, the very intricately political nature of the operation ensured that there was to be no surprise. On the other hand, the army was to make itself highly visible to overawe the defenders and then lie in wait, repeatedly giving warnings. It were these constraints that made a clean, surgical commando operation rather difficult. It ultimately became the much-maligned foot- soldier’s battle. Yet, the last-minute twists and turns and the intensity of fighting took the brightest of Indian Army commanders by surprise. Gen Sundarji, formerly director of the College of Combat, latter said that such intense firing had not even been seen during Indo-Pak wars. Dyal, who as a dashing major of the Paras in 1965 had led the remarkable capture of the heavily-held Haji Pir Pass in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, winning a Mahavir Chakra, too had a surprise or two. It was also the most testing experience for Brar, an alumnus of the US army’s War College at Carlyle Barracks, Pennsylvania, who too had seen fierce action in 1971, at the head of 1 Maratha in the Bangladesh War, winning a Vir Chakra. All the generals and other officers involved in the operation admit that it was the toughest challenge of their lives, a kind they would not fancy facing again. It is never easy fighting your own countrymen, even more so when they happen to be from a stock which has formed the sword arm of the country’s defence for so long."
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Operation Bluestar: An Eyewitness Account by Subhash Kirpekar
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Subhash Kirpekar "... had covered the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh as a war correspondent and seen part of the 1965 Indo-Pak conflict in Khemkaran, Burki and Icchogil Canal."
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"I am told by Mr V. Ram, principal of the International Gandhi Memorial School in Jakarta, that five youths belonging to the banned AISSF landed up in Jakarta on 8 July. They established contact with him through some students. They told him that if they did not secure their no-objection certificates from the Indian Embassy there to proceed to USA and Australia, they would do something drastic. They could have blown up the Indian Embassy building which was inaugurated on 4 June by the then Foreign Minister, Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao. Or they could have played hell in the Sikh gurdwara in Pasabari where they were about to take shelter."
"There are some who talk of blood and tears in a pool of nectar. They would be applying the healing touch if they also spoke of the dangers of marigold and roses being replaced by deadly weapons in a sacred shrine."
"The Akali Dal, the SGPC and the five head priests talk repeatedly of Bhindranwale being a creation of the Congress. But I find that they are hard put to explain why they are out to make the Congress discard their martyr. The hypocrisy and double-facedness stands exposed.
"When they lay emphasis on the Akal Takht as an institution, and not as a mere building, being damaged they fail to see why the army doctor Capt Shyam Sunder Rampal should have had his hands chopped off by terrorists and bled to death; or why Dr V.N. Tiwari, MP, should have been gunned down in his Chandigarh residence; or why Ramesh Chander was slain in Jullundur.
"Some stalwarts talk about different solutions that might have been possible to implement. Prominent among these theories is that the army could have laid a siege to the Golden Temple and given an ultimatum. Water, power, food supplies, etc., could have been cut off during the siege to force the entrenched men out. This, however, would not have worked. For one thing, the Golden Temple complex does have a few tunnels leading into houses in different areas. This would have enabled a determined Bhindranwale to make a monkey out of the army to appear at a venue and time of his choice. Secondly, the gullible villagers could have been made to believe that Sikhism was in danger and asked to encircle the army. Such a situation would have led to greater bitterness and more bloodshed without achieving results. The last two-and-a-half years of Bhindranwale’s reign of terror cannot be wiped out from the collective memory of the people in the north; nor can it be shrugged off as an ugly nightmare."
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Assault on the Golden Temple Complex 5-6 June 1984
by LT GEN JAGJIT SINGH AURORA (RETD)
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"Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora, PVSM, who successfully led the Bangladesh operations in 1971, was one of the most capable ex-Army officers to analyze the planning and execution of Operation Bluestar."
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"To begin with, the Akali agitation had lasted for so long that it was obvious to anyone that it would continue till certain political demands were met. These demands were of all Punjabis; only, the Akali party had taken the initiative to agitate for them. Unfortunately the political demands were mixed up with some religious demands and the Akalis failed to carry Punjabi Hindus with them and later even alienated them."
This is the second or third writer in this collection to refer to this, and there are points on more than one side. While Punjab was a state to begin with, if Punjabi language didn't have recognition as the main language, it wasn't due to anyone outside Punjab opposing it in any way.
While the centre had opposed other states with their linguistic identities - notably, Maharashtra and Gujarat, which were created only after a long agitation for Maharashtra, in 1960, on May 1st, after the then Bombay province governor had ordered a protest being met with shooting by police, with 105 deaths as a result in what was until then known as Flora Fountain and is since named Hutaatmaa Chowk (Martyr Square) - and, too, had dragged about other states in South, with anomalies allowed such as a Telugu speaking majority city of Madras being awarded to a Tamil speaking state also named Madras - on the whole the linguistic lines of state creation had been applied.
