Report by The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress at the request of Rep. Vic Fazio, D-California
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India’s Punjab Crisis:
Issues, Prospects and
Implications Summary
The breakdown of the political order in India’s economically and strategically important Punjab state, home of more than half of the country’s approximately 16 million Sikhs, has taken thousands of lives and resulted in the suspension of democracy and constitutional nights in the state.
The crisis began with a political agitation by leaders of the mainstream Sikh political party in the early 1980’s to secure greater rights for Punjab state and for the Sikhs as a community. The situation became polarized during a two year negotiating deadlock, which gave the initiative to Sikh militants, often religious fundamentalists In outlook, who employed assassination and other Violent tactics to promote their own vision of an independent “Khalistan” (“Land of pure”). The bloody 1984 assault by the Indian army on armed militants in the Golden Temple the most sacred Sikh shrine the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984 by Sikh members of her bodyguard and the subsequent butchering of thousands of Sikhs in New Delhi and other cities by Hindu mobs completed the polarization of conflict.
A July 1985 eleven-point accord between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the leader of one faction of the Sikh moderates, Which led to the election of a Sikh government in September of that year, failed to achieve peace. The chief minister of the elected Punjab government was assailed by militant separatists and opposed by rival moderate leaders who had been left out of the negotiations, and criticized by the Gandhi government for failing to control extremist violence. He was undercut politically by the failure of the central government to carry out several key provisions of the accord, including the promised transfer of the city of Chandigarh, now shared as a joint capital by Punjab and Haryana states. In May 1987, the Gandhi government dismissed the elected government and re-imposed central rule.
Although the Gandhi government faces severe difficulties in dealing with what has become a violent secessionist movement, the methods employed by the Indian government have raised serious allegations of human rights abuses. Most widely criticized by groups such as Amnesty International and Indian human rights advocates is the imposition of a legal regime that facilitates the indefinite holding of suspects without trial, secret trials in which the burden of proof is on the accused, and severely limited appeal rights. In addition, there is evidence that Indian law itself is frequently violated by security forces, notably the centrally controlled Border Security Force, through wrongful arrests and torture, staged killings under the guise of encounters between terrorists or border infiltrators and police, and other abuses of authority.
The prospects for resolving the crisis politically are problematical, especially since the Indian government for the time being appears to have abandoned a political approach in favor of the “iron fist.” Challenges include reconciling the rights of the Hindu minority in Punjab with those of the majority Sikhs (62 percent), and accommodating demands which have fundamental implications for the structure of the Indian federal system. A major problem for Prime Minister Gandhi, whose party has lost a series of state elections in the past year, is his vulnerability to the “Hindu backlash” vote. July 1987 elections in Haryana state, normally a Congress (I) stronghold, were won by an opposition coalition that campaigned against the transfer of Chandigarh city to Punjab as provided for in July 1985 accord.
The Punjab crisis touches the United States in several ways:
- Because the crisis has exacerbated India-Pakistan relations, it has made it all the more difficult for the United States to pursue its policy of supporting Pakistan militarily in its stance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
- The crisis affects the lives of thousands of immigrants Sikhs in the United States, who are troubled and fearful for the fate of their relatives and friends, and it appears to be stimulating a greater flow of Sikh immigration — both legal and illegal.
- The conflict also appears to have brought another terrorist movement to the United States, and possibly given scope for counter-intelligence operations by Indian intelligence agencies here.
