Punjab: 1982-84
For some years now, killing of innocent people has been going on in Punjab either with the quiet blessings, or with the active participation of the State. In the late seventy the name of an obscure village, Kala Sangha in the Kapurthala District of Punjab, had got splashed all over the country as a place where ruthless mass killings had taken place, and fields full of ripening corn had been set on fire to teach the villagers a lesson. For the ‘security of the State’-—the new catchword ‘integrity of the country’ had not then come into vogue—the Punjab Police, the B.S.F. arid C.R.P. were extremely busy liquidating political activists as ‘Naxalites’. The villagers showed us the pillar they had erected in memory of their local martyrs, and mentioned with gratitude how Shri Tarkunde had gone there in the days of their tribulation. Since then Punjab has not looked back, her path to the 21st century has been littered with the bodies of young people. India 1984 has in many respects fulfilled the criteria of Orwell’s 1984.
Rise of Bhindranwale
Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s name first came in to prominence in connection with a Nirankari-Akali clash on 13th April 1978, in which 19 Akalis were murdered. Smt. Hardev of village Butala (Distt. Kapurthala) told ts about this clash. She and others had gone to see the Baisakhi celebrations on April 12th 1978. “At night a Kirtan organized by the Nirankaris was going on in Ajit Nagar; Bhindranwale informed the gathering that the Nirankaris were going to defame our religion. Immediately men, bare-headed and barefoot rushed to Ajit Nagar where the Nirankaris fired on them. It was on that night that my husband got killed.” But Bhindranwale remained unharmed since he never went with the men to fight the Nirankaris. This was the first indication of Bhindranwale’s role in inciting violence.
But Bhindranwale did not rise to political eminence till 1979, Dr. Baldev Prakash, President, BJP, Punjab, talking about ‘extremism’ said, “The Congress (I) created Bhindranwale for us in 1979 but the coalition fell and in the process Bhindranwale became stronger. The policy of the Congress (I) is to create divisions among the Akalis.”
Soon after the Lok Sabha Elections in 1980 Bhindranwale’s name began to figure in connection with the murder of Nirankari Baba Gurbachan Singh who had been killed in Delhi. The then Lieutenant Governor, in a secret letter to the Chief Minister, Punjab, had stated that ‘‘evidence has been collected to the effect that all the 20 persons against whom notices have been issued, and the three persons against whom warrants have been issued either belong to Sant Bhindran- wale’s Jatha, or are his close relatives or associates and are hiding under his protection. The CBI is in the process of issuing notice under section 160 Cr.P.C. to Sant Jarmnail Singh Bhindranwale.” Since he was not arrested, nor any action taken against him or his followers it was realized that he had powerful patronage and was above the law. This realization got confirmed when in September 1981 , after the murder of Lala Jagat Narain there was a mock arrest, and he was taken to the luxurious rest house in Ludhiana instead of to the prison; soon after in October he was ‘released’, and given a hero’s welcome. His elevation was so rapid that he was tipped for the president ship of the shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandhak Committee, and he moved into the Golden Temple Complex with his extremists from the obscurity of the Gurdwara Gurdarshan Parkash in Mehta Chowk. Large scale killing, majority of who were Hindus, and also Sikhs who did not fall in with his ideas continued unabated. Murders and processions continued unchecked, topped by a hijack to Pakistan. It looked as if the Centre had given a carte blanche to extremists. It is curious how this entire episode has been omitted in the Government’s White Paper. Commenting, Mainstream has pointed out. There is nothing on record in the White Paper to show what stringent action the Government had taken to deal with the terrorist. In fact Bhindranwale was let off after a few days, under circumstances not very flattering for the authorities a fact curiously deleted from the White Paper. (Mainstream, July 14, 1984. “Not So White”,p.2).
