Indian rulers seem to have made a habit of invading Sikhs’ holy shrines particularly the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The latest sacrilege was committed by the security forces on June 24, professedly to prevent Sikhs from holding a “seditious” meeting. Over two hundred unarmed Sikhs, mostly Temple employees, present in the complex were hauled up and the Security Forces claimed recovery of a shot gun and a crude bomb. Briefing the reporters, the government spokesman said that the raid was made to foil a plan of proclaiming Sikh government from within the precincts of the Golden Temple.
One can only wonder at the preposterousness of the fabrication. Who can, in his right mind, believe that a hundred odd persons allegedly armed with a shot-gun and a crude bomb would dream of a coup and proclaim an independent government. Besides, no one can believe the story of the recovery of arms in the context of Indian police’s notorious practice of planting arms, drugs, and even stolen goods on innocent persons to implicate them in criminal cases for personal or political reasons.
On the one hand government keeps harping that the freedom fighters have acquired sophisticated weapons from Pakistan and from Afghan Mujahideens, yet all that they recover from the freedom fighters assembled to launch an independent country in open defiance of World’s sixth military power, are just a shot-gun and a crude bomb. What deadly weapons to violently overthrow a mighty government! Perhaps, after an exhaustive exercise of manufacturing lies after lies, the imagination of the Delhi rulers has gone totally bankrupt.
But it is not as simple as that. There is a sinister design behind the raid. To survive the shattering defeat in Haryana, it is imperative for Rajiv Gandhi to create a highly explosive situation: He had some readymade options available to him. He could invade Sri Lanka or start a war with Pakistan or further deepen the confrontation with the Sikhs. He decided upon confrontation with Sikhs as it serves a dual purpose. He knows that nothing would provoke Sikhs more than a vicious attack on their most sacred shrine. He also knows that nothing would please Hindu mobs more than desecrating the sanctity of the Golden Temple.
Rajiv appears to have calculated that the provocation would invite retaliation and bloodshed, making the Hindu mobs directs their anger against Sikhs instead of targeting the corrupt and incompetent leader like him. And in their exultation over the desecration of Sikh shrines, the Hindus would forget all about the Congress (I) debacle in Haryana and elsewhere. The frequent raids are also aimed at eroding the halo of sanctity that lies deeply engraved upon the Sikh psyche to make their assimilation in Hinduism easier.
It is a pity that the power-drunk son has decided to play his mother’s gory game and has grown oblivious to the lessons of history. He is being instigated to resort to this bloody game by elements congenitally allergic to the Sikhs. They are telling him that the Congress (I) debacle in Haryanais rooted in the indignant reaction of Haryanvis at his supposed “appeasement” of the Sikhs in signing the Accord and) not in his incompetence, pay offs and kickbacks. This line of argument is intended to make Rajiv unleash still| more ruthless oppression in Punjab, little realizing that Sikhs never submit to tyranny rather they specialize in destroying both the tyranny and the tyrant.
Rajiv is sowing trouble for himself and shall not escape retribution.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 3, 1987