But the problem of Punjab was different, and it was part of a phenomena of the whole northern plain from Vindhya to Himaalayan ranges; namely, that the domination by Islamic invader regimes had sought to, and succeeded in, destroying or denigrating great deal of indigenous culture, of which chief manifestation was the question of language. Foreign languages such as Arabic, Persian and Turkish had dominated the courts of those regimes, and vocabulary from those languages used with structures of indigenous in North had created Urdu, literally meaning 'that of hordes', used by the lower rungs of the said courts. This was the language allowed to be used in education, as education by indigenous schools was forbidden under those regimes.
Consequently Punjab, always at the crossroads of invasions and suffering thereby, and the front of defence of India, had always had Urdu as the language of its education and literature, and later of press. People did speak Punjabi, at home and with friends, in markets and so on. They still do, but Punjabi is still not even taught in schools in West Punjab, across border after partition.
In most of North Hindi was the epithet applied to what is now called Urdu, since British rule brought an equality that Hindus had not had for a millennium and half, and this brought in a movement for bringing up the Indian language, which kept the name Hindi. So in Punjab elsewhere the lines were drawn along thus divide, Muslims stuck to Urdu even if they spoke Punjabi and really knew nothing of Urdu, while Hindus going with independence spirit solidified themselves with Hindi even when they spoke Punjabi normally.
Being bilingual or more is familiar to most of India, of course, and in fact most educated people are at least trilingual, with English and Hindi forming two out of three major languages, and even Hindi heartland population has usually a local language spoken at home or regionally, but with a dialect status. In addition good many, far more number than politically admitted, know Sanskrit, very much alive despite the denigration in favour of Urdu, and some people in border regions or settled in states far from their ancestral ones, speak the local or of one across border. This is comparable, say, to someone in Alsace speaking two local languages in addition to English, and learning Latin at school. Or people in coastal Provence speaking Provencal and Liguarian in addition to French.
Punjab being divided along linguistic lines to give a majority to Sikhs, therefore, was a communal, not a linguistic, decision, and a grave mistake therefore, leading to the separatist movement being possible at all.
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"If one is to believe Harkishan Singh Surjeet, and I see no reason to disbelieve him, he had claimed, both from public platforms and in writing, that many discussions were held between the Akali party and the central government when differences were narrowed down considerably and decisions were practically arrived at, but at the last minute talks were broken off by the government. As a result the moderate Akali leadership, eager to end the crisis, was forced to return to Amritsar empty-handed each time, where it was jeered at by the Bhindranwale group who said, ‘Well, if you go with a begging bowl what do you expect? Unless you can stand up to this government you’ll get nothing.’ Slowly and steadily, the Akalis found themselves losing credibility among the Sikh masses, and Bhindranwale’s influences increasing. My conviction is that if Sant Harchand Singh Longowal’s position had not been weakened by these unfruitful negotiations, he and the others would have been able to control Bhindranwale. All the same it is a pity that the head of the SGPC, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, permitted Bhindranwale to shift from Guru Nanak Niwas to Akal Takht and entrench himself there."
This sound a very like Arun Shourie documenting the struggle in Assam to get the centre to deal with problems Assam faced for decades due to illegal migrants, with tactics by centre similar, for the political strategy of congress party being to disable every other party with whatever means possible, the only exception being communists who had support of foreign powers, and even split along the major divide between the two main communist powers abroad. In short, congress reneging on promises to Akali Dal is very typical.
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"One of the strongest features of the Sikh community before this action was that despite being a minority, very few actually felt that they did not belong to the national mainstream, as they have lived harmoniously with all other communities; the fact that they looked different or had a different religion was never a consideration for them to feel apart. Now they do."
But for the last sentence, it's all true. As for the last three words, going by personal experience, Sikhs are wiser than that. I recall once seeing off a friend who'd come to visit, alone, and she had to travel the whole distance form North to South of Delhi, alone, as dusk fell. This was decades ago, we were both in our thirties, neither had a car. The autorickshaw that stopped had an elderly Sikh driver, and we were immediately reassured about her being safe. He said he couldn't take her the whole way but assured us he'd see to it she got another, safe rickshaw to take her the other half, and repeatedly told us to not worry. We didn't even need him to say this, we immediately were sure just seeing him.
It was only much later that this, normal, incident was brought to mind in context of the supposed communal divide that in fact is as illusive as looking at the ocean at the southern tip of India on beach and saying one can actually see the difference of colours between Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, or Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, which is nonsense. Yes, one quite often sees two rivers meeting in there very different colours and other characteristics, especially along the length of Gangaa from upper Himaalayan river tributaries to Devprayaag where its finally Gangaa, but that's comparable to seeing two sides of families of ancestors of people who aren't intermarried for generations. The oceans are perhaps distinguished at the southernmost tip South of Ushuaia, but not so at India.