Shri Kirpal Singh, President, Khalsa Dewan, when interviewed, said, referring to the extremists inside the Golden Temple, “the historical fact is that those armed people were with the Congress(I) in the last election on the same platform before the attack on the Golden Temple. These armed people had been opposing the Akali Dal and had put up candidates in opposition to the Akalis. Once they had already entered here who could have driven them out?” There is some ‘ruth in Shri Kirpal Singh’s surmise for when asked by India Today (October 31, 1981. why the Police would not arrest the criminals hiding inside the Golden Temple, Darbara Singh, the then Chief Minister, replied lamely: ‘No comment on the sensitive question. Wisdom must prevail on them.” As regards the position Bhindranwale enjoyed, Darbara Singh’s reply is quite illuminating; explaining why he did not arrest him earlier the Chief Minister said, “if we had arrested him earlier along with his group, there might have been more casualties. He was always surrounded by over 70 to 80 armed people, and all of them might have been killed.” This exhibition of consideration (or is it sheer fear camouflaged as compassion) for Bhindranwale’s extremists took shape further when they were allowed to continue their activities along with other extremist groups, such as the Babbar Khalsa and the Dal Khalsa. In November, 1983 Mrs. Gandhi herself had written to Bhindranwale a personal letter in her own hand appreciating his progressive views on social matters: Bhindranwale himself had shown this letter to Devinder Singh Duggal— Head of the Sikh Reference Library in the Golden Temple complex; it was kept in the library; when the reference library went up in flames this valuable document also was destroyed. In early 1984 Rajiv Gandhi had declared that Bhindranwale was a religious teacher—all this might explain why the Government of Punjab did not take any stern measure against Bhindranwale even if it wished to. The government’s stand might have continued till today but for the Congress(I)’s fear of losing the votes of the majority community in the 1985 election and the funding of the local political parties. Perhaps also it suddenly dawned on the Government that the divide and rule policy has been taken too far.
Nature of terrorism: then and now
This brief sojourn in the past is necessary to explain the nature of terrorism then and now. Terrorism must be condemned, whether it was quietly blessed by a powerful hand, unleashed openly by a mighty State, or committed by individuals from their hide-outs, but the difference in the nature of terrorism in Punjab then and now has to be noted. Then, it manifested itself through sudden murder and swift assault, probably with the concurrence of the Government, the Police standing by. Today, it is the State itself which openly indulges not only in murder and assault, but also in inhuman torture, molestation of women, non-production of the accused before a Magistrate, destruction of crops, frequent raids, and harassment of the friends and relatives of the accused and false encounters leading to gruesome deaths. Then, there was a situation in which the agencies of law and order had ceased to function, edging as it were towards anarchy. The enormity of the threat that the followers of Bhindranwale posed to the ‘integrity of the country’—an expression we have been hearing without break—was completely lost sight of in the power game. Today, it is those very agencies of Law and Order, the Police, and since June 1984, the Army, who, with the sanction of the Black Laws have with new-found vigor let loose terror the like of which is difficult to match.
Who is an extremist?
One last point about terminology During the last couple of years the word ‘extremist’ has been continually and arbitrarily used by the press and politicians to describe the hundreds of people in Punjab who have fallen foul of the Army and Police. In course of our stay in Punjab we met and heard of many of these so-called ‘extremists’ women like Satwant Kaur of Harchowal (P) whose husband had been killed and who only asked that she be spared constant humiliation at the hands of the police, men like Sohan Singh whose eyes were gouged out and his body reduced to pulp because he had said he was a religious Sikh; or Suba Singh who was killed simply because he had witnessed the police torture of another innocent man; or Narinder Singh who was picked up from his village for no reason at all, tortured and eventually narrowly escaped being killed in a fake encounter— thereafter being forced to go underground simply to survive. In what way can these people be called extremists? Is the demand that every citizen be spared torture, or that one be allowed to live in human dignity and follow one’s religion, or that one be allowed to survive at all an extreme one? Who then are the real ‘extremists’ of Punjab? It is a question which we hope our report will answer.
Discovering Punjab
Punjab is just there—a close neighbour; in amanner of speaking a cold wave over there makes us shiver here, a hot breeze blowing here scalds them over there. In spite of this proximity and constant media projection of dangerous terrorists throwing bombs, communal Akalis demanding Khalistan and total alienation of Hindus from Sikhs, we found that the facts we had been fed upon did not tell us about the Punjab of today. The story of Punjab after the Army Action, the passing of the Black Laws and the bestowal of extraordinary powers upon the police and the Army had not been told at all. Our visit was almost like lifting the corner of a veil to discover a face—an amazing face full of conflicting emotions, suffering yet defiant, anguished yet challenging, tortured yet proud.
