Talk:Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale/Major edits

This talk page is for proposing and discussing major edits to the article Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Editors may present their proposed revised versions of sections of the article, followed by discussion about the edits.

Lead

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale
Born	Jarnail Singh Brar (1947-12-12)December 12, 1947 Rode, Moga, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, India)
Died	June 6, 1984(1984-06-06) (aged 37) Akal Takht, Amritsar, Punjab, India
Cause of death	Killed in gunfight during Operation Blue Star
Monuments	Gurdwara Yaadgar Shaheedan, Amritsar
Occupation(s)	Sikh preacher, head of Damdami Taksal, advocate of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution
Organization	Damdami Taksal
Title	Sant
Movement	Khalistan movement
Spouse	Pritam Kaur (m. 1966–1984)
Children	2

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (Punjabi: [dʒəɾnɛːlᵊ sɪ́ŋɡᵊ pɪ̀ɳɖrãːʋaːɭe]; born Jarnail Singh Brar; 12 February 1947 – 6 June 1984) was the fourteenth jathedar, or leader, of the prominent orthodox Sikh religious institution Damdami Taksal. He was an advocate of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. He gained national attention after his involvement in the 1978 Sikh-Nirankari clash.

In the summer of 1982, Bhindranwale and the Akali Dal launched the Dharam Yudh Morcha ("righteous campaign"), with its stated aim being the fulfilment of a list of demands based on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to create a largely autonomous state within India. Thousands of people joined the movement in the hope of retaining a larger share of irrigation water and the return of Chandigarh to Punjab. There was dissatisfaction in some sections of the Sikh community with prevailing economic, social, and political conditions. Bhindranwale articulated these grievances as discrimination against Sikhs and the undermining of Sikh identity. Over time Bhindranwale grew to be a leader of Sikh militancy.

In 1982 Bhindranwale and his group moved to the Golden Temple complex and made it his headquarters. Bhindranwale would establish what amounted to a "parallel government" in Punjab, settling cases and resolving disputes, while conducting his campaign. In 1983, he along with his militant cadre inhabited and fortified the Sikh shrine Akal Takht. In June 1984 Operation Blue Star was carried out by the Indian Army to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib in the Golden Temple Complex, which resulted in an official tally of 493 combined militant and civilian casualties, including that of Bhindranwale.

Bhindranwale has remained a controversial figure in Indian history. While the Sikhs' highest temporal authority Akal Takht describe him a 'martyr', with immense appeal among rural sections of the Sikh population, who saw him as a powerful leader who stood up to Indian state dominance and repression, to many Indians he symbolized the revivalist and extremist movement in Punjab.

References

Comments

• On the whole this looks fine to me. My two comments
  • "...allegedly to evade arrest..." -- I would take this out. It's ambiguous and for what it's worth, the sentence does say "....occupied" which already conveys pretty strong sentiment when viewed in context.
  • Rediff.com source seems low quality to me. I would remove it, especially since the sentence it is cited for ("Over time, ...") already has couple of other sources in place.

JoyceGW1 (talk) 05:20, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Re:evade, went ahead and did that. Also changed "occupied" to "inhabited," as he was there on Akali invitation and "occupied" implies by force. Re:rediff, also went ahead and removed it. Already well sourced with scholarly sources, an additional quick editorial seems unnecessary imo. Sapedder (talk) 09:27, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Other edits:

The current page notes that blue-star "resulted in an official tally of 493 combined militant and civilian casualties, including that of Bhindranwale.[23]"; while it's true that the Indian government has provided this 'official tally,' the official numbers are widely discredited, and many eye-witness accounts and later omissions and reports have determined that the number of casualties was substantially higher. Reaching the range of 18,000-20,000 people at the temple - and then more deaths occurring throughout the Punjab and India as peoples tried to either reach the Golden Temple in protest as they became aware of the operation or soldiers deserted the Indian Army.

Sources that can corroborate these statistics are:

"Jaijee, Inderjit Singh (1999). Politics of Genocide: Punjab, 1984-1998 . Ajanta Publications. p. 108. ISBN 978-81-202-0415-7. "Adding 8,000 "missing in Woodrose" plus deserting soldiers killed on their way back to Amritsar and villagers killed as they tried to reach the Darbar Sahib at the time of Operation Bluestar, the civilian death toll in June and July 1984, may be somewhere between 18,000 to 20,000."

