India After Independence: 1947-2000 (55 page)

Having lost the elections in 1980 and in order to widen their support base among Sikhs, the Akalis began to intensify the communal content of their politics and to continuously escalate their demands, the so-called moderate leaders keeping in step with the extremists. In 1981, the main Akali Dal, headed by Sant Longowal, submitted to the prime minister a memorandum of forty-five religious, political, economic and social demands and grievances, including the issue of the sharing of Punjab’s river waters between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and the question of the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, and launched a virulent campaign around them. Very soon, implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR), adopted in 1973, became the most prominent demand. The resolution, which had many versions, was openly communal and separatist in all its versions.

Simultaneously, the Akalis took up in a more blatant and strident manner all the communal themes we have discussed above. There was a more open use of religion as a mobilizing tool. Gurudwaras were the focal points of the Akali movements.

Thus, the logic of the communal ideology and politics of the Akalis since 1947 was separatism and the demand for a sovereign theocratic state. After 1981, the terrorists were to follow this logic to its conclusion. The failure of Akali agitations, which did not and could not succeed to the full, along with the heightened, unrequited sense of deprivation being preached for over thirty years, led to the belief among the more honest believers that violence offered the only remedy; and if organized mass violence was not possible and the militant mass movement had proved futile, then terrorist violence was the only answer.

Also, clearly, in practice, the Akali view was that the Akali demands had to be necessarily met, negotiations being only a matter of form. Moreover, often, the Akalis would accept an award, only to reject it later if found inconvenient. After a demand was met they would mount a fresh agitation around a new set of demands. Any agreement with them provided only a temporary and short-lived respite. Their basic approach
was that Punjab, because of being a ‘Sikh’ state, and the Akali Dal, being a ‘Sikh’ party, were above the political norms and structure of the country, or the interests of the other neighbouring states, or a democratic, federal mechanism for the resolution of inter-state disputes.

Parallel to Akali militancy, terrorism made its appearance in Punjab in 1981 as a partial culmination of communal politics since 1947 and the policy of appeasement towards communalism followed by the Punjab Congress leadership, especially since the early seventies. The initiator of terrorism was Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who emerged in the late seventies as a strong campaigner of Sikh orthodoxy. In this campaign he received the tacit support of the Punjab Congress led by Giani Zail Singh, who hoped to use him to undercut the Akalis. He was, however, to soon become a Frankenstein and turn against his erstwhile patrons.

The terrorist campaign by Bhindranwale and the All India Sikh Students Federation, headed by Amrik Singh, began on 24 April 1980 with the assassination of the head of the Nirankari sect. This was followed by the killing of many Nirankaris, dissident Akalis and Congress workers. In September 1981, Lala Jagat Narain, editor of a popular newspaper and a critic of Bhindranwale, was killed. Bhindranwale was shielded from government action by Gaini Zail Singh who had in 1980 become the home minister at the Centre. To protect himself, Bhindranwale moved in July 1982 to the sanctuary of Guru Nanak Niwas, a building within the Golden Temple complex from where he directed the campaign of terrorism in Punjab. He now emerged as a central figure in Punjab politics.

Till September 1983, terrorist killings were confined to Nirankaris, petty government officials and Sikhs who disagreed with Bhindranwale. Bhindranwale was, however, since 1981, carrying on a verbal campaign of hatred against Hindus and ‘fallen’ Sikhs, that is members of reformist Sikh sects, and inciting violence against them, especially through widely circulated audio-cassettes.

A new dimension to terrorist activity was added when from September 1983 he started targetting Hindus on an increasing scale, and indiscriminate killing of Hindus began; this could be done with relative impunity as the Punjab administration and police were in a run-down condition and the Government of India was hesitant to take action against terrorism. He also organized the looting of local banks, jewellery shops and home guard armouries, the killing of Nirankaris and government officials and random bomb explosions. In April 1983, A.S. Atwal, a Sikh deputy inspector-general of police, was killed just as he was coming out of the Golden Temple after offering his prayers. From now on there was a marked and continuous increase in terrorist operations as also communal passions among Sikhs and Hindus. Bhindranwale also gave a call for a separation from and an armed struggle against the Indian state, emphasizing the separateness and sovereignty of Sikhs.