‘Occupied’ territory
One gets the feel of things in Amritsar itself; that busy city once bustling with pilgrims and Indian and foreign tourists hand fallen strangely silent. The rubble still lies scattered around where the building used to be; the divested labyrinths of the ancient bazars still tell the story of the grand success of the Indian Army in action against the defenseless citizens of Amritsar; thousands of shopkeepers, traders and businessmen have lost their property worth crores. And the loss of life? That irreparable loss? The evidence we collected would give some idea of that colossal and unjustifiable killing during the Army action. ‘Death certificates were not given and no list was published of those killed in the Operation. Dead bodies were thrown in the dirty refuse trucks and there was a mass cremation’, said Professor Virk of Guru Nanak University. The President of India had given awards to our brave army in appreciation of their dangerous mopping-up operation. Buildings once tall and imposing stand like so many haunted houses, eerie and empty with bombed out walls, mangled girders and gaping wounds—mute witnesses to wanton destruction. Though we had been told in Delhi that the Army had been withdrawn, the Army was there in Anritsar, even 8 months after the Operation Blue Star. The convoys still rumble along, Big Brother stands fully armed, using the bomb-blasted multi- storied buildings close to the Golden Temple as his watch- tower; from that imposing height he keeps constant vigil on all who enter or leave the Temple Complex, himself almost invisible.
Before evening falls every passing vehicle is searched, passengers are hauled out, luggage is examined creating an artificial atmosphere of danger and impeding normal life. Sikhs, in particular are insulted— Professor Virk of Guru Nanak University was slapped during checking. Almost invariably fines are imposed for some technical lapse, as in our case, for not carrying a first aid kit, we received no proper receipt for the fine we paid. Any argument can land one in a Special Court; planting a pistol or revolver is quite common—even a 3” blade is enough to lead to arrest under the Arms Act. According to Shri Surinder Singh Bhagowalia, Advocate and Vice President of A.F.D.R. (Punjab) in Gurdaspur, “there are about 5,000 cases pending under the Arms Act alone: these are cases involving knives. The number of cases has been intentionally increased by creating false cases, in order to justify the existence of Special Courts and N|S.A. As the trial takes a very long time, generally the accused, though innocent, ‘confess’ the guilt in the hope of quick release. False cases are manufactured on the basis of reports received from the mysterious, ‘Mukhbir Khas’—nobody knows who this Mukhbir Khas of the police is, a Sikh, a Hindu, or a Muslim.”
Lawlessness of the police
How sheer living has become hazardous and insecure in Punjab today was explained to us by Sri Narinder Singh, Sarpanch of Kala Sangha:
“If anybody objects about the illegal actions of the Police, he is at once arrested and falsely implicated in an Arms Act case. Innocent persons are tortured. We cannot describe the extent of lawlessness of the police. For two months the wife and aunt of Tarsem Singh and the wife of Sandhu Seth were taken away by the police. They want money—as much money as they can extort.”
Armed police is everywhere in groups, moving about or sitting down at the entrance to the Golden Temple complex around Amritsar Guru Nanak University and the Khalsa College, in front of shops, in the lanes and by lanes of the city. One feels throttled, watched all the time. The presence of so many ‘armed men not merely increases anger and tension, as the route and flag marches used to during the non- cooperation movement of the 1930s, but worse; it tends to excite communal feeling, proclaiming as it were that, but for the protective presence of the police, the Hindus and Sikhs would be at one another’s throats.