"Kaur, M. (2019). Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict. Springer International Publishing."

There are other sources available as well.

Politics

It is generally believed that in the late 1970s, Indira Gandhi's Congress party attempted to co-opt Bhindranwale in a bid to split Sikh votes and weaken the Akali Dal, its chief rival in Punjab. Congress supported the candidates backed by Bhindranwale in the 1978 SGPC elections. The theory of Congress involvement has been contested on grounds including that Gandhi's imposition of President's rule in 1980 had essentially disbanded all Punjab political powers regardless, with no assistance required to take control, and has been challenged by scholarship. According to the New York Times, Sanjay Gandhi had approached Bhindranwale, then the newly-appointed head of the Damdami Taksal, after Indira Gandhi lost the 1977 Indian general election, but after Congress resumed power in 1980, would find out that he could not be controlled or directed. The Congress CM (and later President) Giani Zail Singh, who allegedly financed the initial meetings of the separatist organisation Dal Khalsa, amid attempts to cater to and capitalize on the surge in Sikh religious revivalism in Punjab. The Akali Dal would also attempt to cater to the same electoral trend during the same period following electoral defeats on 1972 and 1980, resulting from a pivot to a secular strategy in the 1960s and the accompanying coalition partnerships necessary to guarantee electoral success, most notably with the Jan Sangh, a party of urban Hindu communalism. This later turned out to be a miscalculation by Congress, as Bhindranwale's regionalist, and eventually separatist political objectives became popular among the agricultural Jat Sikhs in the region, as he would advocate for the state's water rights central to the state's economy, in addition to leading Sikh revivalism.

In 1979, Bhindranwale put up forty candidates against the Akali candidates in the SGPC election for a total of 140 seats, winning four seats. A year later, Bhindranwale used Zail Singh's patronage to put up candidates in three constituencies' during the general elections, winning a significant number of seats from Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Ferozepur districts. Despite this success, he would not personally seek any political office. He had the acumen to play off of both Akali and Congress attempts to capitalize off of him, as association with him garnered Sikh votes while putting other constituencies at risk. According to one analysis,

“Nearly every academic and media source on the rise of Bhindranwale notes his apparent ties to the Congress party, particularly through Giani Zail Singh, the president of India, up through the early 1980s. The intent was allegedly to use Bhindranwale as a pawn against the Akali Dal, Congress’ chief political rival in Punjab. Several of my interlocutors claim an opposite scenario: that is, that the Akali Dal itself started rumors of Bhindranwale’s links to Congress as a way of thwarting his growing popularity among its own constituency. There is evidence for both of these possibilities, and I believe Robin Jeffrey may be most accurate in his assessment when he writes that “the evidence suggests that Bhindranwale exercised a cunning independence, playing the factional antagonisms of Punjab politics with knowledge and skill…. In this independence lay much of Bhindranwale’s appeal. If left him untainted by close association with any of the older political leaders, yet at the same time suggested that he knew how to handle them." Whatever ties Bhindranwale may have had with Congress in the early days, it would be misleading to suggest that Congress "created" the Bhindranwale phenomenon. It was in my opinion, sui generis. Help may have been received from outside [later on during the insurgency], but the dynamic to be understood here is internal. Emphasizing the role of outside agencies, rather, is a way of minimizing the seriousness of the challenge presented by Bhindranwale himself.”

Bhindranwale himself addressed rumors of being such an agent, which were spread by Akali leadership during mid-1983, as his expanding support came at the expense of the Akali Dal amid mass leadership defections, seeing them as attempts to reduce his by-then huge support base in Punjab. He would refute this in April 1984 by comparing his actions to the Akalis, referring to the granting of gun licenses to Akalis by the Congress administration while his had been canceled, and that he did not enter the house of any Congress-aligned faction (including congressites, communists, and socialists), Sikhs associated with him being arrested and their homes confiscated, and police destruction on his property, while Akali politicians would have dinners with figures aligned with Congress, like former chief minister Darbara Singh, who Bhindranwale would accuse of atrocities against Sikhs.

