Just reminding Harry my dearest Veer J that the Musketeers code of conduct ,Rule no 1 don't fight with girls,Rule no 2 mocking anothers stipulated adherence is not a prescribed Sikh behaviour .
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General Whos Destroying Sikhi?
- Thread starter SikhGiani
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- destroying sikhi
- Jan 31, 2011
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Rule 3 stand up for what you believe in?
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The Grand Rule: Musketeers don't wash their laundry (remember: Muketeers have no dirty laundry, just laundry) in public except at spn :sippingcoffeemunda:
Loosely so connected, unconnected so loosely! mundahug One Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji for all, and all for one Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
Sat Sri akal.
Loosely so connected, unconnected so loosely! mundahug One Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji for all, and all for one Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
Sat Sri akal.
- Dec 21, 2010
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Navdeep88 ji can you elaborate on the tolerance part.
- Is it tolerance against abusers of Sikh tolerance
- Tolerance as in hit me on one cheek and I offer the other
- Tolerance against their own way of living if it does not denigrate you or for Sikhs it does not denigrate Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and Guru ji
- Tolerance regardless if others denigrate Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and Guru ji
Sat Sri Akal.
Hmm.. Tolerance as in abusing, degrading people of other faiths.
If I recall correctly Guru Teg Bhadur Ji gave HIS LIFE to protect the religious freedom of others. But nowadays, people feel like they can do whatever, shamelessly bash people of other faiths. Thats a sad fact and in very poor taste.
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Navdeep88 ji define shamelssly! It is not shameless if other faith people come in and say you are nothing but a small mole on our behind. If that is OK with some it is OK with them. This so called humanity consideration for a majority destroying you from the roots is more shamelful.
Self defence by a minority against overwhelming odds and attempts at blatant destruction of self respect and heritage is abhorrent versus any shameless act of the minority.
I can see arrows pointed. Why not let them leave the bow and be done with.
Sat Sri Akal.
Sat Sri Akal.
Very good. Tolerance, do we have it, as a value?
Good point. How many of us could sit on a hot thavi, with a smile, I wonder.OR how many of us could tolerate the sacrifice of not 1 or 2 but all 4 sons, again I wonder.
The gurus and our forefathers had a lot of tolerance in sikhi, we would have to go and look for it these days.
Waheguru
Lucky Singh
Its just an online forum, not everyone comes here looking for a fight. most people come here to share/learn/discuss. however if some people choose to be paranoid, that cannot be helped.
and whats with all this personal judgement? you've never even met me. please stop making assumptions based on the little interaction that happens here. thanks.
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Dear Navdeep Ji
I think I understand your point
With regard to tolerance, clearly we are not in the same league as our Gurus.
Tolerance is also a 2-way street. We can be tolerant and respectful of others and will expect tolerance and respect in return. As long as there is balance than that is fine.
So broadly speaking, we will draw a line in the sand and if that line is crossed, we will act
I think I understand your point
With regard to tolerance, clearly we are not in the same league as our Gurus.
Tolerance is also a 2-way street. We can be tolerant and respectful of others and will expect tolerance and respect in return. As long as there is balance than that is fine.
So broadly speaking, we will draw a line in the sand and if that line is crossed, we will act
- Dec 21, 2010
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Navdeep88 ji your comments are a reflection of what I stated about arrows in a bow and you complained what that was! You have just verified what I observed or felt.
I am free to make observations on what things go on. Sikhi does not get degraded by self introspection and you were championing it when I flagged external and you suggested we need to look at ourselves first.
Determine whether you are coming or going as I cannot make much of what you are saying. Your reasonably wild mannerisms show little positive conditionimg from so called wonderful sangats, katha vachiks, and hazoori of SGGS experiences. You are proving what I stated, I am not sure if you want to be doing that or meant that.
Bhain ji this is "Hard Talk" section. If you cannot handle opposition of thought, direct observations by people (right or wrong) it behooves to find a better place to interact on other thread(s).
Sat Sri Akal.
I am free to make observations on what things go on. Sikhi does not get degraded by self introspection and you were championing it when I flagged external and you suggested we need to look at ourselves first.
Determine whether you are coming or going as I cannot make much of what you are saying. Your reasonably wild mannerisms show little positive conditionimg from so called wonderful sangats, katha vachiks, and hazoori of SGGS experiences. You are proving what I stated, I am not sure if you want to be doing that or meant that.
Bhain ji this is "Hard Talk" section. If you cannot handle opposition of thought, direct observations by people (right or wrong) it behooves to find a better place to interact on other thread(s).
Sat Sri Akal.
BhagatSingh
SPNer
- Apr 24, 2006
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Navdeep ji you don't need to delete your comments.
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Why you direct Bhagat Singh ji or you just like poop! I can delete, you can delete, she can delete, etc. I deleted some that I wrote reflecting on you. This is not a media circus for spectators. Hard talk but about Sikhism.
Sat Sri Akal.
From my experience..people usually DELETE some nonsense written in anger..heat of the moment,..on impulse...and on reflection..the THEMSELVES realize how utterly stupid they look...so they hit the DELETE KEY....its there for precisely THIS REASON..to save ones self from ones self...ha ha............and some "fire-bomber/arsonist" types relish reading such messages...so they are sad...when its denied to them...ha ha again...lost opportunity to fire bomb..ha ha or fan the flames..ha ha. People...read over each msg a few times before hitting SEND/REPLY.
FROM the FEB 2012 issue of The Sikh bullettin USA.
BHARAT IN BHASMASUR MODE
‘India Today’ is a widely circulated magazine. It commenced
publication simultaneously with the start of the last Akali agitation
in the Punjab. All along it has been propagating the views of the
government. In its anniversary number dated December 26, 2011, it
has published extremely significant article by Chandan Mitra who
is a prominent spokesperson of the BJP. (See P. 10). It is reasonable
to assume that he is reflecting the thesis of the permanent cultural
majority (pcm) on the issue of the Sikh unrest. His thesis, besides
being written in foul language is meant to convey the contempt of
the pcm for the Sikh issues. It also presumes that the pcm has dealt
a death blow not only to the Sikh issues, but also to Sikhi itself. Our
political leaders need to take note of the peep he has afforded into
the pcm’s mind. I hope those of you who have access to the Sikh
leaders will be able to bring this article to their notice. It is
essential that a reaction to it comes from the field.
The other necessity is to put together a Sikh thesis on the subject. I
have tried to contribute my mite to the project. I know it may not
seem sufficient to better informed and more talented people. I will
be very happy if they treat it as a rough working paper and present
their views more comprehensively. Those of you who know such
well informed talented Sikhs may kindly approach them with a
request to take the trouble of going through “Bharat in Bhasmasur
mode” and thereafter propose a more informed thesis of their own
for the benefit of the people at large.
Bhasmasur is an asur (demon) mentioned in the Hindu mythology
who sought to rule over all the worlds. His ability and character was
not matched by his ambition so he ended up destroying himself. To
me India is marching on the path shown by him by trying to destroy
its benefactors.
Those of you who may like to just read it and offer comments, I
want to say that every word from you will be read with gratitude
and attention that your communications have always received.
Gurtej Singh, Chandigarh
THE SUICIDAL MISSIONARY
Chandan Mitra
India Today 26 December, 2011
Few individuals, at least in Indian history, have had so
much blood spilt in their name as Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale. If India lost its innocence and turned
into an intolerant and more violent nation in the course
of the turbulent 1980s, it was largely on account of a
chain of events set in motion by a rustic preacher of
orthodox Sikh tenets to his community’s rural
underclass. A mesmerising speaker who could rouse
phenomenal passion among his listeners,
Bhindranwale was an impressively built man, tall and
sharp-featured with a deep set of piercing eyes that
sized up his interlocutors and instantly put them on the
defensive through a steely gaze. His meteoric rise froma small-time priest from the Damdami Taksal seminary,
at Chowk Mehta near Batala in Punjab’s relatively
impoverished Majha region, to a cult figure of terror
defined the first half of the 1980s. And the year 1984
was almost entirely shaped by him, first on account of
Operation Bluestar which led to his death in June,
followed by the revenge killing of Indira Gandhi less
than five months later.
Bhindranwale’s rise and fall was symptomatic of leaders
of such diabolic cults. He was promoted by Giani
Zail Singh when he was chief minister of Punjab in a
bid to contain Akali influence over the powerful
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC),
the well-heeled body that controlled Sikh shrines in
Punjab including its Vatican, the Darbar Sahib in
Amritsar. Of the Giani’s subsequent fall in the eyes of
his community, despite his elevation to the post of
President of India, I recall a verse quoted evocatively
by Khushwant Singh: Maazi ke dosh par gaye thay woh
chadne/ Maazi ne patka sau-sau baar (He tried to
mount on the shoulders of the past/The past felled him
to the ground a hundred times).
Trying to cater to the revivalist surge in Punjab, Zail
Singh built a highway named after the last Sikh Guru
and most ludicrously walked behind a steed said to
have descended from Guru Gobind Singh’s favourite
horse, picking up its droppings as it galloped to
Anandpur Sahib. No doubt that ignited the fervour of
religiosity, eventually helping the rise of
fundamentalism in Punjab.
Bhindranwale cunningly used the Giani’s patronage
and, in collusion with the Congress put up candidates
for the SGPC polls, winning a significant number of
seats from Gurdaspur Amritsar and Ferozepur districts.
He had no time for conventional SGPC or Akali Dal
apparatchiks. He believed they had become mealymouthed,
corrupt and deviated from the martial tenets
of the faith. Although he never said this explicitly, he
always implied that ‘wily’ Hindus had influenced the
Sikh clergy into wheeling-dealing and they no longer
inspired the youth. Deviant practices such as shaving of
beards, cutting off hair, abandoning the turban, apart
from indulgence in abhorrent addictions like drinking
and smoking were on the rise among young Sikhs.
Looking back, I am not sure if Bhindranwale was a terrorist
by conviction who seriously sought Punjab’s
separation from India through force or if' he paintedhimself into a corner and became a puppet in the hands
of Pakistan’s ISI which was looking for a face to
project in its war of a thousand cuts against India to
avenge East Pakistan’s dismemberment. Maybe he
was carried away by crowds that thronged his
pravachans in rural Punjab in which he railed against
decrepit practices creeping into Sikhism and
exaggeratedly spoke of the alleged betrayal of his
community by New Delhi, particularly the ‘biba’
meaning Indira Gandhi. In that sense, he was the latest
in a long line of Sikh leaders who led episodic
agitations to distance the faith from Hindu influences,
worried that the preponderant assimilative thrust of
Hinduism would overwhelm Sikhism the way it had
done Jainism and Buddhism.
Historians have often traced the roots of this assertiveness
to the Jaito satyagraha of 1921, which Mahatma
Gandhi had described as “the first battle for
Independence”, sparked by the Jallianwala Bagh
outrage of 1919. The Jaito movement was principally
aimed at removing corpulent mahants who had taken
control of most affluent gurdwaras and, to attract large
donations from Hindu traders, installed images of
Hindu deities inside shrines of a religion that
specifically prohibited idolatry.
Later at the time of Partition, some Sikh leaders such
as Master Tara Singh did raise the demand for
Khalistan, but the riots in erstwhile West Punjab that
targeted Sikhs and Hindus equally reinforced the bond
between the two communities, which were jointly
forced to flee to India.
But the separatist strand resurfaced in Sikh politics
from time to time on account of real or imagined
grievances. In the late 1970s, Delhi’s walls were
painted with slogans such as “Sikhs in Army 33% to
12%. Why?” and “Nankana azad te Panth azad”,
referring to the Sikh holy shrine of Nankana Sahib
now in Pakistan. Mainstream Sikh leaders also
periodically targeted deviant sub-sects, particularly the
Nirankaris and to some extent Namdharis, for
challenging Khalsa founder Gobind Singh’s decree
that none would be anointed guru after him.
Bhindranwale, too, first hit the headlines by unleashing
violence on the Nirankaris. In a sectarian dash in
1979, 17 people died. This was avenged by the murder
of the Nirankari Baba, worshipped by his followersalmost as a guru, inside his fortified headquarters in
Nirankari Colony near north Delhi’s Model Town. The
killing was clearly masterminded by Bhindranwale and
that catapulted him into a hero in much of rural Punjab
where Sikhs had been brought up to believe that
Nirankaris were a bunch of despicable heretics.
The subsequent targeted killing of the venerable ownereditor
of the Punjab Kesari group, Lala Jagat Narain,
followed by that of his son Ramesh Chandra, to silence
the newspaper group’s strident campaign against
separatist militancy sent a chill down Punjab’s Hindus,
sizeable minority of 37 per cent in the state. Arguably,
then Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal’s overzealous
security drill for Sikh travellers to Delhi during the
1982 Asian Games did much to add to the community’s
sense of grievance. In fact, that was the turning point as
far as Bhindranwale’s acceptability to Punjab’s
upwardly mobile and outwardly modern middle class
was concerned.
Punjab became a byword for spiralling violence after
Operation Woodrose was launched to mop up terrorists
after the deaths of Bhindranwale and Indira Gandhi. In
fact, rudderless terrorist groups let loose an orgy of
violence in Punjab only in the aftermath of Operation
Bluestar; It was the only time that a unit of the army
revolted: the Sikh Regiment based in Ramgarh, near
Ranchi, shot its commander dead on news of the
destruction of the Akal Takht.
I recall visiting the temple in September 1984 and was
horrified by what was left of the Akal Takht, then under
reconstruction by an opium-eating Nihang, Baba Santa
Singh, protégé of Union minister Buta Singh, a
Mazhabi (Dalit) unacceptable to the dominant Jat Sikhs
of the state. A few years later, I was also present when
Bhindranwale’s successor as Damdami Taksal, one
Baba Thakar Singh, ceremonially commenced the
demolition of the Akal Takht, because it had been
rebuilt by Tankhaiya Sikhs like Santa and Buta and
hence impure. That in the process, sword-wielding
militants stripped the building’s dome of 26 kg gold
sanctioned by Indira Gandhi for its renewal, and
possibly sold it to buy arms, is another matter. In death,
Bhindranwale was, thus, a more potent figure than in
life. The call for Khalistan, muted in his lifetime, acquired
a shrill overtone as the years passed. Till the arrival
of hard line counter-terrorist KPS Gill as DGP and
the brilliantly choreographed Operation Black Thunderin 1988, Punjab teetered on the brink of secession,
despite the Rajiv-Longowal Accord of 1986, a peace
deal that cost the peaceable Sant his life.
Punjab today is the antithesis of all that Bhindranwale
sought to propagate. When Gill, de facto ruler of the
state through the late 1980s, successfully organised a
Shilpa Shetty Night and danced with her on stage in
Amritsar in 1991, it spelled the lifting of the pall of
terror, Two years later, Sukhdev Singh Babbar, head
of the puritanical Babbar Khalsa, a Bhindranwaleworshipping
outfit, was shot dead in Ambala. His
house in Patiala, which I was the first journalist to
visit, revealed his opulent lifestyle as well as
indulgence with two wives who shared the home complete
with latest electronic gadgets including a satellite
dish, the first I saw in India. Support for separatist
terror evaporated in the aftermath of the discovery.
Gill proclaimed he had worked himself out of a job.
He had.
I believe the movement spawned by Bhindranwale
began its downhill journey when motley obscurantists
issued a firman prohibiting consumption of alcohol
and meat. Can you quite imagine a jolly good sardarji
who abjures his nightly whisky and generous portions
of tandoori kukkad? I recall my repeated visits to
Amritsar during those blood-soaked years, when in
company of journalist Rahul Bedi on his Bullet, we
sneaked into by-lanes and tapped the closed shutters of
booze shops twice to convey we wanted a full bottle,
the premium be damned!
I am told Bhindranwale, probably India’s first media--
savvy terrorist, would allow journalists various
liberties whenever they carne to interview him in Akal
Takht. His less intelligent, rustic followers were not
only more intolerant but also daydreamed about
founding a Sikh Empire stretching to Delhi which in
their fanciful notions they renamed Dashmesh Nagar
in maps of the imaginary Khalistan that were
published with alarming regularity in the final years of
the doomed movement.
Bhindranwale brought out the worst in us. He was
gone by the mid-1980s, but his legacy lived long
enough to damage the fabric of India’s evolving
nationhood. Terrorist killings don’t startle us anymore.
We have become sufficiently blasé to say that unless
it’s in double-digits, such mass murders don’t meritPage 1 treatment in newspapers. Bhindranwale shook
India out of its comfortable somnolence that had been
merely jolted a few years earlier by the Emergency. No
doubt we are more mature as a nation than before. But
we are perhaps more insensitive too. Maybe this had to
happen someday. But what I remember of it, life was so
much more languid before a humungous amount of
blood was spilt around a purported Sant’s diabolic
persona. May it never happen again.I am also enclosing the full response which I do not
expect to be carried but I do hope it will be read by
those responsible for bringing out India Today just to
have an idea that the other point of view on the subject
exists and may possibly be more balanced than the
view aired by Mr. Mitra.
Thanking you.
Yours faithfully,
Gurtej Singh.
BHARAT IN BHASMASUR MODE
Gurtej Singh, Chandigarh
To the Editor,
India Today,
16 January, 2012
Dear Sir,
I have been reading your very readable magazine since
it started publication. Though it does a good job by and
large, it consistently fails to treat the Sikh issues fairly.
A recent example of the unfair treatment is your
anniversary number dated December 26, 2011. Your
article by Chandan Mitra is in extremely bad taste,
full of anachronisms, factual mistakes and biased
formulations. His main thrust that Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Bhinderanwale was a foreign agent is contrary to
all evidence available on the subject. I assure you that
everyone doesn’t ascribe to Chandan Mitra’s jaundiced
view. The facts conclusively prove him wrong.
I have been a keen observer of Punjab politics and the
Punjab situation for decades. I have written several
scores of articles and more than half a dozen books on
these subjects both in Punjabi and in English. I deem
myself well equipped to hold a viable opinion. I had the
opportunity to observe the Sant closely. I hold the point
of view that has been vastly appreciated by the people
of the Punjab and the Sikhs scattered all over the world.
I have written several articles on the Sant since 1982
and have authored a book on him.
I am enclosing a short article for publication. (The
complete article is also enclosed). It constitutes a
response that is well appreciated in knowledgeable
circles. I hope it will be possible for you to carry it in
your rightly esteemed magazine at the earliest
convenient opportunity.Before the events relating to the recent violent
suppression of the Akali political agitation are
recalled, a few of the established parameters within
which a meaningful discussion can take place, may be
mentioned. It is now settled beyond a doubt, that the
agitation suppressed by Indira Gandhi backed by
the permanent cultural majority’s (pcm)
orthodoxy, was political in nature and had
demands that were perfectly legitimate and
constitutional. Several times an agreed upon solution
was found to the issues raised. Every time, the
agitating Akali Dal accepted the compromise and
every time Indira Gandhi, the other party, rescinded it.
She indicated thereby that she was not in favour of a
peaceful settlement. Itching for shedding Sikh blood,
she aimed at escalating it into a Sikh agitation. The
only rationale given for the army attack on the Guru’s
Darbar at Amritsar was that India wanted to put an end
to militant activity supposedly originating in the
shrine. This was factually incorrect as forty other
shrines were also attacked. The end was not achieved
as the escalation of violent activity was a thousand
times more in the decade that followed it than it had
been for a decade ending with June 1984. It is also
certain now that the much maligned Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Khalsa Bhinderanwale never made a bid for
Khalistan but was supporting the political agitation
of the Akali Dal based on the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution. It is also obvious that except for a few in
1984, no political murders ever took place within the
Darbar complex. It is not explained to this day, why
the security forces spread thick all over the state were
not able to apprehend murderers, who committed
murders all over the state and in Delhi. No explanation
is given why the security forces never apprehended
murderers who according to it rode forth from the
Darbar complex and returned to it after committing the
crime although the Darbar was under a constant siegeby the para-military forces for the entire period of the
Akali agitation?
Most of the writings on the events of the bloody
decades have been done by journalists feigning
ignorance of the political processes. They chose to have
no perspective of history or of the spiritual aspirations
of a people as independent as they were entitled to be
under the prevalent basic law. The journalists
substituted the lack of skills and perspective with an
ample measure of newly acquired urban snobbery. They
appeared to be supporting the orthodox hegemonic
approach of the overwhelming pcm wedded to solving
every political problem violently according to its
tradition. The resultant academic discourse is vitiated
by ample contempt for the supposedly ‘less intelligent -
-- rural underclass,’ vitriolic language with destructive
intent is thrown in for special effect. Many writings that
have appeared are from the perspective of the
megalomaniac fascist Punjabi Hindu politicians who
believe that since the Hindus form an overwhelming
majority of the country’s population, they own every
inch of India as they own their karyana shops. Their
contempt for the rural folk is endless and their hatred
for the Sikhs and the Sikh faith knows no bounds.
Voluntarily worn blinkers ignore the reality that Indian
civilisation has produced a society that is excessively
violent right from antiquity. Myriad of the hymns in the
Rigveda advertised as ‘mankind’s oldest book’ sum up
prayers for destruction of the perceived enemy (read,
political rivals). Mahabharta enjoys scriptural status and
is all about violence. All the gods and goddesses of the
Hindu pantheon are shown as armed to the teeth in the
images that are worshipped in every Hindu household.
Nineteen hundred and forty seven was perhaps the
bloodiest year in the history of the pcm. The trend has
not abated since. Every crisis that has confronted the
pcm has been resolved violently. Violence and
intolerance have always dictated relationships with
other cultures, societies and nations as can well be
judged by the fate of Dalits in Brahmanic India.
While orthodoxy in the faith of the pcm is characterised
by the ubiquitous traits of violence, intolerance of
dissent and attempts at acquiring political hegemony
over neighbouring cultural and political entities, in the
Sikh faith it has an entirely different connotation. It
implies assuming responsibility for promoting universal
brotherhood and establishing all inclusive institutions(for instance langar). In a word, Sikh orthodoxy stands
for acting God in history.
On her return to political pre-eminence in 1980 after
the notorious suspension of human rights during the
Emergency, Indira Gandhi unveiled her ambition and
started exhibiting a pronounced propensity to emerge
as leader of the chauvinistic section of the pcm. In her
new incarnation of goddess Durga, she did not forget
the bottomless bowl in which the deity drinks her
favourite drink - human blood. She was in her best
form during the attack on the Guru’s Darbar which she
ordered to commence on the martyrdom day of Guru
Arjan. To see that she entrapped the largest number
of innocent Sikh pilgrims to quench her newly
acquired thirst, the curfew was relaxed for a few
hours before the attack so as to kill as many
pilgrims as could possibly be killed. A victim of this
mindset, she issued the diabolically inhuman orders, “I
don’t give a damn if the Golden Temple and the
whole of Amritsar is destroyed, I want
Bhinderanwale dead.” By obeying these orders, her
political supporters throughout the country and the
army generals stood recruited as members of the
eighteenth century criminal sect that thrived on thugee.
Its mode of worship was the cold blooded murder of
unsuspecting pilgrims and travellers.
In My Truth, Indira Gandhi indicates that she
subscribed to the political theory evolved by the pcm
after 1947. It affirmed that the pcm has the exclusive
right to rule the country. The census figures of three
decades that preceded 1984 showed that the Sikh
population was increasing at an impressive rate.
Hindus of the Punjab, about whom she pretended to be
deeply concerned presented the state of species going
politically extinct. It appeared that the Khalsa, the true
model for Indian resurgence was slowly, but surely
asserting itself. She concluded that it was time to take
decisive action to check the growth of the Sikh faith
and the spread of the Khalsa consciousness. She
dreamt of swallowing up the Sikh faith just as the
Jain and Buddhist faiths had been eradicated from
India. She knew very well that she would be
pandering to a popular communal sentiment and some
like A. B. Vajpayee were anxiously waiting in the
wings to thrust the title of ‘Durga Incarnation’ on her.
Being similarly inspired, Nehru, Patel and Munshi, the
representatives of the pcm in the ConstituentAssembly, had undertaken to play the role of singleminded
fascists. They attributed the idea of
Khalistan to the Sikhs. The strategy was to prevent
them asking for fulfilling the promises, for an
autonomous Punjabi speaking territorial unit
solemnly made to lure them into the Indian Union in
1947. On popular communal demand Indira Gandhi
assumed the mantle of converting the Sikh association
with India into a death trap for the entire Sikh nation.
Her earliest instinct was to encourage foreign scholars
like W. H. McLeod to show her how the edifice so
coherently put together by the Guru could be
dismantled. Hew McLeod did his worst and was
successful in producing a crop of indigenous scholars
who would follow a white man like rats following the
pied piper. To accommodate his flock, phoney well
wishers of the community would soon establish chairs
in foreign universities. The other function was naturally
to popularise his negative formulations, although their
hollowness was exposed on unassailable original
evidence available in plenty.
In pursuit of dismantling the Khalsa edifice, her father
before her had propped up pseudo-religious leaders
to establish schismatic sects within the Sikh faith. The
game had been earlier tried without success by
Aurangzeb and Bahadurshah. Jawaharlal Nehru had
relied upon the Radhaswamis, Namdharis and
Nanaksarias to perform the executioners’ job. Indira
Gandhi depended upon the Nirankaris while continuing
to support the Radhaswamis and Nanaksarias for the
same purpose. Her evil mind dreamed of bringing back
the days when the statues of hydra-headed and
elephant-headed gods had polluted the pure spirituality
of the Guru’s Darbar dedicated to the Formless One.
M. K. Gandhi, the true chief architect of India’s
vivisection in 1947, also had charted out a course for
these sects and cults. He made it his business to
discredit the Sikhs. Invisible fascist hands under his
patronage started the killing of Muslims in Delhi.
Ostensibly this was their attempt to pay back in the
same coin to Mahmud Ghazni, Muhammad Ghauri,
Aurangzeb, Nadir and Abdali albeit a few centuries
after their demise. Gandhi gladly embraced the role of
ascribing the killings to the Sikhs. His ‘prayer
meetings’ in Delhi were attracting much attention in
those heady days and he made full use of the media
attention to cast the Sikhs in the role of devils, althoughthey were the victims of the partition brought about by
him and were then destitute and homeless. Such
situations are usually exploited by cowardly moral
wrecks; Gandhi however, adjusted himself to that role
like a fish taking to water.
In 1911 Tagore in his article had summed up all that
the pcm found undesirable about the Sikhs. At about
the same time David Petrie, the Assistant Director of
the Central Intelligence had noticed the deep rooted
antipathy of the pcm to the administration of pahul by
the Guru and to the rahit prescribed by him. Gandhi
too identified the same problems as the pcm was
having with the Sikhs. M. K. Gandhi gave precision to
his “gurudev’s” formulations, It was the separate
identity that hurt the pcm the most. Based upon this the
strategy of the schismatic sects propped up by the
Congress governments at the centre, had been chalked
out. Central to them was to throw a challenge to the
Tenth Nanak’s decree abolishing a human Guru
and of eternally bestowing the gurgaddi on the
Guru Granth. Gandhi subscribed to the identical
view. He frowned upon the separate identity, the
Sikh ceremonial sword, the Punjabi language and
the Gurmukhi script. All these became the points of
difference that the sponsored sects had with the
Khalsa.
