IV
PSALMS OF TERROR
...paens of murder are sung
and we anoint ourselves,
not with saffron, but with blood.
1
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All the evil they
did was in the name of God. And they did all that was evil. The murder
of innocents, torture, rape, extortion, the desecration of temples,
the abuse of sanctuaries, and a limitless host of other crimes that
do not bear mention next to these.
They did it, they
said, to avenge the ?injustices? done to the Sikhs by the Hindus;
to defend the Faith against the machinations of the ?evil Brahmins?
who were out to destroy it; to protect the lives and liberties of
?persecuted Sikhs? against an inimical and communalised State.
They had simply borrowed
their contemporary mythology from the Akalis. But the creed of hatred
that had been propagated for decades was suddenly translated into
action. Its source and centre remained in the Gurudwaras; but its
idiom was now the bullet and the bomb.
Every instrument
and strategy was adopted to perpetuate the myth, to authenticate it:
selective killings; the alternating desecration of Hindu and Sikh
religious places; sermons of a malevolent rage - anything that could
drive a wedge between communities; anything that could incite a slaughter
of the Hindus in the state, and a retaliatory pogrom against the Sikhs
in the rest of India. That could have fulfilled their ambitions.
Like the Akalis,
however, they found only a few who could be swayed by their psalms
of terror. To most, their falsehood was apparent from the outset.
But those who did not believe them remained silent. Those who believed
them, killed for their convictions. And many more joined in the slaughter,
for profit, for greed, for power, for lust, for drugs, or for the
opiate of the sheer freedom from moral restraint that terrorism represented.
Some of the believers
still survive; they will, eventually, seek to revive and extend their
fraternity of strife. As long as the myth persists, it will find its
votaries. It is the myth, consequently, that we must contend with.
Who were the victims
of these ?defenders of the Sikh Faith?? Of a total of 11,694 persons
killed by terrorists in Punjab during the period 1981-1993, 7,139
- more than 61 per cent - were Sikhs.
The most dramatic
killings, the ones that were projected to the greatest extent by the
terrorists themselves, were always of the Hindus, or of other ?enemies
of the Faith?, such as the ?apostate Sant Nirankaris?. But the most
consistent victims, and perhaps the most dreaded opponents of the
terrorists, were Sikhs. The terrorists claimed to speak for the entire
Panth
. Thus, any Sikhs who questioned their authority to do
so, who questioned their actions, who exposed the immorality of their
methods was a far greater danger to them than the Hindus could ever
be. They threatened the credibility of the great myth. And they, above
all others, had to die for it.
II
The incident to which
the genesis of the terrorist movement in Punjab is traced, occurred
in April 1978. The SGPC White Paper gives the Akali version of the
background against which violence occurred. "....the Nrinkaris
of Delhi," it observes, "were clandestinely supported and
promoted by the Government in pursuance of its policy to create a
schism and ideological confusion among the Sikhs."
2
And further, "The provocative utterances and activities brought
the Nrinkaris into open clash with the Sikhs. In 1951, at Amritsar,
the then Nrinkari Chief Avtar Singh, held a
Satsang
attended
by his about two hundred followers [
sic
]. Some Sikhs clashed
with the Nrinkari chief as he had committed an act of sacrilege by
proclaiming himself a Guru in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib.
These bickerings continued and ultimately the two important Sikh organisations
known as the Damdami Taksal and the Akhand Kirtni Jatha also came
forward to confront the attack of the Nrinkari."
3
"The tension that had been building up for quite some time, resulted
in clashes at Batala, Sri Hargobindpur, Pathankot, Qadian, Ghuman
and Gurdaspur between the Nrinkaris and the followers of Sant Kartar
Singh.
4
Clashes were also reported from
Tarn Taran, Ludhiana and Ropar."
5
The circumstances of the actual clash are then described:
The Nrinkaris [sic] decided to
hold their convention in Amritsar on April 13, 1978, the birthday
of the Khalsa, when a large number of Sikh devotees throng the
holy city. It was alleged that the place, date and time of the
convention were deliberately chosen by the Nrinkaris in connivance
with the Congress, which had been out of power and was trying
to embarrass the Akali-Janata alliance, in order to get political
leverage. One day before the Convention, on April 12, the Nrinkaris
took out a procession, during the course of which their Chief
allegedly made some derogatory remarks against the Sikh religion.
These provocative gestures led to a lot of resentment in the Sikh
circles in the city. Next day some followers of Sant Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale and those of the Akhand Kirtni Jatha, went totally
unarmed to the venue of Nrinkari congregation to dissuade the
Nrinkari Chief from denigrating Sikh religion and its Gurus. The
Nrinkaris, who were well equipped with rifles and sten guns fired
at the approaching Sikhs, resulting in the death of thirteen of
them
.
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The SGPC version is interesting,
both in terms of what it attempts to conceal as of the mind-set it
exposes. Given their own evaluation of the background, violence could
easily have been predicted. The ?Government? they refer to when they
speak of the encouragement given to the Nirankaris is the succession
of Congress governments that had ruled at the Centre. However, this
?villain for all occasions? was, in April 1978, out of power both
in Punjab and in Delhi. The state, at that time, was under the command
of the Akali Dal-Janata Party coalition; and the Centre was ruled
by the Janata Party, with the Akali Dal both supporting and participating
in the Government. The ?place, date and time? of the Nirankari Convention,
?chosen by the Nrinkaris in connivance with the Congress?, were sanctioned
by the Akali Dal Government in Punjab, with full knowledge of the
history of conflict that the SGPC document outlines. The role of both
the Damdami Taksal and the Akhand Kirtani Jatha in this conflict was
also known to the Akali Government. Yet no attempt was made to prevent,
shift, or change the schedule of, the Nirankari Convention.
This is not all.
Shortly before the ?totally unarmed? protesters set out for the venue
of the Nirankari Convention, they had assembled in the Golden Temple,
where the then Akali Dal Revenue Minister, Jeevan Singh Umranangal
tried, unsuccessfully, to explain away the Government?s decision to
allow the Nirankari Convention to take place. Bhindranwale interrupted
the proceedings, shouting "We will not allow this Nirankari convention
to take place. We are going to march there and cut them to pieces!"
7
No precautionary measures were taken in response.
A procession of a
few hundred agitated Sikhs, led by Bhindranwale and by Fauja Singh
of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, then left the Golden Temple and set out
for the Nirankari Convention. On the way, in what was perhaps the
first act of gratuitous violence by the future terrorists of ?Khalistan?,
they hacked off the arm of a Hindu sweetmeats seller. On arriving
at the convention, they rushed the stage on which the chief of the
Nirankaris was seated; Fauja Singh drew his sword and tried to behead
the Nirankari leader; he was shot by a bodyguard. In the skirmish
that followed, two of Bhindranwale?s followers, another eleven of
the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, and three Nirankaris were killed [Bhindranwale
himself is said to have fled the scene just as the violence broke
out, and this was a sore point between him and the Akhand Kirtani
Jatha. Fauja Singh?s widow often described Bhindranwale as a ?coward?
for running away on this occasion, and blamed him for her husband?s
death]. Throughout the march, the vandalism and violence
en route
,
and the clash at the Nirankari Convention, the state?s forces made
no attempt to intervene. Instructions for such a response, or lack
of it, could only have originated from the highest echelons of the
then [Akali] Government. This assumption is reinforced by the fact
that no action was even contemplated against any official for this
obvious and grave breakdown of law and order.
Over the next six
years, until his death on June 6, 1984, Bhindranwale propagated and
practised a creed of unadulterated hate. Under the guise of
Amrit
Prachar
, the propagation of the tenets of the Sikh Faith, he mixed
a fundamentalist canon with rabid incitement to violence. Khushwant
Singh has captured the essence of his ?revelations? well.
He was not bothered with the
subtle points of theology; he had his list of do?s and don?ts
clearly set out in bold letters. He took those passages from
the sacred texts which suited his purpose and ignored or glossed
over others that did not. He well understood that hate was a
stronger passion than love: his list of hates was even more
clearly and boldly spelt out
.
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The first, and predictable,
targets of his campaign of hate, and eventually of his violence, were
the Sikhs who failed to conform to his interpretation of the Faith,
the
patit
Sikhs, who could, however, escape his ire by submitting
to his version of Sikhism, undergoing baptism, and wearing all the
five symbols of the
Khalsa
. His second and irredeemable targets,
were the Nirankaris, who, as heretics, quite simply had to be liquidated.
The third were the Hindus, contemptible but numerous, who could, nevertheless
be eliminated; Guru Gobind Singh had proclaimed that a single Sikh
was equal to
sava lakh
[a hundred and twenty five thousand].
