Operation Blue Star: An Unjustifiable Act

UK Singh, 6th June 2004

In June 1984 Indian army troops launched a full-scale military assault on the holiest of shrines in the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple. 150,000 army troops were deployed for the assault which involved special commando troops, helicopter gun ships, heavy artillery, tanks and even chemical gas - resulting in the deaths of over 2000 innocent pilgrims and the destruction of the Akal Takht.

From this legitimate description of events, one would hope that the Indian government had a justifiable reason to attack a place of worship with such ferocious methods. Unfortunately the White Paper report produced to justify the army attack on the Golden Temple and mass slaughter of innocent worshipers concluded that Indira Gandhi had no choice but to order the attack to capture 30 militants inside for whom they had arrest warrants. However this justification is proven to be baseless when we consider the facts below:

1. Jarnail Singh Bhinderanwale, the army’s main target had been arrested and was in government custody months before the attack. How can the attack be warranted on the grounds that the government had to arrest Jarnail Singh Bhinderanwale when he was already in their custody month before, and was released by the Indian Government without any charges?

2. Further more Jarnail Singh and the 29 other so called militants the government uses as an excuse for the attack did not remain in the Temple complex 24 hours a day, but freely travelled Punjab and the surrounding areas on a daily basis. If these people needed to be captured why did the army with all its weapons of destruction enter the Golden Temple killing worshippers caught in the cross fire, when they could have easily assassinated or arrested these people at any time outside the Temple complex?

3. The SGPC management of the Golden Temple desperately asked the government on a number of occasions to produce a list of people they wanted to capture so that the management could take action and prevent any army intervention. However the Indian authorities refused and failed to do this despite it being an option to prevent an assault. Why?

4. In April 1984 a few weeks before the attack, the Indian Government sent Professor Mehar-Chan Bharadwaj and another MP along with other government investigators into the Golden Temple. On return Professor Mehar-Chan Bharadwaj reported to the Indian Parliament that “there are no terrorists in the Golden Temple”, and warned against attacking the holy shrine. Why did the government blatantly ignore its own officials and disregard their own inquiry and attack the Golden Temple?

5. Recently the Israeli army waited for over a month using diplomacy and negotiations to get over 200 fully armed Palestinian Militants peacefully out of the Church of Nativity. Why was no such diplomacy used by the Indian Government to secure a peaceful resolve to the stand off, considering thousands of innocent men, woman and children were caught inside the complex? The Indian army only followed a half-hearted attempt to negotiate a peaceful settlement for a few hours and begun the assault with scores of heavy artillery shells being blasted into the holy shrine. This raises serious concerns, when we consider how other Governments have dealt with such situations. The Indian Government was hell-bent on the attack and preferred a conflict rather than diplomacy.

6. If the government was forced with its back against the wall to storm the holiest of Sikh shrines in order to capture 30 militants, why had it been preparing for the attack for over a year before? Retired Lt-General S.K Sinha a directly involved and high-ranking army leader of the time reported in the Spokesman newspaper (Jun 1984, p28-29), “The army action was not a last resort as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would have us believe. It had been in her mind for more than 18 months. The army had begun rehearsals of a commando attack near Chakrata Cantonment in the Doon Valley, where a complete replica of the Golden Temple complex had been built”. How can the violent military strike be defensible on the grounds that militants were present in the Temple, when all the facts even from high-ranking Indian Army officials show how an attack was being planned since 1982? At this moment in time Jarnail Singh Bhinderanwale or other so called militants were not even inside the complex.

It must also be stressed that while suppressing unbiased foreign Journalists or Human rights groups like Amnesty International from investigating Operation Blue Star the Government of India unleashed a river of false propaganda and lies that the militants inside had a formidable arsenal of weaponry. Without any independent proof of these assertions apart from the Governments desperate claims to justify the attack, such allegations cannot be taken seriously. However accurate evidence exists of the army itself planting weapons to make it appear that the Sikhs had heavy and modern weapons:

“Before the President of India visited the Golden Temple the army brought a truck loaded with weapons into the complex so that it would give the impression that the militants had so many foreign weapons” H.S Bhanwar (Diary De Panne p66).