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"I do not wish to question the army’s competence or the commanders’ ability. I have always felt and still feel that under the circumstances and the compulsions imposed on them they completed a difficult assignment successfully and with great care."
"When I visited the temple again on 6 July, exactly a month after the Operation, I saw some of the defences which might have been built over, but a large number had been left to show to the people how the defences had been built by the terrorists. It was obvious that in a period of three months – between March and June – much had been done and the defences had been well sited. I knew Maj Gen Shabeg Singh, who had served under me during the Bangladesh Operation in 1971. He had not lost his professional touch. From the account of the battle as narrated bv Maj Gen K.S. Brar the extremists had taken every advantage of their defensive positions and fought valiantly and skilfully."
"The number of weapons seized, though large, would indicate that these were insufficient to equip a force of more than 2,000 people. The number of weapons seized from all parts of the temple complex, including the Sarovar, were about 1000, which included over a 100 pistols."
"The use and stocking of firearms inside the Golden Temple is reprehensible and inexcusable. I make no excuse for Bhindranwale and his followers for preaching and practising violence as this is against the tenets of Sikhism. There is, however, a need to correct the picture that has been painted by the media that sophisticated weapons were found inside the temple. The first thing to remember is that in a war weapons get lost! In both the wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971, a large number of weapons were picked up by people and never accounted for. With the large-scale smuggling going on across Punjab-Pakistan border some gunrunning must have taken place. Since 1960, the government has been issuing arms to certain reliable people living close to the border for security purposes. So there have been a lot of unaccounted weapons in circulation in Punjab, used often in family feuds, property disputes and dacoity. Their buying and selling has been a lucrative trade. Another point to note is that of the weapons seized inside the temple, only 60 self-loading rifles bear foreign markings. The rest are all of Indian origin. Further, there were no medium machine-guns or mortars. There were, however, a large number of light machine-guns. Ammunition for both the light and medium machine-guns is the same, but a medium machine-gun has a higher and more sustained rate of fire. There were two rocket launchers with the terrorists but only one was used."
"I am certain that for the army it has been an extremely unpleasant task. Some of the officers have come under a great deal of criticism. I know both Lt Gen R.S. Dayal MVC and Maj Gen K.S. Brar VrC well. Both had served under me. Dayal was the hero of Hajipeer Pass in 1965 War with Pakistan, while Brar commanded his batallion with distinction in Bangladesh Operations. Both are gallant and capable officers. It is unfair to criticize them for the conduct of this Operation which could not have been of their own choosing. They, however, did not falter and carried out their assignments loyally and to the best of their ability. The actual conduct of the Operation was the responsibility of Brar, but I doubt if he had much freedom in its planning and execution. One thing that impressed me was that before going into the battle he told his troops that if any one did not wish to take part in this Operation he could opt out."
"It is for the first time that desertions on such a scale have taken place from the army. The episode in Ramgarh could be termed a mutiny when the regimental commandant was shot dead by the soldiers. From what one has been able to glean from newspaper reports, one can only surmise that these incidents occurred spontaneously and were not a premeditated plan or deep-seated conspiracy as averred by some. This is apparent from the fact that most of the deserters picked up weapons from their units, got into military transport and left from places like Pune and Ramgarh, hoping to reach Amritsar in large groups! Even a little bit of clear thinking would have made it obvious to them that they stood no chance of reaching Amritsar without being intercepted, killed or rounded up en route. This is actually what happened."
"As soon as Phase I was over Phase II was launched which was to capture and clear off the terrorists from Punjab countryside. This Operation is still in progress and three or four infantry divisions have been employed on it. To begin with the modus operandi was to have the troops located down to thanas. Their job was to carry out searches of suspected houses or villages to locate extremists/terrorists. The suspects were taken to interrogation centres and persuaded to confess. Those who were considered innocent were sent back to their villages. Others were handed over to the police custody. Unfortunately; the only method of persuasion appears to be physical coercion. This has led to many hair-raising stories.
"It is believed that the army units have now been drawn back to tehsil headquarters and most of the searches are being conducted by the police or paramilitary forces. Army units still carry out frequent patrolling of the disturbed or suspected areas."
"The use of the army during this episode in Punjab has been extensive and all-embracing. Police had become ineffective and the administration was told not to interfere. The army was given total freedom of action to carry out arrests and investigation. It was permitted to establish its own interrogation centres. People were picked up and kept in custody without giving reasons. By and large the army has acted humanely and with due care."