Communalism
While not ruling out the simmering of communalism in wayward hearts of some highly educated and well-to-do-hindus (a few did seem to relish what had been done to the Sikhs during the roits of November 1984 and these are the ones who had disowned their mother-tongue— we never found any indication of this feeling among the majority of the Hindus or among the Sikhs whether educated or illiterate. Dr. Baldev Prakash, President, Bharatiya Janata Party, Punjab State, told us in an interview that ‘the general relationship between the Hindus and the Sikhs is good, though some gulf has been created between the two communities. In Punjab these communities will never come face to face to fight each other. Inquiry into the riots of November 1984 will help bridge the gulf. The guilty should be punished, the victims should be rehabilitated. Political level meetings should help to preserve amity and good relations. Even now there are joint committees of Hindus and Sikhs in mohallas and towns. The Hindu Suraksha Samiti can only increase the gulf between the two communities if they indulge in violence.” Shri Kripal Singh, President, Khalsa Dewan, when asked about the relationship between the two communities said:
“In Punjab there is no quarrel between Hindus and Sikhs, -they have never fought, There is no doubt that murders do take in Punjab, and that both Hindus and Sikhs have been murdered: Sikh officials also have been killed, but such an incident is not a Hindu-Sikh question. But a feeling of resentment has now developed between the two communities—their hearts have separated. But also their relationship is so deep that it is not possible for them to fight one another face to face. If any one of them dies, members of both the communities participate in the cremation, they join together in marriages. But due to the recent incidents a kind of hatred has been created between them. This could have been avoided if the Government had sincerely wanted to take steps against the extremists. They could have been isolated. The Punjab problem could have been solved, but Smt. Indira Gandhi did not allow that.”” Then he quoted an Urdu couplet to sum up the situation:
It is no longer possible to disentangle the knots. It was with great thought that the learned had tied and twisted them. Everywhere we went to heard that it was the Government (Sarkar) through its police who was instigating communal trouble. When we visited Kapurthala, we were told that three boys—Jogtar Singh, Tara Singh and Charan Singh had been arrested and tortured by the police because the shop of Sri Om Prakash was burnt in Kala Sangha market place. When interviewed, Sri Om Prakash (Hindu) very clearly told us—“‘I have not made any complaint against anyone; nor do] suspect the boys who have been arrested by the police.” Rashpal Singh, President, Market Committee, added: “‘there is no Hindu-Sikh tension here, it is political problem.” The Sarpanch said, “there is peace and harmony here but the government has posted police hereto disturb the peace. The shopkeeper whose shop was burnt down has not taken anybody’s name but the police have implicated three Sikh boys.”
The role of some Congressmen (I)
Mr. Shyam Lal, Chairman, Municipal Corporation, Fatehgarh Churian, Dist. Amritsar, when asked about the communal situation was of the firm opinion that “the relations between Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Christians are very cordial and there has not been any trouble here, there have been absolutely no migrations from our village to places outside Punjab.” But he added how “‘the police and the Army are under pressure of the ruling Congress, wrong information is given to them and because of that injustice is being done to the Sikhs” and he mentioned the cases of a timber merchant Kulwant Singh Arrewala and a farmer Sarabjit Singh of village Fatehpur who were arrested and tortured by the army and the police because ‘The Congress(I) people falsely implicated them in the Khalistan Flag unfurling case.” This kind of thing creates trouble between the two communities. To get to the root of the matter we interviewed Kulwant Singh Arrewala (50), timber merchant and Saw Mill owner of Fatehgarh Churian and we quote him—“ On the night of August 15, Army rounded up a number of people and I was also arrested under the direction of Santokh Singh Randhawa, Punjab Congress(I) President. I was told to pay obeisance to Shri Randhawa; when I refused they blindfolded me, took me to various Interrogation Centres but not finding anything against me released me after 5 days. Reaching late at night I found a message from the local police station asking me to report there; next morning I went to the police station. The SSP asked me to sit down and then informed that I was going to be arrested; when I asked what were the charges against me, he said, “you should seek forgiveness of Sri Randhawa’ for reasons unknown. I refused.
August 15, Army rounded up a number of people and I was also arrested under the direction of Santokh Singh Randhawa, Punjab Congress(I) President. I was told to pay obeisance to Shri Randhawa; when I refused they blindfolded me, took me to various Interrogation Centres but not finding anything against me released me after 5 days. Reaching late at night I found a message from the local police station asking me to report there; next morning I went to the police station. The SSP asked me to sit down and then informed that I was going to be arrested; when I asked what were the charges against me, he said, “you should seek forgiveness of Sri Randhawa’ for reasons unknown.
I refused.