Indira Gandhi had supported the Nirankaris
depending upon them to wean away the Sikhs from
their faith. The Punjab administration was instructed to
play them up. Sant Kartar Singh, head of the
seminary at Mehta Chowk realised this early and
correctly understood the purpose of the rulers. He
perceived Akalis as playing politics with even this
serious religious issue. So the Sant braced himself up
to oppose both the Nirankaris and their mentors. He
organised some forty mammoth marches to oppose the
Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi and her
interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs. His
successor Sant Jarnail Singh continued to stoutly
oppose the nefarious activities. He broadened his
concerns further. In 1978, Sant Bhinderanwale
supported Bhai Amrik Singh and some Dal Khalsa
candidates for elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee (SGPC). It was an indication
that he wanted a change in the religious leadership of
the Sikhs. He was able to garner a respectable measure
of support. Apart from the Akalis, this sent alarm bells
ringing in the central and state governmentsEncouragement that the Nirankaris received from
the various governments in the Punjab and at the
centre convinced them that the time for decisive war
had come. They decided to make a beginning at
Amritsar where they announced a parallel structure to
replace the khalsapanth. Some Sikh volunteers decided
to resist the onslaught. The Nirankaris unleashed
extreme violence on the peacefully protesting
unarmed Sikhs on April 13, 1978, at Amritsar and
killed 17 of them excluding two bystanders. This
firearm wielding Nirankaris were given police
support. No one was arrested on the spot although
the Nirankaris remained there for several hours
after the massacre. The case was transferred to a court
outside the Punjab by the central government. Hard
evidence was not presented. False evidence of
innocence was cooked up. In the circumstances, the
court acquitted the sixty four accused. No appeal
against the acquittal was filed. It soon became obvious
to the Sikhs that there was no justice for them under the
pcm’s dispensation. Under the perceived ‘Hindu
imperialism’ the only way in which justice could be
obtained was by extra-judicial execution. This was
what the Sikhs did. When the Akali government in the
Punjab was dismissed by Indira Gandhi, the Akalis too
were obliged to exhibit their sympathy with the Sikhs
and the Punjab. They launched a peaceful agitation for
redressing of Punjab’s religious and economic
grievances.
The decision to brutally crush the dharamyudhmorcha
launched by the Akalis best suited Indira Gandhi’s
design. She targeted amritdhari young Sikhs, the type
of whom the Sant was projecting in the leadership role.
The first half a dozen Sikhs killed in contrived police
encounters were those who like Kulwant Singh Nagoke
were reputed to be good Sikhs. So had been the 17
killed by her allies, the Nirankaris on the Baisakhi day
of 1978. Wanton violence was quite in keeping with her
purpose. On one occasion more than 20 agitating
Akalis were mowed down with a machine gun from
a helicopter when they were dispersing after
stopping traffic on a road from 10 AM to 4:30 PM.
Similarly the armed forces fired upon the unarmed
persons retiring to their villages after witnessing the
arrest of Sant Bhinderanwale on September 20, 1981
and without provocation killed thirteen of them. Later
(February 14, 1984) the Hindu Sauraksha Samiti,
supported by her minion called for a shut down to
match the completely peaceful shut down of the AISSF(of February 8), and killed 25 Sikhs in Karnal alone,
where 6 gurdwaras were also burnt down. This is just
a small portion of the blood that filled newly
incarnated Durga’s bowl. The police and the Hindu
crowds killing the Sikhs knew that immunity from the
operation of the country’s laws existed for them under
her dispensation. The official journal of the Indian
army “Baatcheet” of June 1984 instructed those
who were to conduct the operations in the Punjab
to regard the amritdhari young men as those
committed to terrorism.
The unlimited fund of intense hatred that is ever
available with the permanent cultural majority helped
Indira Gandhi in dealing with Bhinderanwale and all
those who like him defied the illegal diktats of the
authorities and talked of religious freedom, rule of
law, true federalism, liberty, justice, inalienable rights,
people’s sovereignty and democracy. They were to be
projected as patrons of terrorism and separatism. It
was done very efficiently by the loyal Press
notwithstanding the well known fact that the Sant
always kept a copy of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution
of the Akali Dal under his pillow to place political
limits on his enthusiastic supporters. He never had a
political party and no independent political
programme. Nevertheless the Darbar was attacked to
kill him and in the bargain to destroy Sikh institutions.
The only rationale sold to the gullible Indian audience
was that all violent activity would end with his
elimination and the destruction of the Akal Takhat. It
soon became apparent to the neutral observer that pcm
had been wrongly briefed. Despite her authoritative
propagation of the theory, the violence had escalated a
thousand fold after the June 1984 army attack.
Role of Sant Jarnail Singh during the Akali
dharamyudh morcha was limited at best to aiding the
Akalis in concluding an honourable peace with the
government. At the worst, he was keen for a complete
change in the pliable political leadership of the Sikhs.
Giani Zail Singh was the self-proclaimed bought
slave of Indira Gandhi, and prided himself on being a
‘sweeper at her door’ even after becoming the
president of India. He was in favour of preserving the
Akali leadership upon which he eventually relied to
betray Sikh interests. Amongst them the Congress and
the centre could easily find low minded collaborators
in the venture launched by his mistress to destroy other
nations and minorities. He was shrewd enough toknow that they had tasted political power and were
aware of the opportunities for self aggrandisement that
any betrayal would afford. The loot of gurdwaras had
also catered to the same sentiment. Giani tried to gain
credibility with the Sikh masses by pretending to be a
good Sikh. This would allow him to manipulate the
Akalis. Giani looked upon this task as a service to the
Congress party and was duly rewarded for his efforts by
being made the Home Minister of India after Indira
Gandhi’s return to political power in 1980. As the chief
minister of the Punjab his important venture had been
to ‘lay’ a metalled road connecting all the places that
Guru Gobind Singh had travelled to in his last journey
through the Punjab. Most of the metalled road already
existed. His contribution was to name it Guru Gobind
Singh Marg. He succeeded in his undertaking. The Sikh
masses swung in his favour and forced the Akalis to
support his candidacy. He gained the sympathetic ear of
the Akalis and was also able to get their votes in the
presidential elections on July 13, 1982.
The Hindu Press made much of the assassination of
Lala Jagat Narayan to malign the real Sikh leadership.
They attributed it to Sant Baba Bhinderanwale. We
were then living in times in which, according to
Bhinderanwale himself, slaughter of every chicken and
of every goat was likewise nailed to his door. It had
become most convenient and most popular to blame the
Sant. An attempt was made to make him a conspirator
in the murder of Jagat Narayan. Significantly, the
alleged conspirator was arrested even before actual
culprits were apprehended. Jagat Narayan had a three
decade old history of virulent Sikh baiting and had
created enemies in every nook and corner of the
Punjab. The evidence of his denigrating Sikh values
and running down Sikh personalities is available in his
own writings in the Punjab Kesri group of newspapers
owned and edited by him. He also had been the main
defence witness in the Baisakhi Murder Case against
the Nirankaris. His son Romesh Chandra was
following him in his footsteps. In the central
government sponsored situation of lawlessness, in
which militants, vigilante groups, underground
policemen and anti-social elements were operating
freely, the resultant violence in the state was being
attributed only to the Sikhs. In the then prevailing
circumstances, such assassinations surprised no one. It
was an expression of extreme irresponsibility to
attribute them to the Sant and was interpreted as an
attempt at browbeating those sincerely engaged inserving the people. Such tactics have never been rare
in India since 1947.
This fishing in the cesspool was aimed at fattening the
black goat as a prelude to sacrificing it to the Kali
Kalkattewali. The Indian establishment and the Press
consciously rendered the honourable and pure minded
Sant liable to be brutally murdered in the most
cowardly act. A strategy was calculated to endear the
prime minister to the communal masses who perceived
her as making efficient efforts at eliminating Sikh
influence from politics. It was the only route through
which the 12% Hindus of the state could effectively
rule the Punjab. They all cooperated in placing the
Sant’s life in the hands of a terribly insecure woman
striving to establish a dynasty in a democracy. Her
minions and army generals like Vaidya and Brar
readily prostituted themselves for the most unholy
act ever undertaken by any army since the Afghan
army under Ahmed Shah Abdali (1762). Her attempt
at becoming the spirit of Hindu revivalism however
failed. She lost it out to the more chauvinistic and
openly more fascist Sangh Parivar for whom it was
easy to inherit her political mantle even while the
dynasty remained in power.
Terrorising the Sikhs was necessary for achieving the
objective. Bhajan Lal, who in an unheard of
expression of extreme unscrupulousness had defected
to the Indira Congress along with the entire legislative
party the people had voted to power against the
Congress, came in handy for the purpose. It will be
remembered that subsequently, the same Bhajan Lal
had been hoisted to power in Haryana by the Governor
(nominee of the central government) although his rival
Devi Lal had been elected by a vast majority. He did
much to convince the Sikhs that they were second
class citizens in India, could be bullied at will and
prevented from travelling on a national highway to the
capital of the country. He was just trying to please a
benefactor who, in the interest of establishing a
dynasty was required to raise and then erase the fear of
a miniscule 2% minority in the minds of the pcm
constituting 80% of India’s population.
The great deception was perpetrated with the help of
the obliging Media that could never be raped because
it was ever willing. Indira Gandhi instilled the fear of
an individual into the mind of India’s pcm until it was
fully numbed and completely petrified beyondsensitivity of any kind. Bhinderanwale was dubbed a
terrorist although he was charged with no terrorist
crime. He was demonised in accordance with the
cultural traditions of the pcm that remind one of
Shambhook, Eklavya, Bali and Ravana the king of Sri
Lanka. Armed with hatred of a whole community and
exercising absolute control over a slavish army, she
gave illegal and inhuman orders to kill one person
against whom there was no proof of guilt and who
was at all times entitled to a legal trial. In the bargain
she was prepared to destroy the five centuries old centre
of a cultural tradition dedicated to nurturing a common
participative universal culture for the new human of the
new dawn. The Sant had the right to self-defence under
all civilised law. Only low gladiators and executioners
would have taken up the hangman’s job she assigned to
her generals. They mortgaged their conscience to a
tyrant and accepted the supari to kill an unarmed
person lodged in a fixed location. They pitted the might
of a modern state against a mere forty-five almost
unarmed, untrained, and of course absolutely innocent
persons.
Initial undertaking turned them into the goons of the
Chhota Rajan or Pretender Rani gang. When the killers
accepted to carry out the field orders to eliminate him at
any cost, they turned themselves into a bunch of thugs
who adored the Black goddess. The forces they headed,
that instant were transformed into her worshippers.
They tried everything in their {censored}nal. It included armed
personnel carrier, cluster bombs, poisonous gases,
machine guns, helicopter cannons and all else, yet they
were held up for more than 72 hours. In those hours
they lost more soldiers than they had lost in an
international war. The Battle of Chamkaur fortress
which was the inspiration of the cornered Sikhs came
alive. David acquitted himself gloriously once again
against Goliath. The Sant and his companions fought
like every free man should fight to preserve his liberty.
In a daring bid to guard the “ashes of their fathers ---
the temples of their gods’, despite being hopelessly
outnumbered, they mocked at defeat and despair and
gladly embraced death.
Like the hordes of Abdali before them, Indira Gandhi’s
cohorts looted all that they could. The living quarters of
lay priests and journalist adjoining the complex were
ransacked and plundered. Pilgrims were raped.
“Prisoners of war,” ranging from four to sixteen years
of age and including women and Bangladesh citizensstaying overnight in the rest houses attached to the
shrine, were taken. Peaceful volunteers who had come
to offer arrest in the ongoing agitation were murdered.
Bodies of several children with hands tied at the back
and with a single bullet-hole in the head were brought
in for post-mortem. Forces burnt down the Sikh
Reference Library, destroyed the Akal Takhat,
killed hymn singers (for instance, the blind Bhai
Amrik Singh) inside the Darbar, violated and trampled
under military boots every inch of the sacred soil
hallowed by the blood of martyrs. These martyrs were
those who had beaten back the invader Abdali and had
rescued thousands of Hindu women and men saving
them the usual fate atop the Hindukush where men
were slaughtered and the bazaars of Gazni where
women slaves sold real cheap. The martyrs also
included those who had re-conquered the whole of
modern day Pakistan, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and
Kashmir from the Afghan empire and had made it a
part of India.
FOREIGN HAND CANARD
In addition, Indira Gandhi wanted to project the Sant
as an anti-national person. A vital part of her strategy
was to insinuate that he was an agent of foreign
powers. A thesis of sorts was meticulously built up.
Deliberately left undefined foreign powers, allegedly
jealous of the progress that India had made, were
supposedly prying around for an opportunity to
destroy India. Just to be on the safe side, the initiative
was left with Russians who set the ball rolling.
Russia’s official news agency, TASS reported that the
KGB had deciphered the hand of Pakistan’s ISI and
the American CIA behind the disturbances in the
Punjab. On the date on which this was alleged
(December 30, 1981) nothing much really sinister was
happening in the Punjab. The Akali Dal had just about
defined the problems that the Punjab and the Sikhs
were facing at the hands of the central government.
Strategy to redress the grievances was being prepared.
Four months later on April 22, 1982, the home
minister of India, alleged in the Rajya Sabha that the
communal clashes in Amritsar were inspired by
foreign powers with a view to causing disintegration
of the country. This nebulous concept served her
purpose for long.
Attempts at popularising the proposition continued to
be made. India’s external affairs minister (P. V.Narasimha Rao) vended the imported Russian theory in
a big way while speaking in the meeting of the
consultative committee on June 27, 1984. He did not
identify any particular foreign power either.
Then the astute Indira Gandhi took it up herself. She
had done her worst at Amritsar and now wanted to milk
the maximum amount of sympathy for the dynasty. The
paranoid woman projected herself as living
dangerously. While speaking in the Rajya Sabha on
July 24, 1984, she said, “I am – butt of attack of – some
most powerful forces in the world.” Darbara Singh,
who was always more loyal than the king, identified the
foreign powers for the first time in a responsible forum.
He talked of CIA and Zia-ul-Haq as operating through
Dr. Jagjit Singh Chauhan to destabilise India. This was
too specific. It could have at least caused a diplomatic
storm particularly as the allegation was baseless. So
Indira Gandhi intervened to contradict him. She said
there was no specific information and that what she
knew she would not share with the public “in national
interest.” This is also the position reflected in the White
Paper on Punjab Agitation adopted by the government
of India on July10, 1984.
The task of laying specific blame appears to have been
assigned to Lev Rovnin, the foreign minister of the
Russian Federation who picked up the strings while
speaking at a function in the Indian Embassy at
Moscow. According to the Press Trust of India’s report
of August 12, 1984, he claimed that it was “irrefutably
proved” that the CIA and the “aggressive imperialist
circles of Washington” were behind the Sikh militancy.
Benazir Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq were the two persons
whose governments are supposed to have helped the
militants in the Punjab. Fortunately we have the
authoritative versions of both of them. Bhandara was a
lone Parsi Member of Pakistan’s Parliament. He was
advisor to Zia on minority affairs from 1982 to 1985.
He was privy to Zia plan on the ‘Sikh separatists.’
Talking to The Tribune on May 8, 2003, after crossing
over to India at Wagha he said “General Zia was
opposed to the Sikh movement because the map of
Khalistan included territories of Pakistan as well. He
had stated that it was true that the general would give
all moral and other support to Sikh hardliners but it was
his standing order to all concerned to keep them under
strict surveillance. Hence they were kept under virtual
house arrest for a long time. The general had alsoissued directions that they should not be allowed to
wage their movement from the soil of Pakistan. This
revelation came as shock to radical Sikhs. Bhandara
had admitted that he on and off met the hijackers of
the Indian Airlines plane in Kot Lakhpat and other
jails as a part of his official assignment.” (The Tribune,
July 20, 2008, 4)
Pakistan under the other dispensation also vociferously
denied that it had helped the Sikhs. On the contrary it
affirmed that it had helped India. In an interview to the
British Broadcasting Corporation, Benazir Bhutto said
that she had assisted the Indian government. ‘India
was facing a very difficult situation in Punjab, and had
Pakistan not extended cooperation, New Delhi’s
position would have been different.’ The (former)
prime minister said, “when Rajiv Gandhi was prime
minister, India was facing a big problem --- it was on
the verge of separation. Had Pakistan not helped them
(India), God knows where they would have been now.
But we helped them because it is our principle not to
interfere in others’ affairs.” (The Tribune, February 15,
1994, p.1)
She had again said the same in another interview with
the BBC before coming to Pakistan to contest the last
elections of her life. Her statement was disputed by a
retired Indian civil servant. She was clarifying her
position a day before her assassination and according
to some thinkers (for instance a free intellectual
brigadier Usman Khalid), it became the cause of her
assassination. She elaborated on the kind of help she
had rendered. She said that in a one-to-one meeting
with Rajiv Gandhi, “where there was not even a fly
on the wall,” she had supplied the whereabouts of
all the Sikh militants to India. It will be
remembered that all the leaders of the major
militant outfits were eliminated suddenly within
few days. By this confession she had compromised
her country’s honour and security. It is a small
wonder that she was killed within 24 hours of this
public disclosure.
The next scion of the dynasty and sole owner of the
“inherited democracy” (Washington Times of June 9,
1987, as quoted by the UNI report circulated to the
Indian Press, the next day) continued to rave against
the Sant and the Sikhs. But he was a crude and boorish
man known more for his clownish approach to politics.
The BBC in its Urdu service of June 9, 1987, saw himas “dada” and a “school bully” in the region. Sri
Lanka’s president Jayewardene at one time implored
him to abjure violence and to give up “bullying” with a
view to stoking war, while affirming that his country
would never fight its “great neighbour.” (The Indian
Express, June 10, 1987, 1.) The same paper (in a front
page article by the editor) called him a “liar” and hinted
that it was his permanent “trait” while referring to his
oft repeated “nonsense about destabilisation.” It further
observed that under Rajiv even a solemn promise of
the Parliament meant nothing. Rajiv humiliated the
chief minister of Assam (The Indian Express, June 8,
and June 9, 1987). The paper editorially observed that
Rajiv was inclined to be perfidious “opposition and
others have learnt, in one-to-one meeting they open
themselves to the risk of being misrepresented --.” N.T.
Rama Rao the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, knew
him to be ‘uncultured and ignorant’ to meet whom was
to “waste time and money.” (The Tribune, June 17,
1987, 9). He was at his lowest ebb when he called the
elderly lawyer Jethmalani, a “dog.” Doggedly
determined Jethmalani returned the compliment by
insinuating that the prime minister was a ‘thief’ and a
‘liar.’
In a highly sarcastic article in The Indian Express of
June 13, 1987, one of our most respected columnists, S.
Mulgaokar poured downright contempt on Rajiv
Gandhi calling him a “liar,” a “coward,” a “promise
breaker” and an “uncivilised person.” Sanjeeva Reddy,
the former President of India, according to Surya
Prakash, found him “in a state of confused mind.”
(See, “Politics of abuse,” The Indian Express, June 18,
1987, 6) Rajiv Gandhi ‘condemned those as antinational
traitors’ who had misgivings about his
assurances.’ Referring to it the author says, “Mr.
Gandhi’s responses sounded harsh and uncharitable
then. They appear hollow now.”
The Sikhs and the Sant could expect no better from the
person for whom the entire opposition was subversive,
anti-national and inspired by foreign enemies because it
did not find the Anandpur Sahib Resolution a
subversive document. V. P. Singh who came as a prime
minister after him, was ‘Raja Jaichand’ (who betrayed
India in the tenth century and whose name is byword
for treachery) to him. He invented the possibilities of
Zail Singh dismissing him and of Pakistan attacking
India in January 1987. Farooq Abdullah’s government
was dismissed on charges of communalism and supportto anti-national forces, soon Rajiv’s Congress was
ruling in coalition with Farooq. In the last analysis,
one purpose of inventing the ‘foreign hand’ theory was
to wean away the leftist parties from the Akali
agitation. This is why the Russian services were used.
For these reasons it may not be fruitful to analyse
Rajiv’s pronouncements about the Sant and the Sikhs
or the canard of the ‘foreign hand’ theory. On
resuming the discussion, the well researched
observation of the Surya magazine becomes relevant.
It says that India imported the arms with the help of
the ISI of Pakistan and it sent them into the Darbar
complex to implicate the Sikhs. The same is also true
of the arms that were dropped over Purulia at the time
when P. V. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister.
The truth that emerges from the scrutiny is that Indira
Gandhi, her son, her cohorts and minions were not
only supporting a blatant lie but were also themselves
conspiring with foreign powers to malign and harm
their own countrymen. They gave no explanation for
their shameful behaviour but one was invented for
them by another foreigner attached to the British
Broadcasting Corporation. Mark Tully in his Amritsar,
(Rupa and Co. 1985, p. 208), is of the opinion that
Pakistan at that time was helping the United States in
combating Soviet presence in Afghanistan. The fear of
jeopardising relations with the United States prevented
India from naming Pakistan. This is clearly an
inadequate ground as Indira Gandhi never exhibited a
pro-American sentiment and had no love lost for
Ronald Regan. India under her remained a satellite of
the Soviet Union. This tribe of liars and calumniators
has not ended with the immediate minions of Indira
Gandhi but has had an extension in lease of life
through those (likes of Chandan Mitra) who thrive on
yellow journalism. They have no hesitation in
maligning their most honourable contemporary who
has been voted the greatest person of the 20th century
with all the Sikhs, the world over participating.
BHINDERANWALE’S CONTRIBUTION
Bhinderanwale exposed the worst in the culture of
India’s pcm. Its innate disposition which is brutal,
fascist and bloody was shown to have been built
around deep-rooted intolerance. Being violence prone
at the slightest provocation the pcm had been ever
willing to destroy other nation’s holiest shrines on any
or no pretext. It supports a culture that has abidinghatred of ‘the other’ as its driving force and hallmark.
This much had been known for centuries. The
Bhinderanwale episode served to highlight it. Unbridled
violence against a political opponent or a dissenter has
been the normal course when the opponent is weak. The
same army however, recently demonstrated reluctance
to tackle the Maoists equipped by China. The political
leadership is keen not to be left behind in pleasing the
rebels. Shibu Sorain the chief minister of Jharkhand
publicly embraced the Naxalites as “brothers and
sisters.” See-saw game between the two sentiments is
currently going on. Fear triumphs over hatred for a
while then hatred takes over again. Raw fear is not
enough to contain age old hatred and the bloodstained,
brutally maimed bodies of killed Naxalites continue to
defile the pages of publications. It appears that, the
juggernaut will stop rolling only when the ‘might is
right’ rule (lashtikaniaye of Chanakya) is fully
established or when “brothers and sisters” take over the
reins.
The crafty Indira Gandhi thought she could hide her
motives by shedding a few crocodile tears, pretended to
rebuild the Takhat on the heavily veiled pretext of
making amends. Perhaps she thought her ‘victory’ was
not complete until she had forced the Takhat built by
her down the throats of the Sikhs. Had she cared for
Sikh traditions, she would have known that the building
erected by the National Building Corporation, in the
garb of Nihangs owing allegiance to her home minister
Buta Singh, was most unlikely to survive for long. It
had come to symbolise her arrogance. It was
legitimately pulled down by the Sikhs at the first
opportunity. The 26 kilograms of polluted gold
reportedly put on the purest of domes, by ruthless,
remorseless invader of the shrine, was contemptuously
thrown where it belonged – into the dust (bin of
history). A martyr’s spirit had triumphed over the diktat
of a tyrant.
An expression of the same defiant spirit was the killing
of the collaborating, self-styled Sant. Longowal was
shot dead for betraying the voluntary forces that were
still locked in a grim struggle. Abandoning all shame
and propriety, giving in to cowardice and in extraordinary
exhibition of poverty of understanding, he had
blackened his face in history by signing the document
of abject surrender otherwise known as the Longowal-
Rajiv Accord of 1986.Again and again India miserably failed to correctly
assess the situation. It had to learn again that the
endurance, the emotional strength and the innate
fighting capability of its opponents surpassed all
human limits. The battle that the Sant gave will be
remembered for thousands of years. On re-assessing,
the red-faced journalists then called it the ‘Third Sikh
War.’ Though the assessment is marred by the
disproportionate numbers in the field of battle, the idea
is well mooted. After 1984 they had their stooges draw
clumsy maps of Khalistan and make tall claims. These
are then attributed to the Sant who never subscribed to
the idea and always supported the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution adopted by the Akali Dal. As a nonmember
he supported the political party struggling for
legitimate democratic rights. He never subscribed to
any formal political set up. The deep desire of
enthusiastic journalists promoting jingoism is to
conjure up all the ghosts that disturb their sleep,
attribute them posthumously to the Sant and pretend
that they have all been taken care of with his
assassination. If one reads their minds well then a
disturbing image of the country emerges. A country
that has not seen even a century of independent
existence, has yet gathered the arrogance of an empire
of a millennium, notwithstanding two military defeats.
The one in 1962 was the greatest disaster to have
happened to an army ever since mankind started
walking on two feet. The other was no less. It in
addition it immortalised the Sant who died undefeated
and a proud sovereign man, a worthy Sikh of the Guru.
There is need to pay heed to Bhagat Kabir who says,
“do not be condescending, do not mock a
(temporarily) disadvantaged people. The boat is still
on the high seas. Who knows what may still happen?”
To make their ‘triumph’ appear complete the criminal
state, the deceiving Media and central governments
agencies created false inheritors of Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Khalsa’s mantle. Some of them have been
dumped into oblivion, others have been killed in an act
of unparalleled perfidy, some others still remain
masquerading abroad and in India as pushers of mere
radical slogans. It is a burlesque that we have
witnessed and are witnessing even today. It is much
like the modern day ramlila complete with an actor
burning down Ravana’s gigantic paper image with
great fanfare and in the presence of enthusiastically
cheering crowds in every city and town of the country.
The same crowd invariably has previously contributedto erecting the image. A nation of corrupt pigmies,
engrossed in looting its own people is not best qualified
to map the powerful currents of history. Beant Singh,
the murderer of thousands of innocent persons
including women and toddlers, was one day projecting
himself as an equal of Ram and Nanak. Within three
weeks of that hilarious proclamation, his body was
literally in a thousand pieces. Walls and the ground
around had to be scrapped to recover hundreds of them.
Like all tyrants, tyrannous nations too have a lifespan.
Retribution pulls them down in an imperceptible
operation (Black Ignominy!) which none can see
coming but which is advancing all the time. The truism
of history is: ‘a tyrant dies and his reign ends. A
martyr dies and his reign begins.’
Power-drunk slaves like Gill organised sessions at
Amritsar (as the depraved Nirankaris had done in 1978)
to signify that all human decencies, all moral values and
spiritual valour that the city stands for and Sant
Bhinderanwale had upheld, had been trampled under
foot. They pretended that they had scored a great
victory over an unarmed population supporting a potent
idea. It was beyond their comprehension that
womanisers, looters of defenceless people’s property,
cruel tormentors of innocent people in custody, hired
corrupt pimps of a rotting culture propped up by the
state power never determine the course of history.
Those who believed that the temporary violent
repression was a permanent visitation saw their
thoughts evaporate in 1999. In that year Sant Jarnail
Singh Bhinderanwale was voted the twentieth century’s
greatest person by the Sikhs all over the world. These
included important Sikh institutions including the
Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee the
honourable citizens like the most celebrated poet – the
author of several immortal works, educationists,
lawyers, generals, saints, scholars, Media personalities
and human rights activists. His images adorn almost
every Sikh household all over the world and his legacy
lives on. When another one of his kind will arise to
move the masses to holier paths of spiritual selfassertion,
it cannot be said definitely but only a fool or
a cringing slave (in or out of uniform) will rule out that
possibility.
The whole world knows of cultures that were defeated
once and did not let out even a loud groan for seven to
nine centuries at a stretch. At least three times before in
history, and once in our lifetime, tyrants havepronounced the Sikh people dead. Despite predictions
of doom by inebriated collaborators, the Sikhs have
always sprung back to life. One who has a lifetime
ahead of him may securely place a wager on that
happening.
The other army operation that followed the one in June
1984, was for the purpose of humiliating and
terrorising the Sikhs in the name of wiping out
remnants of militancy. Its undeclared aim was to show
who the masters were in India. In response to the orgy
of organised violence let lose by the armed forces,
despite the depraved brutality of Gills and Ribeiros,
their underground police, the regular police and their
allies, the Sikh young men met the might of the
modern state without an iota of fear in their eyes or
trace of hesitation on their brow.