Fearing arrest, in December 1983, Bhindranwale moved into the safe haven of the Akal Takht within the Golden Temple and made it his headquarters and armoury, and a sanctuary for his terrorist followers, many of whom were criminals and smugglers. He smuggled on a large-scale light machine-guns and other sophisticated arms into the Temple, and set up workshops there for fabricating sten-guns, hand grenades and other arms. He erected pillboxes in and around the Akal Takht and other buildings, where he provided weapons training to new recruits and from where he sent out death squads and conducted his campaign of murders, bombings and loot. A large number of other gurudwaras were also used as sanctuaries and bases for terrorist activities.

Led by Bhindranwale, the Khalistanis, the extremists, the militants, the terrorists—by whatever name they may be called—hoped to gradually transform terrorism into a general insurgency and an armed uprising. They were fighting for political and ideological hegemony over the people of Punjab. All their activities were designed to prove that the Indian state was not capable of ruling in Punjab and, therefore, separation from India was a realizable objective. Their bullying of the Press and the judiciary, their killing of police officials (and their families) and those suspected of cooperating with the police and administration, their successful diktats to administrators to do their bidding, their collection of ‘parallel taxes’, their silencing of intellectuals and political workers, their coercion of the peasants in giving them shelter, and their random killings—all were designed not only to facilitate their activities but also to convince the people of Punjab that they had the capacity to challenge the Indian state and that they were the rulers of tomorrow. To achieve this objective, they made no distinction between Sikhs and Hindus. Nearly 55 per cent of those killed from 1981 to 3 June 1984 were Sikhs.

The attitude of the Akali leadership towards the terrorists was ambivalent. While not joining them and even harbouring a certain hostility towards them, it kept quiet out of fear, and even supported them out of expediency. The moderation of its majority wing was also not backed by political action, positions and statements. There was no open stand against the terrorists or unequivocal condemnation of their activities or the senseless killings or the vitriolic propaganda of Bhindranwale. Instead, even the moderate Akali leaders defended, directly or indirectly, those accused of terrorist acts. They condemned every concrete action of the police against the terrorists. They objected to any government action against Bhindranwale. Longowal, for example, said in 1981: ‘Entire Sikh community supported Bhindranwale.’
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When, on rare occasions, the Akali leaders did condemn violence and individual killings, they put the blame on the government and the Congress, accusing them of organizing the violence and killings in order to tarnish the Sikh image. They took no
action against the occupation and desecration of the gurudwaras and the Golden Temple by the terrorists. In fact, feeling that their leadership of the Sikh masses was in danger, they tried to keep up with Bhindranwale. As they lost ground to the latter, they took up more and more extreme positions, competing with him in demands and aggressive political and ideological posturing.

What made it difficult for the Akali leaders to oppose Bhindranwale was the fact that they shared a common political ideology with him and the extremists, even though they had tactical and strategic political differences. The Akalis equally whipped up communal feelings; and the public manifestations of the Akali ideology were indistinguishable from those of Bhindranwale and the extremists and, in fact, echoed them.

Instead of boldly confronting the communal and separatist challenge to the Indian polity, Indira Gandhi gave way to indecisiveness; her response, uncharacteristic of her political style, was to dither and vacillate between a policy of appeasement and tactical manoeuvring and firmness. She refused to take strong action against terrorist killings for three long years, from 1981 to 1984, or to fight extreme communalism, ideologically and politically, and to counter communal propaganda effectively. She also did not realize that there was a basic difference between paying heed to minority feelings and appeasing minority communalism.