Given the population of Sikhs and Hindus, however, a few calculations
led Bhindranwale to the conclusion that a mere 35 Hindus fell to the
portion of each Sikh. He exhorted his followers to procure a motorcycle,
a gun, and to set about their task in earnest.
9
These were to be his "storm troopers who would trample their
foes under their bare feet like so much vermin."
10
It took Bhindranwale
some time to evolve and establish this ?complex religious doctrine?.
He used this time to dabble, inevitably, in the snakepit of Sikh politics,
the SGPC. In the SGPC elections of 1979, Bhindranwale, propped up
by the Congress (I), put up forty candidates. Despite the fiction
of his ?immense popularity with the Sikh masses?, he was trounced,
with just four of his candidates scraping past the post. He meddled
with electoral politics on one more occasion, when, in the General
Elections of January 1980 he campaigned actively for three Congress
(I) candidates. Since he moved around at all times, with a phalanx
of heavily armed men, his ?support? would obviously prove useful to
the electoral prospects of his favoured candidates.
Meanwhile, the 62
Nirankaris, including the head of the sect, Baba Gurbachan Singh,
charged in connection with the killing of 13 Sikhs in the clash of
1979 had faced trial and were acquitted on the grounds that they had
acted in self defence. This was evidently an unsatisfactory resolution
of the issue, and in April 1980 Baba Gurbachan Singh was shot dead
in Delhi. The FIR named twenty persons for the murder, including several
known associates of Bhindranwale, who was also charged with conspiracy
to murder. After these events, his experiments with democracy came
to an abrupt end.
It was at this juncture
that Bhindranwale made his first experiment with the sanctuary of
the Golden Temple. Fearing arrest, he moved into one of the
sarais
[rest houses] the Guru Nanak Niwas. But he was now a significant pawn
in the Congress (I)-Akali political tangle, and the then Home Minister
of India, Giani Zail Singh, saw fit to announce in Parliament that
Bhindranwale was ?not involved? in the Gurbachan Singh murder. Without
investigations or trial, Bhindranwale was once again free; so were
his killer squads. A year later, the prominent journalist Arun Shourie
wrote, "though the CBI has solved the murder case of the Nirankari
guru, Baba Gurbachan Singh, and his aide last year, it is almost certain
that the killers will never be arrested because they are alleged to
be in the protection of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, in the Amritsar
district of Punjab. Besides, the State police is not prepared to involve
itself in the case by arresting the culprits."
11
The Government, both at the Centre and in Punjab, had now passed back
into the hands of the Congress (I).
Evidently encouraged
by the apparent political immunity it enjoyed, the killer squad struck
again, this time against another proclaimed ?enemy of the
Panth
?,
Lala Jagat Narain, the proprietor of the Hind Samachar Group, publisher
of the popular daily,
Punjab Kesri
, and a bitter critic of
Bhindranwale. What followed was a flurry of deceptive moves apparently
to arrest him, countered by a succession of manoeuvres to help him
escape his actions. During this sequence he barely escaped arrest,
possibly with the collusion of at least a section of the administration,
at Chando Kalan in Haryana. He was forced to abandon his private bus
when he fled, and this was subsequently burnt in a clash between the
police and his followers. Copies of his precious ?sermons? and a
Bir
of the Guru Granth Sahib were destroyed in this fire. He lost faith
in his political protectors and barricaded himself inside the heavily
fortified Gurudwara Gurdarshan Parkash at Mehta Chowk.
The Gurudwara was
surrounded by the police, who, however, made no effort to arrest him.
Instead, senior officials went in to ?negotiate a surrender?, and
Bhindranwale declared he would ?offer himself for arrest? at 1:00
p.m. on September 20, 1981, after addressing a ?religious congregation?.
All his terms were meekly accepted. At the appointed hour he emerged
to harangue a large crowd of his followers, armed with spears, swords
and a number of firearms; among those present were prominent Akali
leaders such as Harchand Singh Longowal, Gurcharan Singh Tohra and
Jathedar Santokh Singh of the Delhi Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee.
Bhindranwale ranted against the Government, against the injustices
done to him and to Sikhs at large. Having aroused the rabble to a
pitch, he ?surrendered? to the police. Even as he was taken away,
the mob opened fire on the police, a pitched battle ensued, and 11
persons were killed.
The very same day
three motorcycle-borne ?storm troopers? opened fire in a market in
Jalandhar, killing four Hindus and injuring twelve. The next day,
one Hindu was killed and thirteen people injured in Tarn Taran. Five
days later a goods train was derailed at Amritsar. On September 29,
an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to Lahore. A series of explosions
followed in Amritsar, Faridkot and Gurdaspur districts.
For 25 days, while
violence exploded all over Punjab, Bhindranwale was lodged, not in
Jail as he should have been, but in the ample comfort of the Circuit
House. The Akali Dal, meanwhile, appeared to have decided to throw
in its lot with him. Addressing a
Diwan
[assembly] at Manji
Sahib, Longowal announced that the "entire Sikh community supported
Bhindranwale." Similar support came from Gurdial Singh Ajnoha,
the Jathedar of the Akal Takht, and from Tohra, the President of the
SGPC.
12
Whether or not Bhindranwale
had the support of the "entire Sikh community," he nonetheless
found a defender, once again, in India?s Home Minister, Giani Zail
Singh, who announced to Parliament that there was no evidence that
Bhindranwale was involved in Lala Jagat Narain?s murder. Once again,
the investigations were scuttled; political expediency prevailed over
the exigencies of the law. October 15 saw Bhindranwale a free man.
Among his first public
statements was an enthusiastic approval of the murders of the Nirankari
Chief and of Lala Jagat Narain. "Whosoever performed these feats,"
he declared, "deserves to be honoured by the Akal Takht. If these
killers came to me, I would have them weighed in gold."
13
No wonder the killings
did not end. Bhindranwale had experienced absolute power; he had humbled
the government; he was invincible. Soon after, an ominous warning
was delivered to all who attempted to check him. A bomb exploded in
the office of the DIG, Patiala, who had been sent to arrest him at
Chando Kalan - no one was hurt, but the message was unmistakable;
not even the highest officials of the Police, were beyond his reach.
From this point onwards, violence became an integral part of everyday
life in Punjab.
Bhindranwale stormed
across the Punjab with truckloads of men, armed to the teeth, no longer
with swords and spears and primitive 12-bore guns, but with sophisticated
automatic weapons; no one challenged him. In December 1981, Jathedar
Santokh Singh of the DGPC, one of his supporters, was killed by a
political rival. Bhindranwale attended his
Bhog
ceremonies;
also present were Rajiv Gandhi and two prominent Ministers of Indira
Gandhi?s Cabinet, Zail Singh and Buta Singh; they were fully aware
of the killings in Punjab; of Bhindranwale?s role; and of his presence
at the Bhog. Yet they chose to attend.
A few months later,
Bhindranwale challenged the might of the Centre, as his armed gangs
swept through the nation?s capital with impunity.
The myth was constantly
reiterated wherever he went; the baptismal ceremonies that had obsessed
him in the past were forgotten; a baptism of blood now bound all who
adopted his creed of carnage with greater strength. But this alone
was not enough; the number of his followers grew, but slowly; until
mass violence was instigated between the communities, the myth would
not prevail.
Suddenly the heads
of cows began appearing in temples; some retaliation was, apparently,
provoked: cigarettes and tobacco was thrown into Gurudwaras. A few
idols in Hindu temples were broken; some copies of the Granth Sahib
in Gurudwaras burnt. But this ?game? failed abysmally; not a single
riot or communal clash resulted in Punjab.
Eventually, the government
chose to act, albeit hesitantly. On July 19, 1982, Amrik Singh, the
President of the All India Sikh Students Federation [AISSF], was arrested.
Amrik Singh was one of Bhindranwale?s closest associates, the son
of his erstwhile mentor and teacher, Sant Kartar Singh of the Damdami
Taksal. Under Amrik Singh?s leadership, the AISSF had become the striking
arm of Bhindranwale?s storm troopers, responsible for many of the
continuous succession of murders, dacoities, bank robberies and cases
of desecration in the state. It was in connection with one of these
crimes, the attempted murder of a Nirankari leader, that he was arrested
along with two other members of the Damdami Taksal, Thara Singh and
Ram Singh. Bhindranwale?s own arrest was now imminent, and he realised
this.
He left the Damdami
Taksal at Mehta Chowk and moved the very same day into the Guru Nanak
Niwas, east of the Harmandir Sahib, within the Golden Temple complex
itself.
III
What followed was
a continuous sequence of sacrilege, of profanities, of desecration,
through word and deed, of the holiest sanctuary of Sikhism.
