The Punjab Story

by Amarjit Kaur

  Akashvani reports that the dead body of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale has been found. Curfew is to be relaxed at 3 p.m. on 7 June for two hours. A whole lot of people are eagerly waiting at roundabouts and intersections to go into the walled city. But a last-minute announcement cancels the relaxation and orders people to go home. There is a shoot-at-sight order. Everyone scampers homewards. Once again, the streets are deserted.

  How may people do you think were killed in Amritsar during Operation Bluestar? I am often asked this question wherever I go. It is not easy to answer. But from the movement of Amritsar municipal garbage vans that ferried the dead, I have a feeling the number of dead is much more than is officially stated. Going by the rumour-mills in Amritsar, the casualty figure is over 2,000. But I have no way to substantiate this as most cremations were done under curfew.

  Many people in Amritsar are reported missing. One of these is 26-year-old Raman Inder who worked in the Family Planning Department. He has been missing since 25 June. And the scooter on which he was riding has been found on the outskirts of the city. Where is Raman Inder? The disposal of corpses posed a great problem. So much so that seven truck cleaners behind my hotel were rounded up one morning and threatened with dire consequences if they did not do as ordered. But they stubbornly refused. So the scouts then went to contact some sweepers. They too refused. But when offered liquor and the lure of owning whatever was found on the corpse, be it gold chain or ring or cash, goes the story, they agreed. Some of them have made tidy fortunes in the bargain.

  If entering Amritsar on 3 June was a stroke of luck, leaving on 13 June was an achievement. For on 12 June, I had been turned away from the queue because I did not have details like the name of the driver and the taxi number. This time, I was all ready. Even the vehicle and the driver were standing outside if any further confirmation was necessary. The application was approved by the additional district collector and a lieutenant colonel in civvies. The ‘travel permit’ was issued after several entries in various ledgers, both civil and military.

  We were repeatedly stopped and checked for weapons. ‘Open the dicky; open the bonnet; open the glove compartment; take out the seats,’ barked the jawans with Stenguns at the ready. Mounted light machine-guns were positioned on either side of the road. The Beas Bridge was the most heavily guarded place en route to Chandigarh. There were seven ‘hammersledge’ tanks on either side of the bridge. And the place was crawling with armed jawans.

  I almost got into a jam at Mohali which came under curfew at 8 p.m. We got there about ten minutes later. An aggressive jawan was itching to provoke us. I asked to see his senior. In his presence, I stated that multiple checking had delayed us. Go back from where you came, he told me. I explained that If we did that, we were sure to be shot because our travel permit allowed us to go to Chandigarh. We dare not travel in the reverse direction. We could not disobey army orders. That did it. He told us to proceed to Chandigarh. But move fast, he said. We will go like the wind, I assured him as Gurdip Singh stepped on the accelerator.

  I came to Amritsar again on 17 July. As I flew in I could see the glittering golden canopy of Harmandir Sahib. The surroundings looked serene. But I knew what the complex had undergone almost a month earlier. The city looked different this time. The marks of tank chains on the tar roads had disappeared. Army vehicles moved about. But the jawans were not pointing their weapons outwards any longer as was the case in June.

  There was no curfew except for a day and a half when the Nihang chief Baba Santa Singh began his kar seva by clearing the Akal Takht debris. Even as many Sikhs resented the Nihang chief undertaking this project of voluntary service and some of them derisively called it sarkar seva, it was clear that the move to repair the Akal Takht was fraught with hazards as far as it hurt the Sikh sentiments.

  Nevertheless, there are two sides to the case. One is the Akali Dal’s which wants the Akal Takht to remain in the present ruinous state as a monument to the army’s aggression. The status quo will help the Akali Dal as it does have some hold over the religious and simple village folk. They can be exploited politically with the bogey of their religion being in danger. The other is the government view that repairs must be carried out quickly so that people look to the future instead of brooding over the past. In this approach, hope replaces despair.