The concept of Khalistan that he had never supported
while alive, instantly became a loud slogan to venerate
his memory. India stood in the immediate danger of
dismemberment. If history has a lesson it is this, that
the sceptre of such highly significant moments is
destined to reappear again and again until the goal is
achieved or until the wronged spirit is appeased by
paying a befitting tribute. Super-human struggles to
preserve the sovereignty of the worthiest people under
the sun do not just whither away.
What is significant in the post 1984 period is not that
phoney protagonists of Khalistan were propped up and
then defeated according to the script, but that the Sikh
determination to live honourably came through the
dark clouds of severe repression. In any civilised
country rogue generals and politicians would have
faced trial on charges of genocide. Several such trials
have been recently witnessed. Even today Hosne
Mubarak is answering for ordering the killing of his
own people. Slovodan Milosevic found the easier way
out. More than one hundred of those who held high
offices have been convicted of war crimes. Since that
was not possible in the circumstances of this
unfortunate land, the senior most general was shot
like a rat that he was. So also was the person who
gave the supari, since this was the only way to bring
her to justice.
It is the experience of Muslims before 1947 and that of
the Sikhs after that year that the most poisonous of all
is not a viper in the grass but a journalist wedded toserving the interest of the pcm. When the pendulum
starts swinging in favour of the Sant and all he stood
for, it will receive a great impetus from the activity of
modern day shallow journalists and their vituperative
writings designed to spew venom all around. It was
consistent Sikh hating and Sikh baiting of four decades
that had given rise to the Sant Bhineranwale
phenomena. It persists and will surely cause another
such to rise from the dusty village roads and from
amongst the worthy sons of the Punjab who still hold
honour, truth, dignity and justice as dearer than life
itself. This time the one to come will not be as innocent
as the Sant was. His struggle will be far more effective
and far more successful. Those who created Pakistan
are still around with the same pen and ink. If anything,
their tribe is increasing. This time they have turned their
attention to Khalistan. All augurs well; the future
appears to be bright.
Every Sikh remembers the bloody dawn when they
abandoned their ancestral lands losing their relatives to
communal frenzy and trekked to the land they then
considered their own. The First Patiala recalls the day
they pushed back the Razakars to once again reclaim
Srinagar and the rest of Kashmir for India. Pakistani
generals in their memoirs rue the memorable night
when they had hoped to have ridden to Delhi for
breakfast. But their mounts, the Patton tanks, were
reduced to rabble and consigned to the graveyard of
Asal Uttar in Khemkaran by the vigilant Sikhs
exhibiting extreme bravery. Pictures of general Niazi
surrendering along with ninety thousand soldiers to
general Jagjit Singh Aurora are still printable although
stained by the blood of Shabeg Singh the other general
who made that picture possible. Every Sikh farmer
knows the contempt with which he snatched the
begging bowl from the hands of Bharat and threw it
away for good as a prelude to assuming
responsibility for feeding its teeming millions who
have by now grown to over a billion. One wonders
whether any of these performances will be repeated,
should a similar situation arise again?
BHARAT IN BHASMASUR MODE
‘India Today’ is a widely circulated magazine. It commenced
publication simultaneously with the start of the last Akali agitation
in the Punjab. All along it has been propagating the views of the
government. In its anniversary number dated December 26, 2011, it
has published extremely significant article by Chandan Mitra who
is a prominent spokesperson of the BJP. (See P. 10). It is reasonable
to assume that he is reflecting the thesis of the permanent cultural
majority (pcm) on the issue of the Sikh unrest. His thesis, besides
being written in foul language is meant to convey the contempt of
the pcm for the Sikh issues. It also presumes that the pcm has dealt
a death blow not only to the Sikh issues, but also to Sikhi itself. Our
political leaders need to take note of the peep he has afforded into
the pcm’s mind. I hope those of you who have access to the Sikh
leaders will be able to bring this article to their notice. It is
essential that a reaction to it comes from the field.
The other necessity is to put together a Sikh thesis on the subject. I
have tried to contribute my mite to the project. I know it may not
seem sufficient to better informed and more talented people. I will
be very happy if they treat it as a rough working paper and present
their views more comprehensively. Those of you who know such
well informed talented Sikhs may kindly approach them with a
request to take the trouble of going through “Bharat in Bhasmasur
mode” and thereafter propose a more informed thesis of their own
for the benefit of the people at large.
Bhasmasur is an asur (demon) mentioned in the Hindu mythology
who sought to rule over all the worlds. His ability and character was
not matched by his ambition so he ended up destroying himself. To
me India is marching on the path shown by him by trying to destroy
its benefactors.
Those of you who may like to just read it and offer comments, I
want to say that every word from you will be read with gratitude
and attention that your communications have always received.
Gurtej Singh, Chandigarh
THE SUICIDAL MISSIONARY
Chandan Mitra
India Today 26 December, 2011
Few individuals, at least in Indian history, have had so
much blood spilt in their name as Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale. If India lost its innocence and turned
into an intolerant and more violent nation in the course
of the turbulent 1980s, it was largely on account of a
chain of events set in motion by a rustic preacher of
orthodox Sikh tenets to his community’s rural
underclass. A mesmerising speaker who could rouse
phenomenal passion among his listeners,
Bhindranwale was an impressively built man, tall and
sharp-featured with a deep set of piercing eyes that
sized up his interlocutors and instantly put them on the
defensive through a steely gaze. His meteoric rise froma small-time priest from the Damdami Taksal seminary,
at Chowk Mehta near Batala in Punjab’s relatively
impoverished Majha region, to a cult figure of terror
defined the first half of the 1980s. And the year 1984
was almost entirely shaped by him, first on account of
Operation Bluestar which led to his death in June,
followed by the revenge killing of Indira Gandhi less
than five months later.
Bhindranwale’s rise and fall was symptomatic of leaders
of such diabolic cults. He was promoted by Giani
Zail Singh when he was chief minister of Punjab in a
bid to contain Akali influence over the powerful
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC),
the well-heeled body that controlled Sikh shrines in
Punjab including its Vatican, the Darbar Sahib in
Amritsar. Of the Giani’s subsequent fall in the eyes of
his community, despite his elevation to the post of
President of India, I recall a verse quoted evocatively
by Khushwant Singh: Maazi ke dosh par gaye thay woh
chadne/ Maazi ne patka sau-sau baar (He tried to
mount on the shoulders of the past/The past felled him
to the ground a hundred times).
Trying to cater to the revivalist surge in Punjab, Zail
Singh built a highway named after the last Sikh Guru
and most ludicrously walked behind a steed said to
have descended from Guru Gobind Singh’s favourite
horse, picking up its droppings as it galloped to
Anandpur Sahib. No doubt that ignited the fervour of
religiosity, eventually helping the rise of
fundamentalism in Punjab.
Bhindranwale cunningly used the Giani’s patronage
and, in collusion with the Congress put up candidates
for the SGPC polls, winning a significant number of
seats from Gurdaspur Amritsar and Ferozepur districts.
He had no time for conventional SGPC or Akali Dal
apparatchiks. He believed they had become mealymouthed,
corrupt and deviated from the martial tenets
of the faith. Although he never said this explicitly, he
always implied that ‘wily’ Hindus had influenced the
Sikh clergy into wheeling-dealing and they no longer
inspired the youth. Deviant practices such as shaving of
beards, cutting off hair, abandoning the turban, apart
from indulgence in abhorrent addictions like drinking
and smoking were on the rise among young Sikhs.
Looking back, I am not sure if Bhindranwale was a terrorist
by conviction who seriously sought Punjab’s
separation from India through force or if' he paintedhimself into a corner and became a puppet in the hands
of Pakistan’s ISI which was looking for a face to
project in its war of a thousand cuts against India to
avenge East Pakistan’s dismemberment. Maybe he
was carried away by crowds that thronged his
pravachans in rural Punjab in which he railed against
decrepit practices creeping into Sikhism and
exaggeratedly spoke of the alleged betrayal of his
community by New Delhi, particularly the ‘biba’
meaning Indira Gandhi. In that sense, he was the latest
in a long line of Sikh leaders who led episodic
agitations to distance the faith from Hindu influences,
worried that the preponderant assimilative thrust of
Hinduism would overwhelm Sikhism the way it had
done Jainism and Buddhism.
Historians have often traced the roots of this assertiveness
to the Jaito satyagraha of 1921, which Mahatma
Gandhi had described as “the first battle for
Independence”, sparked by the Jallianwala Bagh
outrage of 1919. The Jaito movement was principally
aimed at removing corpulent mahants who had taken
control of most affluent gurdwaras and, to attract large
donations from Hindu traders, installed images of
Hindu deities inside shrines of a religion that
specifically prohibited idolatry.
Later at the time of Partition, some Sikh leaders such
as Master Tara Singh did raise the demand for
Khalistan, but the riots in erstwhile West Punjab that
targeted Sikhs and Hindus equally reinforced the bond
between the two communities, which were jointly
forced to flee to India.
But the separatist strand resurfaced in Sikh politics
from time to time on account of real or imagined
grievances. In the late 1970s, Delhi’s walls were
painted with slogans such as “Sikhs in Army 33% to
12%. Why?” and “Nankana azad te Panth azad”,
referring to the Sikh holy shrine of Nankana Sahib
now in Pakistan. Mainstream Sikh leaders also
periodically targeted deviant sub-sects, particularly the
Nirankaris and to some extent Namdharis, for
challenging Khalsa founder Gobind Singh’s decree
that none would be anointed guru after him.
Bhindranwale, too, first hit the headlines by unleashing
violence on the Nirankaris. In a sectarian dash in
1979, 17 people died. This was avenged by the murder
of the Nirankari Baba, worshipped by his followersalmost as a guru, inside his fortified headquarters in
Nirankari Colony near north Delhi’s Model Town. The
killing was clearly masterminded by Bhindranwale and
that catapulted him into a hero in much of rural Punjab
where Sikhs had been brought up to believe that
Nirankaris were a bunch of despicable heretics.
The subsequent targeted killing of the venerable ownereditor
of the Punjab Kesari group, Lala Jagat Narain,
followed by that of his son Ramesh Chandra, to silence
the newspaper group’s strident campaign against
separatist militancy sent a chill down Punjab’s Hindus,
sizeable minority of 37 per cent in the state. Arguably,
then Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal’s overzealous
security drill for Sikh travellers to Delhi during the
1982 Asian Games did much to add to the community’s
sense of grievance. In fact, that was the turning point as
far as Bhindranwale’s acceptability to Punjab’s
upwardly mobile and outwardly modern middle class
was concerned.
Punjab became a byword for spiralling violence after
Operation Woodrose was launched to mop up terrorists
after the deaths of Bhindranwale and Indira Gandhi. In
fact, rudderless terrorist groups let loose an orgy of
violence in Punjab only in the aftermath of Operation
Bluestar; It was the only time that a unit of the army
revolted: the Sikh Regiment based in Ramgarh, near
Ranchi, shot its commander dead on news of the
destruction of the Akal Takht.
I recall visiting the temple in September 1984 and was
horrified by what was left of the Akal Takht, then under
reconstruction by an opium-eating Nihang, Baba Santa
Singh, protégé of Union minister Buta Singh, a
Mazhabi (Dalit) unacceptable to the dominant Jat Sikhs
of the state. A few years later, I was also present when
Bhindranwale’s successor as Damdami Taksal, one
Baba Thakar Singh, ceremonially commenced the
demolition of the Akal Takht, because it had been
rebuilt by Tankhaiya Sikhs like Santa and Buta and
hence impure. That in the process, sword-wielding
militants stripped the building’s dome of 26 kg gold
sanctioned by Indira Gandhi for its renewal, and
possibly sold it to buy arms, is another matter. In death,
Bhindranwale was, thus, a more potent figure than in
life. The call for Khalistan, muted in his lifetime, acquired
a shrill overtone as the years passed. Till the arrival
of hard line counter-terrorist KPS Gill as DGP and
the brilliantly choreographed Operation Black Thunderin 1988, Punjab teetered on the brink of secession,
despite the Rajiv-Longowal Accord of 1986, a peace
deal that cost the peaceable Sant his life.
Punjab today is the antithesis of all that Bhindranwale
sought to propagate. When Gill, de facto ruler of the
state through the late 1980s, successfully organised a
Shilpa Shetty Night and danced with her on stage in
Amritsar in 1991, it spelled the lifting of the pall of
terror, Two years later, Sukhdev Singh Babbar, head
of the puritanical Babbar Khalsa, a Bhindranwaleworshipping
outfit, was shot dead in Ambala. His
house in Patiala, which I was the first journalist to
visit, revealed his opulent lifestyle as well as
indulgence with two wives who shared the home complete
with latest electronic gadgets including a satellite
dish, the first I saw in India. Support for separatist
terror evaporated in the aftermath of the discovery.
Gill proclaimed he had worked himself out of a job.
He had.
I believe the movement spawned by Bhindranwale
began its downhill journey when motley obscurantists
issued a firman prohibiting consumption of alcohol
and meat. Can you quite imagine a jolly good sardarji
who abjures his nightly whisky and generous portions
of tandoori kukkad? I recall my repeated visits to
Amritsar during those blood-soaked years, when in
company of journalist Rahul Bedi on his Bullet, we
sneaked into by-lanes and tapped the closed shutters of
booze shops twice to convey we wanted a full bottle,
the premium be damned!
I am told Bhindranwale, probably India’s first media--
savvy terrorist, would allow journalists various
liberties whenever they carne to interview him in Akal
Takht. His less intelligent, rustic followers were not
only more intolerant but also daydreamed about
founding a Sikh Empire stretching to Delhi which in
their fanciful notions they renamed Dashmesh Nagar
in maps of the imaginary Khalistan that were
published with alarming regularity in the final years of
the doomed movement.
Bhindranwale brought out the worst in us. He was
gone by the mid-1980s, but his legacy lived long
enough to damage the fabric of India’s evolving
nationhood. Terrorist killings don’t startle us anymore.
We have become sufficiently blasé to say that unless
it’s in double-digits, such mass murders don’t meritPage 1 treatment in newspapers. Bhindranwale shook
India out of its comfortable somnolence that had been
merely jolted a few years earlier by the Emergency. No
doubt we are more mature as a nation than before. But
we are perhaps more insensitive too. Maybe this had to
happen someday. But what I remember of it, life was so
much more languid before a humungous amount of
blood was spilt around a purported Sant’s diabolic
persona. May it never happen again.I am also enclosing the full response which I do not
expect to be carried but I do hope it will be read by
those responsible for bringing out India Today just to
have an idea that the other point of view on the subject
exists and may possibly be more balanced than the
view aired by Mr. Mitra.
Thanking you.
Yours faithfully,
Gurtej Singh.
BHARAT IN BHASMASUR MODE
Gurtej Singh, Chandigarh
To the Editor,
India Today,
16 January, 2012
Dear Sir,
I have been reading your very readable magazine since
it started publication. Though it does a good job by and
large, it consistently fails to treat the Sikh issues fairly.
A recent example of the unfair treatment is your
anniversary number dated December 26, 2011. Your
article by Chandan Mitra is in extremely bad taste,
full of anachronisms, factual mistakes and biased
formulations. His main thrust that Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Bhinderanwale was a foreign agent is contrary to
all evidence available on the subject. I assure you that
everyone doesn’t ascribe to Chandan Mitra’s jaundiced
view. The facts conclusively prove him wrong.
I have been a keen observer of Punjab politics and the
Punjab situation for decades. I have written several
scores of articles and more than half a dozen books on
these subjects both in Punjabi and in English. I deem
myself well equipped to hold a viable opinion. I had the
opportunity to observe the Sant closely. I hold the point
of view that has been vastly appreciated by the people
of the Punjab and the Sikhs scattered all over the world.
I have written several articles on the Sant since 1982
and have authored a book on him.
I am enclosing a short article for publication. (The
complete article is also enclosed). It constitutes a
response that is well appreciated in knowledgeable
circles. I hope it will be possible for you to carry it in
your rightly esteemed magazine at the earliest
convenient opportunity.Before the events relating to the recent violent
suppression of the Akali political agitation are
recalled, a few of the established parameters within
which a meaningful discussion can take place, may be
mentioned. It is now settled beyond a doubt, that the
agitation suppressed by Indira Gandhi backed by
the permanent cultural majority’s (pcm)
orthodoxy, was political in nature and had
demands that were perfectly legitimate and
constitutional. Several times an agreed upon solution
was found to the issues raised. Every time, the
agitating Akali Dal accepted the compromise and
every time Indira Gandhi, the other party, rescinded it.
She indicated thereby that she was not in favour of a
peaceful settlement. Itching for shedding Sikh blood,
she aimed at escalating it into a Sikh agitation. The
only rationale given for the army attack on the Guru’s
Darbar at Amritsar was that India wanted to put an end
to militant activity supposedly originating in the
shrine. This was factually incorrect as forty other
shrines were also attacked. The end was not achieved
as the escalation of violent activity was a thousand
times more in the decade that followed it than it had
been for a decade ending with June 1984. It is also
certain now that the much maligned Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Khalsa Bhinderanwale never made a bid for
Khalistan but was supporting the political agitation
of the Akali Dal based on the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution. It is also obvious that except for a few in
1984, no political murders ever took place within the
Darbar complex. It is not explained to this day, why
the security forces spread thick all over the state were
not able to apprehend murderers, who committed
murders all over the state and in Delhi. No explanation
is given why the security forces never apprehended
murderers who according to it rode forth from the
Darbar complex and returned to it after committing the
crime although the Darbar was under a constant siegeby the para-military forces for the entire period of the
Akali agitation?
Most of the writings on the events of the bloody
decades have been done by journalists feigning
ignorance of the political processes. They chose to have
no perspective of history or of the spiritual aspirations
of a people as independent as they were entitled to be
under the prevalent basic law. The journalists
substituted the lack of skills and perspective with an
ample measure of newly acquired urban snobbery. They
appeared to be supporting the orthodox hegemonic
approach of the overwhelming pcm wedded to solving
every political problem violently according to its
tradition. The resultant academic discourse is vitiated
by ample contempt for the supposedly ‘less intelligent -
-- rural underclass,’ vitriolic language with destructive
intent is thrown in for special effect. Many writings that
have appeared are from the perspective of the
megalomaniac fascist Punjabi Hindu politicians who
believe that since the Hindus form an overwhelming
majority of the country’s population, they own every
inch of India as they own their karyana shops. Their
contempt for the rural folk is endless and their hatred
for the Sikhs and the Sikh faith knows no bounds.
Voluntarily worn blinkers ignore the reality that Indian
civilisation has produced a society that is excessively
violent right from antiquity. Myriad of the hymns in the
Rigveda advertised as ‘mankind’s oldest book’ sum up
prayers for destruction of the perceived enemy (read,
political rivals). Mahabharta enjoys scriptural status and
is all about violence. All the gods and goddesses of the
Hindu pantheon are shown as armed to the teeth in the
images that are worshipped in every Hindu household.
Nineteen hundred and forty seven was perhaps the
bloodiest year in the history of the pcm. The trend has
not abated since. Every crisis that has confronted the
pcm has been resolved violently. Violence and
intolerance have always dictated relationships with
other cultures, societies and nations as can well be
judged by the fate of Dalits in Brahmanic India.
While orthodoxy in the faith of the pcm is characterised
by the ubiquitous traits of violence, intolerance of
dissent and attempts at acquiring political hegemony
over neighbouring cultural and political entities, in the
Sikh faith it has an entirely different connotation. It
implies assuming responsibility for promoting universal
brotherhood and establishing all inclusive institutions(for instance langar). In a word, Sikh orthodoxy stands
for acting God in history.
On her return to political pre-eminence in 1980 after
the notorious suspension of human rights during the
Emergency, Indira Gandhi unveiled her ambition and
started exhibiting a pronounced propensity to emerge
as leader of the chauvinistic section of the pcm. In her
new incarnation of goddess Durga, she did not forget
the bottomless bowl in which the deity drinks her
favourite drink - human blood. She was in her best
form during the attack on the Guru’s Darbar which she
ordered to commence on the martyrdom day of Guru
Arjan. To see that she entrapped the largest number
of innocent Sikh pilgrims to quench her newly
acquired thirst, the curfew was relaxed for a few
hours before the attack so as to kill as many
pilgrims as could possibly be killed. A victim of this
mindset, she issued the diabolically inhuman orders, “I
don’t give a damn if the Golden Temple and the
whole of Amritsar is destroyed, I want
Bhinderanwale dead.” By obeying these orders, her
political supporters throughout the country and the
army generals stood recruited as members of the
eighteenth century criminal sect that thrived on thugee.
Its mode of worship was the cold blooded murder of
unsuspecting pilgrims and travellers.
In My Truth, Indira Gandhi indicates that she
subscribed to the political theory evolved by the pcm
after 1947. It affirmed that the pcm has the exclusive
right to rule the country. The census figures of three
decades that preceded 1984 showed that the Sikh
population was increasing at an impressive rate.
Hindus of the Punjab, about whom she pretended to be
deeply concerned presented the state of species going
politically extinct. It appeared that the Khalsa, the true
model for Indian resurgence was slowly, but surely
asserting itself. She concluded that it was time to take
decisive action to check the growth of the Sikh faith
and the spread of the Khalsa consciousness. She
dreamt of swallowing up the Sikh faith just as the
Jain and Buddhist faiths had been eradicated from
India. She knew very well that she would be
pandering to a popular communal sentiment and some
like A. B. Vajpayee were anxiously waiting in the
wings to thrust the title of ‘Durga Incarnation’ on her.
Being similarly inspired, Nehru, Patel and Munshi, the
representatives of the pcm in the ConstituentAssembly, had undertaken to play the role of singleminded
fascists. They attributed the idea of
Khalistan to the Sikhs. The strategy was to prevent
them asking for fulfilling the promises, for an
autonomous Punjabi speaking territorial unit
solemnly made to lure them into the Indian Union in
1947. On popular communal demand Indira Gandhi
assumed the mantle of converting the Sikh association
with India into a death trap for the entire Sikh nation.
Her earliest instinct was to encourage foreign scholars
like W. H. McLeod to show her how the edifice so
coherently put together by the Guru could be
dismantled. Hew McLeod did his worst and was
successful in producing a crop of indigenous scholars
who would follow a white man like rats following the
pied piper. To accommodate his flock, phoney well
wishers of the community would soon establish chairs
in foreign universities. The other function was naturally
to popularise his negative formulations, although their
hollowness was exposed on unassailable original
evidence available in plenty.
In pursuit of dismantling the Khalsa edifice, her father
before her had propped up pseudo-religious leaders
to establish schismatic sects within the Sikh faith. The
game had been earlier tried without success by
Aurangzeb and Bahadurshah. Jawaharlal Nehru had
relied upon the Radhaswamis, Namdharis and
Nanaksarias to perform the executioners’ job. Indira
Gandhi depended upon the Nirankaris while continuing
to support the Radhaswamis and Nanaksarias for the
same purpose. Her evil mind dreamed of bringing back
the days when the statues of hydra-headed and
elephant-headed gods had polluted the pure spirituality
of the Guru’s Darbar dedicated to the Formless One.
M. K. Gandhi, the true chief architect of India’s
vivisection in 1947, also had charted out a course for
these sects and cults. He made it his business to
discredit the Sikhs. Invisible fascist hands under his
patronage started the killing of Muslims in Delhi.
Ostensibly this was their attempt to pay back in the
same coin to Mahmud Ghazni, Muhammad Ghauri,
Aurangzeb, Nadir and Abdali albeit a few centuries
after their demise. Gandhi gladly embraced the role of
ascribing the killings to the Sikhs. His ‘prayer
meetings’ in Delhi were attracting much attention in
those heady days and he made full use of the media
attention to cast the Sikhs in the role of devils, althoughthey were the victims of the partition brought about by
him and were then destitute and homeless. Such
situations are usually exploited by cowardly moral
wrecks; Gandhi however, adjusted himself to that role
like a fish taking to water.
In 1911 Tagore in his article had summed up all that
the pcm found undesirable about the Sikhs. At about
the same time David Petrie, the Assistant Director of
the Central Intelligence had noticed the deep rooted
antipathy of the pcm to the administration of pahul by
the Guru and to the rahit prescribed by him. Gandhi
too identified the same problems as the pcm was
having with the Sikhs. M. K. Gandhi gave precision to
his “gurudev’s” formulations, It was the separate
identity that hurt the pcm the most. Based upon this the
strategy of the schismatic sects propped up by the
Congress governments at the centre, had been chalked
out. Central to them was to throw a challenge to the
Tenth Nanak’s decree abolishing a human Guru
and of eternally bestowing the gurgaddi on the
Guru Granth. Gandhi subscribed to the identical
view. He frowned upon the separate identity, the
Sikh ceremonial sword, the Punjabi language and
the Gurmukhi script. All these became the points of
difference that the sponsored sects had with the
Khalsa.
Indira Gandhi had supported the Nirankaris
depending upon them to wean away the Sikhs from
their faith. The Punjab administration was instructed to
play them up. Sant Kartar Singh, head of the
seminary at Mehta Chowk realised this early and
correctly understood the purpose of the rulers. He
perceived Akalis as playing politics with even this
serious religious issue. So the Sant braced himself up
to oppose both the Nirankaris and their mentors. He
organised some forty mammoth marches to oppose the
Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi and her
interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs. His
successor Sant Jarnail Singh continued to stoutly
oppose the nefarious activities. He broadened his
concerns further. In 1978, Sant Bhinderanwale
supported Bhai Amrik Singh and some Dal Khalsa
candidates for elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee (SGPC). It was an indication
that he wanted a change in the religious leadership of
the Sikhs. He was able to garner a respectable measure
of support. Apart from the Akalis, this sent alarm bells
ringing in the central and state governmentsEncouragement that the Nirankaris received from
the various governments in the Punjab and at the
centre convinced them that the time for decisive war
had come. They decided to make a beginning at
Amritsar where they announced a parallel structure to
replace the khalsapanth. Some Sikh volunteers decided
to resist the onslaught. The Nirankaris unleashed
extreme violence on the peacefully protesting
unarmed Sikhs on April 13, 1978, at Amritsar and
killed 17 of them excluding two bystanders. This
firearm wielding Nirankaris were given police
support. No one was arrested on the spot although
the Nirankaris remained there for several hours
after the massacre. The case was transferred to a court
outside the Punjab by the central government. Hard
evidence was not presented. False evidence of
innocence was cooked up. In the circumstances, the
court acquitted the sixty four accused. No appeal
against the acquittal was filed. It soon became obvious
to the Sikhs that there was no justice for them under the
pcm’s dispensation. Under the perceived ‘Hindu
imperialism’ the only way in which justice could be
obtained was by extra-judicial execution. This was
what the Sikhs did. When the Akali government in the
Punjab was dismissed by Indira Gandhi, the Akalis too
were obliged to exhibit their sympathy with the Sikhs
and the Punjab. They launched a peaceful agitation for
redressing of Punjab’s religious and economic
grievances.
The decision to brutally crush the dharamyudhmorcha
launched by the Akalis best suited Indira Gandhi’s
design. She targeted amritdhari young Sikhs, the type
of whom the Sant was projecting in the leadership role.
The first half a dozen Sikhs killed in contrived police
encounters were those who like Kulwant Singh Nagoke
were reputed to be good Sikhs. So had been the 17
killed by her allies, the Nirankaris on the Baisakhi day
of 1978. Wanton violence was quite in keeping with her
purpose. On one occasion more than 20 agitating
Akalis were mowed down with a machine gun from
a helicopter when they were dispersing after
stopping traffic on a road from 10 AM to 4:30 PM.