In the past, the
Akalis had captured and manipulated the authority of the Golden Temple,
no doubt by exploiting religious sentiments, but through an electoral
process. The terrorists fled into the Temple out of fear of arrest,
and then, as the security forces held back, awed by the sanctity of
that hallowed ground, their power and audacity grew, and they secured
it by naked force.
It mattered little
how it fell into their hands. The mystical authority, the sacred,
indefinable power, the inviolate sanctity of the Temple attached itself,
in the minds of thousands of the devout, to those who held the seat
and the symbol of the spiritual and temporal authority of the Sikh
faith in their custody.
But Bhindranwale
and his cohort of criminals were not the only ones who sought to command
the power of the Temple. Well before him, another - relentlessly inimical
- terrorist group had already established its base within its consecrated
bounds. The Akhand Kirtani Jatha which had lost 11 of its members
in the clash with the Nirankaris in 1978, had been led by Fauja Singh.
His widow, Bibi Amarjit Kaur, and another member of the Jatha, Bibi
Harsharan Kaur, had immediately entered the sanctuary of the Golden
Temple; from there they led the Babbar Khalsa, a terrorist group responsible,
over the next decade and a half for a multitude of heinous crimes,
including, according to the boast of its chief assassin Sukhdev Singh,
the murder of 35 Nirankaris. Bibi Amarjit Kaur had not forgiven Bhindranwale
his cowardice in abandoning the protesters at the Nirankari Convention,
and blamed him for her husband?s death. When Bhindranwale entered
the Temple a taut and troubled entente between their armed followers
was established.
The SGPC was, of
course, in formal control of the Temple. And as killers swaggered
around the Parikrama, guns slung casually on their shoulders and belts
of ammunition across the chest, they made an attempt, pathetically
inadequate, to protect at least a share in what was, till then, their
monopoly; a third armed force, or group of forces, thus came into
being around the faction ridden SGPC offices near the Guru Nanak Niwas.
It was from here,
then, that the kingdom of terror was run; and from here, the chaos
of the
Akali Morchas
spread out. The SGPC far from attempting
to protect the sanctity of the Golden Temple, which was its primary
duty, far from condemning the spate of bombings and murders that was
being orchestrated from the Temple, preferred to betray the legacy
of the men who had fought and died with such nobility to free the
Gurudwaras from corruption and misuse. The SGPC and the Akali Dal
decided to synchronise their own agitation with the campaign of terror.
The Akalis had been
carrying out a
nahar roko
agitation in Patiala to prevent work
on the SYL canal. And among the first of Bhindranwale?s acts once
he had secured the protection of the Golden Temple was the announcement
of his own
Morcha
, or movement, demanding the release of Amrik
Singh and his associates; each day, he proclaimed, voluntary
jathas
would march out of the Temple and court arrest till the state?s jails
overflowed. But while Bhindranwale could command men to the most bestial
acts of violence, he could not assure the success of his
Morcha
;
only a handful of volunteers offered themselves for arrest. Evidently
his following among the Sikh masses was nowhere near what he - and
for that matter the Press - believed it to be. The Akalis threw in
their lot with him, beginning what they described as a
Dharam Yudh
.
To their usual list of grievances they now added Bhindranwale?s most
urgent demand: the release of Amrik Singh and his associates.
The ?Dictator? of
the
Dharam Yudh Morcha
, Harchand Singh Longowal now declared,
"He [Bhindranwale] is our
danda
[stave] with which to
beat the government."
14
Bhindranwale,
however, had his own agenda. "Every Sikh boy," he said,
"should keep 200 grenades with him."
15
And again, "I had earlier directed that each village should raise
a team of three youth with one revolver each and a motorcycle. In
how many villages has this been done?"
16
In one of his sermons to the assembled devout, he exhorted, "Those
of you who want to become extremists should raise their hands. Those
of you who believe that they are the Sikhs of the Guru should raise
their hands, others should hang their heads like goats."
17
This, then, is what the Sikh faith had been reduced to by those
who claimed all authority to speak for it.
Far more than words,
however, was the propaganda of the deed. Two Indian Airlines planes
were hijacked; there was an attempt on the life of the Chief Minister,
Darbara Singh; hand grenades were thrown at a Ramnaumi procession
in Amritsar; police posts, government offices and residences, and,
inevitably, the Nirankaris, continued to be targeted for murderous
attacks; hardly a day passed without violence.
While the killer
squads swept the Punjab countryside Bhindranwale gradually evolved
a new image. The exploitation of religious symbols and sentiments
was carried far beyond anything that had ever been dared in the past.
He already spoke from the platform of the Golden Temple; he was
Santji
,
a saintly spirit, approached with awe and submission by all who came
before him; he spoke constantly of the
Khalsa
, of the five
symbols of the brotherhood; he flattered the primitive self-image
of the rural Sikh, preaching a crude ethic of vengeance and violent
aggrandisement of the ?Faith?; the
Khalsa
was the lion, his
enemies bleating sheep; he was no longer the protector of the weak;
he was the hunter and the destroyer.
But these were only
the preliminaries; the master stroke was to follow.
With breathtaking
audacity he adopted the practice of carrying, at all times, a steel
arrow in his hand, imitating the Tenth Guru; rumours were set afloat
that the ?
baaz
?, the holy falcon, another symbol associated
with Guru Gobind Singh, was sighted hovering protectively over him.
It was whispered that the ?spirit? of the Tenth Guru had descended
upon Bhindranwale; that he was an incarnation; even, among the more
reckless, that he was the ?Eleventh Guru? of Sikhism.
This was the power
of the Golden Temple, and of the symbols of the Faith. They conferred
an aura of sainthood, almost of divinity, on this semi-literate evangelist
of hate.
It is a measure of
their cynicism that the SGPC and the Akalis failed to respond even
to this heretical posture. It is not that they were ever taken in
by it; they knew well enough what Bhindranwale actually was - and
they plotted to weaken him whenever they felt they had a chance of
success; but they also knew that he had somehow captured the imagination
of at least a section of the rural masses; it remained convenient,
consequently, to play along.
And they played along
to the very edge of hell. Violence escalated and defiled the sanctuary
itself. On March 16, two members of Bhindranwale?s killer squads engaged
with the police at Manawala, just outside Amritsar. One of the extremists
was killed, and the other injured; but the latter managed to drive
back to the Golden Temple with his companion?s body. The SGPC handed
over the body of the dead terrorist to District authorities more than
24 hours later. And then, in apparent retaliation to the ?murder?
of his ?follower?, Bhindranwale ordered a brutal ?execution? within
the Temple precincts itself. In April 1983, A.S. Atwal, a Deputy Inspector
General of Police, came to pray at the Temple; after receiving
prasad
at the Harmandir Sahib, he walked out towards the marble steps near
the main entrance of the Complex where he was shot dead in broad daylight,
with scores of witnesses standing by, including his own bodyguard
and a police contingent posted a hundred yards away. Such was the
terror of those days, so great the demoralisation of the police -
crippled and constrained as they were by the political leadership
- that his bodyguards simply fled; the police outpost was also abandoned,
and the policemen ran and hid in the shops. The shopkeepers pulled
down their shutters, and no one dared to approach the body. The killers
danced the
bhangra
around the felled DIG, and then sauntered
back into the Temple. Atwal?s body, "riddled with bullets, lay
in the main entrance to the Sikhs most sacred shrine for more than
two hours before the District Commissioner could persuade the Temple
authorities to hand it over."
18
It was actions like these that provided the greatest filip to violence,
and to the acceptance of violence as a legitimate political weapon.
I was subsequently
put in charge of the inquiry into the Atwal killing. I discovered
that, at that point of time, there were over a hundred policemen in
the vicinity and more than half of them were equipped with firearms.
Among the officers whom I examined, each one was at pains to explain
that he was not at the spot when the killers struck. I wondered how
a police force noted for its gallantry, its fighting spirit and the
adequacy of its responses in situations of violence was brought to
such a point. One of the critical factors, I discovered, was a confusing
order that the ?precincts? of the Golden Temple were to include not
only the Temple compound, but also the buildings attached to it. The
policemen and the administration, in a crisis situation, could never
determine whether they were authorised to act, or whether they needed
to seek clearance ?from above?. Under the circumstances, inaction
was usually deemed to be the safer option.
The Atwal incident
always remained at the back of my mind, especially when the security
forces were confronted with a situation in or around the Golden Temple.
I realized how essential it was that the policemen on duty should
know exactly what was expected of them.
Four years later,
I was confronted with another situation remniscent of this tragedy.