  How genuine is the kar seva? Is it a farce? These questions are posed in many places. The answer is simple: there are two political parties, each sponsoring a Baba. While the Akali Dal advised its Baba octogenarian, Baba Kharak Singh, not to carry out kar seva unless the army is withdrawn from the temple complex. Baba Santa Singh points out that after all, it is the Indian Army that is there and not a foreign army. So long as it does not interfere with his work, he has no complaints against it.

  When I met Baba Kharak Singh at Chabhal, about 25 kilometres outside Amritsar and close to the Indo-Pak border, he said he would neither criticize nor praise Santa Singh’s work. He had moved out of Amritsar because he did now wish to be badgered by various factions, some wanting him to carry out kar seva and others pressing him not to.

  It is with disdain that the 62-year-old Baba looks upon the order excommunicating him after declaring him a tankhaiya (one who commits a Sikh religious offence). ‘I am doing constructive work,’ he asserts and challenges the right of these paid employees of the SGPC to take any action against him. ‘Why was no hukumnama issued by the five head priests, when Bhindranwale had turned the temple complex into a fortress?’ asks Santa Singh.

  I met the five head priests in the Guru Ram Das Hospital. They had returned from their visit to the temple complex where they stood for a few minutes near the Akal Takht. They sat on two hospital beds. They declined to answer questions as they said they wanted to discuss the case of Baba Santa Singh.

  Later that evening of 21 July, I visited the residence of Giani Kirpal Singh, jathedar of Akal Takht, and spoke to him for an hour and a half. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

  Q:

  Baba Santa Singh asks why no hukumnama was issued when Bhindranwale ensconced himself in the Akal Takht. What is your reply?

  A:

  We did not issue any hukumnama because no one complained to me about this matter.

  Q:

  Do you need someone to complain before you can consider any issue?

  A:

  Yes. It has now come to be known that the Indian Institute of International Understanding did make a request to Giani Kirpal Singh to issue a hukumnama vide their registered letter of 12 March 1984, copies of which were sent to jathedars of all the other takhts and to Mr Longowal, Akali Dal president, and Mr Tohra, SGPC president.

  Q:

  Did anyone complain against Baba Santa Singh undertaking kar seva?

  A:

  Yes.

  Q:

  Who?

  A:

  The Akali Dal and the SGPC.

  Q:

  Did the Dal and SGPC also lodge any complaint when Bhindranwale was ruling the roost in the Akal Takht?

  A:

  No, no one complained. Why did Baba Santa Singh not emerge at that time. Why has he come on the scene now?

  Q:

  Since you are the jathedar of the Akal Takht, the nation was expecting you to do something about it. Were you threatened to keep silent or face the gun?

  A:

  There were several reasons why we could not protest against the happenings inside the Akal Takht and the temple complex. I cannot disclose them now.

  Q:

  Is not the SGPC responsible for the proper management of gurdwaras? Would you say the gurdwaras have been managed properly?

  A:

  I do not wish to make comments.

  Q:

  The Akali Dal and SGPC representatives, Mr Prakash Singh Majitha and Mr Major Singh Uboke, say that Bhindranwale is the ‘martyr�
�� and the army the ‘aggressor’ or hamlawar. Do you agree or disagree with this view?

  A:

  It is for people to decide who can be called shaheed and who is the hamlawar.

  Q:

  Who according to you can be called shaheed?

  A:

  ‘Jo nek kam ke liye marta hai woh shaheed hai’ (he who dies for a good cause is a martyr).

  Q:

  Who died for a good cause: the army officers and jawans who wanted to liberate the Golden Temple and restore sanctity, or Bhindranwale?

  A:

  The army was the hamlawar.

  Q:

  Why did you permit Bhindranwale to make the Akal Takht his residence? When I met him inside the Akal Takht on the evening of 3 June, I was searched for weapons by his men and then allowed to go to the second floor. You had no control on the Akal Takht whatsoever as its jathedar?

