The story of the army assault on the holiest of Sikh shrines marks a watershed in the history of independent India. Its trauma has burnished deep into the psyche of the Sikhs and forever become part of the Punjabi folklore.
Without doubt the heroism of the small band of warriors who fell while defending the sacred precincts will be celebrated by every succeeding generation of Sikhs. They had no chance against the mighty arrnour of the world’s fourth largest army. Altogether some 5,000 people perished among them pilgrims, men women and children, priests and Sewadars on duty, Their bodies were hurriedly carted away in municipal conservancy lorries for mass cremation. The exact details of the holocaust will probably never be known since Punjab had earlier been cleared of journalists and placed under martial law. Rail traffic had been halted, buses quarantined, there was curfew and the entry of foreigners had been banned. A simultaneously launched ‘Operation Wood rose’ spread terror in countryside. The White Paper issued by the Government in mid July 1984 turned out to be a pathetic exercise in cover up. The many who took part in the assault and the few who were selected for gallantry awards, in a glittering ceremony at New Delhi’s presidential palace on March 25, 1985 shall have to carry the albatross of guilt around their neck unto their dying day. Dire punishments were handed to the Sikh troops who had revolted at the diabolical sacrilege in far off cantonments.
The world history is replete with instances of selective holocausts currently called ethnic cleansing. Those in power seem to forget, time and again, that you can kill men but not the ideas that drive them to a higher destiny. Lenin, a diehard nonbeliever is credited with the axiomatic statement: “The harder you strike at religion, the deeper it strikes roots.” Those who have even a nodding acquaintance with history of the Sikhs know how determinedly they defend truth, honor and freedom of faith ideas that are imbedded in the foundations of Amritsar.
The Sikh’s agony is the more hurtful because in June, 1984 leaders of other communities remained silent even jubilant on lookers, One wonders how the deeply religious people of India could suffer such calamity as Operation Bluestar to happen without demur. The Shankaracharyas and the Shahi Imams merely watched and shrugged their silence deafening! It was, significantly, left to the Pontiff of the world’s 900 million Catholics in distant Rome, to show concern and sympathy. Addressing pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square at Vatican City on Sunday, June 10, 1984, Pope John Paul Il had said:
“In recent days there has been news of increasingly grave events in Punjab. They unfortunately still do not seem to have come to an end. It is not my desire to enter into the delicate and complex reasons that are at the base of these disturbances in a great country. (But) There rises up an immediate sentiment of human pity for all the victims, accompanied by an appeal that, in a mutual comprehension there may be found a way to settle the current strife.
But those in power were unmoved. They had no desire to settle the basic issues. The crisis, as well as the conflict, simply deepened in the years that followed. The strife escalated, Draconian laws were passed by a seemingly callous and captive Parliament. Rule of the gun was promulgated in the Punjab. Thousands were hauled up for detention without trial, their fate symbolized by the agony of the innocent 400 in Jodhpur Central Jail who were finally released in 1989 after five years of underserved incarceration. An accord struck by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi with Sant Har Chand Singh Longowal in July 1985 itself lacking in bonafides was cynically confined to the waste basket. Hypocrisy is perhaps a necessary ingredient of politics. For, even as the Center has, in recent months, declared its intent to set up a National Commission on Human Rights, it has also given a new lease of life to the death dealing Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, up to 1995, India’s Home Minister claims that government have nothing to hide. But every clause of the TADA is rooted in secrecy: special courts, in camera sessions, presumption of guilt and shifting of onus on the accused and, worst of all, conferring on the police immunity from prosecution for any misuse of powers.
As adversity is sometimes bitter medicine, Operation Bluestar is not without its positive side. It has put Indian democracy to its severest test and focused attention on violation of human nights. It has triggered a resurgence of the basic sovereignty of the Sikh doctrine and created a sharper awareness of the Sikh identity worldwide. Furthermore, while most of India has been engulfed in communal strife, Punjab has demonstrated the validity of the Guru’s message of amity in the miracle of Hindu Sikh harmony, particularly in rural areas where the Sikhs command an overwhelmingly majority.
On the negative side, the Sikhs have lost the flower of their youth and suffered an unprecedented diaspora. The police and paramilitary forces too have sadly emerged as symbols of state repression, unaccountable and above the law. Government has lost grace and credibility by sending Satwant Singh Kehar Singh, Sukhjinder Singh and Harjinder Singh to the gallows, while allowing the perpetrators, of the November, 1984 massacres to go scot-free, There is unwillingness, and much deviousness, to confront the key issues in Punjab such as the release of detainees, dismantling of the sinister apparatus under TADA Act, transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, fair distribution of river waters and, above all, the basic question of a region where Sikhs can feel “a glow of freedom,” to quote Nehru. Nine years after the calamitous military misadventure, the Indian leadership remains a prisoner of indecision.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 25, 1993