A few days prior to Black Thunder, the terrorists, fully armed, had
staged a march within the area but outside the building of the Golden
Temple. After this I visited Amritsar and clearly told the officers
that while the entry of the police into the Golden Temple would require
the clearance of the political leadership because it was an issue
of a politically sensitive nature, the movement of men armed with
AK 47s outside the premises of the Temple should be tackled as an
ordinary law and order problem, and immediate action taken to disarm
and arrest the culprits. The correctness of this approach was proved
a few days later, on the day when the terrorists shot at and grieveously
injured S.S. Virk. The terrorists had started building bunkers, and
had blocked a street outside the Temple. Virk was supervising the
demolition of these structures when the terrorists shot him. The police
reacted immediately, and the militants were forced to flee into the
Temple. Had the terrorists been permitted to build defences in the
streets around the Temple, the task of the forces during Black Thunder
could have been infinitely more difficult.
Ugly as the Atwal
murder was, however, it was only a beginning. On May 4, 1984, a badly
mutilated body was found near the Golden Temple Complex. Less than
twenty days later, another body was discovered from a gutter behind
Guru Nanak Niwas - Bhindranwale?s ?temporary residence?. Both the
victims had been severely tortured. From this point on, this became
a regular feature; bodies, mutilated, hacked to pieces, stuffed into
gunny bags, kept appearing mysteriously in the gutters and sewers
around the Temple.
The shrine, whose
image can be found in every Sikh home, in every Sikh heart, had been
transformed into a place of torture and of execution.
Never before had
a Sikh spilt blood on this hallowed ground; never before had a Sikh
raised a hand in anger, in vengeance, even in just retaliation, in
this sacred place. It had been desecrated before, no doubt; but only
by the declared enemies of Sikhism. In 1762, Ahmad Shah Abdali had
reduced the Temple to rubble and filled up the
sarovar
, the
sacred pool, with the blood and entrails of kine; even today, he is
one of the most hated figures among all the enemies of the Faith.
The
Panth
did not rest till it had rebuilt the Temple and restored
its sanctity two years later; since then, though the history of the
Sikh people has been marked with constant struggle and warfare, though
they have suffered long periods of the most brutal persecution, no
stain of blood had ever soiled this revered site.
In 1846, a single
incident had threatened this untainted peace. A group of armed Nihangs
had occupied the
burjis
[towers] of the Temple in a dispute
over its custodianship. When the
Khalsa Durbar
, under Maharaja
Dalip Singh sent an army detachment to clear them by force, they had
immediately abandoned its sanctuary and surrendered saying that they
could not make the "holiest of holies" a battleground.
IV
No such compunctions
constrained the ?warriors? for ?Khalistan?. To them, the Golden Temple,
like so many other Gurudwaras all over Punjab, was just a safe haven
from where they could conduct their criminal activities with impunity,
since the police would not pursue them there for fear of hurting the
religious sentiments of the larger community. And if, after the Atwal
murder, the government did contemplate the possibility of entering
the Guru Nanak Niwas, a building that lay outside the actual bounds
of the Golden Temple, across a public road, Akali Dal leaders thwarted
them at the outset, issuing a fervent appeal to Sikhs all over the
world to ?resist entry of the police? into the hostel complex.
This unholy covenant
was not disturbed even by the selective and cold blooded slaughter
of Hindus travelling in a Punjab Roadways bus that was hijacked by
the militants on its way to Moga in November 1983. If anything, this
incident produced a major ?victory? for the Akali-terrorist combine,
since it provoked the dismissal of the Darbara Singh Government. Punjab
was brought under President?s rule, but the chaos, instead of ending,
deepened.
But all was not well
in the fraternity of convenience within the Golden Temple. Internal
politics within the Akali Dal, and the erosion of its authority in
the face of Bhindranwale?s growing terror, created a widening rift
between some of its leaders and between the extremist groupings. A
protective alliance emerged between the dominant Akali factions and
the Akhand Kirtani Jatha-Babbar Khalsa. Tensions within the Complex
grew, confrontations mounted, scuffles broke out, and the mutilated
bodies in the sewers outside the Golden Temple provided an index of
the increasing hostility between these various ?soldiers? of the ?Faith?.
It mattered little that they were all supposedly fighting for the
same objectives, battling against ?injustice? and ?oppression?. This
was, in actual fact, an unashamed battle to ?protect their turf?.
Torture and murder, even within the confines of the Temple, were perfectly
?legitimate? implements of war. As the ?disappearance? of members
of the competing forces increased, a very real danger of open combat
for control came into being.
This, however, did
not suit Bhindranwale?s temperament. Hit squads, torture and executions
were all very well, but he had never shown much nerve for a direct
engagement. Unfortunately for him, the sanctuary of Guru Nanak Niwas,
though it was sufficient to protect him from the police, could not
shield him from the Babbar Khalsa?s wrath. In a surprise move, the
Babbar Khalsa had forcibly occupied some of the rooms previously held
by his men in the Guru Nanak Niwas; instead of fighting for control,
Bhindranwale abandoned the Niwas entirely, fleeing into the safety
of the Akal Takht, right in the middle of the Temple Complex. Not
even the Babbar Khalsa would dare to scar this, the sacred seat of
the Temporal Power of God, with an attack against him. In any event,
thousands of devotees who came to pray at the Golden Temple every
day constituted a protective barrier between him and his enemies.
The move was not
without its difficulties. The
Jathedar
, or High Priest, of
the Akal Takht objected strongly. No Guru or Sikh religious leader
had ever been allowed to live in the Akal Takht, he pointed out. Moreover,
Bhindranwale?s presence in the upper floors of the building was an
act of sacrilege; the Guru Granth Sahib was placed in the main hall
on the ground floor, and at night the
Bir
from the Harmandir
Sahib itself, the most sacred copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, was placed
in a room in the Akal Takht. No man could be permitted to stand above
the Guru Granth Sahib; but Bhindranwale and his men would be living
in quarters above these places. These niceties, however, mattered
little to Bhindranwale, or to those in the SGPC who had made it possible
for him to move into the Akal Takht. Nor, in fact, was Bhindranwale
the first to occupy the building for his own ends. Sant Fateh Singh,
the then President of the Akali Dal had done so during the grand charade
of his threatened self-immolation and the construction of the
Agn
Kunds
in 1965. Once again, Bhindranwale was adopting distortions
created by the Akalis themselves; and as usual he carried them to
the limits dictated by his own perversity.
The Akal Takht was
thus transformed into his personal ?Court?. He held his
darbars
here, or on the roof of the
langar
across the
Parikrama
.
Surrounded by heavily armed henchmen, he would lie, half sprawled,
on a mattress, and expound on his malevolent doctrine of vengeance
against all those whom he held responsible for the fictional ?slavery?
of the Sikhs. And here he would receive petitions and intercede in
disputes, dispensing a somewhat unequal ?justice?. Those who submitted
to his will, swore allegiance, acknowledged his ?suzerainty? to the
exclusion of all other powers, and, of course, paid him their ?tribute?,
received his ?protection?; their ?rights? would be upheld. The opposing
party died. Hit lists were drawn up; those who sought the opportunity
to ?serve? the ?Sant? were given a name and a gun. The hit squads
flourished.
Despite the campaign
of hatred that had been going on for close to five years by this time,
however, few purely communal complaints were brought up at these
darbars
.
Land disputes, quarrels over possession of properties, betrayals of
trust, and the inevitable family vendettas that are so much a part
of the
Jat
Sikh?s life. Of course, the occasional Sikh complained
against his Hindu neighbour; such actions, however, were prompted
by a purely secular greed; they had little, if anything, to do with
communal passions. The ?Brahmin? or the ?Bania? were no villains here;
the same motives that provoked complaints against fellow Sikhs motivated
petitions for vengeance against Hindus.
Murder, of course,
was not the only business transacted; though it was the fountainhead
of power that created opportunities for diversification into organised
extortion and protection rackets. In these operations, as in the murders
he sanctioned, Bhindranwale was absolutely secular in his dealings;
he accepted money from Hindu and Sikh alike; and his ?boys? served
collection notices on businessmen, shopkeepers and industrialists
from both the communities - those who failed to pay, as usual, faced
the only penalty in Bhindranwale?s book - death.
Unsurprisingly, the
devout were becoming an increasingly insignificant minority among
the men who gathered around Bhindranwale. Criminals on the run, professional
guns for hire, smugglers, as well as police and army deserters enjoyed
his protection - and did his bidding.
The government still
showed no inclination to act; though it did try to prevail upon the
SGPC to ?clean out? the Temple. They gave them lists of criminals
known to be in the Complex, and details of the armoury that had been
accumulated. The SGPC repeatedly ?denied knowledge? of the presence
of the men who swaggered fearlessly around the
Parikrama
, and
the arms that no one made any attempt to conceal. Worse still, despite
their growing differences with, indeed, the visible hostility between
the dominant Akali faction and Bhindranwale, they continued with their
game of brinkmanship, announcing agitation after agitation, openly
inciting the Sikhs, burning the Indian Constitution, exhorting farmers
to stop the movement of foodgrain from Punjab to other states by force,
calling upon the people to stop all payment of taxes and other dues
to the government, and drawing the entire state to the precipice of
anarchy.
