John Katz: Is it called Operation Bluestar by the Indian government?
Iqbal Singh: Operation Bluestar was an attack by thirty thousand troops, in which tanks, guns, helicopters and aircrafts were brought into action to demolish the Golden Temple. All the people inside went down fighting except of course the women and children who were there to commemorate the death anniversary of the fifth Guru of Sikhs.
John: Was it the only place they attacked or was there other places in the country?
Iqbal Singh: Government of India maintained that there were some criminal element fighting inside but they attacked forty different places. Every historical place for Sikhs in Punjab was attacked at the same time. Forty different places of historical importance. Intensive damage was done to these places. For example in Golden Temple some of the handwritten notes by the Sikh Gurus — Sikh prophets were destroyed. Imagine a letter writ somewhere and the government troops go there and destroy them. Ninety documents written by the gurus hand were destroyed. Two hundred Granth equivalent to holy bible which had the signatures of Gurus were destroyed ten by Christ was and close to twenty thousand rare historic books were destroyed and thousands of paintings were also destroyed. The Sikh library was located inside the Golden Temple premises. All of that was destroyed.
John: Let me take the government of India’s part and play the devil out of it. “The reason we attacked Golden Temple is that they were using it as a terrorist headquarters” True or False?
Iqbal Singh: False, Because I ask you a simple question. If a Golden Temple a holy place a building is surrounded by twenty thousand troops and police I ask you will any sensible criminal commit an act 200 miles away and come and go through a cordon of police and hide inside the Golden Temple? The army and the police had surrounded the Golden Temple for previous two years at various levels of defence. Firstly there were 4 to 5 hundred troops then the number came to 1,000 to 2,000. I ask will any sensible person, will any guerrilla or a terrorist want to do that? They are exactly telling the opposite side where he is hiding. Of course they were inside, who had taken an oath, a vow to defend the Golden Temple should the enemy move in. And then there were few hundreds of them and they all went on fighting in fact the resistance inside was headed by a general retired General Shubegh Singh who was the master mind of Bangla Desh victory. When India went into East Pakistan and created Bangla Desh a separate state. He was one of the main leaders of that so that the point of government of India that they were trying to clean the Golden Temple is wrong.
John: Now I know from history that after what happened the Sikh soldiers began deserting from the army and civil foreign service and Sikh officials resigned in protest and then the real episode began when army began its search and seizures. Would you mind telling my listening audience what the Indian army did to the young youth in the Punjab countryside I heard that sixty thousand Sikh youth are reported missing?
Iqbal Singh: Well, you have rightly said, after that ten to twenty thousand soldiers deserted, many foreign and civil officers resigned. What is the saddest part is that army launched a 2nd phase of their operation and under that there were search seek and destroy operations guided by the helicopters and these helicopters were mounted with machine guns basically scouring the country side. If they saw any Sikh group heading towards the Golden Temple they were shot at. Many of the thousands of Sikh youth were picked up by the army and many of them are missing even today. I do not know the exact figures but I know thousands of them are missing. John: I would like to ask about what happened on October the 31st 1984 in New Delhi, India,
Iqbal Singh: Golden Temple was attacked twice before. Once in 1747 and other in 1753 and it is worth noting that whosoever had ordered the attack on the Golden Temple on those occasions was murdered by the Sikhs who were offended by the attack. That is what has exactly happened. The two Sikhs who were close to Indira Gandhi simply picked up the gun and shot Indira Gandhi who had ordered the attack on the Golden Temple. Once that happened there was utter shock and confusion in India. Soon after that Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister. Mark Tully of B.B.C New Delhi say that some people heard him as being quoted in quotes, “Sikhs teach them a lesson” and also that in next four days when Sikhs were massacred all over India. In Delhi 3,300 were killed in a matter of two days, 265 Sikh shrines, gurdwaras in the Golden Temples were destroyed or put up in a state of disrepair, damaged or burnt. Women were gang raped children were picked up and killed, particularly young Sikh boys, of age 26 years old were put on fire and killed saying that these are the young snakes and should be destroyed before they put more snakes. And this happened all over India and the damage in Delhi particularly was horrible of course Chief Justice Sikkri of the Indian supreme court wrote a report on this, he says, “this is the ultimate shame of Indian democracy.”
John: When Indira Gandhi was killed, most people do know that her father was Nehru, after she was killed who took her place, was it Sanjay or Rajiv? Iqbal Singh; Rajiv Gandhi took the place. He was not a cabinet minister and an unusual step took place and he was brought in to fill the Prime Ministers berth. I may remind you that he has no administrative experience. He had never been a minister in the cabinet. He had been only in the parliament for two years. He was a pilot in Indian airline, The other son you named Sanjay Gandhi was being groomed by Indira Gandhi to be the next prime minister. He unfortunately died in an Air Crash in 1980 and soon after brought in the other son who was a pilot then. With two years of experience as a parliamentarian he was elevated to the high office of Indian prime minister deciding the destiny of eight hundred million people.
John: Could you please explain to my audience your term dynastic democracy and will you also tell us if there has been any change in the government of India since Indira Gandhi was assassinated and Rajiv took over?
Iqbal Singh: It is a very interesting question that you have raised, Many scholars have called India’s democracy a dynastic democracy. In 1929 when we were talking earlier the Indian Constitution was first formulated it was chaired by a man known as Moti Lal Nehru. The great grandfather of the present Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when India became independent. Moti Lal Nehru’s son Jawaharlal Nehru became the Prime Minister. He ruled India or administered India for next about 18 years. After his death we find Indira Gandhi coming to power with a break of one year in between when there was a stop gap arrangement who died in the office. Indira Gandhi ruled for seventeen years and then lost power when she declared emergency the opposition ruled for three years. Then she came back to power. Then of course after her death we have Rajiv Gandhi now ruling. So we find in India’s total Independence history 43 years Gandhi Nehru family has ruled India for thirty nine to forty years. So that is dynastic democracy but not real democracy. I cannot imagine President Bush six months before his term of tenure he was calling his son who stands for republican nomination and he wins the Republican Presidential race. That cannot happen here but that has happened in India both for Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
John: It might not happen with President Bush and his son but it certainly has happened with President Kennedy almost totally controlling this country for the last 40 years. My guest Dr. Iqbal Singh and ladies and gentlemen if you think we are just talking about the history of India today you have got a surprise a little later on in the program. We are going to be taking about the fifth largest religion in the world. The Sikh religion, I wanted to see the correlation between the Sikhism and Christianity.
To Be Continued
Article extracted from this publication >> June 23, 1989
