Operation Bluestar: A Premeditated Design

Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon, Sikh Review, August 1994

Many an ideologue of the ruling class in India is too embarrassed by the emerging evidence on the infamous Operation Bluestar to face the undeniable facts, and wish that the whole episode were forgotten. Typical of that mind set is noted journalist Kewal Varma’s recent comment that there are “certain anniversaries in the history of a nation that are best forgotten". The article below draws attention to significant facts about the fallout of the army assault on Amritsar in 1984. Drawing on Pupul Jayakar’s biography of Mrs. Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi’s book on Rajiv, the author argues that despite denials and bold faces, Mrs. G. was “a totally shattered person" after the army assault. This nails the lie of the then editor of The Tribune Prem Bhatia that Mrs. G. looked five years younger" after the military misadventure, - far cry from the 1971 triumph in Bangladesh. This analysis may be read in conjunction with the one that follows. Ed. SR.

Throughout its eventful history, the Golden Temple has been the centre of free thought and a cradle of martyrs who made supreme sacrifices to defend its sanctity. Realising the significance of the Temple as the heart and soul of the Sikh faith, the 18th century invaders made it the target of their attacks in order to liquidate the Sikhs. It was thrice destroyed and thrice rebuilt in that century, and symbolising the dauntless Khalsa spirit.

Desecration and plunder of sacred places by invaders like Mohammad Gauri, Changez Khan, Abdali and others is well-known but history records no peace-time parallel of gruesome event involving the destruction of the holiest place of a minority by its own government. The attack of the Indian army on the Darbar Sahib, on June 6, 1984 will go down as the most horrendous event in the post-Independence India. The attack lacerated the deepest chord of the Sikh psyche. It was an attack on their faith and their identity, in fact their very being. An entire community felt deeply betrayed, shaken, humiliated and alienated. A brave and patriotic community was pushed to the wall. The emotional bonds that linked the Sikhs with the country were visibly shaken, if not severed. The shells that tore holes in the Sikh shrine also ruptured the natural ties of the Sikhs with the nation and its people. The reaction of the two communities to the attack presented a noteworthy contrast. On the one hand, was the Hindu community supporting the action either through the press, or their representatives in democratic institutions, or spokesmen of government, or administration, or armchair academicians and, on the other hand, was the reaction of Sikh community whether literate or illiterate, sophisticated or unsophisticated, urban or ruralite condemning the action with one voice.

The Sikh who took pride unflinching soldiers in guarding the country’s frontiers felt betrayed. The Sikh women who, braving all hazards of the front lines of the battle during the Indo-Pakistan War, gave ample proof of their boundless patriotism by carrying bundles of food and pots of milk and curd on their heads to serve the army jawans felt grievously hurt when they became victims of the wrath of the same army, of a fate contrived by human hands. It was an irony that a patriotic community which had undergone untold sufferings and persecutions to save the freedom and honour of the country was thrown into the crucible of fire on a charge of lack of patriotism. For, nothing can be more destructive to human bonds than to accuse a person of disloyalty and betrayal when he feels emotionally linked by cords of friendship and love.

What added to the anguish of the Sikhs was the glorification of the horrendous event by the majority community, the government and the media. Mr Narasimha Rao, described it as “the right action at the right time and in the right manner,” adding that “there could not be a greater hour of glory for the Indian polity, democracy and secularism.”2 The ‘victory’ was celebrated without realising how destructive and suicidal its results could be for the future of the Indian polity and secularism. A serious failure was represented as a great triumph of the government, thereby completely clouding the vision of everyone outside the Sikh community. It is a classic case of how, in modern times, the media controlled only by one community or class could create a dark curtain of disinformation to cover and conceal the truth from the public, however, literate and aware it may be. The Indian media not only maintained a guilty silence over wanton killings but also indulged in malicious propaganda and resorted to a number of lies and half-truths.

What was being paraded as secularism by the high priests of the media was an undisguised Hindu communal attitude. It was unfortunate that almost the entire media became a willing tool of the Prime Minister to support her policies against the Sikhs. Prem Bhatia, Editor of The Tribune group of newspapers said that the Bluestar was a ‘neat’ operation. He went whole hog to support Indira Gandhi. When a newspaper columnist told him that Punjab has shattered the Prime Minister, just as her father had been shattered by his experience of China, Bhatia wrote that this assessment was a long way from the truth. He recalled his meeting with her in her South Block office after the army action: “She looked five years younger". However, the fact was that Indira Gandhi never recovered from the effects of this blunder till the end. In a recently published biography entitled Rajiv, Sonia Gandhi has observed : “After Operation Blue Star, a shadow had our lives. My mother-in-law spoke to Rajiv and me about arrangements for her funeral. She wrote down her instructions. She talked to Rahul separately. She told him to be brave when the time came : she had lived her life and done all she had to do and could do; he was not to cry for her.”

Pupul Jayakar, a friend and biographer of Indira Gandhi has also revealed that “she had premomition that her life was coming to an end.” Jayakar who met Indira Gandhi, a few days after the army attack writes, “she had aged. There were lines on her forehead and a supreme gravity in her eyes. She did not wish to speak of Punjab and I asked no questions.” What distortion our media or editors are capable of is obvious from the contrasted visions that while every one knew that Indira Gandhi was a broken person after the Bluestar attack and her visit to the gory scene of disaster at Amritsar, Mr. Bhatia’s vision described her as ‘five years younger.’ It is also a classic example of the kind of “truth" media write or welcome to publish side by side making a black-out of the realities. Here we give a few instances of foreign media.