This chicanery, however,
was not approved of by the entire religious leadership. A few brave
voices did speak up, both within the Golden Temple and from many of
the Gurudwaras across the state. Among the most powerful of these
voices was the venerable Giani Partap Singh, an old man of eighty
by that time, one of the most revered spiritual leaders and a former
Jathedar
of the Akal Takht, who had openly attacked Bhindranwale
for stocking arms and ammunition in the Akal Takht and described his
occupation of the shrine as an act of sacrilege. He was shot dead
at his home in Tahli Chowk. Other voices were raised; and swiftly
silenced. They included Niranjan Singh, the Granthi of Gurudwara Toot
Sahib; Granthi Surat Singh of Majauli; and Granthi Jarnail Singh of
Valtoha. All those who spoke against Bhindranwale were his enemies;
and all his enemies were enemies of the Faith. The Sikh religious
leadership heard and understood the message; and they succumbed to
their fear.
The violence rose
to a crescendo in the months preceding Operation Bluestar; and the
Golden Temple was defiled by horrors still unimagined. A great arsenal
had been built up within the Akal Takht; for months, trucks engaged
for
kar seva
, supposedly bringing in supplies for the daily
langar
, had been smuggling in guns and ammunition. The police
never attempted to search these vehicles entering the Golden Temple,
apparently on ?instructions from above?. But when one such truck was
randomly stopped and checked, a large number of sten guns and ammunition
were discovered. The terrorists, it was discovered after Bluestar,
had even set up a ?grenade manufacturing? facility, and a workshop
for the fabrication of sten-guns within the Temple Complex. Meanwhile,
the killing rate had risen sharply all over the state, and there were
many days when the ?death count? rose above a dozen.
By this time, the
war within the Golden Temple had escalated; the tortures and killings
constantly fed the sewers around the Complex. A single incident exemplifies
the pattern of violence and brutality that had been established in
the shrine. Bhindranwale?s main ?hit man?, Surinder Singh Sodhi was
shot dead just outside the Temple in April 1984. Sodhi had a number
of important ?kills? to his credit, including H.S. Manchanda, the
President of the Delhi Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, Professor V.N.
Tiwari, a Congress (I) MP, and Harbans Lal Khanna of the Bharatiya
Janata Party. Sodhi was shot dead in broad daylight by a criminal
enrolled in Bhindranwale?s own band of thugs, Surinder Singh ?Chinda?
and a woman associate, Baljit Kaur. Baljit Kaur immediately ran to
the Akal Takht and tried to justify the killing claiming that Sodhi
had ?misbehaved? with her. But soon enough a ?confession? had been
rung out; she admitted that she and Chinda had been paid for the killing;
Gurcharan Singh, Secretary of the Akali Dal and a prominent member
of the Longowal faction, and Malik Singh Bhatia, one of Bhindranwale?s
own gang, were implicated. Bhatia was summoned immediately; he confessed
to having provided Chinda with a vehicle to flee the site of the murder;
he begged forgiveness and Bhindranwale instructed him to make an offering
at the Harmandir Sahib. Bhatia, believing that he had been forgiven,
prayed at the Temple and returned with
prasad
, which he offered
Bhindranwale. After this he was permitted to leave; but as he went
down the stairs, he was attacked with swords; badly injured, he began
to run towards the safety of the Guru Nanak Niwas, but long before
he could get there, a single shot in the back sent him hurtling, lifeless,
to the marble tiled floor of the
Parikrama.
Vengeance had begun.
Soon after, a tea stall owner outside the Temple was shot dead. Baljit
Kaur was tortured brutally, her breasts cut off, and then killed,
within the Akal Takht itself. Her hideously mutilated body, bundled
into a gunnybag, was found more than 24 hours later on the Grand Trunk
Road. Near it was a second body: her associate and lover, Chinda.
The day after Sodhi?s killing, notices on the walls of the Temple
boasted: "Within twenty-four hours, we have eliminated the killers
and two of their accomplices." The only one to escape immediate
retribution was Gurcharan Singh, who was locked into a room in the
Guru Nanak Niwas, and provided an armed guard of over fifty men by
the Akali Dal President. He was to die on the 6th of June, when the
terrorists opened fire and hurled grenades on a group of some 350
persons, including Longowal and Tohra, who surrendered to the Army
near the Guru Nanak Niwas.
There are three other
acts of documented barbarity that bear mention. The first of these
was the attack during which Gurcharan Singh died; 70 people were killed
with no other purpose than to prevent their surrender to the security
forces, including 30 women and 5 children. Two Junior Commissioned
Officers of the Army who were captured by the terrorists were subjected
to the most inhuman tortures, and then brutally murdered; the terrorists
strapped explosives on to the body of one of these JCOs after having
skinned him alive, and then blew him up as he was thrown from the
upper floor of the Akal Takht. And on June 8, 1984, they hacked to
death an unarmed army doctor who had entered a basement to treat some
civilian casualties.
It was not only their
acts of savagery that defiled the Temple. Long before the first Army
shells were to hit it, Bhindranwale?s men had already begun the process
of disfiguring the Akal Takht. They smashed through its marble walls
to create positions for their guns; from the basements in the Takht
and from the rooms around the
Parikrama
, they broke through
onto the tiled courtyards to establish near impregnable machine gun
?nests?. Sandbags and hastily constructed brick walls protected every
one of these ?positions?. The entire Akal Takht had been transformed
into a large reinforced pillbox with weapons facing all directions.
In fact, virtually every strategically significant building in the
complex, excluding the Harmandir Sahib located at its very centre
had been similarly fortified - and defaced. The fortifications included
17 private houses in the residential area around the Temple as well.
Ex-army veterans and deserters, under the leadership of the cashiered
Major General Shahbeg Singh, provided weapons training to Bhindranwale?s
men in the Temple Complex itself.
Throughout this period
the police and the security forces positioned all around the Temple
Complex, though beyond a sanitised area of more than 200 yards - lest
the Temple was ?desecrated? by their presence -, did nothing. No effort
was made to conceal these activities, indeed, it would have been impossible
to do so; the government, the administration and the police were fully
aware of what was being done, not only within the Temple, but also
in the private residences commandeered by the terrorists beyond its
walls. But a politically imposed paralysis had crippled the forces
to such an extent that, far from enforcing the law of the land, they
were not even capable of defending themselves against the depredations
of the terrorists. A single incident epitomises their impotence. On
February 14, 1984, a group of militants attacked a police post at
some distance from the entrance of the Temple. Six policemen, fully
armed, were ?captured? and dragged inside. The ?police response? came
twenty four hours later in the form of a senior police officer who
went to Bhindranwale in the Akal Takht and begged him to release his
men and return their weapons. Bhindranwale agreed only to hand over
the corpse of one of the policemen who had been killed. He later relented
and released the remaining five men who were still alive. Their weapons,
including three sten guns, and a wireless set, were not returned.
No one asked for them. No action was ever taken in the case of the
murdered policeman.
Eventually, however,
the tide of blood rose too high. In June 1984 a reluctant and still
confused government gathered up its courage, though evidently not
its wits, and reacted.
V
Over the entire period
of the terrorist movement in Punjab, the two most significant victories
for the cause of ?Khalistan? were not won by the militants, but inflicted
- through acts both of commission and omission - upon the nation by
its own Government. The first of these was Operation Blue Star; the
second, the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.
Blue Star, coming
at the end of an extended period of stupefying inaction, constituted
the worst possible form of overreaction that could have been contrived.
Certainly, what had been happening all over Punjab over the preceding
years was unforgivable; but it was not only condoned, there is evidence
to suggest that, at least on occasion, it was even encouraged, by
those who held the power of the State captive to their own petty ambitions.
Even after all this, after all the distress the terrorists had inflicted,
after all the damage the politicians had done and the almost complete
demoralisation of the police, the scale and nature of the operation
launched to contain terrorism and to ?clean out? the Golden Temple
was by no means justified by the objective circumstances then prevailing.
In the twenty two months preceding Operation Blue Star and after the
Akali Morcha
began, violence had claimed a total of 410 lives,
of which 298 persons were killed in the last phase, between January
1, 1984 and June 3, 1984. Tragic though this loss of life was, the
toll of violence in the later phases of terrorism was to be much greater,
and the State?s responses, nonetheless, were much more measured. In
1987, the year preceding Operation Black Thunder, for instance, 910
persons had been killed by terrorists alone. By 1988, the terrorists
were killing, on the average, 160 persons per month, and they were
once again in complete possession of the Golden Temple. The comparatively
bloodless action in the Temple on this occasion is itself an indictment
of the lamentable State response in 1984.