Similarly the armed forces fired upon the unarmed
persons retiring to their villages after witnessing the
arrest of Sant Bhinderanwale on September 20, 1981
and without provocation killed thirteen of them. Later
(February 14, 1984) the Hindu Sauraksha Samiti,
supported by her minion called for a shut down to
match the completely peaceful shut down of the AISSF(of February 8), and killed 25 Sikhs in Karnal alone,
where 6 gurdwaras were also burnt down. This is just
a small portion of the blood that filled newly
incarnated Durga’s bowl. The police and the Hindu
crowds killing the Sikhs knew that immunity from the
operation of the country’s laws existed for them under
her dispensation. The official journal of the Indian
army “Baatcheet” of June 1984 instructed those
who were to conduct the operations in the Punjab
to regard the amritdhari young men as those
committed to terrorism.
The unlimited fund of intense hatred that is ever
available with the permanent cultural majority helped
Indira Gandhi in dealing with Bhinderanwale and all
those who like him defied the illegal diktats of the
authorities and talked of religious freedom, rule of
law, true federalism, liberty, justice, inalienable rights,
people’s sovereignty and democracy. They were to be
projected as patrons of terrorism and separatism. It
was done very efficiently by the loyal Press
notwithstanding the well known fact that the Sant
always kept a copy of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution
of the Akali Dal under his pillow to place political
limits on his enthusiastic supporters. He never had a
political party and no independent political
programme. Nevertheless the Darbar was attacked to
kill him and in the bargain to destroy Sikh institutions.
The only rationale sold to the gullible Indian audience
was that all violent activity would end with his
elimination and the destruction of the Akal Takhat. It
soon became apparent to the neutral observer that pcm
had been wrongly briefed. Despite her authoritative
propagation of the theory, the violence had escalated a
thousand fold after the June 1984 army attack.
Role of Sant Jarnail Singh during the Akali
dharamyudh morcha was limited at best to aiding the
Akalis in concluding an honourable peace with the
government. At the worst, he was keen for a complete
change in the pliable political leadership of the Sikhs.
Giani Zail Singh was the self-proclaimed bought
slave of Indira Gandhi, and prided himself on being a
‘sweeper at her door’ even after becoming the
president of India. He was in favour of preserving the
Akali leadership upon which he eventually relied to
betray Sikh interests. Amongst them the Congress and
the centre could easily find low minded collaborators
in the venture launched by his mistress to destroy other
nations and minorities. He was shrewd enough toknow that they had tasted political power and were
aware of the opportunities for self aggrandisement that
any betrayal would afford. The loot of gurdwaras had
also catered to the same sentiment. Giani tried to gain
credibility with the Sikh masses by pretending to be a
good Sikh. This would allow him to manipulate the
Akalis. Giani looked upon this task as a service to the
Congress party and was duly rewarded for his efforts by
being made the Home Minister of India after Indira
Gandhi’s return to political power in 1980. As the chief
minister of the Punjab his important venture had been
to ‘lay’ a metalled road connecting all the places that
Guru Gobind Singh had travelled to in his last journey
through the Punjab. Most of the metalled road already
existed. His contribution was to name it Guru Gobind
Singh Marg. He succeeded in his undertaking. The Sikh
masses swung in his favour and forced the Akalis to
support his candidacy. He gained the sympathetic ear of
the Akalis and was also able to get their votes in the
presidential elections on July 13, 1982.
The Hindu Press made much of the assassination of
Lala Jagat Narayan to malign the real Sikh leadership.
They attributed it to Sant Baba Bhinderanwale. We
were then living in times in which, according to
Bhinderanwale himself, slaughter of every chicken and
of every goat was likewise nailed to his door. It had
become most convenient and most popular to blame the
Sant. An attempt was made to make him a conspirator
in the murder of Jagat Narayan. Significantly, the
alleged conspirator was arrested even before actual
culprits were apprehended. Jagat Narayan had a three
decade old history of virulent Sikh baiting and had
created enemies in every nook and corner of the
Punjab. The evidence of his denigrating Sikh values
and running down Sikh personalities is available in his
own writings in the Punjab Kesri group of newspapers
owned and edited by him. He also had been the main
defence witness in the Baisakhi Murder Case against
the Nirankaris. His son Romesh Chandra was
following him in his footsteps. In the central
government sponsored situation of lawlessness, in
which militants, vigilante groups, underground
policemen and anti-social elements were operating
freely, the resultant violence in the state was being
attributed only to the Sikhs. In the then prevailing
circumstances, such assassinations surprised no one. It
was an expression of extreme irresponsibility to
attribute them to the Sant and was interpreted as an
attempt at browbeating those sincerely engaged inserving the people. Such tactics have never been rare
in India since 1947.
This fishing in the cesspool was aimed at fattening the
black goat as a prelude to sacrificing it to the Kali
Kalkattewali. The Indian establishment and the Press
consciously rendered the honourable and pure minded
Sant liable to be brutally murdered in the most
cowardly act. A strategy was calculated to endear the
prime minister to the communal masses who perceived
her as making efficient efforts at eliminating Sikh
influence from politics. It was the only route through
which the 12% Hindus of the state could effectively
rule the Punjab. They all cooperated in placing the
Sant’s life in the hands of a terribly insecure woman
striving to establish a dynasty in a democracy. Her
minions and army generals like Vaidya and Brar
readily prostituted themselves for the most unholy
act ever undertaken by any army since the Afghan
army under Ahmed Shah Abdali (1762). Her attempt
at becoming the spirit of Hindu revivalism however
failed. She lost it out to the more chauvinistic and
openly more fascist Sangh Parivar for whom it was
easy to inherit her political mantle even while the
dynasty remained in power.
Terrorising the Sikhs was necessary for achieving the
objective. Bhajan Lal, who in an unheard of
expression of extreme unscrupulousness had defected
to the Indira Congress along with the entire legislative
party the people had voted to power against the
Congress, came in handy for the purpose. It will be
remembered that subsequently, the same Bhajan Lal
had been hoisted to power in Haryana by the Governor
(nominee of the central government) although his rival
Devi Lal had been elected by a vast majority. He did
much to convince the Sikhs that they were second
class citizens in India, could be bullied at will and
prevented from travelling on a national highway to the
capital of the country. He was just trying to please a
benefactor who, in the interest of establishing a
dynasty was required to raise and then erase the fear of
a miniscule 2% minority in the minds of the pcm
constituting 80% of India’s population.
The great deception was perpetrated with the help of
the obliging Media that could never be raped because
it was ever willing. Indira Gandhi instilled the fear of
an individual into the mind of India’s pcm until it was
fully numbed and completely petrified beyondsensitivity of any kind. Bhinderanwale was dubbed a
terrorist although he was charged with no terrorist
crime. He was demonised in accordance with the
cultural traditions of the pcm that remind one of
Shambhook, Eklavya, Bali and Ravana the king of Sri
Lanka. Armed with hatred of a whole community and
exercising absolute control over a slavish army, she
gave illegal and inhuman orders to kill one person
against whom there was no proof of guilt and who
was at all times entitled to a legal trial. In the bargain
she was prepared to destroy the five centuries old centre
of a cultural tradition dedicated to nurturing a common
participative universal culture for the new human of the
new dawn. The Sant had the right to self-defence under
all civilised law. Only low gladiators and executioners
would have taken up the hangman’s job she assigned to
her generals. They mortgaged their conscience to a
tyrant and accepted the supari to kill an unarmed
person lodged in a fixed location. They pitted the might
of a modern state against a mere forty-five almost
unarmed, untrained, and of course absolutely innocent
persons.
Initial undertaking turned them into the goons of the
Chhota Rajan or Pretender Rani gang. When the killers
accepted to carry out the field orders to eliminate him at
any cost, they turned themselves into a bunch of thugs
who adored the Black goddess. The forces they headed,
that instant were transformed into her worshippers.
They tried everything in their {censored}nal. It included armed
personnel carrier, cluster bombs, poisonous gases,
machine guns, helicopter cannons and all else, yet they
were held up for more than 72 hours. In those hours
they lost more soldiers than they had lost in an
international war. The Battle of Chamkaur fortress
which was the inspiration of the cornered Sikhs came
alive. David acquitted himself gloriously once again
against Goliath. The Sant and his companions fought
like every free man should fight to preserve his liberty.
In a daring bid to guard the “ashes of their fathers ---
the temples of their gods’, despite being hopelessly
outnumbered, they mocked at defeat and despair and
gladly embraced death.
Like the hordes of Abdali before them, Indira Gandhi’s
cohorts looted all that they could. The living quarters of
lay priests and journalist adjoining the complex were
ransacked and plundered. Pilgrims were raped.
“Prisoners of war,” ranging from four to sixteen years
of age and including women and Bangladesh citizensstaying overnight in the rest houses attached to the
shrine, were taken. Peaceful volunteers who had come
to offer arrest in the ongoing agitation were murdered.
Bodies of several children with hands tied at the back
and with a single bullet-hole in the head were brought
in for post-mortem. Forces burnt down the Sikh
Reference Library, destroyed the Akal Takhat,
killed hymn singers (for instance, the blind Bhai
Amrik Singh) inside the Darbar, violated and trampled
under military boots every inch of the sacred soil
hallowed by the blood of martyrs. These martyrs were
those who had beaten back the invader Abdali and had
rescued thousands of Hindu women and men saving
them the usual fate atop the Hindukush where men
were slaughtered and the bazaars of Gazni where
women slaves sold real cheap. The martyrs also
included those who had re-conquered the whole of
modern day Pakistan, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and
Kashmir from the Afghan empire and had made it a
part of India.
FOREIGN HAND CANARD
In addition, Indira Gandhi wanted to project the Sant
as an anti-national person. A vital part of her strategy
was to insinuate that he was an agent of foreign
powers. A thesis of sorts was meticulously built up.
Deliberately left undefined foreign powers, allegedly
jealous of the progress that India had made, were
supposedly prying around for an opportunity to
destroy India. Just to be on the safe side, the initiative
was left with Russians who set the ball rolling.
Russia’s official news agency, TASS reported that the
KGB had deciphered the hand of Pakistan’s ISI and
the American CIA behind the disturbances in the
Punjab. On the date on which this was alleged
(December 30, 1981) nothing much really sinister was
happening in the Punjab. The Akali Dal had just about
defined the problems that the Punjab and the Sikhs
were facing at the hands of the central government.
Strategy to redress the grievances was being prepared.
Four months later on April 22, 1982, the home
minister of India, alleged in the Rajya Sabha that the
communal clashes in Amritsar were inspired by
foreign powers with a view to causing disintegration
of the country. This nebulous concept served her
purpose for long.
Attempts at popularising the proposition continued to
be made. India’s external affairs minister (P. V.Narasimha Rao) vended the imported Russian theory in
a big way while speaking in the meeting of the
consultative committee on June 27, 1984. He did not
identify any particular foreign power either.
Then the astute Indira Gandhi took it up herself. She
had done her worst at Amritsar and now wanted to milk
the maximum amount of sympathy for the dynasty. The
paranoid woman projected herself as living
dangerously. While speaking in the Rajya Sabha on
July 24, 1984, she said, “I am – butt of attack of – some
most powerful forces in the world.” Darbara Singh,
who was always more loyal than the king, identified the
foreign powers for the first time in a responsible forum.
He talked of CIA and Zia-ul-Haq as operating through
Dr. Jagjit Singh Chauhan to destabilise India. This was
too specific. It could have at least caused a diplomatic
storm particularly as the allegation was baseless. So
Indira Gandhi intervened to contradict him. She said
there was no specific information and that what she
knew she would not share with the public “in national
interest.” This is also the position reflected in the White
Paper on Punjab Agitation adopted by the government
of India on July10, 1984.
The task of laying specific blame appears to have been
assigned to Lev Rovnin, the foreign minister of the
Russian Federation who picked up the strings while
speaking at a function in the Indian Embassy at
Moscow. According to the Press Trust of India’s report
of August 12, 1984, he claimed that it was “irrefutably
proved” that the CIA and the “aggressive imperialist
circles of Washington” were behind the Sikh militancy.
Benazir Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq were the two persons
whose governments are supposed to have helped the
militants in the Punjab. Fortunately we have the
authoritative versions of both of them. Bhandara was a
lone Parsi Member of Pakistan’s Parliament. He was
advisor to Zia on minority affairs from 1982 to 1985.
He was privy to Zia plan on the ‘Sikh separatists.’
Talking to The Tribune on May 8, 2003, after crossing
over to India at Wagha he said “General Zia was
opposed to the Sikh movement because the map of
Khalistan included territories of Pakistan as well. He
had stated that it was true that the general would give
all moral and other support to Sikh hardliners but it was
his standing order to all concerned to keep them under
strict surveillance. Hence they were kept under virtual
house arrest for a long time. The general had alsoissued directions that they should not be allowed to
wage their movement from the soil of Pakistan. This
revelation came as shock to radical Sikhs. Bhandara
had admitted that he on and off met the hijackers of
the Indian Airlines plane in Kot Lakhpat and other
jails as a part of his official assignment.” (The Tribune,
July 20, 2008, 4)
Pakistan under the other dispensation also vociferously
denied that it had helped the Sikhs. On the contrary it
affirmed that it had helped India. In an interview to the
British Broadcasting Corporation, Benazir Bhutto said
that she had assisted the Indian government. ‘India
was facing a very difficult situation in Punjab, and had
Pakistan not extended cooperation, New Delhi’s
position would have been different.’ The (former)
prime minister said, “when Rajiv Gandhi was prime
minister, India was facing a big problem --- it was on
the verge of separation. Had Pakistan not helped them
(India), God knows where they would have been now.
But we helped them because it is our principle not to
interfere in others’ affairs.” (The Tribune, February 15,
1994, p.1)
She had again said the same in another interview with
the BBC before coming to Pakistan to contest the last
elections of her life. Her statement was disputed by a
retired Indian civil servant. She was clarifying her
position a day before her assassination and according
to some thinkers (for instance a free intellectual
brigadier Usman Khalid), it became the cause of her
assassination. She elaborated on the kind of help she
had rendered. She said that in a one-to-one meeting
with Rajiv Gandhi, “where there was not even a fly
on the wall,” she had supplied the whereabouts of
all the Sikh militants to India. It will be
remembered that all the leaders of the major
militant outfits were eliminated suddenly within
few days. By this confession she had compromised
her country’s honour and security. It is a small
wonder that she was killed within 24 hours of this
public disclosure.
The next scion of the dynasty and sole owner of the
“inherited democracy” (Washington Times of June 9,
1987, as quoted by the UNI report circulated to the
Indian Press, the next day) continued to rave against
the Sant and the Sikhs. But he was a crude and boorish
man known more for his clownish approach to politics.
The BBC in its Urdu service of June 9, 1987, saw himas “dada” and a “school bully” in the region. Sri
Lanka’s president Jayewardene at one time implored
him to abjure violence and to give up “bullying” with a
view to stoking war, while affirming that his country
would never fight its “great neighbour.” (The Indian
Express, June 10, 1987, 1.) The same paper (in a front
page article by the editor) called him a “liar” and hinted
that it was his permanent “trait” while referring to his
oft repeated “nonsense about destabilisation.” It further
observed that under Rajiv even a solemn promise of
the Parliament meant nothing. Rajiv humiliated the
chief minister of Assam (The Indian Express, June 8,
and June 9, 1987). The paper editorially observed that
Rajiv was inclined to be perfidious “opposition and
others have learnt, in one-to-one meeting they open
themselves to the risk of being misrepresented --.” N.T.
Rama Rao the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, knew
him to be ‘uncultured and ignorant’ to meet whom was
to “waste time and money.” (The Tribune, June 17,
1987, 9). He was at his lowest ebb when he called the
elderly lawyer Jethmalani, a “dog.” Doggedly
determined Jethmalani returned the compliment by
insinuating that the prime minister was a ‘thief’ and a
‘liar.’
In a highly sarcastic article in The Indian Express of
June 13, 1987, one of our most respected columnists, S.
Mulgaokar poured downright contempt on Rajiv
Gandhi calling him a “liar,” a “coward,” a “promise
breaker” and an “uncivilised person.” Sanjeeva Reddy,
the former President of India, according to Surya
Prakash, found him “in a state of confused mind.”
(See, “Politics of abuse,” The Indian Express, June 18,
1987, 6) Rajiv Gandhi ‘condemned those as antinational
traitors’ who had misgivings about his
assurances.’ Referring to it the author says, “Mr.
Gandhi’s responses sounded harsh and uncharitable
then. They appear hollow now.”
The Sikhs and the Sant could expect no better from the
person for whom the entire opposition was subversive,
anti-national and inspired by foreign enemies because it
did not find the Anandpur Sahib Resolution a
subversive document. V. P. Singh who came as a prime
minister after him, was ‘Raja Jaichand’ (who betrayed
India in the tenth century and whose name is byword
for treachery) to him. He invented the possibilities of
Zail Singh dismissing him and of Pakistan attacking
India in January 1987. Farooq Abdullah’s government
was dismissed on charges of communalism and supportto anti-national forces, soon Rajiv’s Congress was
ruling in coalition with Farooq. In the last analysis,
one purpose of inventing the ‘foreign hand’ theory was
to wean away the leftist parties from the Akali
agitation. This is why the Russian services were used.
For these reasons it may not be fruitful to analyse
Rajiv’s pronouncements about the Sant and the Sikhs
or the canard of the ‘foreign hand’ theory. On
resuming the discussion, the well researched
observation of the Surya magazine becomes relevant.
It says that India imported the arms with the help of
the ISI of Pakistan and it sent them into the Darbar
complex to implicate the Sikhs. The same is also true
of the arms that were dropped over Purulia at the time
when P. V. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister.
The truth that emerges from the scrutiny is that Indira
Gandhi, her son, her cohorts and minions were not
only supporting a blatant lie but were also themselves
conspiring with foreign powers to malign and harm
their own countrymen. They gave no explanation for
their shameful behaviour but one was invented for
them by another foreigner attached to the British
Broadcasting Corporation. Mark Tully in his Amritsar,
(Rupa and Co. 1985, p. 208), is of the opinion that
Pakistan at that time was helping the United States in
combating Soviet presence in Afghanistan. The fear of
jeopardising relations with the United States prevented
India from naming Pakistan. This is clearly an
inadequate ground as Indira Gandhi never exhibited a
pro-American sentiment and had no love lost for
Ronald Regan. India under her remained a satellite of
the Soviet Union. This tribe of liars and calumniators
has not ended with the immediate minions of Indira
Gandhi but has had an extension in lease of life
through those (likes of Chandan Mitra) who thrive on
yellow journalism. They have no hesitation in
maligning their most honourable contemporary who
has been voted the greatest person of the 20th century
with all the Sikhs, the world over participating.
BHINDERANWALE’S CONTRIBUTION
Bhinderanwale exposed the worst in the culture of
India’s pcm. Its innate disposition which is brutal,
fascist and bloody was shown to have been built
around deep-rooted intolerance. Being violence prone
at the slightest provocation the pcm had been ever
willing to destroy other nation’s holiest shrines on any
or no pretext. It supports a culture that has abidinghatred of ‘the other’ as its driving force and hallmark.
This much had been known for centuries. The
Bhinderanwale episode served to highlight it. Unbridled
violence against a political opponent or a dissenter has
been the normal course when the opponent is weak. The
same army however, recently demonstrated reluctance
to tackle the Maoists equipped by China. The political
leadership is keen not to be left behind in pleasing the
rebels. Shibu Sorain the chief minister of Jharkhand
publicly embraced the Naxalites as “brothers and
sisters.” See-saw game between the two sentiments is
currently going on. Fear triumphs over hatred for a
while then hatred takes over again. Raw fear is not
enough to contain age old hatred and the bloodstained,
brutally maimed bodies of killed Naxalites continue to
defile the pages of publications. It appears that, the
juggernaut will stop rolling only when the ‘might is
right’ rule (lashtikaniaye of Chanakya) is fully
established or when “brothers and sisters” take over the
reins.
The crafty Indira Gandhi thought she could hide her
motives by shedding a few crocodile tears, pretended to
rebuild the Takhat on the heavily veiled pretext of
making amends. Perhaps she thought her ‘victory’ was
not complete until she had forced the Takhat built by
her down the throats of the Sikhs. Had she cared for
Sikh traditions, she would have known that the building
erected by the National Building Corporation, in the
garb of Nihangs owing allegiance to her home minister
Buta Singh, was most unlikely to survive for long. It
had come to symbolise her arrogance. It was
legitimately pulled down by the Sikhs at the first
opportunity. The 26 kilograms of polluted gold
reportedly put on the purest of domes, by ruthless,
remorseless invader of the shrine, was contemptuously
thrown where it belonged – into the dust (bin of
history). A martyr’s spirit had triumphed over the diktat
of a tyrant.
An expression of the same defiant spirit was the killing
of the collaborating, self-styled Sant. Longowal was
shot dead for betraying the voluntary forces that were
still locked in a grim struggle. Abandoning all shame
and propriety, giving in to cowardice and in extraordinary
exhibition of poverty of understanding, he had
blackened his face in history by signing the document
of abject surrender otherwise known as the Longowal-
Rajiv Accord of 1986.Again and again India miserably failed to correctly
assess the situation. It had to learn again that the
endurance, the emotional strength and the innate
fighting capability of its opponents surpassed all
human limits. The battle that the Sant gave will be
remembered for thousands of years. On re-assessing,
the red-faced journalists then called it the ‘Third Sikh
War.’ Though the assessment is marred by the
disproportionate numbers in the field of battle, the idea
is well mooted. After 1984 they had their stooges draw
clumsy maps of Khalistan and make tall claims. These
are then attributed to the Sant who never subscribed to
the idea and always supported the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution adopted by the Akali Dal. As a nonmember
he supported the political party struggling for
legitimate democratic rights. He never subscribed to
any formal political set up. The deep desire of
enthusiastic journalists promoting jingoism is to
conjure up all the ghosts that disturb their sleep,
attribute them posthumously to the Sant and pretend
that they have all been taken care of with his
assassination. If one reads their minds well then a
disturbing image of the country emerges. A country
that has not seen even a century of independent
existence, has yet gathered the arrogance of an empire
of a millennium, notwithstanding two military defeats.
The one in 1962 was the greatest disaster to have
happened to an army ever since mankind started
walking on two feet. The other was no less. It in
addition it immortalised the Sant who died undefeated
and a proud sovereign man, a worthy Sikh of the Guru.
There is need to pay heed to Bhagat Kabir who says,
“do not be condescending, do not mock a
(temporarily) disadvantaged people. The boat is still
on the high seas. Who knows what may still happen?”
To make their ‘triumph’ appear complete the criminal
state, the deceiving Media and central governments
agencies created false inheritors of Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Khalsa’s mantle. Some of them have been
dumped into oblivion, others have been killed in an act
of unparalleled perfidy, some others still remain
masquerading abroad and in India as pushers of mere
radical slogans. It is a burlesque that we have
witnessed and are witnessing even today. It is much
like the modern day ramlila complete with an actor
burning down Ravana’s gigantic paper image with
great fanfare and in the presence of enthusiastically
cheering crowds in every city and town of the country.
The same crowd invariably has previously contributedto erecting the image. A nation of corrupt pigmies,
engrossed in looting its own people is not best qualified
to map the powerful currents of history. Beant Singh,
the murderer of thousands of innocent persons
including women and toddlers, was one day projecting
himself as an equal of Ram and Nanak. Within three
weeks of that hilarious proclamation, his body was
literally in a thousand pieces. Walls and the ground
around had to be scrapped to recover hundreds of them.
Like all tyrants, tyrannous nations too have a lifespan.
Retribution pulls them down in an imperceptible
operation (Black Ignominy!) which none can see
coming but which is advancing all the time. The truism
of history is: ‘a tyrant dies and his reign ends. A
martyr dies and his reign begins.’
Power-drunk slaves like Gill organised sessions at
Amritsar (as the depraved Nirankaris had done in 1978)
to signify that all human decencies, all moral values and
spiritual valour that the city stands for and Sant
Bhinderanwale had upheld, had been trampled under
foot. They pretended that they had scored a great
victory over an unarmed population supporting a potent
idea. It was beyond their comprehension that
womanisers, looters of defenceless people’s property,
cruel tormentors of innocent people in custody, hired
corrupt pimps of a rotting culture propped up by the
state power never determine the course of history.
Those who believed that the temporary violent
repression was a permanent visitation saw their
thoughts evaporate in 1999. In that year Sant Jarnail
Singh Bhinderanwale was voted the twentieth century’s
greatest person by the Sikhs all over the world. These
included important Sikh institutions including the
Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee the
honourable citizens like the most celebrated poet – the
author of several immortal works, educationists,
lawyers, generals, saints, scholars, Media personalities
and human rights activists. His images adorn almost
every Sikh household all over the world and his legacy
lives on. When another one of his kind will arise to
move the masses to holier paths of spiritual selfassertion,
it cannot be said definitely but only a fool or
a cringing slave (in or out of uniform) will rule out that
possibility.
The whole world knows of cultures that were defeated
once and did not let out even a loud groan for seven to
nine centuries at a stretch. At least three times before in
history, and once in our lifetime, tyrants havepronounced the Sikh people dead. Despite predictions
of doom by inebriated collaborators, the Sikhs have
always sprung back to life. One who has a lifetime
ahead of him may securely place a wager on that
happening.
The other army operation that followed the one in June
1984, was for the purpose of humiliating and
terrorising the Sikhs in the name of wiping out
remnants of militancy. Its undeclared aim was to show
who the masters were in India. In response to the orgy
of organised violence let lose by the armed forces,
despite the depraved brutality of Gills and Ribeiros,
their underground police, the regular police and their
allies, the Sikh young men met the might of the
modern state without an iota of fear in their eyes or
trace of hesitation on their brow.
The concept of Khalistan that he had never supported
while alive, instantly became a loud slogan to venerate
his memory. India stood in the immediate danger of
dismemberment. If history has a lesson it is this, that
the sceptre of such highly significant moments is
destined to reappear again and again until the goal is
achieved or until the wronged spirit is appeased by
paying a befitting tribute. Super-human struggles to
preserve the sovereignty of the worthiest people under
the sun do not just whither away.
What is significant in the post 1984 period is not that
phoney protagonists of Khalistan were propped up and
then defeated according to the script, but that the Sikh
determination to live honourably came through the
dark clouds of severe repression. In any civilised
country rogue generals and politicians would have
faced trial on charges of genocide. Several such trials
have been recently witnessed. Even today Hosne
Mubarak is answering for ordering the killing of his
own people. Slovodan Milosevic found the easier way
out. More than one hundred of those who held high
offices have been convicted of war crimes. Since that
was not possible in the circumstances of this
unfortunate land, the senior most general was shot
like a rat that he was. So also was the person who
gave the supari, since this was the only way to bring
her to justice.
It is the experience of Muslims before 1947 and that of
the Sikhs after that year that the most poisonous of all
is not a viper in the grass but a journalist wedded toserving the interest of the pcm. When the pendulum
starts swinging in favour of the Sant and all he stood
for, it will receive a great impetus from the activity of
modern day shallow journalists and their vituperative
writings designed to spew venom all around. It was
consistent Sikh hating and Sikh baiting of four decades
that had given rise to the Sant Bhineranwale
phenomena. It persists and will surely cause another
such to rise from the dusty village roads and from
amongst the worthy sons of the Punjab who still hold
honour, truth, dignity and justice as dearer than life
itself. This time the one to come will not be as innocent
as the Sant was. His struggle will be far more effective
and far more successful. Those who created Pakistan
are still around with the same pen and ink. If anything,
their tribe is increasing. This time they have turned their
attention to Khalistan. All augurs well; the future
appears to be bright.
