In the Aftermath of Operation Bluestar

Khushwant Singh, Sikh Review, November 1984

The reactions of the Sikhs (to the Army action in Punjab) should not have taken anyone by surprise. Harmandir and the Akal Takht are their their most sacred shrines. To the simple minded Sikh peasant the army were the attackers. Bhindranwale and his men its defenders. When they heard that the Granth (regarded as the ‘living’ symbol of the Gurus) installed in the Harmandir had been pierced by a bullet and over a thousand handwritten copies and originals of hukumnamas had been reduced to ashes, a ragi hit by a bullet while singing, and that scores of women and children were amongst the thousands of innocent pilgrim, killed, they were outraged.

Virtually to a man, the 14 million strong community felt as if it had been slapped in the face. What added to its anger was the jubilation with which Hindus greeted the news of the killing of Bhindranwale and his followers. In Amritsar, Hindus entertained the troops with tea, cigarettes, aerated waters, sweetmeats and liquor. There were similar celebrations amongst Hindus in most parts of northern India. The Government controlled media - All India Radio and Doordarshan - added to the anguish of the Sikhs by emphasising the heroism displayed by the Army and spreading canards with the help of the two news agencies (PTI and UNI) and planting stories in the subservient Press. Through the tarnished images of Bhindranwale and the Akalis it sought to blacken the face of the entire community.

It was put out that the troops had suffered heavy casualties because they were under strict orders not to fire at the Harmandir even if they received fire from it and that is why the shrine was totally undamaged and no one seeking sanctuary in it had been hurt.

People present there at the time had a different tale to tell, which was later confirmed by those who visited the shrine. Bhindranwale forbade his men from entering the Harmandir to fight and there was no firing on the Army from it. Nevertheless the Harmandir bore upwards of 300 fresh bullet marks, whether fired by the Army or Bhindranwale’s men no one will ever know. A blind ragi Amreek Singh, singing the gurbani, was hit by a bullet and died leaving a pool of blood invisible on the red carpet on which he had fallen; cluster of flies on the coagulated blood lent credence to the ragi’s slaying. The carpet was quickly replaced. First reports, all issued by Government agencies, admitted the deaths of 13 women and some children. The same agencies then denied that any women or children had died. When faced with the contradiction, a third version was floated, viz, the women and children had been killed by a grenade thrown by Bhindranwale’s men!

It was put out (by Government agencies) that a large number of women, including prostitutes and European hippies, were found in the Temple complex. Some women were pregnant— others presumably were able to avoid pregnancy because of the large numbers of condoms found in the debris. This was followed by yet another canard that quantities of opium, heroin and hashish were unearthed by the troops. The story made the front pages of all newspapers. Two days later, an amended statement was issued to the effect that the narcotics were discovered in a house outside the temple complex; This was published on the inside pages where it passed unnoticed by the majority of readers who only read headlines.

Attempts to further blacken the reputation of Bhindranwale were even clumsier. It was first suggested that he had committed suicide. Then M. K. Dhar of The Hindustan Times had it from most reliable sources (almost certainly No. 1, Safdarjang Road) that he had been slain ‘by his own comrades’. This made banner headlines on the front page of his paper. When the post-mortem report revealed that Bhindranwale’s body was riddled with bullets from head to foot, no more was heard of his taking his own life, or being murdered by his men.

Since no self-respecting Sikhs could be found to give the Government a clean chit, frightened rustics were hauled before TV cameras and made to repeat statements prepared by officials to the effect of the Army action had brought peace to the Punjab. This was obvious when the helpless Kirpal Singh, Jathedar of the Akal Takht, was shown nervously reading from a slip of paper placed in his hand. Virtually the only Sikhs who came forward to state publicly that the Government action was justified were members of Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s Congress party and aspirants for Governor’s posts, like Harbans Singh (of Bhai Vir Singh Sahit Sadan and Dr. Gopal Singh Dardi, who eventually became Lt. Governor of Goa, Daman and Diu. It was common knowledge that likely supporters were summoned by the PM’s secretariat and ordered to appear before TV cameras or issue statements to the Press.

By this time, the stunned community manifested its resentment in whatever manner could. At eight different cantonments spread all over India 4000 Sikhs soldiers deserted their regiments and tried to get to Amritsar. They were intercepted by the local police and the army; in the clashes, scores of men were slain. In Delhi’s Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, agitating young boys were shot and killed by the police. Two Sikh members of the Lok Sabha, both belonging to Mrs Gandhi’s party, resigned their seats and party membership. So did several members of the Punjab Legislature.

A Sikh diplomat posted in Norway sought political asylum in that country; a senior officer of police posted in Maharashtra resigned his post, sent an angry letter to the President and before the authorities could nab him, went underground. Distinguished men of letters, including Dr. Ganda Singh, eminent historian, and Sadhu Singh Hamdard, editor of Ajit, returned the Padma Bhushans awarded to them a few months earlier. The most venerable figure in Punjab, Bhagat Puran Singh, popularly known as the bearded Mother Teresa for his life-long dedication to the service of lepers, mental defectives and orphans, the afflicted helpless, returned the Padma Shri awarded to him.