The crucial responsibility
for this botched action lies, once again, on its political planners
and not, as has often been suggested, on the military command. After
months of dithering, the Centre suddenly deployed the Army in Punjab
and around the Golden Temple on June 3, 1994. The Operation itself
commenced less than three days later under political pressure, indeed,
in a state of political hysteria, long before the Army could dig in
and make a realistic evaluation of the situation. It was this undue
haste that resulted in both the unnecessary loss of life and excessive
damage to various buildings within the shrine. The Army was sent in
with needless haste, virtually blind, and, once again, with crippling
restrictions on what they could and could not do within the Temple.
There was a complete lack of information; no realistic intelligence
existed on the actual strength of the terrorists, of the quantity
and deployment of arms available to them, or even a sufficiently detailed
layout of the Temple Complex itself. The result was that the most
inappropriate tactics were initially adopted, and when the casualties
in the Army became unbearable, overwhelming military hardware, including
tanks and the artillery, were employed - with devastating impact on
some of the most sacred buildings. What could well have been won by
strategy and planning had to be seized by brute force.
Irrespective of what
had preceded the Operation, it is with reason that the Sikhs were
offended by what was done to their holiest shrine. Indeed, those who
hastily planned and rashly precipitated this action owe an explanation
not only to the Sikh community but to the entire Indian nation, to
the Army, and to the families of almost a hundred officers and
jawans
who sacrificed their lives to free the Golden Temple from the malevolent
of the crew of murderers who had installed themselves there, as also
to the families of more than 550 innocent civilians who were killed
in the cross fire.
Nothing, however,
can explain or exculpate the complete collapse of the State during
the three day-long politically sponsored slaughter of the Sikhs which
followed in the wake of Indira Gandhi?s assassination less than five
months later. The manifest bad faith of all subsequent regimes in
this context is reflected in the disgraceful record of investigations,
prosecutions and convictions relating to the November 1984 massacre.
These two events,
in combination, gave a new lease of life to a movement which could
easily have been contained in 1984 itself. It was a lease of life
which was to inflict a toll of thousands of deaths over the next nine
years.
VI
The ?regrouping?
of extremist forces started immediately after these events, and was
not affected by the Rajiv-Longowal accord, or by the installation
of the Akali Dal Government headed by Surjit Singh Barnala in 1985
- if anything, it may well have been accelerated by these developments.
The exceptionally high turnout in these elections, at 67 per cent,
was witness to the sentiments of the people who were eager for the
restoration of the democratic process and who, despite the evident
delinquency of the national leadership, overwhelmingly rejected the
cult of extremism.
Their elected representatives,
unfortunately, had learnt little from the protracted tragedy of the
preceding seven years. With 73 seats out of a total of 115 [elections
to 2 seats were countermanded as a result of the death of candidates],
the Akalis had, for the first time, a clear majority in the House.
But the enemy, once again, was within. Barnala?s was "the first
Akali ministry not reliant on any other political party: with some
justification he described it as a
Panthic
government. Ironically,
it was ambitious elements within the
Panth
who conspired to
pull him down."
19
The Akali leaders
began squabbling for power among themselves and created a vacuum which
was promptly filled up by the extremists.
In 1986 alone, 512
persons were killed by the extremists, and terrorists activities accelerated
even further in 1987. The Barnala government?s response, throughout
the less than two years that it remained in power, was worse than
inadequate. On the one hand, instead of initiating strong steps to
counter these developments, the Chief Minister continued to ignore
the gravity of the situation and to deny the terrorist threat was
escalating, and on the other, he released,
en masse
, over 2,000
terrorists, accused of a variety of heinous crimes, who had been arrested
from the Golden Temple and from some 42 other Gurudwaras during Operation
Blue Star. Most of them immediately rejoined the extremist ranks,
and the movement picked up momentum rapidly. By January 1986, they
were already strong enough to eject the SGPC from the Golden Temple.
They hoisted Khalistani flags there and immediately began to demolish
the Akal Takht which had, by now, been reconstructed by the Government.
The guns were back in the Temple. A five-member ?
Panthic
Committee?
of militant leaders was created; on April 29, 1986, they passed a
formal resolution proclaiming Khalistan and again hoisted the Khalistani
flag in the Golden Temple. The killings, the torture, and now, increasingly,
rape once more defiled the sacred shrine. A large number of kidnapped
women were kept captive in the Temple, to be ?used? when and how the
?warriors of Khalistan? pleased; and then to be killed in cold blood;
almost without exception, these were Sikh women.
The horror of the
intolerable desecration of the shrine on this occasion was experienced
by the entire nation. Operation Black Thunder had been executed in
the full glare of the media, with both Indian and foreign representatives,
and continuous television coverage which made it impossible to hide
even the minutest detail. It became impossible for the terrorists
and their political front men to explain away these hideous offences
against the sanctity of the Temple, and the terrorists lost a great
deal of their support as a result.
The strategic advantage
of orchestrating terrorist activities from within the Golden Temple,
furthermore, was discounted once and for all by Operation Black Thunder.
After 1988, the sanctuary of this and other Sikh shrines no longer
offered the militants immunity against the law; and the sanctity ascribed
to their actions as a result of their association with these holy
places was also lost.
Their rhetoric, and
the pattern of their crimes, nevertheless, remained the same; what
changed was the intensity and effectiveness of their operations. Immediately
after Blue Star, a new generation of weapons, the Kalashnikov rifles
[AK47 and AK57] were injected into the conflict by a helpful Pakistan.
Large numbers of terrorists continuously crossed over into Pakistan
for training in the use of an increasingly lethal range of weapons
and explosives, and their ability to inflict damage multiplied manifold.
After Black Thunder, a panicky militant leadership met with the authorities
in Pakistan, and an unprecedented flow of weapons commenced all along
the unfenced border.
The movement, however,
had lost its ideological moorings at this stage, and a number of splinter
groups emerged, defined, not by any specific doctrinal differences
but essentially by a clash of egos between the various leaders. The
initial grouping was around two ?
Panthic
Committees?; the Old
came to be dominated by Gurbachan Singh Manochahal and Wassan Singh
Zaffarwal, and the New, commanded by Gurjant Singh Budhsinghwala,
Kanwarjit Singh, Charanjit Singh Channi, and later, Dr Sohan Singh.
There were various subsequent reorganisations, and no clear line of
authority could ever be established over the more than 160 gangs that
went on a rampage all over the state.
Efforts, nevertheless,
continued to be made to give the movement a religious tone; when Satwant
Singh and Kehar Singh were hanged for Indira Gandhi?s murder, 10 Hindus
were hanged in a ?retaliatory action? in Batala, Tarn Taran and Ferozpur
in January 1989. Various ?
Panthic
Codes? were promulgated imposing
restrictions on the consumption of alcohol, on marriage rites and
practices, in the consumption of meat(!), on the patterns of dress
to be worn by Sikh men and women, and on a range of ?immoral acts?.
The public reaction was far from what had been expected by the militants,
and by June 1989, Manochahal had directed his camp to discontinue
the ?social reform movement? as it had resulted in ?alienation from
the people and a dilution of the Khalistan movement?. The new
Panthic
Committee, dominated by the professedly puritanical Babbars, however,
continued to lay great emphasis on imposing ?moral? discipline on
the Sikhs.
Unfortunately for
them, this was an increasingly difficult posture to sustain. Radical
structural transformations had occurred as a result of Operation Black
Thunder; the most significant of these was the loss of the Golden
Temple and the Gurudwaras as shield and sanction. Rape, extortion
and murder had been the business of the terrorists from the very beginning
of the movement; but in its initial phases, and right up to the pre-Black
Thunder period, the top leadership was apparently distanced from these
activities, concentrated as they were in the Golden Temple. Their
depravity and vice in that hallowed place remained unknown to the
larger mass of Sikhs; and while lesser terrorists were often seen
to ?stray from the path?, the highest motives could still be ascribed
to the militant leadership.
Divested of the sanctuary
of the Golden Temple and the Gurudwaras, the leadership was forced
to live life as fugitives in the Punjab countryside; on the one hand,
their own deeds exposed them, and on the other the deeds of their
followers compromised them even further, since they were now believed
to be condoned, even encouraged, by these leaders.