Every Sikh remembers the bloody dawn when they
abandoned their ancestral lands losing their relatives to
communal frenzy and trekked to the land they then
considered their own. The First Patiala recalls the day
they pushed back the Razakars to once again reclaim
Srinagar and the rest of Kashmir for India. Pakistani
generals in their memoirs rue the memorable night
when they had hoped to have ridden to Delhi for
breakfast. But their mounts, the Patton tanks, were
reduced to rabble and consigned to the graveyard of
Asal Uttar in Khemkaran by the vigilant Sikhs
exhibiting extreme bravery. Pictures of general Niazi
surrendering along with ninety thousand soldiers to
general Jagjit Singh Aurora are still printable although
stained by the blood of Shabeg Singh the other general
who made that picture possible. Every Sikh farmer
knows the contempt with which he snatched the
begging bowl from the hands of Bharat and threw it
away for good as a prelude to assuming
responsibility for feeding its teeming millions who
have by now grown to over a billion. One wonders
whether any of these performances will be repeated,
should a similar situation arise again?
FROM the FEB 2012 issue of The Sikh bullettin USA.
BHARAT IN BHASMASUR MODE
‘India Today’ is a widely circulated magazine. It commenced
publication simultaneously with the start of the last Akali agitation
in the Punjab. All along it has been propagating the views of the
government. In its anniversary number dated December 26, 2011, it
has published extremely significant article by Chandan Mitra who
is a prominent spokesperson of the BJP. (See P. 10). It is reasonable
to assume that he is reflecting the thesis of the permanent cultural
majority (pcm) on the issue of the Sikh unrest. His thesis, besides
being written in foul language is meant to convey the contempt of
the pcm for the Sikh issues. It also presumes that the pcm has dealt
a death blow not only to the Sikh issues, but also to Sikhi itself. Our
political leaders need to take note of the peep he has afforded into
the pcm’s mind. I hope those of you who have access to the Sikh
leaders will be able to bring this article to their notice. It is
essential that a reaction to it comes from the field.
The other necessity is to put together a Sikh thesis on the subject. I
have tried to contribute my mite to the project. I know it may not
seem sufficient to better informed and more talented people. I will
be very happy if they treat it as a rough working paper and present
their views more comprehensively. Those of you who know such
well informed talented Sikhs may kindly approach them with a
request to take the trouble of going through “Bharat in Bhasmasur
mode” and thereafter propose a more informed thesis of their own
for the benefit of the people at large.
Bhasmasur is an asur (demon) mentioned in the Hindu mythology
who sought to rule over all the worlds. His ability and character was
not matched by his ambition so he ended up destroying himself. To
me India is marching on the path shown by him by trying to destroy
its benefactors.
Those of you who may like to just read it and offer comments, I
want to say that every word from you will be read with gratitude
and attention that your communications have always received.
Gurtej Singh, Chandigarh
THE SUICIDAL MISSIONARY
Chandan Mitra
India Today 26 December, 2011
Few individuals, at least in Indian history, have had so
much blood spilt in their name as Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale. If India lost its innocence and turned
into an intolerant and more violent nation in the course
of the turbulent 1980s, it was largely on account of a
chain of events set in motion by a rustic preacher of
orthodox Sikh tenets to his community’s rural
underclass. A mesmerising speaker who could rouse
phenomenal passion among his listeners,
Bhindranwale was an impressively built man, tall and
sharp-featured with a deep set of piercing eyes that
sized up his interlocutors and instantly put them on the
defensive through a steely gaze. His meteoric rise froma small-time priest from the Damdami Taksal seminary,
at Chowk Mehta near Batala in Punjab’s relatively
impoverished Majha region, to a cult figure of terror
defined the first half of the 1980s. And the year 1984
was almost entirely shaped by him, first on account of
Operation Bluestar which led to his death in June,
followed by the revenge killing of Indira Gandhi less
than five months later.
Bhindranwale’s rise and fall was symptomatic of leaders
of such diabolic cults. He was promoted by Giani
Zail Singh when he was chief minister of Punjab in a
bid to contain Akali influence over the powerful
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC),
the well-heeled body that controlled Sikh shrines in
Punjab including its Vatican, the Darbar Sahib in
Amritsar. Of the Giani’s subsequent fall in the eyes of
his community, despite his elevation to the post of
President of India, I recall a verse quoted evocatively
by Khushwant Singh: Maazi ke dosh par gaye thay woh
chadne/ Maazi ne patka sau-sau baar (He tried to
mount on the shoulders of the past/The past felled him
to the ground a hundred times).
Trying to cater to the revivalist surge in Punjab, Zail
Singh built a highway named after the last Sikh Guru
and most ludicrously walked behind a steed said to
have descended from Guru Gobind Singh’s favourite
horse, picking up its droppings as it galloped to
Anandpur Sahib. No doubt that ignited the fervour of
religiosity, eventually helping the rise of
fundamentalism in Punjab.
Bhindranwale cunningly used the Giani’s patronage
and, in collusion with the Congress put up candidates
for the SGPC polls, winning a significant number of
seats from Gurdaspur Amritsar and Ferozepur districts.
He had no time for conventional SGPC or Akali Dal
apparatchiks. He believed they had become mealymouthed,
corrupt and deviated from the martial tenets
of the faith. Although he never said this explicitly, he
always implied that ‘wily’ Hindus had influenced the
Sikh clergy into wheeling-dealing and they no longer
inspired the youth. Deviant practices such as shaving of
beards, cutting off hair, abandoning the turban, apart
from indulgence in abhorrent addictions like drinking
and smoking were on the rise among young Sikhs.
Looking back, I am not sure if Bhindranwale was a terrorist
by conviction who seriously sought Punjab’s
separation from India through force or if' he paintedhimself into a corner and became a puppet in the hands
of Pakistan’s ISI which was looking for a face to
project in its war of a thousand cuts against India to
avenge East Pakistan’s dismemberment. Maybe he
was carried away by crowds that thronged his
pravachans in rural Punjab in which he railed against
decrepit practices creeping into Sikhism and
exaggeratedly spoke of the alleged betrayal of his
community by New Delhi, particularly the ‘biba’
meaning Indira Gandhi. In that sense, he was the latest
in a long line of Sikh leaders who led episodic
agitations to distance the faith from Hindu influences,
worried that the preponderant assimilative thrust of
Hinduism would overwhelm Sikhism the way it had
done Jainism and Buddhism.
Historians have often traced the roots of this assertiveness
to the Jaito satyagraha of 1921, which Mahatma
Gandhi had described as “the first battle for
Independence”, sparked by the Jallianwala Bagh
outrage of 1919. The Jaito movement was principally
aimed at removing corpulent mahants who had taken
control of most affluent gurdwaras and, to attract large
donations from Hindu traders, installed images of
Hindu deities inside shrines of a religion that
specifically prohibited idolatry.
Later at the time of Partition, some Sikh leaders such
as Master Tara Singh did raise the demand for
Khalistan, but the riots in erstwhile West Punjab that
targeted Sikhs and Hindus equally reinforced the bond
between the two communities, which were jointly
forced to flee to India.
But the separatist strand resurfaced in Sikh politics
from time to time on account of real or imagined
grievances. In the late 1970s, Delhi’s walls were
painted with slogans such as “Sikhs in Army 33% to
12%. Why?” and “Nankana azad te Panth azad”,
referring to the Sikh holy shrine of Nankana Sahib
now in Pakistan. Mainstream Sikh leaders also
periodically targeted deviant sub-sects, particularly the
Nirankaris and to some extent Namdharis, for
challenging Khalsa founder Gobind Singh’s decree
that none would be anointed guru after him.
Bhindranwale, too, first hit the headlines by unleashing
violence on the Nirankaris. In a sectarian dash in
1979, 17 people died. This was avenged by the murder
of the Nirankari Baba, worshipped by his followersalmost as a guru, inside his fortified headquarters in
Nirankari Colony near north Delhi’s Model Town. The
killing was clearly masterminded by Bhindranwale and
that catapulted him into a hero in much of rural Punjab
where Sikhs had been brought up to believe that
Nirankaris were a bunch of despicable heretics.
The subsequent targeted killing of the venerable ownereditor
of the Punjab Kesari group, Lala Jagat Narain,
followed by that of his son Ramesh Chandra, to silence
the newspaper group’s strident campaign against
separatist militancy sent a chill down Punjab’s Hindus,
sizeable minority of 37 per cent in the state. Arguably,
then Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal’s overzealous
security drill for Sikh travellers to Delhi during the
1982 Asian Games did much to add to the community’s
sense of grievance. In fact, that was the turning point as
far as Bhindranwale’s acceptability to Punjab’s
upwardly mobile and outwardly modern middle class
was concerned.
Punjab became a byword for spiralling violence after
Operation Woodrose was launched to mop up terrorists
after the deaths of Bhindranwale and Indira Gandhi. In
fact, rudderless terrorist groups let loose an orgy of
violence in Punjab only in the aftermath of Operation
Bluestar; It was the only time that a unit of the army
revolted: the Sikh Regiment based in Ramgarh, near
Ranchi, shot its commander dead on news of the
destruction of the Akal Takht.
I recall visiting the temple in September 1984 and was
horrified by what was left of the Akal Takht, then under
reconstruction by an opium-eating Nihang, Baba Santa
Singh, protégé of Union minister Buta Singh, a
Mazhabi (Dalit) unacceptable to the dominant Jat Sikhs
of the state. A few years later, I was also present when
Bhindranwale’s successor as Damdami Taksal, one
Baba Thakar Singh, ceremonially commenced the
demolition of the Akal Takht, because it had been
rebuilt by Tankhaiya Sikhs like Santa and Buta and
hence impure. That in the process, sword-wielding
militants stripped the building’s dome of 26 kg gold
sanctioned by Indira Gandhi for its renewal, and
possibly sold it to buy arms, is another matter. In death,
Bhindranwale was, thus, a more potent figure than in
life. The call for Khalistan, muted in his lifetime, acquired
a shrill overtone as the years passed. Till the arrival
of hard line counter-terrorist KPS Gill as DGP and
the brilliantly choreographed Operation Black Thunderin 1988, Punjab teetered on the brink of secession,
despite the Rajiv-Longowal Accord of 1986, a peace
deal that cost the peaceable Sant his life.
Punjab today is the antithesis of all that Bhindranwale
sought to propagate. When Gill, de facto ruler of the
state through the late 1980s, successfully organised a
Shilpa Shetty Night and danced with her on stage in
Amritsar in 1991, it spelled the lifting of the pall of
terror, Two years later, Sukhdev Singh Babbar, head
of the puritanical Babbar Khalsa, a Bhindranwaleworshipping
outfit, was shot dead in Ambala. His
house in Patiala, which I was the first journalist to
visit, revealed his opulent lifestyle as well as
indulgence with two wives who shared the home complete
with latest electronic gadgets including a satellite
dish, the first I saw in India. Support for separatist
terror evaporated in the aftermath of the discovery.
Gill proclaimed he had worked himself out of a job.
He had.
I believe the movement spawned by Bhindranwale
began its downhill journey when motley obscurantists
issued a firman prohibiting consumption of alcohol
and meat. Can you quite imagine a jolly good sardarji
who abjures his nightly whisky and generous portions
of tandoori kukkad? I recall my repeated visits to
Amritsar during those blood-soaked years, when in
company of journalist Rahul Bedi on his Bullet, we
sneaked into by-lanes and tapped the closed shutters of
booze shops twice to convey we wanted a full bottle,
the premium be damned!
I am told Bhindranwale, probably India’s first media--
savvy terrorist, would allow journalists various
liberties whenever they carne to interview him in Akal
Takht. His less intelligent, rustic followers were not
only more intolerant but also daydreamed about
founding a Sikh Empire stretching to Delhi which in
their fanciful notions they renamed Dashmesh Nagar
in maps of the imaginary Khalistan that were
published with alarming regularity in the final years of
the doomed movement.
Bhindranwale brought out the worst in us. He was
gone by the mid-1980s, but his legacy lived long
enough to damage the fabric of India’s evolving
nationhood. Terrorist killings don’t startle us anymore.
We have become sufficiently blasé to say that unless
it’s in double-digits, such mass murders don’t meritPage 1 treatment in newspapers. Bhindranwale shook
India out of its comfortable somnolence that had been
merely jolted a few years earlier by the Emergency. No
doubt we are more mature as a nation than before. But
we are perhaps more insensitive too. Maybe this had to
happen someday. But what I remember of it, life was so
much more languid before a humungous amount of
blood was spilt around a purported Sant’s diabolic
persona. May it never happen again.I am also enclosing the full response which I do not
expect to be carried but I do hope it will be read by
those responsible for bringing out India Today just to
have an idea that the other point of view on the subject
exists and may possibly be more balanced than the
view aired by Mr. Mitra.
Thanking you.
Yours faithfully,
Gurtej Singh.
BHARAT IN BHASMASUR MODE
Gurtej Singh, Chandigarh
To the Editor,
India Today,
16 January, 2012
Dear Sir,
I have been reading your very readable magazine since
it started publication. Though it does a good job by and
large, it consistently fails to treat the Sikh issues fairly.
A recent example of the unfair treatment is your
anniversary number dated December 26, 2011. Your
article by Chandan Mitra is in extremely bad taste,
full of anachronisms, factual mistakes and biased
formulations. His main thrust that Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Bhinderanwale was a foreign agent is contrary to
all evidence available on the subject. I assure you that
everyone doesn’t ascribe to Chandan Mitra’s jaundiced
view. The facts conclusively prove him wrong.
I have been a keen observer of Punjab politics and the
Punjab situation for decades. I have written several
scores of articles and more than half a dozen books on
these subjects both in Punjabi and in English. I deem
myself well equipped to hold a viable opinion. I had the
opportunity to observe the Sant closely. I hold the point
of view that has been vastly appreciated by the people
of the Punjab and the Sikhs scattered all over the world.
I have written several articles on the Sant since 1982
and have authored a book on him.
I am enclosing a short article for publication. (The
complete article is also enclosed). It constitutes a
response that is well appreciated in knowledgeable
circles. I hope it will be possible for you to carry it in
your rightly esteemed magazine at the earliest
convenient opportunity.Before the events relating to the recent violent
suppression of the Akali political agitation are
recalled, a few of the established parameters within
which a meaningful discussion can take place, may be
mentioned. It is now settled beyond a doubt, that the
agitation suppressed by Indira Gandhi backed by
the permanent cultural majority’s (pcm)
orthodoxy, was political in nature and had
demands that were perfectly legitimate and
constitutional. Several times an agreed upon solution
was found to the issues raised. Every time, the
agitating Akali Dal accepted the compromise and
every time Indira Gandhi, the other party, rescinded it.
She indicated thereby that she was not in favour of a
peaceful settlement. Itching for shedding Sikh blood,
she aimed at escalating it into a Sikh agitation. The
only rationale given for the army attack on the Guru’s
Darbar at Amritsar was that India wanted to put an end
to militant activity supposedly originating in the
shrine. This was factually incorrect as forty other
shrines were also attacked. The end was not achieved
as the escalation of violent activity was a thousand
times more in the decade that followed it than it had
been for a decade ending with June 1984. It is also
certain now that the much maligned Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Khalsa Bhinderanwale never made a bid for
Khalistan but was supporting the political agitation
of the Akali Dal based on the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution. It is also obvious that except for a few in
1984, no political murders ever took place within the
Darbar complex. It is not explained to this day, why
the security forces spread thick all over the state were
not able to apprehend murderers, who committed
murders all over the state and in Delhi. No explanation
is given why the security forces never apprehended
murderers who according to it rode forth from the
Darbar complex and returned to it after committing the
crime although the Darbar was under a constant siegeby the para-military forces for the entire period of the
Akali agitation?
Most of the writings on the events of the bloody
decades have been done by journalists feigning
ignorance of the political processes. They chose to have
no perspective of history or of the spiritual aspirations
of a people as independent as they were entitled to be
under the prevalent basic law. The journalists
substituted the lack of skills and perspective with an
ample measure of newly acquired urban snobbery. They
appeared to be supporting the orthodox hegemonic
approach of the overwhelming pcm wedded to solving
every political problem violently according to its
tradition. The resultant academic discourse is vitiated
by ample contempt for the supposedly ‘less intelligent -
-- rural underclass,’ vitriolic language with destructive
intent is thrown in for special effect. Many writings that
have appeared are from the perspective of the
megalomaniac fascist Punjabi Hindu politicians who
believe that since the Hindus form an overwhelming
majority of the country’s population, they own every
inch of India as they own their karyana shops. Their
contempt for the rural folk is endless and their hatred
for the Sikhs and the Sikh faith knows no bounds.
Voluntarily worn blinkers ignore the reality that Indian
civilisation has produced a society that is excessively
violent right from antiquity. Myriad of the hymns in the
Rigveda advertised as ‘mankind’s oldest book’ sum up
prayers for destruction of the perceived enemy (read,
political rivals). Mahabharta enjoys scriptural status and
is all about violence. All the gods and goddesses of the
Hindu pantheon are shown as armed to the teeth in the
images that are worshipped in every Hindu household.
Nineteen hundred and forty seven was perhaps the
bloodiest year in the history of the pcm. The trend has
not abated since. Every crisis that has confronted the
pcm has been resolved violently. Violence and
intolerance have always dictated relationships with
other cultures, societies and nations as can well be
judged by the fate of Dalits in Brahmanic India.
While orthodoxy in the faith of the pcm is characterised
by the ubiquitous traits of violence, intolerance of
dissent and attempts at acquiring political hegemony
over neighbouring cultural and political entities, in the
Sikh faith it has an entirely different connotation. It
implies assuming responsibility for promoting universal
brotherhood and establishing all inclusive institutions(for instance langar). In a word, Sikh orthodoxy stands
for acting God in history.
On her return to political pre-eminence in 1980 after
the notorious suspension of human rights during the
Emergency, Indira Gandhi unveiled her ambition and
started exhibiting a pronounced propensity to emerge
as leader of the chauvinistic section of the pcm. In her
new incarnation of goddess Durga, she did not forget
the bottomless bowl in which the deity drinks her
favourite drink - human blood. She was in her best
form during the attack on the Guru’s Darbar which she
ordered to commence on the martyrdom day of Guru
Arjan. To see that she entrapped the largest number
of innocent Sikh pilgrims to quench her newly
acquired thirst, the curfew was relaxed for a few
hours before the attack so as to kill as many
pilgrims as could possibly be killed. A victim of this
mindset, she issued the diabolically inhuman orders, “I
don’t give a damn if the Golden Temple and the
whole of Amritsar is destroyed, I want
Bhinderanwale dead.” By obeying these orders, her
political supporters throughout the country and the
army generals stood recruited as members of the
eighteenth century criminal sect that thrived on thugee.
Its mode of worship was the cold blooded murder of
unsuspecting pilgrims and travellers.
In My Truth, Indira Gandhi indicates that she
subscribed to the political theory evolved by the pcm
after 1947. It affirmed that the pcm has the exclusive
right to rule the country. The census figures of three
decades that preceded 1984 showed that the Sikh
population was increasing at an impressive rate.
Hindus of the Punjab, about whom she pretended to be
deeply concerned presented the state of species going
politically extinct. It appeared that the Khalsa, the true
model for Indian resurgence was slowly, but surely
asserting itself. She concluded that it was time to take
decisive action to check the growth of the Sikh faith
and the spread of the Khalsa consciousness. She
dreamt of swallowing up the Sikh faith just as the
Jain and Buddhist faiths had been eradicated from
India. She knew very well that she would be
pandering to a popular communal sentiment and some
like A. B. Vajpayee were anxiously waiting in the
wings to thrust the title of ‘Durga Incarnation’ on her.
Being similarly inspired, Nehru, Patel and Munshi, the
representatives of the pcm in the ConstituentAssembly, had undertaken to play the role of singleminded
fascists. They attributed the idea of
Khalistan to the Sikhs. The strategy was to prevent
them asking for fulfilling the promises, for an
autonomous Punjabi speaking territorial unit
solemnly made to lure them into the Indian Union in
1947. On popular communal demand Indira Gandhi
assumed the mantle of converting the Sikh association
with India into a death trap for the entire Sikh nation.
Her earliest instinct was to encourage foreign scholars
like W. H. McLeod to show her how the edifice so
coherently put together by the Guru could be
dismantled. Hew McLeod did his worst and was
successful in producing a crop of indigenous scholars
who would follow a white man like rats following the
pied piper. To accommodate his flock, phoney well
wishers of the community would soon establish chairs
in foreign universities. The other function was naturally
to popularise his negative formulations, although their
hollowness was exposed on unassailable original
evidence available in plenty.
In pursuit of dismantling the Khalsa edifice, her father
before her had propped up pseudo-religious leaders
to establish schismatic sects within the Sikh faith. The
game had been earlier tried without success by
Aurangzeb and Bahadurshah. Jawaharlal Nehru had
relied upon the Radhaswamis, Namdharis and
Nanaksarias to perform the executioners’ job. Indira
Gandhi depended upon the Nirankaris while continuing
to support the Radhaswamis and Nanaksarias for the
same purpose. Her evil mind dreamed of bringing back
the days when the statues of hydra-headed and
elephant-headed gods had polluted the pure spirituality
of the Guru’s Darbar dedicated to the Formless One.
M. K. Gandhi, the true chief architect of India’s
vivisection in 1947, also had charted out a course for
these sects and cults. He made it his business to
discredit the Sikhs. Invisible fascist hands under his
patronage started the killing of Muslims in Delhi.
Ostensibly this was their attempt to pay back in the
same coin to Mahmud Ghazni, Muhammad Ghauri,
Aurangzeb, Nadir and Abdali albeit a few centuries
after their demise. Gandhi gladly embraced the role of
ascribing the killings to the Sikhs. His ‘prayer
meetings’ in Delhi were attracting much attention in
those heady days and he made full use of the media
attention to cast the Sikhs in the role of devils, althoughthey were the victims of the partition brought about by
him and were then destitute and homeless. Such
situations are usually exploited by cowardly moral
wrecks; Gandhi however, adjusted himself to that role
like a fish taking to water.
In 1911 Tagore in his article had summed up all that
the pcm found undesirable about the Sikhs. At about
the same time David Petrie, the Assistant Director of
the Central Intelligence had noticed the deep rooted
antipathy of the pcm to the administration of pahul by
the Guru and to the rahit prescribed by him. Gandhi
too identified the same problems as the pcm was
having with the Sikhs. M. K. Gandhi gave precision to
his “gurudev’s” formulations, It was the separate
identity that hurt the pcm the most. Based upon this the
strategy of the schismatic sects propped up by the
Congress governments at the centre, had been chalked
out. Central to them was to throw a challenge to the
Tenth Nanak’s decree abolishing a human Guru
and of eternally bestowing the gurgaddi on the
Guru Granth. Gandhi subscribed to the identical
view. He frowned upon the separate identity, the
Sikh ceremonial sword, the Punjabi language and
the Gurmukhi script. All these became the points of
difference that the sponsored sects had with the
Khalsa.
Indira Gandhi had supported the Nirankaris
depending upon them to wean away the Sikhs from
their faith. The Punjab administration was instructed to
play them up. Sant Kartar Singh, head of the
seminary at Mehta Chowk realised this early and
correctly understood the purpose of the rulers. He
perceived Akalis as playing politics with even this
serious religious issue. So the Sant braced himself up
to oppose both the Nirankaris and their mentors. He
organised some forty mammoth marches to oppose the
Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi and her
interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs. His
successor Sant Jarnail Singh continued to stoutly
oppose the nefarious activities. He broadened his
concerns further. In 1978, Sant Bhinderanwale
supported Bhai Amrik Singh and some Dal Khalsa
candidates for elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee (SGPC). It was an indication
that he wanted a change in the religious leadership of
the Sikhs. He was able to garner a respectable measure
of support. Apart from the Akalis, this sent alarm bells
ringing in the central and state governmentsEncouragement that the Nirankaris received from
the various governments in the Punjab and at the
centre convinced them that the time for decisive war
had come. They decided to make a beginning at
Amritsar where they announced a parallel structure to
replace the khalsapanth. Some Sikh volunteers decided
to resist the onslaught. The Nirankaris unleashed
extreme violence on the peacefully protesting
unarmed Sikhs on April 13, 1978, at Amritsar and
killed 17 of them excluding two bystanders. This
firearm wielding Nirankaris were given police
support. No one was arrested on the spot although
the Nirankaris remained there for several hours
after the massacre. The case was transferred to a court
outside the Punjab by the central government. Hard
evidence was not presented. False evidence of
innocence was cooked up. In the circumstances, the
court acquitted the sixty four accused. No appeal
against the acquittal was filed. It soon became obvious
to the Sikhs that there was no justice for them under the
pcm’s dispensation. Under the perceived ‘Hindu
imperialism’ the only way in which justice could be
obtained was by extra-judicial execution. This was
what the Sikhs did. When the Akali government in the
Punjab was dismissed by Indira Gandhi, the Akalis too
were obliged to exhibit their sympathy with the Sikhs
and the Punjab. They launched a peaceful agitation for
redressing of Punjab’s religious and economic
grievances.
The decision to brutally crush the dharamyudhmorcha
launched by the Akalis best suited Indira Gandhi’s
design. She targeted amritdhari young Sikhs, the type
of whom the Sant was projecting in the leadership role.
The first half a dozen Sikhs killed in contrived police
encounters were those who like Kulwant Singh Nagoke
were reputed to be good Sikhs. So had been the 17
killed by her allies, the Nirankaris on the Baisakhi day
of 1978. Wanton violence was quite in keeping with her
purpose. On one occasion more than 20 agitating
Akalis were mowed down with a machine gun from
a helicopter when they were dispersing after
stopping traffic on a road from 10 AM to 4:30 PM.
Similarly the armed forces fired upon the unarmed
persons retiring to their villages after witnessing the
arrest of Sant Bhinderanwale on September 20, 1981
and without provocation killed thirteen of them. Later
(February 14, 1984) the Hindu Sauraksha Samiti,
supported by her minion called for a shut down to
match the completely peaceful shut down of the AISSF(of February 8), and killed 25 Sikhs in Karnal alone,
where 6 gurdwaras were also burnt down. This is just
a small portion of the blood that filled newly
incarnated Durga’s bowl. The police and the Hindu
crowds killing the Sikhs knew that immunity from the
operation of the country’s laws existed for them under
her dispensation. The official journal of the Indian
army “Baatcheet” of June 1984 instructed those
who were to conduct the operations in the Punjab
to regard the amritdhari young men as those
committed to terrorism.
The unlimited fund of intense hatred that is ever
available with the permanent cultural majority helped
Indira Gandhi in dealing with Bhinderanwale and all
those who like him defied the illegal diktats of the
authorities and talked of religious freedom, rule of
law, true federalism, liberty, justice, inalienable rights,
people’s sovereignty and democracy. They were to be
projected as patrons of terrorism and separatism. It
was done very efficiently by the loyal Press
notwithstanding the well known fact that the Sant
always kept a copy of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution
of the Akali Dal under his pillow to place political
limits on his enthusiastic supporters. He never had a
political party and no independent political
programme. Nevertheless the Darbar was attacked to
kill him and in the bargain to destroy Sikh institutions.
The only rationale sold to the gullible Indian audience
was that all violent activity would end with his
elimination and the destruction of the Akal Takhat. It
soon became apparent to the neutral observer that pcm
had been wrongly briefed. Despite her authoritative
propagation of the theory, the violence had escalated a
thousand fold after the June 1984 army attack.
Role of Sant Jarnail Singh during the Akali
dharamyudh morcha was limited at best to aiding the
Akalis in concluding an honourable peace with the
government. At the worst, he was keen for a complete
change in the pliable political leadership of the Sikhs.