  A:

  (Very weakly) He did not live in the Akal Takht but in a building behind it.

  Q:

  But how is it that most newsmen had earlier met him in the Akal Takht itself? He had all the rooms to himself there.

  A:

  I do not wish to comment.

  Q:

  Do you think that religion and politics ought to be separated?

  A:

  No. They are inseparable. The government mixes religion with politics. Why should we not do it? Every person is both religious and political. Religion is the soul and politics the body. We Sikhs have religion only. Our dharma is to punish the oppressor. We may be weak politically, but our forte is religion.

  Q:

  When Bhindranwale ordered the killings, could he not be treated as an oppressor and punished?

  A:

  Bhindranwale helped the Congress against the Akali Dal and the SGPC in 1979. The government allowed him to roam freely in New Delhi with weapons. All this was done to give us a bad name and humiliate us. He was a Congress agent.

  Q:

  You are right when you say he should have been arrested. But why did you thereafter allow this Congress agent to gang up with the Akali Dal and the SGPC and dominate the show? You consider him a martyr now.

  A:

  Ask the Akali Dal and SGPC leaders. I don’t know.

  Q:

  Don’t you think Baba Santa Singh can become another Bhindranwale as some Akali leaders are saying?

  A:

  Don’t ask me.

  Q:

  One last question. Some people say Bhindranwale is still alive. What is your information?

  A:

  I was told that he was alive at 9 a.m. on 6 July. I don’t know.

  Throughout the interview, Giani Kirpal Singh gave the impression of a man who was disillusioned and demoralized. On questions involving Bhindranwale, he would lower his eyes and one discerned a trace of fear. It was as if there was some bandookwala hiding behind the curtain and almost as if he was afraid of losing something precious if he became more forthright. I had hoped that Giani would be talking freely and fearlessly now that Bhindranwale was no more. But he looked a haunted man, weak-willed, confused and brainwashed.

  A word about the terrorists abroad. I am told by Mr V. Ram, principal of the International Gandhi Memorial School in Jakarta, that five youths belonging to the banned AISSF landed up in Jakarta on 8 July. They established contact with him through some students. They told him that if they did not secure their no-objection certificates from the Indian Embassy there to proceed to USA and Australia, they would do something drastic. They could have blown up the Indian Embassy building which was inaugurated on 4 June by the then Foreign Minister, Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao. Or they could have played hell in the Sikh gurdwara in Pasabari where they were about to take shelter.

  Mr Ram, who is popularly regarded in Jakarta as India’s ‘unofficial ambassador’ and is a staunch nationalist, pacified the youths. He told them that the situation in Jakarta was such that if they resorted to any violence, the Indian community would not appreciate it at all. And they would be severely dealt with by the Indonesian police and army. On his persuasion, they did not stay in the gurdwara.

  The Indian ambassador in Indonesia, Gen O.P. Malhotra, was informed about the AISSF youths by his military attache and first secretary. The youths confessed that they were suspected of having assassinated Ramesh Chander, editor of Hind Samachar group of newspapers in Jullundur. He was killed on 12 May 1984 and since then these youths had been on the run.

  In Amritsar and New Delhi, the hot debate is on issues that boil down to perspectives. In one scenario, the army is the villain. It has desecrated the Golden Temple and anguished Sikh feeling by the excessive force used in Operation Bluestar. In the other scenario, Bhindranwale is the villain, and the army is the liberator. It is Bhindranwale who desecrated the temple complex by converting the Akal Takht into an arsenal and a place to stock the loot from robbed banks. There was a harem of village girls for the pleasure of his brainwashed brigade. Some of these girls are said to be pregnant now. In this scenario, had not Bhindranwale ensconced himself in the Akal Takht, it would never have been attacked.