Unsurprisingly, they
made several unsuccessful attempts to regain ?religious sanctions?
for their activities. In a bid to recover lost ground, the Old
Panthic
Committee called for a
Sarbat Khalsa
, a congregation of the
entire Sikh Community, at the Akal Takht on April 13, 1989. The call
received almost no response, and the
Sarbat Khalsa
was ?postponed?
indefinitely. Similarly, a splinter ?Federation? led by Bhai Manjit
Singh called for the constitution of
Khalsa Panchayats
operating
from Gurudwaras in every town and village all over the state. A
Chief
Khalsa Panchayat
was to be established at the Akal Takht. Once
again, the scheme died out due to a palpable lack of response.
The reasons were
not far to find. The movement by this time had acquired a virulence
that had affected the life of every Sikh. The death toll inflicted
by the terrorists between 1988 and 1992 stood at 9693; of these, 6280,
close to 65 per cent, were Sikhs. So many Sikh families had witnessed
the gratuitous and often senselessly brutal murder of their loved
ones that the myth of a war for the defence of Sikhism and of Sikh
interests was wearing thin.
This was not all;
the fear of death was pervasive, but terror reached into the homes
of tens of thousands of other Sikhs in the guise of shame and dispossession.
As fugitives, the terrorists and their leaders constantly sought shelter
in the homes of common Sikhs across the countryside; and it was while
they did this that their worst traits were exposed. Gradually, the
myth of ideological driven ?holy warriors? was supplanted by an image
of licentious criminals with a strong weakness of liquor, for women,
and for easy money. The terrorists not only demanded food and shelter,
but forced sex with the young women of the families they stayed with.
Abduction and rape became commonplace. Compounding these was widespread
extortion and, predictably, given the
Jat
Sikh?s obsession
with land, massive land grabbing.
At this point the
media also began projecting certain peculiarities in the ?recoveries?
that were being made from the hideouts of terrorists or after encounters.
They included pornographic literature, a variety of intoxicants, the
inevitable contraceptives, and, perhaps to complement these, ?medicines?
believed to increase sexual prowess. ?Love letters?, such as those
of Gurdip Singh Deepa, one of the top terrorists of the Khalistan
Commando Force [KCF], revealed the degree and depravity of their sexual
adventurism. Moreover, recovered documents increasingly exposed the
acquisition of massive movable and immovable properties by terrorists.
The hypocrisy and
cynicism of those who were trying to impose ?
Panthic
codes?
on the Sikh masses on the threat of death can be judged by the example
of some of their most important leaders. The Babbar Khalsa projected
itself as the most severe, intensely disciplined, indeed, puritanical
Sikh organisation among the militant groupings. Its chief, Sukhdev
Singh Babbar, however, was discovered living in a palatial bungalow
in Patiala under an assumed identity as a contractor, Jasmer Singh.
Babbar had a wife and three children at his village in Dassuwal, Tarn
Taran. But he shared his ?
White House
? in Patiala with Jawahar
Kaur, herself a member of a group of devotional singers, the
Nabhe
Wallian Bibian Da Jatha
, famed equally for their talent as for
their piety; an illegitimate son had been born out of this liaison.
The
White House
was estimated to have been constructed at a
cost of over Rs 30 lakh in the end Eighties. Air conditioners, dish
antennae, VCRs, colour televisions, sophisticated cameras, a micro
oven and an expensive cooking range were some of the ?modern amenities?
in the Patiala house. A substantial amount of jewellery and expensive
clothes belonging to Jawahar Kaur, were also recovered. If further
evidence of the ?holy warrior?s? inclinations was needed, video copies
of blue movies were also found in the house. Sukhdev Singh owned another
bungalow, the
Pink House
at Rajpura, and a third one in the
Model Town area.
In early 1991, Madha
Singh, a "Lt. General" of the Babbar Khalsa, and his associate
Inderjit Singh Sakhira, raped Sarabjit Kaur and Paramjit Kaur, the
daughters Harbhajan Singh Jat of Sirhali and subsequently abducted
and forcibly married them. This was Madha Singh?s third ?marriage?.
Jaspal Singh Bhuri,
a "Lt. General" of the KCF, abducted an 18 year old girl,
Beant Kaur of Manochahal village in December 1990. She was kept in
captivity for over four months, and was ?used? to satisfy the lust
of various gang members. In April 1991 she was released. However,
Bhuri followed her to her village and forced her to consume cyanide,
because he felt she would damage his group?s reputation.
Sukhdev Singh ?Sukha
Sipahi?, alias ?General Labh Singh?, the then KCF Chief, had developed
a relationship with a married woman, Surjit Kaur, the wife of Gurdip
Singh Thekedar. In July 1988, suspecting her ?fidelity?, he and his
associates gave her a severe beating and set her house on fire. Sukhdev
Singh was later killed in a police encounter. His nephew, Paramjit
Singh Panjwar, and an associate, Jagjit Singh Billa, believing the
woman had acted as a police informer, killed her in October 1989.
Panjwar subsequently
became the Chief of the KCF [Panjwar] group. He acquired a large bungalow
in one of Delhi?s upmarket colonies and took up residence there under
an assumed identity as Partap Singh. He had also acquired a brick
kiln in Ghaziabad, and had invested a large chunk of looted money
in the transport business. He ?owned? a half share in a rice shelling
mill in Jhabal, and had forcibly occupied some 20 acres of land in
the same area. One of his close associates, Harminder Singh Sultanwind,
a member of Dr Sohan Singh?s ?
Panthic
Committee?, had ?kept?
a married woman, the sister of another top terrorist Baghel Singh
Dehriwal who had been killed, at a bungalow in Chandigarh. He owned
a fleet of cars and had ?invested? Rs 10 lakh with a brick kiln owner
of Majhita.
Satnam Singh Chinna,
chief of the BTFK, had ?acquired? a 50 acre farm in the Puranpur district
of Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh, and had a large
kothi
constructed
at Delhi. He had killed half a dozen of his close associates when
they had demanded a share in the money looted by the group. He had
two wives, and illicit relations with the wife of a certain Roshan
Lal Bairagi, another girl named Pinki, and a third woman in Mannawala
village in Ajnala.
A particularly brutal
character was Sukhinder Singh ?Gora?, the Deputy Chief of the KCF[W],
who, in the first quarter of 1991 alone, raped and murdered Jatinder
Kaur, the wife of Jagir Singh Mazhbi, Satya, the wife of Ajit Singh
Jat, both residents of Enkot village. In the second quarter of 1991,
he abducted and raped Anup Kaur, the daughter of Surjit Singh, a retired
Subedar living in Dialgarh village. In October the same year, he and
his associates kidnapped two girls, Paramjit Kaur and Pinder Kaur,
from Bujian Wali village and raped them. Some time later, they kidnapped
a young girl, Sukhi of Manan village, and raped and killed her.
Another prominent
terrorist, Balwinder Singh Shahpur, the Chief of the Dashmesh Regiment,
virtually made rape his primary occupation and had ravished more than
50 girls in the Sathiala-Batala area.
These are only a
handful of instances of the more prominent terrorists, based only
on reported offences; most crimes by these men, however, will never
have been mentioned by their victims - that is the essence of terror.
Inevitably, their example was enthusiastically followed by what was
at one time up to a three thousand strong terrorist force backed by
an even larger number of unlisted criminals ravaging the entire Punjab
countryside. As early as January 1989, their activities were causing
deep alarm even within militants ranks, and the Old
Panthic
Committee issued a statement that those who were killing people in
connection with land disputes and extortion, and who were committing
?other acts? that brought the movement into disrepute were in no way
helping the Khalistan movement. They also appealed to Sikh masses
not to give shelter to ?such elements? as they were ?defaming the
struggle started by the Damdami Taksal.? But given their record of
its own top leadership, this call had a hollow ring. In any event,
the real power was in the hands of those who had the guns; there was
no organisational authority above the roving terrorist gangs in Punjab.
In 1991 a confidential
survey of the socio-economic profile of terrorists, including 205
hard-core terrorists, indicated that a majority of those who joined
voluntarily did so for the lure of easy money and the ?benefits? attached
to being a terrorist; more than a third of the non-hardcore terrorists,
however, were recruited coercively. A previous criminal background
was seen to provide a distinct advantage in climbing the terrorist
hierarchy. Families of hard-core terrorists, such as Gurbachan Singh
Manochahal, Dharam Singh Kastiwal, Paramjit Singh Panjwar, Resham
Singh Thande, Mahesh Inder Singh, Nishan Singh Makhu, Yadwinder Singh
Yadu, Baghel Singh Dehriwal, among others, were identified as having
amassed great fortunes. Even the lesser terrorists gained immensely
in social significance and status once they had a Kalashnikov in their
hands. Heads of their families were respectfully addressed as
Baba
in their villages. They were approached for assistance in settling
private disputes. Fathers of some of the better known terrorists set
up an independent ?business? of extortion, mediation in cases of kidnapping,
and a variety of other acts of coercion. They also became beneficiaries
of forcible acquisition of lands and other properties. Even if their
sons died, they acquired the halo of martyrs; they families were called
shaheedi parivars
, and received substantial financial support.
