The latest in the series of steps they have taken in the past few months was SukhbirBadal’s April 11 visit to Operation Bluestar Memorial erected in the Golden Temple Complex and dedicated to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, for paying obeisance to the “martyrs” killed during the Army’s action. Badals had earlier refrained from visiting the Memorial while the Opposition Congress and the BJP had opposed its construction with the latter terming the move as anti-national.

Not lagging behind, Sukhbir’s wife Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur demanded declassification of Operation Bluestar files “so that people know the truth about the horrendous episode of the Army’s attack on the Golden temple Complex.” How could the newly nominated HVP-turned-BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy miss the opportunity to capture headlines? ‘Mr. Know-all’ not only demanded declassification of the files terming the 1984 Operation “foolishness on the part of Indira Gandhi” but also praised “Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale describing him to be a preacher who promoted Sikhism and motivated youth to stay away from drugs.”

One wonders if those demanding declassification of Operation Bluestar files had gone through the 164-page “White Paper on the Punjab Situation” issued by the government of India on July 10, 1984. The document gave Punjab’s worsened politico-religious and law and order situation in the 1980s. It also detailed the factors which forced the government to order the Army to enter Golden Temple Complex.

No doubt, after failing to find a solution of the Punjab’s complex politico-religious problem Indira Gandhi committed the blunder of sending the Army into the Sikhs apex holy place. But the intention behind such an extreme step was to flush out Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed men who had converted the Complex into their bastion for killing innocent Hindus and Sikhs. Interestingly, BJP leader LK Advani’s autobiography, My Country My Life, in the chapter titled, “The Trauma and Triumph of Punjab”, Advani wrote on page 430: “Indira Gandhi’s wavering policy… aggravated the problem in Punjab. With her credibility, both at home and abroad, at stake, the Prime Minister was ultimately forced to use the military to liberate the Golden Temple from its anti-national occupants.” Akali leaders and some BJP leaders had taken strong exception to Advani’s observations.

It would, however, be wrong to hold New Delhi solely responsible for such a situation to create which the Congress and the Akali Dal had equally contributed.

Our today’s generation, particularly of the post-nineties, is unaware of the explosive situation that had developed in Punjab in the eighties. This narrative is an attempt to provide them a glimpse of the situation which threatened the unity and integrity of India.

Bhindranwale’s is the tragic story of how certain Congress and Akali Dal leaders tried to use rabid fundamentalist and extremist elements in their fight for power at the cost of Punjab’s peace and political stability. Such a state of affairs created a fertile ground for inimical foreign forces to use Bhindranwale in their abortive bid to disintegrate India.

In the early 1980s, even as efforts were on to resolve Punjab and Haryana’s interstate issues through talks, Congress leaders, including GianiZail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi, propped up the then relatively young and obscure fundamentalist preacher Bhindranwale. It did not, however, take him long to turn into a Frankenstein to haunt his creators. The USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) later used him as a pawn for promoting their strategic interests in the region.

The fifth volume of the series entitled A Centenary History of the Indian National Congress also made critical observations about the role Giani Zail Singh played, first when he was Punjab chief minister in 1972–77 and then as Union home minister in 1980, in promoting religious extremists and terrorist elements in Punjab.

The volume concluded that “dirty politics in the name of religion in Punjab was one of the factors responsible for instigating terrorism and the Khalistan agitation in Punjab. Such dubious measures boomeranged on both the Akali and Congress leaderships with disastrous consequences for the Sikh community and the Indian state.”

Akalis played an equally, if not more, dubious role in creating situation conducive for the Army’s launching of Operation Bluestar. Gurcharan Singh Tohra, president of SGPC, who was responsible for maintaining peace and harmony in the Temple Complex overruled the indignant Giani Kirpal Singh, head priest of the Akal Takht and allowed Bhindranwale and his armed entourage to shift to Akal Takht. After entering into Akal Takht, Bhindranwale fortified the Golden Temple complex with light and heavy arms and turned it into his bastion for launching a separatist campaign.

The immediate provocation for New Delhi ordering the Army to flush out the militants from the Complex was provided by the top Indian Intelligence receiving report from their Pakistani mole. According to the investigations conducted by Hindustan Times’ then special correspondent Chand Joshi and his team of half a dozen colleagues in his book “Bhindanwale -Myth and Reality” published in 1984, a plan prepared in coordination with the Indian militant leaders to organize mass insurgency in the Indian border villages to be timed for June-July to coincide with a Pakistani attack from occupied Jammu and Kashmir sector. ISI’s spies were in touch with Bhindranwale group for taking coordinated steps.

History teaches lessons to those willing to learn them. Emotive religious issues sow the seeds of extremism and terrorism as had happened in Punjab in the 1980s. One hopes Punjab’s Akali and Congress leaders would also learn from Punjab’s 1980-90 black era history. (IPA Service)