Unfurling of Khalistan flag
“So a false charge was framed against me that I had unfurled Khalistan flag. The Colonel also had questioned me about this and I had told him it was the work of Santokh Singh Randhawa and none other. I have been released on a bail of 2 lakhs after two months.” After this to expect that Hindus and Sikhs would live in amity is perhaps expecting too much. We gathered from several sources that there are some Congress(I) men who are against the Hindu-Sikh unity and there is suspicion that they have their hands behind many of the murders, though it is always a Sikh who is arrested as an extremist. We met the farmer Sarabjit Singh of Village Fatehgarh and questioned him about the Khalistan flag unfurling story. He said, “I was in my farm in a village 5-6 miles away when I heard of the Khalistan flag incident. The next day, on August 16, I was arrested and kept for 4 days in Police lockup. There I was tortured in the same way as others. About 40 people had been arrested, later I was in jail for 5 months. Santokh Singh Randhawa has two or three men who work for him for money and inform the police and then the SSP takes action. Actually those very men had hoisted the flag.” Later we gathered further information talking to a big group of local people, recorded discussions is being quoted: ‘‘This is totally government sponsored. Many who have confessed being a party to these incidents have talked of an important man in Congress(I) to be the mastermind. Charanjit, a poor man, has confessed that he had hoisted the Khalistan flag and also threw a grenade inside a temple—he did these things for money; he is now in Gurdaspur jail and has been promised a bail and acquittal if only he gave a clean chit to his master. The Congress(I) does not want peace but wants that the Hindu-Sikh problem stays on in order to gain political advantage. Here there are no extremists, but it played up to create a permanent rift between the two communities.” If this was in Fatehgarh Churian, the story of the involvement of Congress(I) in giving protection to the real culprits and forcing the police to arrest wrong men—always Sikhs—was no different elsewhere. Sri Karan Singh, President, City College, Butala, told us that a student of Class XII Jagdish Singh about 20 was murdered near a CRP and Military camp. “We are telling you this because the CRP and Military did not make any investigation to find out the culprits—only because Jagdish Singh was a Sikh boy. If it had been a Hindu boy they would have made vigorous investigations and arrested hundreds of people; instead the police arrested one of his friends and falsely to protect the culprit, implicated him in the case— the reason being that the Congress (I) wanted to protect the culprit and got the police to arrest a friend of Jagdish Singh. All these things are done at the instance of the government so that more and more Sikh youths can be arrested and tortured.”
We have quoted these interviews to show:
- How the Army is being politicized, as the police already has been; and
- Some Congress (I) men have people in their pay to execute acts of terrorism; and
- Basically Hindus and Sikhs wish to live together in peace, but some powerful men in the ruling party are against this unity.
Even about the attempted murder of R. L. Bhatia—the then President of Punjab Congress-I there was unanimity that it was not the doing of a Sikh; “‘it could never have been, for” said Bhagowalia,
“Bhatia had very good relations with the Akalis and was very popular among the Sikhs in Punjab. The Sikhs had no reason to shoot him. The shooting seems to be the result of internal quarrel within the Congress-I’’. Sri Bhatia was one prominent Congress-I man who genuinely wanted the Sikhs and the Hindus to live together in Punjab as members of one family, but this was not exactly the aim of several of his power-hungry colleagues in the Party office. Dr. Rajinder Kaur, President, Istri Akali Dal whom we asked about this incident—was a deeply worried woman, a personal friend of Shri Bhatia, she was visiting him every day in the hospital where he was then lying gravely ill. She completely ruled out the hand of any Sikh—‘he was loved by all’ she told us. But what they all had feared has come to pass—‘you’ll see some Sikhs would be implicated’—because the police dare not touch the real culprit.
Hindu- Sikh harmony in the villages
From all the evidence we could collect, it did not appear as if there can ever be a Bhiwandi or a Moradabad in Punjab There might have been, the situation could have been really ugly when, after the appalling incidents in Delhi and elsewhere, haunted by the fear of their recurrence thousands of Sikhs had fled to Punjab. Even the official figure was 25,000 which is hard to believe, considering in Ludhiana’s city Gurudwara alone there were 4000 families in May and the SGPC had registered more than 1800 families and almost every Gurudwara had given shelter to these people—many hundreds of them widows.