Giani Zail Singh was the self-proclaimed bought
slave of Indira Gandhi, and prided himself on being a
‘sweeper at her door’ even after becoming the
president of India. He was in favour of preserving the
Akali leadership upon which he eventually relied to
betray Sikh interests. Amongst them the Congress and
the centre could easily find low minded collaborators
in the venture launched by his mistress to destroy other
nations and minorities. He was shrewd enough toknow that they had tasted political power and were
aware of the opportunities for self aggrandisement that
any betrayal would afford. The loot of gurdwaras had
also catered to the same sentiment. Giani tried to gain
credibility with the Sikh masses by pretending to be a
good Sikh. This would allow him to manipulate the
Akalis. Giani looked upon this task as a service to the
Congress party and was duly rewarded for his efforts by
being made the Home Minister of India after Indira
Gandhi’s return to political power in 1980. As the chief
minister of the Punjab his important venture had been
to ‘lay’ a metalled road connecting all the places that
Guru Gobind Singh had travelled to in his last journey
through the Punjab. Most of the metalled road already
existed. His contribution was to name it Guru Gobind
Singh Marg. He succeeded in his undertaking. The Sikh
masses swung in his favour and forced the Akalis to
support his candidacy. He gained the sympathetic ear of
the Akalis and was also able to get their votes in the
presidential elections on July 13, 1982.
The Hindu Press made much of the assassination of
Lala Jagat Narayan to malign the real Sikh leadership.
They attributed it to Sant Baba Bhinderanwale. We
were then living in times in which, according to
Bhinderanwale himself, slaughter of every chicken and
of every goat was likewise nailed to his door. It had
become most convenient and most popular to blame the
Sant. An attempt was made to make him a conspirator
in the murder of Jagat Narayan. Significantly, the
alleged conspirator was arrested even before actual
culprits were apprehended. Jagat Narayan had a three
decade old history of virulent Sikh baiting and had
created enemies in every nook and corner of the
Punjab. The evidence of his denigrating Sikh values
and running down Sikh personalities is available in his
own writings in the Punjab Kesri group of newspapers
owned and edited by him. He also had been the main
defence witness in the Baisakhi Murder Case against
the Nirankaris. His son Romesh Chandra was
following him in his footsteps. In the central
government sponsored situation of lawlessness, in
which militants, vigilante groups, underground
policemen and anti-social elements were operating
freely, the resultant violence in the state was being
attributed only to the Sikhs. In the then prevailing
circumstances, such assassinations surprised no one. It
was an expression of extreme irresponsibility to
attribute them to the Sant and was interpreted as an
attempt at browbeating those sincerely engaged inserving the people. Such tactics have never been rare
in India since 1947.
This fishing in the cesspool was aimed at fattening the
black goat as a prelude to sacrificing it to the Kali
Kalkattewali. The Indian establishment and the Press
consciously rendered the honourable and pure minded
Sant liable to be brutally murdered in the most
cowardly act. A strategy was calculated to endear the
prime minister to the communal masses who perceived
her as making efficient efforts at eliminating Sikh
influence from politics. It was the only route through
which the 12% Hindus of the state could effectively
rule the Punjab. They all cooperated in placing the
Sant’s life in the hands of a terribly insecure woman
striving to establish a dynasty in a democracy. Her
minions and army generals like Vaidya and Brar
readily prostituted themselves for the most unholy
act ever undertaken by any army since the Afghan
army under Ahmed Shah Abdali (1762). Her attempt
at becoming the spirit of Hindu revivalism however
failed. She lost it out to the more chauvinistic and
openly more fascist Sangh Parivar for whom it was
easy to inherit her political mantle even while the
dynasty remained in power.
Terrorising the Sikhs was necessary for achieving the
objective. Bhajan Lal, who in an unheard of
expression of extreme unscrupulousness had defected
to the Indira Congress along with the entire legislative
party the people had voted to power against the
Congress, came in handy for the purpose. It will be
remembered that subsequently, the same Bhajan Lal
had been hoisted to power in Haryana by the Governor
(nominee of the central government) although his rival
Devi Lal had been elected by a vast majority. He did
much to convince the Sikhs that they were second
class citizens in India, could be bullied at will and
prevented from travelling on a national highway to the
capital of the country. He was just trying to please a
benefactor who, in the interest of establishing a
dynasty was required to raise and then erase the fear of
a miniscule 2% minority in the minds of the pcm
constituting 80% of India’s population.
The great deception was perpetrated with the help of
the obliging Media that could never be raped because
it was ever willing. Indira Gandhi instilled the fear of
an individual into the mind of India’s pcm until it was
fully numbed and completely petrified beyondsensitivity of any kind. Bhinderanwale was dubbed a
terrorist although he was charged with no terrorist
crime. He was demonised in accordance with the
cultural traditions of the pcm that remind one of
Shambhook, Eklavya, Bali and Ravana the king of Sri
Lanka. Armed with hatred of a whole community and
exercising absolute control over a slavish army, she
gave illegal and inhuman orders to kill one person
against whom there was no proof of guilt and who
was at all times entitled to a legal trial. In the bargain
she was prepared to destroy the five centuries old centre
of a cultural tradition dedicated to nurturing a common
participative universal culture for the new human of the
new dawn. The Sant had the right to self-defence under
all civilised law. Only low gladiators and executioners
would have taken up the hangman’s job she assigned to
her generals. They mortgaged their conscience to a
tyrant and accepted the supari to kill an unarmed
person lodged in a fixed location. They pitted the might
of a modern state against a mere forty-five almost
unarmed, untrained, and of course absolutely innocent
persons.
Initial undertaking turned them into the goons of the
Chhota Rajan or Pretender Rani gang. When the killers
accepted to carry out the field orders to eliminate him at
any cost, they turned themselves into a bunch of thugs
who adored the Black goddess. The forces they headed,
that instant were transformed into her worshippers.
They tried everything in their {censored}nal. It included armed
personnel carrier, cluster bombs, poisonous gases,
machine guns, helicopter cannons and all else, yet they
were held up for more than 72 hours. In those hours
they lost more soldiers than they had lost in an
international war. The Battle of Chamkaur fortress
which was the inspiration of the cornered Sikhs came
alive. David acquitted himself gloriously once again
against Goliath. The Sant and his companions fought
like every free man should fight to preserve his liberty.
In a daring bid to guard the “ashes of their fathers ---
the temples of their gods’, despite being hopelessly
outnumbered, they mocked at defeat and despair and
gladly embraced death.
Like the hordes of Abdali before them, Indira Gandhi’s
cohorts looted all that they could. The living quarters of
lay priests and journalist adjoining the complex were
ransacked and plundered. Pilgrims were raped.
“Prisoners of war,” ranging from four to sixteen years
of age and including women and Bangladesh citizensstaying overnight in the rest houses attached to the
shrine, were taken. Peaceful volunteers who had come
to offer arrest in the ongoing agitation were murdered.
Bodies of several children with hands tied at the back
and with a single bullet-hole in the head were brought
in for post-mortem. Forces burnt down the Sikh
Reference Library, destroyed the Akal Takhat,
killed hymn singers (for instance, the blind Bhai
Amrik Singh) inside the Darbar, violated and trampled
under military boots every inch of the sacred soil
hallowed by the blood of martyrs. These martyrs were
those who had beaten back the invader Abdali and had
rescued thousands of Hindu women and men saving
them the usual fate atop the Hindukush where men
were slaughtered and the bazaars of Gazni where
women slaves sold real cheap. The martyrs also
included those who had re-conquered the whole of
modern day Pakistan, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and
Kashmir from the Afghan empire and had made it a
part of India.
FOREIGN HAND CANARD
In addition, Indira Gandhi wanted to project the Sant
as an anti-national person. A vital part of her strategy
was to insinuate that he was an agent of foreign
powers. A thesis of sorts was meticulously built up.
Deliberately left undefined foreign powers, allegedly
jealous of the progress that India had made, were
supposedly prying around for an opportunity to
destroy India. Just to be on the safe side, the initiative
was left with Russians who set the ball rolling.
Russia’s official news agency, TASS reported that the
KGB had deciphered the hand of Pakistan’s ISI and
the American CIA behind the disturbances in the
Punjab. On the date on which this was alleged
(December 30, 1981) nothing much really sinister was
happening in the Punjab. The Akali Dal had just about
defined the problems that the Punjab and the Sikhs
were facing at the hands of the central government.
Strategy to redress the grievances was being prepared.
Four months later on April 22, 1982, the home
minister of India, alleged in the Rajya Sabha that the
communal clashes in Amritsar were inspired by
foreign powers with a view to causing disintegration
of the country. This nebulous concept served her
purpose for long.
Attempts at popularising the proposition continued to
be made. India’s external affairs minister (P. V.Narasimha Rao) vended the imported Russian theory in
a big way while speaking in the meeting of the
consultative committee on June 27, 1984. He did not
identify any particular foreign power either.
Then the astute Indira Gandhi took it up herself. She
had done her worst at Amritsar and now wanted to milk
the maximum amount of sympathy for the dynasty. The
paranoid woman projected herself as living
dangerously. While speaking in the Rajya Sabha on
July 24, 1984, she said, “I am – butt of attack of – some
most powerful forces in the world.” Darbara Singh,
who was always more loyal than the king, identified the
foreign powers for the first time in a responsible forum.
He talked of CIA and Zia-ul-Haq as operating through
Dr. Jagjit Singh Chauhan to destabilise India. This was
too specific. It could have at least caused a diplomatic
storm particularly as the allegation was baseless. So
Indira Gandhi intervened to contradict him. She said
there was no specific information and that what she
knew she would not share with the public “in national
interest.” This is also the position reflected in the White
Paper on Punjab Agitation adopted by the government
of India on July10, 1984.
The task of laying specific blame appears to have been
assigned to Lev Rovnin, the foreign minister of the
Russian Federation who picked up the strings while
speaking at a function in the Indian Embassy at
Moscow. According to the Press Trust of India’s report
of August 12, 1984, he claimed that it was “irrefutably
proved” that the CIA and the “aggressive imperialist
circles of Washington” were behind the Sikh militancy.
Benazir Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq were the two persons
whose governments are supposed to have helped the
militants in the Punjab. Fortunately we have the
authoritative versions of both of them. Bhandara was a
lone Parsi Member of Pakistan’s Parliament. He was
advisor to Zia on minority affairs from 1982 to 1985.
He was privy to Zia plan on the ‘Sikh separatists.’
Talking to The Tribune on May 8, 2003, after crossing
over to India at Wagha he said “General Zia was
opposed to the Sikh movement because the map of
Khalistan included territories of Pakistan as well. He
had stated that it was true that the general would give
all moral and other support to Sikh hardliners but it was
his standing order to all concerned to keep them under
strict surveillance. Hence they were kept under virtual
house arrest for a long time. The general had alsoissued directions that they should not be allowed to
wage their movement from the soil of Pakistan. This
revelation came as shock to radical Sikhs. Bhandara
had admitted that he on and off met the hijackers of
the Indian Airlines plane in Kot Lakhpat and other
jails as a part of his official assignment.” (The Tribune,
July 20, 2008, 4)
Pakistan under the other dispensation also vociferously
denied that it had helped the Sikhs. On the contrary it
affirmed that it had helped India. In an interview to the
British Broadcasting Corporation, Benazir Bhutto said
that she had assisted the Indian government. ‘India
was facing a very difficult situation in Punjab, and had
Pakistan not extended cooperation, New Delhi’s
position would have been different.’ The (former)
prime minister said, “when Rajiv Gandhi was prime
minister, India was facing a big problem --- it was on
the verge of separation. Had Pakistan not helped them
(India), God knows where they would have been now.
But we helped them because it is our principle not to
interfere in others’ affairs.” (The Tribune, February 15,
1994, p.1)
She had again said the same in another interview with
the BBC before coming to Pakistan to contest the last
elections of her life. Her statement was disputed by a
retired Indian civil servant. She was clarifying her
position a day before her assassination and according
to some thinkers (for instance a free intellectual
brigadier Usman Khalid), it became the cause of her
assassination. She elaborated on the kind of help she
had rendered. She said that in a one-to-one meeting
with Rajiv Gandhi, “where there was not even a fly
on the wall,” she had supplied the whereabouts of
all the Sikh militants to India. It will be
remembered that all the leaders of the major
militant outfits were eliminated suddenly within
few days. By this confession she had compromised
her country’s honour and security. It is a small
wonder that she was killed within 24 hours of this
public disclosure.
The next scion of the dynasty and sole owner of the
“inherited democracy” (Washington Times of June 9,
1987, as quoted by the UNI report circulated to the
Indian Press, the next day) continued to rave against
the Sant and the Sikhs. But he was a crude and boorish
man known more for his clownish approach to politics.
The BBC in its Urdu service of June 9, 1987, saw himas “dada” and a “school bully” in the region. Sri
Lanka’s president Jayewardene at one time implored
him to abjure violence and to give up “bullying” with a
view to stoking war, while affirming that his country
would never fight its “great neighbour.” (The Indian
Express, June 10, 1987, 1.) The same paper (in a front
page article by the editor) called him a “liar” and hinted
that it was his permanent “trait” while referring to his
oft repeated “nonsense about destabilisation.” It further
observed that under Rajiv even a solemn promise of
the Parliament meant nothing. Rajiv humiliated the
chief minister of Assam (The Indian Express, June 8,
and June 9, 1987). The paper editorially observed that
Rajiv was inclined to be perfidious “opposition and
others have learnt, in one-to-one meeting they open
themselves to the risk of being misrepresented --.” N.T.
Rama Rao the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, knew
him to be ‘uncultured and ignorant’ to meet whom was
to “waste time and money.” (The Tribune, June 17,
1987, 9). He was at his lowest ebb when he called the
elderly lawyer Jethmalani, a “dog.” Doggedly
determined Jethmalani returned the compliment by
insinuating that the prime minister was a ‘thief’ and a
‘liar.’
In a highly sarcastic article in The Indian Express of
June 13, 1987, one of our most respected columnists, S.
Mulgaokar poured downright contempt on Rajiv
Gandhi calling him a “liar,” a “coward,” a “promise
breaker” and an “uncivilised person.” Sanjeeva Reddy,
the former President of India, according to Surya
Prakash, found him “in a state of confused mind.”
(See, “Politics of abuse,” The Indian Express, June 18,
1987, 6) Rajiv Gandhi ‘condemned those as antinational
traitors’ who had misgivings about his
assurances.’ Referring to it the author says, “Mr.
Gandhi’s responses sounded harsh and uncharitable
then. They appear hollow now.”
The Sikhs and the Sant could expect no better from the
person for whom the entire opposition was subversive,
anti-national and inspired by foreign enemies because it
did not find the Anandpur Sahib Resolution a
subversive document. V. P. Singh who came as a prime
minister after him, was ‘Raja Jaichand’ (who betrayed
India in the tenth century and whose name is byword
for treachery) to him. He invented the possibilities of
Zail Singh dismissing him and of Pakistan attacking
India in January 1987. Farooq Abdullah’s government
was dismissed on charges of communalism and supportto anti-national forces, soon Rajiv’s Congress was
ruling in coalition with Farooq. In the last analysis,
one purpose of inventing the ‘foreign hand’ theory was
to wean away the leftist parties from the Akali
agitation. This is why the Russian services were used.
For these reasons it may not be fruitful to analyse
Rajiv’s pronouncements about the Sant and the Sikhs
or the canard of the ‘foreign hand’ theory. On
resuming the discussion, the well researched
observation of the Surya magazine becomes relevant.
It says that India imported the arms with the help of
the ISI of Pakistan and it sent them into the Darbar
complex to implicate the Sikhs. The same is also true
of the arms that were dropped over Purulia at the time
when P. V. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister.
The truth that emerges from the scrutiny is that Indira
Gandhi, her son, her cohorts and minions were not
only supporting a blatant lie but were also themselves
conspiring with foreign powers to malign and harm
their own countrymen. They gave no explanation for
their shameful behaviour but one was invented for
them by another foreigner attached to the British
Broadcasting Corporation. Mark Tully in his Amritsar,
(Rupa and Co. 1985, p. 208), is of the opinion that
Pakistan at that time was helping the United States in
combating Soviet presence in Afghanistan. The fear of
jeopardising relations with the United States prevented
India from naming Pakistan. This is clearly an
inadequate ground as Indira Gandhi never exhibited a
pro-American sentiment and had no love lost for
Ronald Regan. India under her remained a satellite of
the Soviet Union. This tribe of liars and calumniators
has not ended with the immediate minions of Indira
Gandhi but has had an extension in lease of life
through those (likes of Chandan Mitra) who thrive on
yellow journalism. They have no hesitation in
maligning their most honourable contemporary who
has been voted the greatest person of the 20th century
with all the Sikhs, the world over participating.
BHINDERANWALE’S CONTRIBUTION
Bhinderanwale exposed the worst in the culture of
India’s pcm. Its innate disposition which is brutal,
fascist and bloody was shown to have been built
around deep-rooted intolerance. Being violence prone
at the slightest provocation the pcm had been ever
willing to destroy other nation’s holiest shrines on any
or no pretext. It supports a culture that has abidinghatred of ‘the other’ as its driving force and hallmark.
This much had been known for centuries. The
Bhinderanwale episode served to highlight it. Unbridled
violence against a political opponent or a dissenter has
been the normal course when the opponent is weak. The
same army however, recently demonstrated reluctance
to tackle the Maoists equipped by China. The political
leadership is keen not to be left behind in pleasing the
rebels. Shibu Sorain the chief minister of Jharkhand
publicly embraced the Naxalites as “brothers and
sisters.” See-saw game between the two sentiments is
currently going on. Fear triumphs over hatred for a
while then hatred takes over again. Raw fear is not
enough to contain age old hatred and the bloodstained,
brutally maimed bodies of killed Naxalites continue to
defile the pages of publications. It appears that, the
juggernaut will stop rolling only when the ‘might is
right’ rule (lashtikaniaye of Chanakya) is fully
established or when “brothers and sisters” take over the
reins.
The crafty Indira Gandhi thought she could hide her
motives by shedding a few crocodile tears, pretended to
rebuild the Takhat on the heavily veiled pretext of
making amends. Perhaps she thought her ‘victory’ was
not complete until she had forced the Takhat built by
her down the throats of the Sikhs. Had she cared for
Sikh traditions, she would have known that the building
erected by the National Building Corporation, in the
garb of Nihangs owing allegiance to her home minister
Buta Singh, was most unlikely to survive for long. It
had come to symbolise her arrogance. It was
legitimately pulled down by the Sikhs at the first
opportunity. The 26 kilograms of polluted gold
reportedly put on the purest of domes, by ruthless,
remorseless invader of the shrine, was contemptuously
thrown where it belonged – into the dust (bin of
history). A martyr’s spirit had triumphed over the diktat
of a tyrant.
An expression of the same defiant spirit was the killing
of the collaborating, self-styled Sant. Longowal was
shot dead for betraying the voluntary forces that were
still locked in a grim struggle. Abandoning all shame
and propriety, giving in to cowardice and in extraordinary
exhibition of poverty of understanding, he had
blackened his face in history by signing the document
of abject surrender otherwise known as the Longowal-
Rajiv Accord of 1986.Again and again India miserably failed to correctly
assess the situation. It had to learn again that the
endurance, the emotional strength and the innate
fighting capability of its opponents surpassed all
human limits. The battle that the Sant gave will be
remembered for thousands of years. On re-assessing,
the red-faced journalists then called it the ‘Third Sikh
War.’ Though the assessment is marred by the
disproportionate numbers in the field of battle, the idea
is well mooted. After 1984 they had their stooges draw
clumsy maps of Khalistan and make tall claims. These
are then attributed to the Sant who never subscribed to
the idea and always supported the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution adopted by the Akali Dal. As a nonmember
he supported the political party struggling for
legitimate democratic rights. He never subscribed to
any formal political set up. The deep desire of
enthusiastic journalists promoting jingoism is to
conjure up all the ghosts that disturb their sleep,
attribute them posthumously to the Sant and pretend
that they have all been taken care of with his
assassination. If one reads their minds well then a
disturbing image of the country emerges. A country
that has not seen even a century of independent
existence, has yet gathered the arrogance of an empire
of a millennium, notwithstanding two military defeats.
The one in 1962 was the greatest disaster to have
happened to an army ever since mankind started
walking on two feet. The other was no less. It in
addition it immortalised the Sant who died undefeated
and a proud sovereign man, a worthy Sikh of the Guru.
There is need to pay heed to Bhagat Kabir who says,
“do not be condescending, do not mock a
(temporarily) disadvantaged people. The boat is still
on the high seas. Who knows what may still happen?”
To make their ‘triumph’ appear complete the criminal
state, the deceiving Media and central governments
agencies created false inheritors of Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Khalsa’s mantle. Some of them have been
dumped into oblivion, others have been killed in an act
of unparalleled perfidy, some others still remain
masquerading abroad and in India as pushers of mere
radical slogans. It is a burlesque that we have
witnessed and are witnessing even today. It is much
like the modern day ramlila complete with an actor
burning down Ravana’s gigantic paper image with
great fanfare and in the presence of enthusiastically
cheering crowds in every city and town of the country.
The same crowd invariably has previously contributedto erecting the image. A nation of corrupt pigmies,
engrossed in looting its own people is not best qualified
to map the powerful currents of history. Beant Singh,
the murderer of thousands of innocent persons
including women and toddlers, was one day projecting
himself as an equal of Ram and Nanak. Within three
weeks of that hilarious proclamation, his body was
literally in a thousand pieces. Walls and the ground
around had to be scrapped to recover hundreds of them.
Like all tyrants, tyrannous nations too have a lifespan.
Retribution pulls them down in an imperceptible
operation (Black Ignominy!) which none can see
coming but which is advancing all the time. The truism
of history is: ‘a tyrant dies and his reign ends. A
martyr dies and his reign begins.’
Power-drunk slaves like Gill organised sessions at
Amritsar (as the depraved Nirankaris had done in 1978)
to signify that all human decencies, all moral values and
spiritual valour that the city stands for and Sant
Bhinderanwale had upheld, had been trampled under
foot. They pretended that they had scored a great
victory over an unarmed population supporting a potent
idea. It was beyond their comprehension that
womanisers, looters of defenceless people’s property,
cruel tormentors of innocent people in custody, hired
corrupt pimps of a rotting culture propped up by the
state power never determine the course of history.
Those who believed that the temporary violent
repression was a permanent visitation saw their
thoughts evaporate in 1999. In that year Sant Jarnail
Singh Bhinderanwale was voted the twentieth century’s
greatest person by the Sikhs all over the world. These
included important Sikh institutions including the
Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee the
honourable citizens like the most celebrated poet – the
author of several immortal works, educationists,
lawyers, generals, saints, scholars, Media personalities
and human rights activists. His images adorn almost
every Sikh household all over the world and his legacy
lives on. When another one of his kind will arise to
move the masses to holier paths of spiritual selfassertion,
it cannot be said definitely but only a fool or
a cringing slave (in or out of uniform) will rule out that
possibility.
The whole world knows of cultures that were defeated
once and did not let out even a loud groan for seven to
nine centuries at a stretch. At least three times before in
history, and once in our lifetime, tyrants havepronounced the Sikh people dead. Despite predictions
of doom by inebriated collaborators, the Sikhs have
always sprung back to life. One who has a lifetime
ahead of him may securely place a wager on that
happening.
The other army operation that followed the one in June
1984, was for the purpose of humiliating and
terrorising the Sikhs in the name of wiping out
remnants of militancy. Its undeclared aim was to show
who the masters were in India. In response to the orgy
of organised violence let lose by the armed forces,
despite the depraved brutality of Gills and Ribeiros,
their underground police, the regular police and their
allies, the Sikh young men met the might of the
modern state without an iota of fear in their eyes or
trace of hesitation on their brow.
The concept of Khalistan that he had never supported
while alive, instantly became a loud slogan to venerate
his memory. India stood in the immediate danger of
dismemberment. If history has a lesson it is this, that
the sceptre of such highly significant moments is
destined to reappear again and again until the goal is
achieved or until the wronged spirit is appeased by
paying a befitting tribute. Super-human struggles to
preserve the sovereignty of the worthiest people under
the sun do not just whither away.
What is significant in the post 1984 period is not that
phoney protagonists of Khalistan were propped up and
then defeated according to the script, but that the Sikh
determination to live honourably came through the
dark clouds of severe repression. In any civilised
country rogue generals and politicians would have
faced trial on charges of genocide. Several such trials
have been recently witnessed. Even today Hosne
Mubarak is answering for ordering the killing of his
own people. Slovodan Milosevic found the easier way
out. More than one hundred of those who held high
offices have been convicted of war crimes. Since that
was not possible in the circumstances of this
unfortunate land, the senior most general was shot
like a rat that he was. So also was the person who
gave the supari, since this was the only way to bring
her to justice.
It is the experience of Muslims before 1947 and that of
the Sikhs after that year that the most poisonous of all
is not a viper in the grass but a journalist wedded toserving the interest of the pcm. When the pendulum
starts swinging in favour of the Sant and all he stood
for, it will receive a great impetus from the activity of
modern day shallow journalists and their vituperative
writings designed to spew venom all around. It was
consistent Sikh hating and Sikh baiting of four decades
that had given rise to the Sant Bhineranwale
phenomena. It persists and will surely cause another
such to rise from the dusty village roads and from
amongst the worthy sons of the Punjab who still hold
honour, truth, dignity and justice as dearer than life
itself. This time the one to come will not be as innocent
as the Sant was. His struggle will be far more effective
and far more successful. Those who created Pakistan
are still around with the same pen and ink. If anything,
their tribe is increasing. This time they have turned their
attention to Khalistan. All augurs well; the future
appears to be bright.
Every Sikh remembers the bloody dawn when they
abandoned their ancestral lands losing their relatives to
communal frenzy and trekked to the land they then
considered their own. The First Patiala recalls the day
they pushed back the Razakars to once again reclaim
Srinagar and the rest of Kashmir for India. Pakistani
generals in their memoirs rue the memorable night
when they had hoped to have ridden to Delhi for
breakfast. But their mounts, the Patton tanks, were
reduced to rabble and consigned to the graveyard of
Asal Uttar in Khemkaran by the vigilant Sikhs
exhibiting extreme bravery. Pictures of general Niazi
surrendering along with ninety thousand soldiers to
general Jagjit Singh Aurora are still printable although
stained by the blood of Shabeg Singh the other general
who made that picture possible. Every Sikh farmer
knows the contempt with which he snatched the
begging bowl from the hands of Bharat and threw it
away for good as a prelude to assuming
responsibility for feeding its teeming millions who
have by now grown to over a billion. One wonders
whether any of these performances will be repeated,
should a similar situation arise again?
BHARAT IN BHASMASUR MODE
‘India Today’ is a widely circulated magazine. It commenced
publication simultaneously with the start of the last Akali agitation
in the Punjab. All along it has been propagating the views of the
government. In its anniversary number dated December 26, 2011, it
has published extremely significant article by Chandan Mitra who
is a prominent spokesperson of the BJP. (See P. 10). It is reasonable
to assume that he is reflecting the thesis of the permanent cultural
majority (pcm) on the issue of the Sikh unrest. His thesis, besides
being written in foul language is meant to convey the contempt of
the pcm for the Sikh issues. It also presumes that the pcm has dealt
a death blow not only to the Sikh issues, but also to Sikhi itself. Our
political leaders need to take note of the peep he has afforded into
the pcm’s mind. I hope those of you who have access to the Sikh
leaders will be able to bring this article to their notice. It is
essential that a reaction to it comes from the field.
The other necessity is to put together a Sikh thesis on the subject. I
have tried to contribute my mite to the project. I know it may not
seem sufficient to better informed and more talented people. I will
be very happy if they treat it as a rough working paper and present
their views more comprehensively. Those of you who know such
well informed talented Sikhs may kindly approach them with a
request to take the trouble of going through “Bharat in Bhasmasur
mode” and thereafter propose a more informed thesis of their own
for the benefit of the people at large.
Bhasmasur is an asur (demon) mentioned in the Hindu mythology
who sought to rule over all the worlds. His ability and character was
not matched by his ambition so he ended up destroying himself. To
me India is marching on the path shown by him by trying to destroy
its benefactors.