7. If the attack was to break the back of militancy in Punjab, why did the Indian army commence a full scale military attack with heavy artillery and tanks on a Sikh religious festival day, when thousands of pilgrims were attending the Temple from across the World to commemorate the martyrdom anniversary of the 5th Sikh Guru. If ones intent was to arrest only 30 militants, it was illogical to storm the Temple when it was packed out with innocent worshippers who were ultimately killed and wounded in the cross fire.

8. Why did the Indian Government who calls itself the “Worlds largest democracy” implement a complete media blackout across the Punjab to coincide with the attack? All national and international reporters were thrown out of Punjab and prevented from reporting the truth about the attack. Only a hand full of Indian Government Journalists were allowed into the complex to produce propaganda and fabrications about the attack, and downplay the huge loss of life and destruction caused. Why would a Government with nothing to hide ban unbiased international reporters from reporting news concerning a major army operation? The truth is that the army attack was a massacre of civilian worshipers in cold blood, which the Indian Government did not want the World to know about. The cold-blooded genocide of men, woman and children in the Temple is expressed in the independent reports below:

A doctor drafted in by the army to conduct examinations, reported how: “Sikhs had been shot at point blank range with their hands tied behind their backs with their turbans. It was a virtual massacre with a large number of woman, children and pilgrims being gunned down” The Guardian, 14th June 1984.

“On Sunday, Medical workers in Amritsar said Soldiers had threatened to shoot them if they gave food or water to dying Sikh pilgrims wounded in the assault lying in the hospital” Christian Science Monitor, 8th June 1984.

“On 4th June, when thousands of Sikhs had gathered at the Golden Temple, army tanks moved into the Temple complex, smashing into the sanctum and shooting everyone in sight. Many wounded were left to bleed to death and when they begged for water soldiers told them to drink the mixture of blood and urine on the floor.” (Amrit Wilson, New Statesman. 16th Nov 1984).

9. Numerous credible eye witness accounts of the attack hold testimony that after the army had killed those they were supposedly after, they turned their attention on innocent pilgrims, lining them up against the Temple walls and shooting them in cold blood. If the army action was to capture or kill militants in the Temple why did the army kill so many innocent people after they had secured the Temple Complex?

10. The Sikh reference library was purposely ransacked and deliberately set on fire by the army. Army soldiers carried irreplaceable Sikh literature and items invaluable to the Sikh religion away in trucks. Archives of documents from every period of Sikh history and artefacts from the lives of the Guru’s were stolen or burnt by army troops. Recently the Indian Minster for Defence expressed how these items will be returned to the Sikh’s but why were they taken from the Golden Temple in the first place if the attack was not against the Sikh religion but against militants harbouring inside. Twenty years on and these artefacts still have not been returned. Why has the Indian government stolen such items invaluable to the Sikh religion if the attack was only supposed to capture 30 militants, and why even to this day have they not been returned?

The above questions require answering and prove how Operation Blue Star was in fact an inevitable attack on the Sikh people. Jarnail Singh Bhinderanwale was used as an excuse to justify a wide scale clamp down on Sikhs and carry out human rights abuses across Punjab. This policy has left over 250,000 Sikhs murdered in the last 20 years. The world renown academic Joyce Pettigrew has detailed how the events unfolded pre and post Operation Blue Star. She described the assault as “not on a political figure or movement but to suppress a religion (Sikhs), to attack their heart, to strike a blow at their spirit and self confidence”. The Sikhs had proved to be a thorn in the side of Indira Gandhi by leading agitations against her dictatorial aspirations. The Government wanted to suppress the will of the Sikhs who had proved strong in the face of oppression through out history. Indira Gandhi wanted to both silence the Sikhs and also show her self as a strong leader to appease the Hindu Right wing fanatical powers in India. It’s a disgrace to see how the evil aspirations of a sadistic figure and pressure from Hindu fanatics resulted in the mass bloodshed as was Operation Blue Star and the mass murder and human rights abuses inflicted on the Sikhs by the Indian authorities since.