Indira Gandhi carried on endless negotiations with G.S. Tohra, Prakash Singh Badal and H.S. Longowal. Knuckling under the Akali and terrorist threats, she failed to evolve what the situation demanded, namely, a strategy of combating communalism, secessionism and terrorism. She also did not realize that when it came to a crunch she would not be able to unilaterally accept the Akali demands and ignore the strong and unanimous opinion of the people and political parties of Haryana and Rajasthan.

The result of the weak-kneed policy followed by Indira Gandhi was to send wrong signals to secessionists and the terrorists as well as to the people of Punjab. As K.P.S. Gill, the ex-director-general of police in Punjab who directed the successful phase of the anti-terrorist campaign there, has pointed out: ‘Nothing encourages the terrorists to greater audacity than the spectacle of weakness in the political leadership, and of confusion in the security forces.’
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Important in this respect was the failure of the government to act at the time of Atwal’s murder in April 1983 within the precincts of the Golden Temple itself and which left the people of Punjab outraged.

The situation in Punjab deteriorated rapidly in 1984. Akali militancy grew by leaps and bounds. The leadership called for a fresh round of militant agitations starting from 3 June. It also increasingly and publicly expressed solidarity with Bhindranwale.

An increasingly dangerous feature of the situation was Pakistan’s growing involvement in Punjab affairs. As a part of its strategy of waging a low intensity warfare against India, Pakistan had started providing training, weapons, ideological indoctrination, safe areas for hiding, and military guidance to terrorist organizations. Certain extremist Sikh groups abroad were also giving increasing encouragement to the secessionists and helping them with money and weapons.

By June 1984, the situation had reached an explosive point as terrorist activity escalated. There was in Punjab and in the country as a whole an intense feeling of danger to the peace and unity of the country. Fear and panic were spreading among Hindus in Punjab with an increasing number leaving the state. More and more gurudwaras were being fortified and turned into arsenals. Clearly, a situation of insurgency was building up in Punjab. At the same time, the government was losing its prestige and getting discredited.

One of the most worrisome features of the situation was the increasing Hindu-Sikh divide in Punjab and the spread of Hindu communalism in the rest of the country, especially in North India. A warning came from Haryana when anti-Sikh rioting broke out in February.

By the end of May, it was clear that decisive action against terrorists could no longer be put off and that the use of drastic force to flush out the terrorists holed up in the Golden Temple and other gurudwaras had become necessary. And so, finally faced with a dead end so far as political manoeuvres were concerned, the Government of India undertook the military action, code-named Operation Blue Star. While there was no alternative to military action once the situation had worsened to the extent it had, there is no doubt, as the later events were to show, that the Operation was hastily conceived, undertaken without adequate information and proper planning and poorly executed, with the result that its political and emotional cost proved to be far higher than its planners had anticipated.

On 3 June the army surrounded the Golden Temple. It entered the Temple on 5 June. There it found that the terrorists were far greater in number and also far better armed than the government sources had assumed. Rather than lasting an hour or two, as a surgical operation, the military operation turned into a full-scale battle, with the army having to deploy tanks in the end. What was worse, over a thousand devotees and temple staff were trapped inside the Temple and many of them died in the crossfire. Moreover, the buildings in the Temple complex were severely damaged, with the Akal Takht being virtually razed to the ground. Harmandir Sahib, the most hallowed of the Sikh shrines, was riddled with bullet marks, even though the army had taken special care at the cost of the lives of its soldiers not to damage it. Among the dead were Bhindranwale and many of his followers.

The Operation Blue Star produced a deep sense of anger and outrage among Sikhs all over the country. It was seen by most of them as a sacrilege and an affront to the community rather than as a necessary
though unpleasant effort to deal with Bhindranwale and the terrorists. While much of the hostile reaction to the Operation represented an emotional outburst, there was a great deal to be said for its critics who held that some other way than the military storming of the Temple should have been found. Later, critics were to point to the success of the skillfully planned and executed Operation Black Thunder in 1988 which forced the terrorists, once again occupying the Temple in the manner similar to that of 1984, to surrender to the police in a relatively bloodless manner.