  There are some who talk of blood and tears in a pool of nectar. They would be applying the healing touch if they also spoke of the dangers of marigold and roses being replaced by deadly weapons in a sacred shrine.

  The Akali Dal, the SGPC and the five head priests talk repeatedly of Bhindranwale being a creation of the Congress. But I find that they are hard put to explain why they are out to make the Congress discard their martyr. The hypocrisy and double-facedness stands exposed.

  When they lay emphasis on the Akal Takht as an institution, and not as a mere building, being damaged they fail to see why the army doctor Capt Shyam Sunder Rampal should have had his hands chopped off by terrorists and bled to death; or why Dr V.N. Tiwari, MP, should have been gunned down in his Chandigarh residence; or why Ramesh Chander was slain in Jullundur. If hukumnamas of the past few hundred years have been destroyed, none can rejoice over this tragedy. But can Bhindranwale be absolved of the blame for this sorry situation?

  Some stalwarts talk about different solutions that might have been possible to implement. Prominent among these theories is that the army could have laid a siege to the Golden Temple and given an ultimatum. Water, power, food supplies, etc., could have been cut off during the siege to force the entrenched men out. This, however, would not have worked. For one thing, the Golden Temple complex does have a few tunnels leading into houses in different areas. This would have enabled a determined Bhindranwale to make a monkey out of the army to appear at a venue and time of his choice. Secondly, the gullible villagers could have been made to believe that Sikhism was in danger and asked to encircle the army. Such a situation would have led to greater bitterness and more bloodshed without achieving results. The last two-and-a-half years of Bhindranwale’s reign of terror cannot be wiped out from the collective memory of the people in the north; nor can it be shrugged off as an ugly nightmare.

  To ensure that such a reign of terror is not unleashed again, it is necessary that my Sikh friends who talk of alienation stop identifying themselves with Bhindranwale. If most Sikhs rightly did not support him during his lifetime, why should they now bestow this posthumous popularity on him?

  If the Congress made the mistake of creating Bhindranwale, then the Akali Dal, SGPC and the five head priests are committing a blunder by trying to make a martyr out of what ostensibly was a monster. What is the rationale behind the argument that Bhindranwale with the Congress is evil but with the Akali Dal is a saint?

  Let it be recalled that when Sir Aroor Singh, the manager of the Golden Temple in 1919, presented a saropa to General Dyer immediately after the massacre in next door Jallianwala Bagh, the Sikhs raised a furore. They felt that great injustice had been done to all.

  There is sufficient evidence to believe that Bhindranwale entertain
ed anti-national and secessionist ambitions. If his objectives were within the democratic framework, why did he need to pile up arms and ammunition? It is pointless to accuse the authorities of planting weapons inside the temple complex. Once it is realized that the military action was not against the Sikhs as a community, but against the extremist leader Bhindranwale, it should not be difficult to remove the trauma which is distorting the thinking of the Sikhs. Hence the need to look at events in their entire perspective.

  Assault on the Golden Temple Complex 5-6 June 1984

  LT GEN JAGJIT SINGH AURORA (RETD)

  Since Independence, it was for the first time that the Indian Army had been employed to fight a pitched battle against a section of its own people. The assault on the Golden Temple on 5-6 June 1984 turned a shrine of great sanctity into a battlefield. This has shocked and angered the Sikh masses and caused anguish to many more of other religious beliefs. The immediate question that arises is: was the army action really necessary? Was it the only solution? My view is that it was not.

  To begin with, the Akali agitation had lasted for so long that it was obvious to anyone that it would continue till certain political demands were met. These demands were of all Punjabis; only, the Akali party had taken the initiative to agitate for them. Unfortunately the political demands were mixed up with some religious demands and the Akalis failed to carry Punjabi Hindus with them and later even alienated them. The only way to end the agitation was to find an answer to these political demands. The longer the solution was delayed, the more complicated the problem became. Had the government been sincere to find an answer it could have done so far more easily in the earlier stages.