"In spite of whatever has happened and is happening the vast majority of the Sikhs do not want Khalistan and are not asking for it."
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Myth and Reality by M V Kamath
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"M.V. Kamath, also a veteran journalist and Khushwant Singh’s successor as the editor of the erstwhile Illustrated Weekly of India, is one of the few writers who has been able to take an objective stand on the army action in Punjab during Operation Bluestar."
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"... Punjabis are more than a people. They function as a family, if a somewhat extended one.
"Two of the five rivers, virtually all the canal system and some of the best land went to Pakistan.
"Add to it the fact that Punjab has neither coal nor heavy industry nor oil. Yet in wheat yield per hectare the Punjabi farmer has beaten farmers in the United States, the Soviet Union, Canada and Pakistan. In rice yield he has bested China and plans to beat Japan as well. The motto is ‘Can Do.’ Of every 100 kg of rice, Punjab’s contribution to the union government is 56 kg. Of every 100 kg of wheat the government buys, Punjab provides 63 kg. And this from a state that does not eat rice and treats it as something to be eaten when one is sick!
"Some believe that Punjabi prosperity has been made possible by money coming from Sikhs living abroad. To a small extent, possibly. In Jullundur district alone, according to one report, Punjab National Bank has foreign exchange deposits worth Rs 270 crore. Punjabis want all that money to be used in Punjab for development purposes. They say it is all ‘their’ money. The Reserve Bank, however, is chary of liberalizing credit facilities. Punjabis resent this."
"Punjabis want textile mills to be set up in their state. Why should Punjabi cotton have to go to Maharashtra to be spun and woven and sold back to Punjab at a profit? This they call in their naivette, colonialism."
Note:- this author mentions mills being situated in Maharashtra, but not the fact that people of Maharashtra as such do not benefit thereby per se; owners have been from Gujarati or Parsi or Marwadi communities, or refugees from Sindh after partition, and workers often brought in from other - poorer - states as well, to break local labour unions as per British practices copied by such owners; as a result there is huge resentment in Maharashtra between locals who feel there homeland being drowned in the migrant onslaught, whik e outsider migrants have no love lost for their work country and abuse it to their heart's content in their homesickness.
That such migrants in turn help bring their relatives and friends to fill positions in Maharashtra does not help matters. Nor does the fact that home states of the said migrants have no opportunities for the people of Maharashtra thus pushed out in the home state, either because those states are poor in the first place (Bihar, UP,...), or because they lack industries (Bihar, UP, Rajasthan, ...), or, some states such as tamilnadu have policies to not allow outsiders employed in their states.
Moreover, Punjab does have industries, for example Ludhiana with its mills are practically monopoly in woollens, and there are even jokes - decades old - about how an ordinary mehanic in Jalandhar, Punjab can inscribe "made in Punjab" on the finest possible hair-thin wire manufactured in Japan!
But more relevantly, Punjabi enterprise and hardihhod in work is known and appreciated through India; it's highly unlikely that Punjab would not have industry just for lack of capital from, say, Gujarat. So the balance of Punjab economy being in favour of agriculture rather than industry is due to the land being so very fertile, not because there's a lack of workers or capital. It would be a pity to lose the bread basket merely so there are factories spewing fume and destroying health of land and people.
Recently some agitators in Darjeeling said Calcutta government was not allowing industries to develop in Darjeeling, which horrified us - losing the pristine Himaalayan beauty! Mahabaleshwar is ruined due to far too much building of hotels, and consequent deforestation, as are Pune, Khandala, Himaalayan regions in general.
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" ... tragedy struck the day Sikh Sabha, which had been formed to defend Sikhism against christian attacks, declared that christians were not Hindus ."
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At this point, it's not possible to quote any more from this excellent article by M. V. Kamath, due to having reached the limit allowed by the publisher. I looked to buy another copy of a different edition, which is possible about many books, but not this! So anyone reading the review must simply for themselves read the said article. Same is truevof the next excellent article by Sunil Sethi and then a brief but comprehensive white paper by the then government of India.
What remains at the end is the distinct impression of a continuity of terrorist movements, from Hitler's Nazis, to Bhindrawale and his anti Hindu violence inciting large scale violence in India killing Hindus - it was merely a question of each Sikh killing thirty five Hindus, he told his followers - to the jihadists that spread from across border into Afghanistan to suppress and destroy any possibility of that nation achieving peace or prosperity, and then into Kashmir, killing hundreds of Hindus and ordering the rest out "without their property and women" in 1990, to subsequent spate of terrorist attacks in India, and bin laden and his followers wreaking havoc across the world last couple of decades. They are all connected to a lumpen need of destroying everything better, and robbing others, massacring everyone who won't serve and calling it religion for sake of fooling enough people to follow them into killing fields.
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