Mrs. Gandhi sensed that she had made a grievous error of judgement. She was not big enough to admit her mistake but nevertheless decided to visit the Golden Temple. From the accounts of people who accompanied her, she was appalled at the sight. She had been assured that resistance would be overcome swiftly and damage to buildings would be minimal. Whatever anger she felt against the people who had misinformed her, she decided to take the line that the Government had no alternative except to send in the Army, and that the Army had done the best of an unpleasant job. Government media and a subservient Press toed her line. Day after day Doordarshan showed distant shots of the Harmandir (close-ups might have given the lie to the official propaganda that the central shrine was undamaged) and only after the The Telegraph of Calcutta and The Hindu of Madras published pictures of the Akal Takht showing the entire facade wrecked, did TV decide to show it as well.

The sustained propaganda of falsehood yielded dividends. It came to be generally accepted that those who accepted the Government point of view were patriots, those who did not communally biased, supporters of Bhindranwale, Khalistanis and traitors.

Three months after Operation Blue Star, no one really knew exactly how many people had lost their lives in the fighting in the Golden Temple and 40 other gurdwaras invaded by the Army, or had been killed on the roads and fields trying to get to Amritsar. By their own admission, the Government spokesmen conceded that the figures cited in the White Paper on Punjab released by the Government were grossly underestimated. The White Paper gave the number of soldiers and officers killed as 92. Rajiv Gandhi later stated ‘that upwards of 700 Army personnel had been slain. There can be little doubt that if a zero were added to the official figure of 516 of civilian/terrorist casualties, we would be close to the actual number of lives lost - it was certainly in the vicinity of 5000 dead.

It will take some time before we hear of the extensive looting carried out by the Army. Before the action started, many homes adjoining the Golden Temple were ordered to be evacuated and occupied by soldiers. When the owners were allowed to return, their TV sets, radios, fridges, clocks-almost everything movable-had disappeared. In the Temple complex itself, there are over a dozen shrines, each with its golak (metal pitcher) for offerings made in cash. It would be safe to estimate that at any time these golaks would contain over Rs. one lakh in cash. Besides these, there were the offices of the SGPC, the Akali Dal and the Istri Akali Dal, each with liquid cash for day-today requirements, The SGPC disburses over a lakh of rupees a day towards its Guru ka langar and for the Sunday services rendered by hundreds of sewadars and hired labourers, After the Army action, not a counterfeit coin, was found in the golaks, or in the offices of these organisations.

Indeed, it is pretty certain that in order to cover up the traces of such plunder, the offices of the SGPC were deliberately set on fire to destroy their account books. It is also more than likely that the archives housing handwritten copies of the Granth Sahib and the hukamnamas were likewise set alight under the impression that they were account books.

The most galling aspect of the Army occupation of Punjab was the reign of terror let loose in the countryside. As the police, accompanied by Army jawans, combed village after village looking for arms and terrorists. They subjected every young Sikh (never a Hindu) to third degree methods to extort confessions. Some were let off after a beating. Others locked up in police stations and prisons for further questioning. There they continued to rot because it was virtually impossible to find out where they had been taken to.

Ultimately, some private people in the now leaderless Sikh community decided to come to the help of their co-religionists. Amarendra Singh of Patiala set up a committee under the chairmanship of retired Justice V. M. Tarkunde to organise the defence of Sikh civilians under detention. The Sikh Soldiers Legal Aid Committee was set up, with eminent jurists like Nani Palkhiwala, Soli Sorabji and retired Chief Justice R. S. Narula, to organise legal representation for Sikh soldiers to be tried by courts martial. It was an uphill task to find out who they were, where they were detained and the offences for which they were charged.

As a result of the Punjab Press Regulations, no newspaper or magazine published in the State was willing to accept a simple paid advertisement asking relatives and friends of people killed, wounded, detained or missing, to communicate with Amarendra Singh or the Sikh Soldiers Legal Aid Committee. Ultimately, such an announcement was carried by a weekly Gurmukhi paper, The Punjabi Digest, published in Delhi.

The impact was spontaneous. The paper was flooded with letters in Gurmukhi, Hindi, Urdu and English, with tales of horror which surpass belief that such things could happen in a civilised society. It was found that a batch of 23 boys between the ages of four and 12, picked up from the Golden Temple complex were lodged in Ludhina Jail and listed under three categories of terrorists: (i) very dangerous, (ii) dangerous and (iii) potentially dangerous. When a writ of habeas corpus was moved in the Supreme Court on their behalf by Srimati Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, they were quickly transferred to Amritsar.

A 40 years old German women Anna Bayarak of Munich, wife of a Sikh, Hardial Singh, who happened to be in Amritsar to visit her husband’s relatives, was picked up by the police and lodged in Ludhiana jail. Her passport was torn up. An old man sitting in the veranda of his third floor apartment reading a newspaper had his skull shattered by a bullet; a man who had spent the last many years of his life cleansing the parikrama at night had vanished into thin air; no trace could be found of two young sisters visiting the Harmandir. Villagers trekking towards Amritsar were ordered off the tarmac road and as they proceeded on their journey through the neighbouring fields, Army men took pot shots at them, killing amongst many others, an old women in her 70s. The number of people reported missing by their relatives (and presumed dead) ran into hundreds.