These findings have
now received further corroboration in a recent study by three sociologists
of Guru Nanak Dev University. The main causes identified for the terrorists
joining the Khalistan movement had nothing to do with religion or
ideology: "At least 180 of the 300 terrorists we sampled joined
?out of fun.? The phrase that was often used was ?shokia taur se?.
They were happy if they had a motorcycle (Hero Honda; the 350 cc Enfield
Bullet had been banned) and an AK-47 and if they got to eat almonds."
Women, according to the study, were another big draw. Paramjit Singh
Judge, one of the authors of this study, asserts, "I know one
doctor in Majitha who terminated 10-15 pregnancies every Thursday.
No one openly told you of the rapes. But in the villages, you often
heard comments like, ?
Itna badaam khayenge to kahin to nikalenge
hi.
? [If they eat so many almonds, they have to find an outlet
for their energies]. Often terrorists would enter a house just before
dinner, have dinner, and then force all the family members except
the young women up to the terrace... The majority of the terrorists
died within a year. In that time they had access to 50 to 55 women."
20
These were the ?armies
of Khalistan?, the ?defenders of the Faith?, the men who claimed to
speak for the Sikh
Panth
and to fight to establish an order
based on the teachings of the Gurus.
VII
And who defeated
them?
No ?great Brahmanical
conspiracy?, no cynical political combine out to crush the ?freedom
and identity of the Sikhs?, no armies of militant ?Hindus?; it was,
overwhelmingly, the Sikhs themselves who fought the terrorists, and
who eventually prevailed over them.
It was Sikhs themselves,
no doubt; but it was not those Sikhs who claimed to represent the
religious leadership of the community; it was not those Sikhs who
had been playing political games with the lives of the people of Punjab
for over a decade. Despite the experiences of Blue Star, of Black
Thunder, and of the unrestrained depredations of the terrorists thereafter,
this ?Sikh leadership? never diluted its complicity with, or implicit
support to, the strategy of religious manipulation that the terrorists
had extended from word to deed.
In 1988, the Punjab
Police was as an utterly demoralised force. Shortly before Operation
Black Thunder, a police party had been engaged in an encounter at
Daheru; they simply abandoned their weapons and fled. People in Punjab?s
villages spoke of a situation where the police refused to move out
of their barricaded police stations after dark; the force?s will to
fight terrorism, it appeared, had been completely broken.
The appearances were
deceptive. What had been lacking was a clear mandate, and a freedom
to carry on the battle without crippling political interference. Throughout
the era of the ascendancy of terror, virtually every hard-core terrorist
had a political patron; police responses were distorted to such an
extent that effective reaction was precluded even in cases where policemen
and their families had been specifically targeted by the terrorists.
But the will was far from lacking.
Within five years,
this very force was to spearhead one of the most dramatic victories
in the history of world terrorism. The men who were said to have been
cowering in their police stations chased the terrorists deep into
their own territory; and chased them to their deaths. Everywhere in
the world, when terrorism goes beyond a point, the police has ordinarily
been withdrawn from the battle, and armies engage with the militants.
In Punjab, the Army was cast into a supportive role, forming outer
cordons during raids and ambushes on militants; the police were the
actual combatants.
And more than 65
per cent of the personnel in the Punjab Police were Sikhs.
After 1989, massive
recruitment took place, as the force expanded strength from its existing
35,000 men to 60,000 men. It was Sikhs from all over the state, from
deep within what had virtually been abandoned as the ?terrorist heartland?,
who came in overwhelming numbers to join the war against terrorism.
They paid a terrible price for their resolve. To wear a police uniform
in the era of militancy in the Punjab was to proclaim yourself a wilful
target for preferential terrorist attack. And between 1988 and 1992
alone, 1566 police men were killed by terrorists. It was a risk they
willingly took. More distressing, however, was the vicious targeting
of their unprotected families.
August 1992 saw the
most vicious wave of these murders. Over just a few days in rapid
succession, more than 60 persons from the families of Sikh policemen
were killed. I drove from village to village to offer what little
consolation I could to the survivors. In a village in Barnala, 18
persons had been herded into a small enclosure, and had been shot
at point blank range. Even after their last rites had been completed,
their congealed blood, with swarms of flies, marked the place where
they had fallen. The survivors, mostly women and young girls, were
too stunned by the tragedy to say anything; but on every face, in
every tear-filled eye I saw an expression, at once of entreaty and
of accusation. From village to village, that expression was to follow
me for many days.
But these murders
only strengthened the resolve of the survivors to rid their people
of the scourge of terror.
And the people responded.
For years there had been no effective resistance to the militant dictat;
the State it seemed, had abdicated all responsibility, and the people
could only suffer in silence under the tyranny of the Kalashnikov.
But once the State displayed a resolve to combat, the groundswell
of popular support was simply immense. The popular revulsion was transformed
into actual resistance, inspiring many a heroic deed. In June 1989,
terrorists hijacked a bus and forced 10 Hindu passengers to disembark
near Talwandi Ghuman; as the terrorists prepared to execute them,
two Sikhs - Avtar Singh and Rajwant Singh - resisted; they were killed,
only to become heroes and models in the eyes of the long suffering
villagers. The terrorists could no longer find shelter as easily as
they did; even those who had submitted to their rapine for years explored
the possibilities of resistance. Sukhwinder Singh ?Sukha?, a listed
terrorist had been coercing Kapur Singh Lubana of Basoya village to
provide him ?hospitality?; he had then taken to raping his daughter-in-law
when he pleased. In May 1991, Lubana informed the police; Sukhwinder
Singh and two of his accomplices were killed in an encounter.
The floodgates opened.
But that was not all. The Punjabi villager was willing and eager to
engage directly in the battle. When the police offered the opportunity
through a scheme accepting volunteers as Special Police Officers who
would be provided a weapon, ammunition and a small daily allowance,
large numbers of Sikhs responded, and the battle lines were drawn
within the villages.
Among the most noble
sagas of this resistance was the dauntless courage of the families
of comrade Balwinder Singh and his wife Jagdish Kaur, and of Major
Singh. Fired by ideology, these active members of the CPI(M) transformed
their homes on two ends of Bhikiwind village, one of the areas worst
affected by terrorism, into solitary fortresses. Here they fought
through and survived dozens of terrorist attacks, including two in
which rocket launchers were used.
The Army, the central
security forces, each played their role. But the war against terror
in theatres all over India is, today, witness to the fact that this
pestilence cannot be eradicated by a force imposed from without. The
victory over terrorism in Punjab was a people?s victory; the people
were common policemen, courageous villagers, men and women inspired
by an assortment of ideologies and motives.
One thing, however,
is certain: those who fought the terror - whatever their beliefs or
motives - were true to the teachings of the Gurus; those who perpetrated
terror betrayed Sikhism.
NOTES & REFERENCES
1.
Guru
Granth Sahib
, Tilang, M.1, p. 722
2. Dhillon,
Gurdarshan Singh,
Truth About Punjab: SGPC White Paper
, SGPC,
Amritsar, 1996, p. 155.
3.
Ibid
.,
pp. 157-58.
4.
The
head of the Damdami Taksal before Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
5.
Ibid.
,
pp. 159-160.
6.
Ibid.
,
pp. 164-65.
7.
Tully,
Mark, and Jacob, Satish,
Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi?s Last Battle
,
Rupa & Co., 1986.
8.
Singh,
Khushwant,
A History of the Sikhs - Volume II: 1839-1988
, Oxford
University Press, Delhi, 1991, pp. 330-31.
9.
Taped
speeches of Bhindranwale, compiled and distributed by the Damdami
Taksal
10.
Singh,
Khushwant,
op.cit.
, p. 332.
11.
Indian
Express
, July 10, 1981
12.
Dhillon,
Gurdarshan Singh,
op. cit.
, p. 173.
13.
White
Paper on the Punjab Agitation, Government of India, 1984, p. 164.
14.
Singh,
Khushwant,
op.cit.
, p. 337.
15.
White
Paper on the Punjab Agitation, Government of India, 1984, p. 164.
16.
Ibid.
,
p. 163.
17.
Ibid.
,
p. 164.
18.
Tully
& Jacob,
op. cit.
, p. 97.
19.
Singh,
Khushwant,
op. cit.
, p. 404.
20.
Judge,
Paramjit Singh, Puri, Harish & Sekhon, Jagrup Singh, sociologists
from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar; cited in
Sunday
,
16-22 February, pp. 11-12.