Ross Benson of the Daily Express, London in the issue of June 19, 1984 wrote, “Mrs. Gandhi has sown the seeds for a bitter future by ordering the desecration". The Times, London (June 21, 1984) in a very perceptive editorial wrote,

“Future historians will almost certainly look back upon June 6, 1984 as a turning point in the long and turbulent political life of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. The short-term gain is almost undeniable. With elections in the offing, she has already split the opposition and won the general acclaim of Hindus as “Mother India", imposing a parental discipline upon those who transgress in the interests of keeping the family together. In the long-term, however, that could still be her political epitaph".

The attack on Darbar Sahib held out ominous religious and political portents. It became a festering sore in the body-politic of the country and the problem acquired new dimensions. The images that flashed across the bruised Sikh psyche were that of sacrilege, the martyrdom of Bhindranwale and the brutalities against the Sikhs. In the pre-partition days, it was the painful memory of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which had disillusioned the Sikhs. Now the Sikhs find it difficult to erase from their collective psyche, the bitter memories of the bloody assault on Darbar Sahib. After the Jallianwala massacre, though much smaller in magnitude, the British government had the wisdom to admit that it was a savage, brutal and cold-blooded act. Winston Churchill, the British Secretary of War said, “It is an extraordinary step which stands in singular and sinister isolation". The British regime had in 1919 bowed to the demand to appoint a commission of enquiry, known as the Hunter Commission, to go into the event. The government of India’s refusal to appoint a commission to explain as to what happened before, during and after the Bluestar in all its ramifications, is an abject confession of failure.

The contemporary history of Punjab, especially during the past one decade has been grossly misrepresented. The White Paper issued by the government was nothing but an unashamed attempt to conceal the reality and justify the attack. Lt. General K.S. Brar, in his recently published book, ‘Operation Bluestar : The true Story’ has also toed the official line and has tried to mislead the national and international opinion regarding the horrendous event. Those who perpetuate crimes cannot assume the role of historians. Self-righteousness is nothing but ignoble.

Two facts are significant about the contemporary history of Punjab. First, a complete black-out of the gross socio-political and economic injustice done to Punjab in the framing of the Reorganisation Act of 1966, under which Punjab was made a truncated sub-state and its water and hydel power resources were largely and unconstitutionally diverted to non-riparian states. Few chroniclers have recorded that all government of India measures, including Bluestar, were a means to camouflage the reality and divert public attention from the truth of exploitation and injustice done. Second, that after Bluestar few writers or supporters of the government have justified the assault. The only exception were the perpetrators of the unwarranted army operations. An instance of this category is K.S. Brar, who as the General responsible for this attack now seeks to become a belated mouth piece of the government propaganda machine.

Another civil servant S.S. Dhanoa, who had been chief secretary and adviser to the Governor of Punjab during the aftermath of Bluestar attack has, like General Brar, taken up the same role of reproducing the White Paper which even otherwise must have been made on their coloured reports. In a recent write up ‘Quo-Vadis - Where Do Sikh go from Here?’ published in The Sikh Review (April 1994), Dhanoa wrote:

"I am somehow incapable of converting my anguish over Operation Bluestar into anger against the Indian State, as I am conscious of my silence when the Golden Temple complex had been taken over by killers and Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale legitimized the killing of innocent Hindus in order to avenge various slights meted out to Sikhs.”

Understandably Brar and Dhanoa were willing instruments, incapable of expressing the truth. It is an evident fact that neither Brar nor Dhanoa was in a position to defy government instructions, much less could they express any anger in that regard. For, self justification of one’s own deeds can hardly be worthwhile history. It is a well known historical contrast that Dyer and O’Dwyer suffered disgrace and censure under colonial government. The entire truth cannot be dug out unless the secret documents and records of the government are made public. An issue of ‘Surya’ revealed some startling facts and brought to light the most abnoxious features of the policy of the government. It was discovered that the whole operation was initiated, conducted and concluded by a super intelligence organisation, code named ‘Third Agency’.

In retrospect, it appears that the Prime Minister had a premeditated design to apply a military solution instead of a Constitutional solution to the Punjab crisis, but was marking time so that the situation may further deteriorate for justifying that solution. We give below two important observations of the Sunday Times, London in support of our assessment of the situation:

“The Indian army drew up its invasion (of Golden Temple) strategy nine months ago. A week ago last Friday, Mrs. Gandhi seized the perfect opportunity to use it.”

Government had repeatedly declared that it would not send police into the Darbar Sahib. But the fact is that the Government had started preparations for the military action months before June, 1984. A large model of the Darbar Sahib Complex had been prepared at a camp of the Special Frontier Force at Chakrata in the foothills of the Himalayas, and commandos were trained for this purpose. A British correspondent of the ‘Sunday Times’, London, noted: “Last week’s assault on the Golden Temple took place after months of preparation of the Indian army, which included advice from British experts in counter-insurgency. Sources in Delhi say that two officers of the Indian secret service, Gary Saxena and R.N. Kao, of the Research and Analysis Wing made several trips to London to seek expertise. The Indian Government then selected 600 men from different units and sent them to rehearse the assault on a life size replica of the Golden Temple, built at a secret training camp in the Chakrata Hills, about 150 miles north of Delhi. The assault troops were alerted to invade the Temple no fewer than five times during the past three months, but each time Mrs. Gandhi vetoed the invasion. ‘A case of nerves’, according to a senior aide.”