Those of you who may like to just read it and offer comments, I
want to say that every word from you will be read with gratitude
and attention that your communications have always received.
Gurtej Singh, Chandigarh
THE SUICIDAL MISSIONARY
Chandan Mitra
India Today 26 December, 2011
Few individuals, at least in Indian history, have had so
much blood spilt in their name as Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale. If India lost its innocence and turned
into an intolerant and more violent nation in the course
of the turbulent 1980s, it was largely on account of a
chain of events set in motion by a rustic preacher of
orthodox Sikh tenets to his community’s rural
underclass. A mesmerising speaker who could rouse
phenomenal passion among his listeners,
Bhindranwale was an impressively built man, tall and
sharp-featured with a deep set of piercing eyes that
sized up his interlocutors and instantly put them on the
defensive through a steely gaze. His meteoric rise froma small-time priest from the Damdami Taksal seminary,
at Chowk Mehta near Batala in Punjab’s relatively
impoverished Majha region, to a cult figure of terror
defined the first half of the 1980s. And the year 1984
was almost entirely shaped by him, first on account of
Operation Bluestar which led to his death in June,
followed by the revenge killing of Indira Gandhi less
than five months later.
Bhindranwale’s rise and fall was symptomatic of leaders
of such diabolic cults. He was promoted by Giani
Zail Singh when he was chief minister of Punjab in a
bid to contain Akali influence over the powerful
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC),
the well-heeled body that controlled Sikh shrines in
Punjab including its Vatican, the Darbar Sahib in
Amritsar. Of the Giani’s subsequent fall in the eyes of
his community, despite his elevation to the post of
President of India, I recall a verse quoted evocatively
by Khushwant Singh: Maazi ke dosh par gaye thay woh
chadne/ Maazi ne patka sau-sau baar (He tried to
mount on the shoulders of the past/The past felled him
to the ground a hundred times).
Trying to cater to the revivalist surge in Punjab, Zail
Singh built a highway named after the last Sikh Guru
and most ludicrously walked behind a steed said to
have descended from Guru Gobind Singh’s favourite
horse, picking up its droppings as it galloped to
Anandpur Sahib. No doubt that ignited the fervour of
religiosity, eventually helping the rise of
fundamentalism in Punjab.
Bhindranwale cunningly used the Giani’s patronage
and, in collusion with the Congress put up candidates
for the SGPC polls, winning a significant number of
seats from Gurdaspur Amritsar and Ferozepur districts.
He had no time for conventional SGPC or Akali Dal
apparatchiks. He believed they had become mealymouthed,
corrupt and deviated from the martial tenets
of the faith. Although he never said this explicitly, he
always implied that ‘wily’ Hindus had influenced the
Sikh clergy into wheeling-dealing and they no longer
inspired the youth. Deviant practices such as shaving of
beards, cutting off hair, abandoning the turban, apart
from indulgence in abhorrent addictions like drinking
and smoking were on the rise among young Sikhs.
Looking back, I am not sure if Bhindranwale was a terrorist
by conviction who seriously sought Punjab’s
separation from India through force or if' he paintedhimself into a corner and became a puppet in the hands
of Pakistan’s ISI which was looking for a face to
project in its war of a thousand cuts against India to
avenge East Pakistan’s dismemberment. Maybe he
was carried away by crowds that thronged his
pravachans in rural Punjab in which he railed against
decrepit practices creeping into Sikhism and
exaggeratedly spoke of the alleged betrayal of his
community by New Delhi, particularly the ‘biba’
meaning Indira Gandhi. In that sense, he was the latest
in a long line of Sikh leaders who led episodic
agitations to distance the faith from Hindu influences,
worried that the preponderant assimilative thrust of
Hinduism would overwhelm Sikhism the way it had
done Jainism and Buddhism.
Historians have often traced the roots of this assertiveness
to the Jaito satyagraha of 1921, which Mahatma
Gandhi had described as “the first battle for
Independence”, sparked by the Jallianwala Bagh
outrage of 1919. The Jaito movement was principally
aimed at removing corpulent mahants who had taken
control of most affluent gurdwaras and, to attract large
donations from Hindu traders, installed images of
Hindu deities inside shrines of a religion that
specifically prohibited idolatry.
Later at the time of Partition, some Sikh leaders such
as Master Tara Singh did raise the demand for
Khalistan, but the riots in erstwhile West Punjab that
targeted Sikhs and Hindus equally reinforced the bond
between the two communities, which were jointly
forced to flee to India.
But the separatist strand resurfaced in Sikh politics
from time to time on account of real or imagined
grievances. In the late 1970s, Delhi’s walls were
painted with slogans such as “Sikhs in Army 33% to
12%. Why?” and “Nankana azad te Panth azad”,
referring to the Sikh holy shrine of Nankana Sahib
now in Pakistan. Mainstream Sikh leaders also
periodically targeted deviant sub-sects, particularly the
Nirankaris and to some extent Namdharis, for
challenging Khalsa founder Gobind Singh’s decree
that none would be anointed guru after him.
Bhindranwale, too, first hit the headlines by unleashing
violence on the Nirankaris. In a sectarian dash in
1979, 17 people died. This was avenged by the murder
of the Nirankari Baba, worshipped by his followersalmost as a guru, inside his fortified headquarters in
Nirankari Colony near north Delhi’s Model Town. The
killing was clearly masterminded by Bhindranwale and
that catapulted him into a hero in much of rural Punjab
where Sikhs had been brought up to believe that
Nirankaris were a bunch of despicable heretics.
The subsequent targeted killing of the venerable ownereditor
of the Punjab Kesari group, Lala Jagat Narain,
followed by that of his son Ramesh Chandra, to silence
the newspaper group’s strident campaign against
separatist militancy sent a chill down Punjab’s Hindus,
sizeable minority of 37 per cent in the state. Arguably,
then Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal’s overzealous
security drill for Sikh travellers to Delhi during the
1982 Asian Games did much to add to the community’s
sense of grievance. In fact, that was the turning point as
far as Bhindranwale’s acceptability to Punjab’s
upwardly mobile and outwardly modern middle class
was concerned.
Punjab became a byword for spiralling violence after
Operation Woodrose was launched to mop up terrorists
after the deaths of Bhindranwale and Indira Gandhi. In
fact, rudderless terrorist groups let loose an orgy of
violence in Punjab only in the aftermath of Operation
Bluestar; It was the only time that a unit of the army
revolted: the Sikh Regiment based in Ramgarh, near
Ranchi, shot its commander dead on news of the
destruction of the Akal Takht.
I recall visiting the temple in September 1984 and was
horrified by what was left of the Akal Takht, then under
reconstruction by an opium-eating Nihang, Baba Santa
Singh, protégé of Union minister Buta Singh, a
Mazhabi (Dalit) unacceptable to the dominant Jat Sikhs
of the state. A few years later, I was also present when
Bhindranwale’s successor as Damdami Taksal, one
Baba Thakar Singh, ceremonially commenced the
demolition of the Akal Takht, because it had been
rebuilt by Tankhaiya Sikhs like Santa and Buta and
hence impure. That in the process, sword-wielding
militants stripped the building’s dome of 26 kg gold
sanctioned by Indira Gandhi for its renewal, and
possibly sold it to buy arms, is another matter. In death,
Bhindranwale was, thus, a more potent figure than in
life. The call for Khalistan, muted in his lifetime, acquired
a shrill overtone as the years passed. Till the arrival
of hard line counter-terrorist KPS Gill as DGP and
the brilliantly choreographed Operation Black Thunderin 1988, Punjab teetered on the brink of secession,
despite the Rajiv-Longowal Accord of 1986, a peace
deal that cost the peaceable Sant his life.
Punjab today is the antithesis of all that Bhindranwale
sought to propagate. When Gill, de facto ruler of the
state through the late 1980s, successfully organised a
Shilpa Shetty Night and danced with her on stage in
Amritsar in 1991, it spelled the lifting of the pall of
terror, Two years later, Sukhdev Singh Babbar, head
of the puritanical Babbar Khalsa, a Bhindranwaleworshipping
outfit, was shot dead in Ambala. His
house in Patiala, which I was the first journalist to
visit, revealed his opulent lifestyle as well as
indulgence with two wives who shared the home complete
with latest electronic gadgets including a satellite
dish, the first I saw in India. Support for separatist
terror evaporated in the aftermath of the discovery.
Gill proclaimed he had worked himself out of a job.
He had.
I believe the movement spawned by Bhindranwale
began its downhill journey when motley obscurantists
issued a firman prohibiting consumption of alcohol
and meat. Can you quite imagine a jolly good sardarji
who abjures his nightly whisky and generous portions
of tandoori kukkad? I recall my repeated visits to
Amritsar during those blood-soaked years, when in
company of journalist Rahul Bedi on his Bullet, we
sneaked into by-lanes and tapped the closed shutters of
booze shops twice to convey we wanted a full bottle,
the premium be damned!
I am told Bhindranwale, probably India’s first media--
savvy terrorist, would allow journalists various
liberties whenever they carne to interview him in Akal
Takht. His less intelligent, rustic followers were not
only more intolerant but also daydreamed about
founding a Sikh Empire stretching to Delhi which in
their fanciful notions they renamed Dashmesh Nagar
in maps of the imaginary Khalistan that were
published with alarming regularity in the final years of
the doomed movement.
Bhindranwale brought out the worst in us. He was
gone by the mid-1980s, but his legacy lived long
enough to damage the fabric of India’s evolving
nationhood. Terrorist killings don’t startle us anymore.
We have become sufficiently blasé to say that unless
it’s in double-digits, such mass murders don’t meritPage 1 treatment in newspapers. Bhindranwale shook
India out of its comfortable somnolence that had been
merely jolted a few years earlier by the Emergency. No
doubt we are more mature as a nation than before. But
we are perhaps more insensitive too. Maybe this had to
happen someday. But what I remember of it, life was so
much more languid before a humungous amount of
blood was spilt around a purported Sant’s diabolic
persona. May it never happen again.I am also enclosing the full response which I do not
expect to be carried but I do hope it will be read by
those responsible for bringing out India Today just to
have an idea that the other point of view on the subject
exists and may possibly be more balanced than the
view aired by Mr. Mitra.
Thanking you.
Yours faithfully,
Gurtej Singh.
BHARAT IN BHASMASUR MODE
Gurtej Singh, Chandigarh
To the Editor,
India Today,
16 January, 2012
Dear Sir,
I have been reading your very readable magazine since
it started publication. Though it does a good job by and
large, it consistently fails to treat the Sikh issues fairly.
A recent example of the unfair treatment is your
anniversary number dated December 26, 2011. Your
article by Chandan Mitra is in extremely bad taste,
full of anachronisms, factual mistakes and biased
formulations. His main thrust that Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Bhinderanwale was a foreign agent is contrary to
all evidence available on the subject. I assure you that
everyone doesn’t ascribe to Chandan Mitra’s jaundiced
view. The facts conclusively prove him wrong.
I have been a keen observer of Punjab politics and the
Punjab situation for decades. I have written several
scores of articles and more than half a dozen books on
these subjects both in Punjabi and in English. I deem
myself well equipped to hold a viable opinion. I had the
opportunity to observe the Sant closely. I hold the point
of view that has been vastly appreciated by the people
of the Punjab and the Sikhs scattered all over the world.
I have written several articles on the Sant since 1982
and have authored a book on him.
I am enclosing a short article for publication. (The
complete article is also enclosed). It constitutes a
response that is well appreciated in knowledgeable
circles. I hope it will be possible for you to carry it in
your rightly esteemed magazine at the earliest
convenient opportunity.Before the events relating to the recent violent
suppression of the Akali political agitation are
recalled, a few of the established parameters within
which a meaningful discussion can take place, may be
mentioned. It is now settled beyond a doubt, that the
agitation suppressed by Indira Gandhi backed by
the permanent cultural majority’s (pcm)
orthodoxy, was political in nature and had
demands that were perfectly legitimate and
constitutional. Several times an agreed upon solution
was found to the issues raised. Every time, the
agitating Akali Dal accepted the compromise and
every time Indira Gandhi, the other party, rescinded it.
She indicated thereby that she was not in favour of a
peaceful settlement. Itching for shedding Sikh blood,
she aimed at escalating it into a Sikh agitation. The
only rationale given for the army attack on the Guru’s
Darbar at Amritsar was that India wanted to put an end
to militant activity supposedly originating in the
shrine. This was factually incorrect as forty other
shrines were also attacked. The end was not achieved
as the escalation of violent activity was a thousand
times more in the decade that followed it than it had
been for a decade ending with June 1984. It is also
certain now that the much maligned Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Khalsa Bhinderanwale never made a bid for
Khalistan but was supporting the political agitation
of the Akali Dal based on the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution. It is also obvious that except for a few in
1984, no political murders ever took place within the
Darbar complex. It is not explained to this day, why
the security forces spread thick all over the state were
not able to apprehend murderers, who committed
murders all over the state and in Delhi. No explanation
is given why the security forces never apprehended
murderers who according to it rode forth from the
Darbar complex and returned to it after committing the
crime although the Darbar was under a constant siegeby the para-military forces for the entire period of the
Akali agitation?
Most of the writings on the events of the bloody
decades have been done by journalists feigning
ignorance of the political processes. They chose to have
no perspective of history or of the spiritual aspirations
of a people as independent as they were entitled to be
under the prevalent basic law. The journalists
substituted the lack of skills and perspective with an
ample measure of newly acquired urban snobbery. They
appeared to be supporting the orthodox hegemonic
approach of the overwhelming pcm wedded to solving
every political problem violently according to its
tradition. The resultant academic discourse is vitiated
by ample contempt for the supposedly ‘less intelligent -
-- rural underclass,’ vitriolic language with destructive
intent is thrown in for special effect. Many writings that
have appeared are from the perspective of the
megalomaniac fascist Punjabi Hindu politicians who
believe that since the Hindus form an overwhelming
majority of the country’s population, they own every
inch of India as they own their karyana shops. Their
contempt for the rural folk is endless and their hatred
for the Sikhs and the Sikh faith knows no bounds.
Voluntarily worn blinkers ignore the reality that Indian
civilisation has produced a society that is excessively
violent right from antiquity. Myriad of the hymns in the
Rigveda advertised as ‘mankind’s oldest book’ sum up
prayers for destruction of the perceived enemy (read,
political rivals). Mahabharta enjoys scriptural status and
is all about violence. All the gods and goddesses of the
Hindu pantheon are shown as armed to the teeth in the
images that are worshipped in every Hindu household.
Nineteen hundred and forty seven was perhaps the
bloodiest year in the history of the pcm. The trend has
not abated since. Every crisis that has confronted the
pcm has been resolved violently. Violence and
intolerance have always dictated relationships with
other cultures, societies and nations as can well be
judged by the fate of Dalits in Brahmanic India.
While orthodoxy in the faith of the pcm is characterised
by the ubiquitous traits of violence, intolerance of
dissent and attempts at acquiring political hegemony
over neighbouring cultural and political entities, in the
Sikh faith it has an entirely different connotation. It
implies assuming responsibility for promoting universal
brotherhood and establishing all inclusive institutions(for instance langar). In a word, Sikh orthodoxy stands
for acting God in history.
On her return to political pre-eminence in 1980 after
the notorious suspension of human rights during the
Emergency, Indira Gandhi unveiled her ambition and
started exhibiting a pronounced propensity to emerge
as leader of the chauvinistic section of the pcm. In her
new incarnation of goddess Durga, she did not forget
the bottomless bowl in which the deity drinks her
favourite drink - human blood. She was in her best
form during the attack on the Guru’s Darbar which she
ordered to commence on the martyrdom day of Guru
Arjan. To see that she entrapped the largest number
of innocent Sikh pilgrims to quench her newly
acquired thirst, the curfew was relaxed for a few
hours before the attack so as to kill as many
pilgrims as could possibly be killed. A victim of this
mindset, she issued the diabolically inhuman orders, “I
don’t give a damn if the Golden Temple and the
whole of Amritsar is destroyed, I want
Bhinderanwale dead.” By obeying these orders, her
political supporters throughout the country and the
army generals stood recruited as members of the
eighteenth century criminal sect that thrived on thugee.
Its mode of worship was the cold blooded murder of
unsuspecting pilgrims and travellers.
In My Truth, Indira Gandhi indicates that she
subscribed to the political theory evolved by the pcm
after 1947. It affirmed that the pcm has the exclusive
right to rule the country. The census figures of three
decades that preceded 1984 showed that the Sikh
population was increasing at an impressive rate.
Hindus of the Punjab, about whom she pretended to be
deeply concerned presented the state of species going
politically extinct. It appeared that the Khalsa, the true
model for Indian resurgence was slowly, but surely
asserting itself. She concluded that it was time to take
decisive action to check the growth of the Sikh faith
and the spread of the Khalsa consciousness. She
dreamt of swallowing up the Sikh faith just as the
Jain and Buddhist faiths had been eradicated from
India. She knew very well that she would be
pandering to a popular communal sentiment and some
like A. B. Vajpayee were anxiously waiting in the
wings to thrust the title of ‘Durga Incarnation’ on her.
Being similarly inspired, Nehru, Patel and Munshi, the
representatives of the pcm in the ConstituentAssembly, had undertaken to play the role of singleminded
fascists. They attributed the idea of
Khalistan to the Sikhs. The strategy was to prevent
them asking for fulfilling the promises, for an
autonomous Punjabi speaking territorial unit
solemnly made to lure them into the Indian Union in
1947. On popular communal demand Indira Gandhi
assumed the mantle of converting the Sikh association
with India into a death trap for the entire Sikh nation.
Her earliest instinct was to encourage foreign scholars
like W. H. McLeod to show her how the edifice so
coherently put together by the Guru could be
dismantled. Hew McLeod did his worst and was
successful in producing a crop of indigenous scholars
who would follow a white man like rats following the
pied piper. To accommodate his flock, phoney well
wishers of the community would soon establish chairs
in foreign universities. The other function was naturally
to popularise his negative formulations, although their
hollowness was exposed on unassailable original
evidence available in plenty.
In pursuit of dismantling the Khalsa edifice, her father
before her had propped up pseudo-religious leaders
to establish schismatic sects within the Sikh faith. The
game had been earlier tried without success by
Aurangzeb and Bahadurshah. Jawaharlal Nehru had
relied upon the Radhaswamis, Namdharis and
Nanaksarias to perform the executioners’ job. Indira
Gandhi depended upon the Nirankaris while continuing
to support the Radhaswamis and Nanaksarias for the
same purpose. Her evil mind dreamed of bringing back
the days when the statues of hydra-headed and
elephant-headed gods had polluted the pure spirituality
of the Guru’s Darbar dedicated to the Formless One.
M. K. Gandhi, the true chief architect of India’s
vivisection in 1947, also had charted out a course for
these sects and cults. He made it his business to
discredit the Sikhs. Invisible fascist hands under his
patronage started the killing of Muslims in Delhi.
Ostensibly this was their attempt to pay back in the
same coin to Mahmud Ghazni, Muhammad Ghauri,
Aurangzeb, Nadir and Abdali albeit a few centuries
after their demise. Gandhi gladly embraced the role of
ascribing the killings to the Sikhs. His ‘prayer
meetings’ in Delhi were attracting much attention in
those heady days and he made full use of the media
attention to cast the Sikhs in the role of devils, althoughthey were the victims of the partition brought about by
him and were then destitute and homeless. Such
situations are usually exploited by cowardly moral
wrecks; Gandhi however, adjusted himself to that role
like a fish taking to water.
In 1911 Tagore in his article had summed up all that
the pcm found undesirable about the Sikhs. At about
the same time David Petrie, the Assistant Director of
the Central Intelligence had noticed the deep rooted
antipathy of the pcm to the administration of pahul by
the Guru and to the rahit prescribed by him. Gandhi
too identified the same problems as the pcm was
having with the Sikhs. M. K. Gandhi gave precision to
his “gurudev’s” formulations, It was the separate
identity that hurt the pcm the most. Based upon this the
strategy of the schismatic sects propped up by the
Congress governments at the centre, had been chalked
out. Central to them was to throw a challenge to the
Tenth Nanak’s decree abolishing a human Guru
and of eternally bestowing the gurgaddi on the
Guru Granth. Gandhi subscribed to the identical
view. He frowned upon the separate identity, the
Sikh ceremonial sword, the Punjabi language and
the Gurmukhi script. All these became the points of
difference that the sponsored sects had with the
Khalsa.
Indira Gandhi had supported the Nirankaris
depending upon them to wean away the Sikhs from
their faith. The Punjab administration was instructed to
play them up. Sant Kartar Singh, head of the
seminary at Mehta Chowk realised this early and
correctly understood the purpose of the rulers. He
perceived Akalis as playing politics with even this
serious religious issue. So the Sant braced himself up
to oppose both the Nirankaris and their mentors. He
organised some forty mammoth marches to oppose the
Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi and her
interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs. His
successor Sant Jarnail Singh continued to stoutly
oppose the nefarious activities. He broadened his
concerns further. In 1978, Sant Bhinderanwale
supported Bhai Amrik Singh and some Dal Khalsa
candidates for elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee (SGPC). It was an indication
that he wanted a change in the religious leadership of
the Sikhs. He was able to garner a respectable measure
of support. Apart from the Akalis, this sent alarm bells
ringing in the central and state governmentsEncouragement that the Nirankaris received from
the various governments in the Punjab and at the
centre convinced them that the time for decisive war
had come. They decided to make a beginning at
Amritsar where they announced a parallel structure to
replace the khalsapanth. Some Sikh volunteers decided
to resist the onslaught. The Nirankaris unleashed
extreme violence on the peacefully protesting
unarmed Sikhs on April 13, 1978, at Amritsar and
killed 17 of them excluding two bystanders. This
firearm wielding Nirankaris were given police
support. No one was arrested on the spot although
the Nirankaris remained there for several hours
after the massacre. The case was transferred to a court
outside the Punjab by the central government. Hard
evidence was not presented. False evidence of
innocence was cooked up. In the circumstances, the
court acquitted the sixty four accused. No appeal
against the acquittal was filed. It soon became obvious
to the Sikhs that there was no justice for them under the
pcm’s dispensation. Under the perceived ‘Hindu
imperialism’ the only way in which justice could be
obtained was by extra-judicial execution. This was
what the Sikhs did. When the Akali government in the
Punjab was dismissed by Indira Gandhi, the Akalis too
were obliged to exhibit their sympathy with the Sikhs
and the Punjab. They launched a peaceful agitation for
redressing of Punjab’s religious and economic
grievances.
The decision to brutally crush the dharamyudhmorcha
launched by the Akalis best suited Indira Gandhi’s
design. She targeted amritdhari young Sikhs, the type
of whom the Sant was projecting in the leadership role.
The first half a dozen Sikhs killed in contrived police
encounters were those who like Kulwant Singh Nagoke
were reputed to be good Sikhs. So had been the 17
killed by her allies, the Nirankaris on the Baisakhi day
of 1978. Wanton violence was quite in keeping with her
purpose. On one occasion more than 20 agitating
Akalis were mowed down with a machine gun from
a helicopter when they were dispersing after
stopping traffic on a road from 10 AM to 4:30 PM.
Similarly the armed forces fired upon the unarmed
persons retiring to their villages after witnessing the
arrest of Sant Bhinderanwale on September 20, 1981
and without provocation killed thirteen of them. Later
(February 14, 1984) the Hindu Sauraksha Samiti,
supported by her minion called for a shut down to
match the completely peaceful shut down of the AISSF(of February 8), and killed 25 Sikhs in Karnal alone,
where 6 gurdwaras were also burnt down. This is just
a small portion of the blood that filled newly
incarnated Durga’s bowl. The police and the Hindu
crowds killing the Sikhs knew that immunity from the
operation of the country’s laws existed for them under
her dispensation. The official journal of the Indian
army “Baatcheet” of June 1984 instructed those
who were to conduct the operations in the Punjab
to regard the amritdhari young men as those
committed to terrorism.
The unlimited fund of intense hatred that is ever
available with the permanent cultural majority helped
Indira Gandhi in dealing with Bhinderanwale and all
those who like him defied the illegal diktats of the
authorities and talked of religious freedom, rule of
law, true federalism, liberty, justice, inalienable rights,
people’s sovereignty and democracy. They were to be
projected as patrons of terrorism and separatism. It
was done very efficiently by the loyal Press
notwithstanding the well known fact that the Sant
always kept a copy of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution
of the Akali Dal under his pillow to place political
limits on his enthusiastic supporters. He never had a
political party and no independent political
programme. Nevertheless the Darbar was attacked to
kill him and in the bargain to destroy Sikh institutions.
The only rationale sold to the gullible Indian audience
was that all violent activity would end with his
elimination and the destruction of the Akal Takhat. It
soon became apparent to the neutral observer that pcm
had been wrongly briefed. Despite her authoritative
propagation of the theory, the violence had escalated a
thousand fold after the June 1984 army attack.
Role of Sant Jarnail Singh during the Akali
dharamyudh morcha was limited at best to aiding the
Akalis in concluding an honourable peace with the
government. At the worst, he was keen for a complete
change in the pliable political leadership of the Sikhs.
Giani Zail Singh was the self-proclaimed bought
slave of Indira Gandhi, and prided himself on being a
‘sweeper at her door’ even after becoming the
president of India. He was in favour of preserving the
Akali leadership upon which he eventually relied to
betray Sikh interests. Amongst them the Congress and
the centre could easily find low minded collaborators
in the venture launched by his mistress to destroy other
nations and minorities. He was shrewd enough toknow that they had tasted political power and were
aware of the opportunities for self aggrandisement that
any betrayal would afford. The loot of gurdwaras had
also catered to the same sentiment. Giani tried to gain
credibility with the Sikh masses by pretending to be a
good Sikh. This would allow him to manipulate the
Akalis. Giani looked upon this task as a service to the
Congress party and was duly rewarded for his efforts by
being made the Home Minister of India after Indira
Gandhi’s return to political power in 1980. As the chief
minister of the Punjab his important venture had been
to ‘lay’ a metalled road connecting all the places that
Guru Gobind Singh had travelled to in his last journey
through the Punjab. Most of the metalled road already
existed. His contribution was to name it Guru Gobind
Singh Marg. He succeeded in his undertaking. The Sikh
masses swung in his favour and forced the Akalis to
support his candidacy. He gained the sympathetic ear of
the Akalis and was also able to get their votes in the
presidential elections on July 13, 1982.
The Hindu Press made much of the assassination of
Lala Jagat Narayan to malign the real Sikh leadership.
They attributed it to Sant Baba Bhinderanwale. We
were then living in times in which, according to
Bhinderanwale himself, slaughter of every chicken and
of every goat was likewise nailed to his door. It had
become most convenient and most popular to blame the
Sant. An attempt was made to make him a conspirator
in the murder of Jagat Narayan. Significantly, the
alleged conspirator was arrested even before actual
culprits were apprehended. Jagat Narayan had a three
decade old history of virulent Sikh baiting and had
created enemies in every nook and corner of the
Punjab. The evidence of his denigrating Sikh values
and running down Sikh personalities is available in his
own writings in the Punjab Kesri group of newspapers
owned and edited by him. He also had been the main
defence witness in the Baisakhi Murder Case against
the Nirankaris. His son Romesh Chandra was
following him in his footsteps. In the central
government sponsored situation of lawlessness, in
which militants, vigilante groups, underground
policemen and anti-social elements were operating
freely, the resultant violence in the state was being
attributed only to the Sikhs. In the then prevailing
circumstances, such assassinations surprised no one. It
was an expression of extreme irresponsibility to
attribute them to the Sant and was interpreted as an
attempt at browbeating those sincerely engaged inserving the people. Such tactics have never been rare
in India since 1947.
This fishing in the cesspool was aimed at fattening the
black goat as a prelude to sacrificing it to the Kali
Kalkattewali. The Indian establishment and the Press
consciously rendered the honourable and pure minded
Sant liable to be brutally murdered in the most
cowardly act. A strategy was calculated to endear the
prime minister to the communal masses who perceived
her as making efficient efforts at eliminating Sikh
influence from politics. It was the only route through
which the 12% Hindus of the state could effectively
rule the Punjab. They all cooperated in placing the
Sant’s life in the hands of a terribly insecure woman
striving to establish a dynasty in a democracy. Her
minions and army generals like Vaidya and Brar
readily prostituted themselves for the most unholy
act ever undertaken by any army since the Afghan
army under Ahmed Shah Abdali (1762). Her attempt
at becoming the spirit of Hindu revivalism however
failed. She lost it out to the more chauvinistic and
openly more fascist Sangh Parivar for whom it was
easy to inherit her political mantle even while the
dynasty remained in power.
Terrorising the Sikhs was necessary for achieving the
objective. Bhajan Lal, who in an unheard of
expression of extreme unscrupulousness had defected
to the Indira Congress along with the entire legislative
party the people had voted to power against the
Congress, came in handy for the purpose. It will be
remembered that subsequently, the same Bhajan Lal
had been hoisted to power in Haryana by the Governor
(nominee of the central government) although his rival
Devi Lal had been elected by a vast majority. He did
much to convince the Sikhs that they were second
class citizens in India, could be bullied at will and
prevented from travelling on a national highway to the
capital of the country. He was just trying to please a
benefactor who, in the interest of establishing a
dynasty was required to raise and then erase the fear of
a miniscule 2% minority in the minds of the pcm
constituting 80% of India’s population.
The great deception was perpetrated with the help of
the obliging Media that could never be raped because
it was ever willing. Indira Gandhi instilled the fear of
an individual into the mind of India’s pcm until it was
fully numbed and completely petrified beyondsensitivity of any kind. Bhinderanwale was dubbed a
terrorist although he was charged with no terrorist
crime. He was demonised in accordance with the
cultural traditions of the pcm that remind one of
Shambhook, Eklavya, Bali and Ravana the king of Sri
Lanka. Armed with hatred of a whole community and
exercising absolute control over a slavish army, she
gave illegal and inhuman orders to kill one person
against whom there was no proof of guilt and who
was at all times entitled to a legal trial. In the bargain
she was prepared to destroy the five centuries old centre
of a cultural tradition dedicated to nurturing a common
participative universal culture for the new human of the
new dawn. The Sant had the right to self-defence under
all civilised law. Only low gladiators and executioners
would have taken up the hangman’s job she assigned to
her generals. They mortgaged their conscience to a
tyrant and accepted the supari to kill an unarmed
person lodged in a fixed location. They pitted the might
of a modern state against a mere forty-five almost
unarmed, untrained, and of course absolutely innocent
persons.
Initial undertaking turned them into the goons of the
Chhota Rajan or Pretender Rani gang. When the killers
accepted to carry out the field orders to eliminate him at
any cost, they turned themselves into a bunch of thugs
who adored the Black goddess. The forces they headed,
that instant were transformed into her worshippers.
They tried everything in their {censored}nal. It included armed
personnel carrier, cluster bombs, poisonous gases,
machine guns, helicopter cannons and all else, yet they
were held up for more than 72 hours. In those hours
they lost more soldiers than they had lost in an
international war. The Battle of Chamkaur fortress
which was the inspiration of the cornered Sikhs came
alive. David acquitted himself gloriously once again
against Goliath. The Sant and his companions fought
like every free man should fight to preserve his liberty.
In a daring bid to guard the “ashes of their fathers ---
the temples of their gods’, despite being hopelessly
outnumbered, they mocked at defeat and despair and
gladly embraced death.
Like the hordes of Abdali before them, Indira Gandhi’s
cohorts looted all that they could. The living quarters of
lay priests and journalist adjoining the complex were
ransacked and plundered. Pilgrims were raped.
“Prisoners of war,” ranging from four to sixteen years
of age and including women and Bangladesh citizensstaying overnight in the rest houses attached to the
shrine, were taken. Peaceful volunteers who had come
to offer arrest in the ongoing agitation were murdered.
Bodies of several children with hands tied at the back
and with a single bullet-hole in the head were brought
in for post-mortem. Forces burnt down the Sikh
Reference Library, destroyed the Akal Takhat,
killed hymn singers (for instance, the blind Bhai
Amrik Singh) inside the Darbar, violated and trampled
under military boots every inch of the sacred soil
hallowed by the blood of martyrs. These martyrs were
those who had beaten back the invader Abdali and had
rescued thousands of Hindu women and men saving
them the usual fate atop the Hindukush where men
were slaughtered and the bazaars of Gazni where
women slaves sold real cheap. The martyrs also
included those who had re-conquered the whole of
modern day Pakistan, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and
Kashmir from the Afghan empire and had made it a
part of India.
FOREIGN HAND CANARD
In addition, Indira Gandhi wanted to project the Sant
as an anti-national person. A vital part of her strategy
was to insinuate that he was an agent of foreign
powers. A thesis of sorts was meticulously built up.
Deliberately left undefined foreign powers, allegedly
jealous of the progress that India had made, were
supposedly prying around for an opportunity to
destroy India. Just to be on the safe side, the initiative
was left with Russians who set the ball rolling.
Russia’s official news agency, TASS reported that the
KGB had deciphered the hand of Pakistan’s ISI and
the American CIA behind the disturbances in the
Punjab. On the date on which this was alleged
(December 30, 1981) nothing much really sinister was
happening in the Punjab. The Akali Dal had just about
defined the problems that the Punjab and the Sikhs
were facing at the hands of the central government.
Strategy to redress the grievances was being prepared.
Four months later on April 22, 1982, the home
minister of India, alleged in the Rajya Sabha that the
communal clashes in Amritsar were inspired by
foreign powers with a view to causing disintegration
of the country. This nebulous concept served her
purpose for long.
Attempts at popularising the proposition continued to
be made. India’s external affairs minister (P. V.Narasimha Rao) vended the imported Russian theory in
a big way while speaking in the meeting of the
consultative committee on June 27, 1984. He did not
identify any particular foreign power either.
Then the astute Indira Gandhi took it up herself. She
had done her worst at Amritsar and now wanted to milk
the maximum amount of sympathy for the dynasty. The
paranoid woman projected herself as living
dangerously. While speaking in the Rajya Sabha on
July 24, 1984, she said, “I am – butt of attack of – some
most powerful forces in the world.” Darbara Singh,
who was always more loyal than the king, identified the
foreign powers for the first time in a responsible forum.
He talked of CIA and Zia-ul-Haq as operating through
Dr. Jagjit Singh Chauhan to destabilise India. This was
too specific. It could have at least caused a diplomatic
storm particularly as the allegation was baseless. So
Indira Gandhi intervened to contradict him. She said
there was no specific information and that what she
knew she would not share with the public “in national
interest.” This is also the position reflected in the White
Paper on Punjab Agitation adopted by the government
of India on July10, 1984.
The task of laying specific blame appears to have been
assigned to Lev Rovnin, the foreign minister of the
Russian Federation who picked up the strings while
speaking at a function in the Indian Embassy at
Moscow. According to the Press Trust of India’s report
of August 12, 1984, he claimed that it was “irrefutably
proved” that the CIA and the “aggressive imperialist
circles of Washington” were behind the Sikh militancy.
Benazir Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq were the two persons
whose governments are supposed to have helped the
militants in the Punjab. Fortunately we have the
authoritative versions of both of them. Bhandara was a
lone Parsi Member of Pakistan’s Parliament. He was
advisor to Zia on minority affairs from 1982 to 1985.
He was privy to Zia plan on the ‘Sikh separatists.’
Talking to The Tribune on May 8, 2003, after crossing
over to India at Wagha he said “General Zia was
opposed to the Sikh movement because the map of
Khalistan included territories of Pakistan as well. He
had stated that it was true that the general would give
all moral and other support to Sikh hardliners but it was
his standing order to all concerned to keep them under
strict surveillance. Hence they were kept under virtual
house arrest for a long time. The general had alsoissued directions that they should not be allowed to
wage their movement from the soil of Pakistan. This
revelation came as shock to radical Sikhs. Bhandara
had admitted that he on and off met the hijackers of
the Indian Airlines plane in Kot Lakhpat and other
jails as a part of his official assignment.” (The Tribune,
July 20, 2008, 4)
Pakistan under the other dispensation also vociferously
denied that it had helped the Sikhs. On the contrary it
affirmed that it had helped India. In an interview to the
British Broadcasting Corporation, Benazir Bhutto said
that she had assisted the Indian government. ‘India
was facing a very difficult situation in Punjab, and had
Pakistan not extended cooperation, New Delhi’s
position would have been different.’ The (former)
prime minister said, “when Rajiv Gandhi was prime
minister, India was facing a big problem --- it was on
the verge of separation. Had Pakistan not helped them
(India), God knows where they would have been now.
But we helped them because it is our principle not to
interfere in others’ affairs.” (The Tribune, February 15,
1994, p.1)
She had again said the same in another interview with
the BBC before coming to Pakistan to contest the last
elections of her life. Her statement was disputed by a
retired Indian civil servant. She was clarifying her
position a day before her assassination and according
to some thinkers (for instance a free intellectual
brigadier Usman Khalid), it became the cause of her
assassination. She elaborated on the kind of help she
had rendered. She said that in a one-to-one meeting
with Rajiv Gandhi, “where there was not even a fly
on the wall,” she had supplied the whereabouts of
all the Sikh militants to India. It will be
remembered that all the leaders of the major
militant outfits were eliminated suddenly within
few days. By this confession she had compromised
her country’s honour and security. It is a small
wonder that she was killed within 24 hours of this
public disclosure.
The next scion of the dynasty and sole owner of the
“inherited democracy” (Washington Times of June 9,
1987, as quoted by the UNI report circulated to the
Indian Press, the next day) continued to rave against
the Sant and the Sikhs. But he was a crude and boorish
man known more for his clownish approach to politics.
The BBC in its Urdu service of June 9, 1987, saw himas “dada” and a “school bully” in the region. Sri
Lanka’s president Jayewardene at one time implored
him to abjure violence and to give up “bullying” with a
view to stoking war, while affirming that his country
would never fight its “great neighbour.” (The Indian
Express, June 10, 1987, 1.) The same paper (in a front
page article by the editor) called him a “liar” and hinted
that it was his permanent “trait” while referring to his
oft repeated “nonsense about destabilisation.” It further
observed that under Rajiv even a solemn promise of
the Parliament meant nothing. Rajiv humiliated the
chief minister of Assam (The Indian Express, June 8,
and June 9, 1987). The paper editorially observed that
Rajiv was inclined to be perfidious “opposition and
others have learnt, in one-to-one meeting they open
themselves to the risk of being misrepresented --.” N.T.
Rama Rao the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, knew
him to be ‘uncultured and ignorant’ to meet whom was
to “waste time and money.” (The Tribune, June 17,
1987, 9). He was at his lowest ebb when he called the
elderly lawyer Jethmalani, a “dog.” Doggedly
determined Jethmalani returned the compliment by
insinuating that the prime minister was a ‘thief’ and a
‘liar.’
In a highly sarcastic article in The Indian Express of
June 13, 1987, one of our most respected columnists, S.
Mulgaokar poured downright contempt on Rajiv
Gandhi calling him a “liar,” a “coward,” a “promise
breaker” and an “uncivilised person.” Sanjeeva Reddy,
the former President of India, according to Surya
Prakash, found him “in a state of confused mind.”
(See, “Politics of abuse,” The Indian Express, June 18,
1987, 6) Rajiv Gandhi ‘condemned those as antinational
traitors’ who had misgivings about his
assurances.’ Referring to it the author says, “Mr.
Gandhi’s responses sounded harsh and uncharitable
then. They appear hollow now.”
The Sikhs and the Sant could expect no better from the
person for whom the entire opposition was subversive,
anti-national and inspired by foreign enemies because it
did not find the Anandpur Sahib Resolution a
subversive document. V. P. Singh who came as a prime
minister after him, was ‘Raja Jaichand’ (who betrayed
India in the tenth century and whose name is byword
for treachery) to him. He invented the possibilities of
Zail Singh dismissing him and of Pakistan attacking
India in January 1987. Farooq Abdullah’s government
was dismissed on charges of communalism and supportto anti-national forces, soon Rajiv’s Congress was
ruling in coalition with Farooq. In the last analysis,
one purpose of inventing the ‘foreign hand’ theory was
to wean away the leftist parties from the Akali
agitation. This is why the Russian services were used.
For these reasons it may not be fruitful to analyse
Rajiv’s pronouncements about the Sant and the Sikhs
or the canard of the ‘foreign hand’ theory. On
resuming the discussion, the well researched
observation of the Surya magazine becomes relevant.
It says that India imported the arms with the help of
the ISI of Pakistan and it sent them into the Darbar
complex to implicate the Sikhs. The same is also true
of the arms that were dropped over Purulia at the time
when P. V. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister.
The truth that emerges from the scrutiny is that Indira
Gandhi, her son, her cohorts and minions were not
only supporting a blatant lie but were also themselves
conspiring with foreign powers to malign and harm
their own countrymen. They gave no explanation for
their shameful behaviour but one was invented for
them by another foreigner attached to the British
Broadcasting Corporation. Mark Tully in his Amritsar,
(Rupa and Co. 1985, p. 208), is of the opinion that
Pakistan at that time was helping the United States in
combating Soviet presence in Afghanistan. The fear of
jeopardising relations with the United States prevented
India from naming Pakistan. This is clearly an
inadequate ground as Indira Gandhi never exhibited a
pro-American sentiment and had no love lost for
Ronald Regan. India under her remained a satellite of
the Soviet Union. This tribe of liars and calumniators
has not ended with the immediate minions of Indira
Gandhi but has had an extension in lease of life
through those (likes of Chandan Mitra) who thrive on
yellow journalism. They have no hesitation in
maligning their most honourable contemporary who
has been voted the greatest person of the 20th century
with all the Sikhs, the world over participating.
BHINDERANWALE’S CONTRIBUTION
Bhinderanwale exposed the worst in the culture of
India’s pcm. Its innate disposition which is brutal,
fascist and bloody was shown to have been built
around deep-rooted intolerance. Being violence prone
at the slightest provocation the pcm had been ever
willing to destroy other nation’s holiest shrines on any
or no pretext. It supports a culture that has abidinghatred of ‘the other’ as its driving force and hallmark.
This much had been known for centuries. The
Bhinderanwale episode served to highlight it. Unbridled
violence against a political opponent or a dissenter has
been the normal course when the opponent is weak. The
same army however, recently demonstrated reluctance
to tackle the Maoists equipped by China. The political
leadership is keen not to be left behind in pleasing the
rebels. Shibu Sorain the chief minister of Jharkhand
publicly embraced the Naxalites as “brothers and
sisters.” See-saw game between the two sentiments is
currently going on. Fear triumphs over hatred for a
while then hatred takes over again. Raw fear is not
enough to contain age old hatred and the bloodstained,
brutally maimed bodies of killed Naxalites continue to
defile the pages of publications. It appears that, the
juggernaut will stop rolling only when the ‘might is
right’ rule (lashtikaniaye of Chanakya) is fully
established or when “brothers and sisters” take over the
reins.
The crafty Indira Gandhi thought she could hide her
motives by shedding a few crocodile tears, pretended to
rebuild the Takhat on the heavily veiled pretext of
making amends. Perhaps she thought her ‘victory’ was
not complete until she had forced the Takhat built by
her down the throats of the Sikhs. Had she cared for
Sikh traditions, she would have known that the building
erected by the National Building Corporation, in the
garb of Nihangs owing allegiance to her home minister
Buta Singh, was most unlikely to survive for long. It
had come to symbolise her arrogance. It was
legitimately pulled down by the Sikhs at the first
opportunity. The 26 kilograms of polluted gold
reportedly put on the purest of domes, by ruthless,
remorseless invader of the shrine, was contemptuously
thrown where it belonged – into the dust (bin of
history). A martyr’s spirit had triumphed over the diktat
of a tyrant.
An expression of the same defiant spirit was the killing
of the collaborating, self-styled Sant. Longowal was
shot dead for betraying the voluntary forces that were
still locked in a grim struggle. Abandoning all shame
and propriety, giving in to cowardice and in extraordinary
exhibition of poverty of understanding, he had
blackened his face in history by signing the document
of abject surrender otherwise known as the Longowal-
Rajiv Accord of 1986.Again and again India miserably failed to correctly
assess the situation. It had to learn again that the
endurance, the emotional strength and the innate
fighting capability of its opponents surpassed all
human limits. The battle that the Sant gave will be
remembered for thousands of years. On re-assessing,
the red-faced journalists then called it the ‘Third Sikh
War.’ Though the assessment is marred by the
disproportionate numbers in the field of battle, the idea
is well mooted. After 1984 they had their stooges draw
clumsy maps of Khalistan and make tall claims. These
are then attributed to the Sant who never subscribed to
the idea and always supported the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution adopted by the Akali Dal. As a nonmember
he supported the political party struggling for
legitimate democratic rights. He never subscribed to
any formal political set up. The deep desire of
enthusiastic journalists promoting jingoism is to
conjure up all the ghosts that disturb their sleep,
attribute them posthumously to the Sant and pretend
that they have all been taken care of with his
assassination. If one reads their minds well then a
disturbing image of the country emerges. A country
that has not seen even a century of independent
existence, has yet gathered the arrogance of an empire
of a millennium, notwithstanding two military defeats.
The one in 1962 was the greatest disaster to have
happened to an army ever since mankind started
walking on two feet. The other was no less. It in
addition it immortalised the Sant who died undefeated
and a proud sovereign man, a worthy Sikh of the Guru.
There is need to pay heed to Bhagat Kabir who says,
“do not be condescending, do not mock a
(temporarily) disadvantaged people. The boat is still
on the high seas. Who knows what may still happen?”
To make their ‘triumph’ appear complete the criminal
state, the deceiving Media and central governments
agencies created false inheritors of Sant Baba Jarnail
Singh Khalsa’s mantle. Some of them have been
dumped into oblivion, others have been killed in an act
of unparalleled perfidy, some others still remain
masquerading abroad and in India as pushers of mere
radical slogans. It is a burlesque that we have
witnessed and are witnessing even today. It is much
like the modern day ramlila complete with an actor
burning down Ravana’s gigantic paper image with
great fanfare and in the presence of enthusiastically
cheering crowds in every city and town of the country.
The same crowd invariably has previously contributedto erecting the image. A nation of corrupt pigmies,
engrossed in looting its own people is not best qualified
to map the powerful currents of history. Beant Singh,
the murderer of thousands of innocent persons
including women and toddlers, was one day projecting
himself as an equal of Ram and Nanak. Within three
weeks of that hilarious proclamation, his body was
literally in a thousand pieces. Walls and the ground
around had to be scrapped to recover hundreds of them.
Like all tyrants, tyrannous nations too have a lifespan.
Retribution pulls them down in an imperceptible
operation (Black Ignominy!) which none can see
coming but which is advancing all the time. The truism
of history is: ‘a tyrant dies and his reign ends. A
martyr dies and his reign begins.’
Power-drunk slaves like Gill organised sessions at
Amritsar (as the depraved Nirankaris had done in 1978)
to signify that all human decencies, all moral values and
spiritual valour that the city stands for and Sant
Bhinderanwale had upheld, had been trampled under
foot. They pretended that they had scored a great
victory over an unarmed population supporting a potent
idea. It was beyond their comprehension that
womanisers, looters of defenceless people’s property,
cruel tormentors of innocent people in custody, hired
corrupt pimps of a rotting culture propped up by the
state power never determine the course of history.
Those who believed that the temporary violent
repression was a permanent visitation saw their
thoughts evaporate in 1999. In that year Sant Jarnail
Singh Bhinderanwale was voted the twentieth century’s
greatest person by the Sikhs all over the world. These
included important Sikh institutions including the
Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee the
honourable citizens like the most celebrated poet – the
author of several immortal works, educationists,
lawyers, generals, saints, scholars, Media personalities
and human rights activists. His images adorn almost
every Sikh household all over the world and his legacy
lives on. When another one of his kind will arise to
move the masses to holier paths of spiritual selfassertion,
it cannot be said definitely but only a fool or
a cringing slave (in or out of uniform) will rule out that
possibility.
The whole world knows of cultures that were defeated
once and did not let out even a loud groan for seven to
nine centuries at a stretch. At least three times before in
history, and once in our lifetime, tyrants havepronounced the Sikh people dead. Despite predictions
of doom by inebriated collaborators, the Sikhs have
always sprung back to life. One who has a lifetime
ahead of him may securely place a wager on that
happening.
The other army operation that followed the one in June
1984, was for the purpose of humiliating and
terrorising the Sikhs in the name of wiping out
remnants of militancy. Its undeclared aim was to show
who the masters were in India. In response to the orgy
of organised violence let lose by the armed forces,
despite the depraved brutality of Gills and Ribeiros,
their underground police, the regular police and their
allies, the Sikh young men met the might of the
modern state without an iota of fear in their eyes or
trace of hesitation on their brow.
The concept of Khalistan that he had never supported
while alive, instantly became a loud slogan to venerate
his memory. India stood in the immediate danger of
dismemberment. If history has a lesson it is this, that
the sceptre of such highly significant moments is
destined to reappear again and again until the goal is
achieved or until the wronged spirit is appeased by
paying a befitting tribute. Super-human struggles to
preserve the sovereignty of the worthiest people under
the sun do not just whither away.
What is significant in the post 1984 period is not that
phoney protagonists of Khalistan were propped up and
then defeated according to the script, but that the Sikh
determination to live honourably came through the
dark clouds of severe repression. In any civilised
country rogue generals and politicians would have
faced trial on charges of genocide. Several such trials
have been recently witnessed. Even today Hosne
Mubarak is answering for ordering the killing of his
own people. Slovodan Milosevic found the easier way
out. More than one hundred of those who held high
offices have been convicted of war crimes. Since that
was not possible in the circumstances of this
unfortunate land, the senior most general was shot
like a rat that he was. So also was the person who
gave the supari, since this was the only way to bring
her to justice.
It is the experience of Muslims before 1947 and that of
the Sikhs after that year that the most poisonous of all
is not a viper in the grass but a journalist wedded toserving the interest of the pcm. When the pendulum
starts swinging in favour of the Sant and all he stood
for, it will receive a great impetus from the activity of
modern day shallow journalists and their vituperative
writings designed to spew venom all around. It was
consistent Sikh hating and Sikh baiting of four decades
that had given rise to the Sant Bhineranwale
phenomena. It persists and will surely cause another
such to rise from the dusty village roads and from
amongst the worthy sons of the Punjab who still hold
honour, truth, dignity and justice as dearer than life
itself. This time the one to come will not be as innocent
as the Sant was. His struggle will be far more effective
and far more successful. Those who created Pakistan
are still around with the same pen and ink. If anything,
their tribe is increasing. This time they have turned their
attention to Khalistan. All augurs well; the future
appears to be bright.
Every Sikh remembers the bloody dawn when they
abandoned their ancestral lands losing their relatives to
communal frenzy and trekked to the land they then
considered their own. The First Patiala recalls the day
they pushed back the Razakars to once again reclaim
Srinagar and the rest of Kashmir for India. Pakistani
generals in their memoirs rue the memorable night
when they had hoped to have ridden to Delhi for
breakfast. But their mounts, the Patton tanks, were
reduced to rabble and consigned to the graveyard of
Asal Uttar in Khemkaran by the vigilant Sikhs
exhibiting extreme bravery. Pictures of general Niazi
surrendering along with ninety thousand soldiers to
general Jagjit Singh Aurora are still printable although
stained by the blood of Shabeg Singh the other general
who made that picture possible. Every Sikh farmer
knows the contempt with which he snatched the
begging bowl from the hands of Bharat and threw it
away for good as a prelude to assuming
responsibility for feeding its teeming millions who
have by now grown to over a billion. One wonders
whether any of these performances will be repeated,
should a similar situation arise again?
Thank you for the post MR Gyani Ji. This is true sikhism, us not becoming terrorist, like bin laden, like Bhindranwale that is the real british raj deploy. Make them look like extremists give them enough rope and they will hang themselves with it. Make them look like telly tubbies what happened with bin laden make them look funny with funny telly tubbie types who will want to join that crazy mob. That is the real issue. How far are we willing to brace that madness before it gets to our heads and demolishes us like Islam. Sikhism is a peaceful religion. Too many rabble rousers in the works as with all organized religions. There needs to be a complete detox. Truthfulness because if true sikhism comes out who will want to be any other religion a lot of heavy players are at work in keeping us down their raise the profile higher than a rabbal rousing lot. With truth we can achieve a lot more:noticemunda:
Do you know that the fate of Bin laden would have been the fate of Bhindranwale and the entire sikh religion if Islam and bin laden an there men had not got in the way. Why do you think the Harminder sahib was attacked! Hindu's have not got complete autonomy on there armed forces, yeah they have a say, how come they have to go to the united nations before they make an attack? It is the only way to stop the truth, it is to corrupt it. Anyway I'm not going to stick up for anything other than the truth if you want to follow an exteme path carry on. As history shows, and has done with time anything that becomes a rock, tyranny, it will only get smashed.
p.s. to the ones that say bin laden was killed after bhindranwale, bhinderanwale's version of Sikhism was the main target, but because of bin laden, bhinderanwale's type of Sikhism got side tracked as it would have been easier to target a smaller religion then a bigger one. but bin laden being a nut job went on too heavy even ecouraging sikhs through pakistan's intelligence to carry on the nut suicidal tradition. So they just smashed Bhinderwale first, and then concerntrated on bin laden and his version of Islam and not the sikhs as they wanted to see how sikhs would react, being a fairly new religion no one knows how they'll react, as they can always get back to that later if needs be. Why did bin laden dress so much like a 5 k's dude when the Islamic dress is nothing like the 5 k's they shave their mustache's wear caps etc.... End of. <Moral of story keep to the truth and the religion will survive all time, maybe the whole world will one day be sikh, if you really care about sikhism otherwise just carry on, become nut jobs and end up like them. Simple, there will be other religions and paths that will replace or even reclaim sikhism like these dera's!
Do you know that the fate of Bin laden would have been the fate of Bhindranwale and the entire sikh religion if Islam and bin laden an there men had not got in the way. Why do you think the Harminder sahib was attacked! Hindu's have not got complete autonomy on there armed forces, yeah they have a say, how come they have to go to the united nations before they make an attack? It is the only way to stop the truth, it is to corrupt it. Anyway I'm not going to stick up for anything other than the truth if you want to follow an exteme path carry on. As history shows, and has done with time anything that becomes a rock, tyranny, it will only get smashed.
p.s. to the ones that say bin laden was killed after bhindranwale, bhinderanwale's version of Sikhism was the main target, but because of bin laden, bhinderanwale's type of Sikhism got side tracked as it would have been easier to target a smaller religion then a bigger one. but bin laden being a nut job went on too heavy even ecouraging sikhs through pakistan's intelligence to carry on the nut suicidal tradition. So they just smashed Bhinderwale first, and then concerntrated on bin laden and his version of Islam and not the sikhs as they wanted to see how sikhs would react, being a fairly new religion no one knows how they'll react, as they can always get back to that later if needs be. Why did bin laden dress so much like a 5 k's dude when the Islamic dress is nothing like the 5 k's they shave their mustache's wear caps etc.... End of. <Moral of story keep to the truth and the religion will survive all time, maybe the whole world will one day be sikh, if you really care about sikhism otherwise just carry on, become nut jobs and end up like them. Simple, there will be other religions and paths that will replace or even reclaim sikhism like these dera's!
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Gyani Ji's totally right. I'll delete what I want if the overall result is that its totally unhelpful and just plain dumb.
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