Bhindranwale did not respect conventional SGPC or Akali Dal apparatchiks, believing them to have "become mealy-mouthed, corrupt and deviated from the martial tenets of the faith," after they had failed to support the Sikhs during the 1978 Sikh-Nirankari clashes due to pressure from their coalition partners. Described as having "unflinching zeal and firm convictions," Bhindranwale did "not succumb to the pressure of big-wigs in the Akali Party nor could he be manipulated by the authorities to serve their ends." According to Gurdarshan Singh, "Those who tried to mend him or bend him to suit their designs underestimated his tremendous will and ultimately lost their own ground. He never became their tool. People who promoted his cause or helped him to rise to prominence were disillusioned, when he refused to play the second fiddle to them and declined to tread the path laid down for him. Paradoxical though it may seem, they became his unwilling tools. Thousands listened to him with rapt attention at the Manji Sahib gatherings. He had tremendous power to mobilise the masses. His charisma and eloquence overshadowed other leaders."

In order to overcome the hegemony of the Akali Dal, rather than being used, Bhindranwale would exploit the Congress and then the Akali Dal itself. The Akali Dal had begun to neglect Sikh needs in favor of maintaining political alliances necessary to keep power, resulting in their electoral loss in 1972, and the resulting Anandpur Sahib Resolution, meant to win back Sikh support, remained neglected while the party focused on reversing the overcentralization of political power that had taken place during the Emergency. Described as "a rational actor with his own goals," his first concern was to rejuvenate Sikhism as a leader of the community.

Further, the Damdami Taksal already had a history of openly opposing and criticizing Congress government policies before, as Kartar Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale, the leader of the institution prior to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, had been a severe critic of the excesses of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency rule, even in her presence as far back as 1975. Kartar Singh had also gotten a resolution passed by the SGPC on November 18, 1973 condemning the various anti-Sikh activities of the Sant Nirankaris, which were based in Delhi. Both Kartar Singh Bhindranwale and the Damdami Taksal had commanded such a level of respect in Sikh religious life that the Akali ministry had given him a state funeral upon his death on August 20, 1977. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale would also mention the Sikhs facing the government with 37 major protests against Emergency rule under Congress during this era as fighting against tyranny. Emergency rule had initially been utilized to avert criminal charges on Gandhi, who was linked to misuse of government property during the upcoming election, which would have invalidated her campaign, and endowed the central government with powers including preemptive arrests, as well as the arrest of many political opponents.

On Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale becoming leader of the Damdami Taksal, another of the Taksal students explained, “[Nothing changed] in political terms. It was just the same way. The Indian government thought that maybe although they could not stop Sant Kartar Singh [Bhindranwale], maybe Sant Jarnail Singh [Bhindranwale] would be weaker. That was not the case.”

References

Comments

• As I had indicated almost three months ago, I am good with this.

JoyceGW1 (talk) 05:20, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Damdami Taksal

File:Damdami Taksal Logo.svg

The Logo of the Damdami Taksal, reads 'the Shabd is forged in the True mint' in Punjabi (Gurmukhi).

In 1965, he was enrolled by his father at the Damdami Taksal also known as Bhindran Taksal, a religious school near Moga, Punjab, named after the village of Bhindran Kalan where its leader Gurbachan Singh Bhindranwale lived., After a one-year course in Sikh studies he returned to farming, and continued studies under Kartar Singh, who was the new head of the Taksal after Gurbachan Singh Khalsa. He quickly became the favourite student of Kartar Singh. Unlike other students he had had familial responsibilities, and he would take time off from the seminary and go back and forth month to month to take care of his wife and two children, balancing his familial and religious responsibilities.

Kartar Singh Khalsa died in a car accident on 16 August 1977. Before his death, Kartar Singh had appointed the then 31-year-old Bhindranwale as his successor. His son, Amrik Singh, would become a close companion of Jarnail Singh.

Bhindranwale was formally elected the 14th jathedar of the Damdami Taksal at a bhog ceremony at Mehta Chowk on 25 August 1977. He adopted the name "Bhindranwale" meaning "from [the village of] Bhindran [Kalan]", the location of the Bhindran Taksal branch of the Damdami Taksal, and attained the religious title of "Sant". He concluded most of his family responsibilities to dedicate full time to the Taksal, thus following a long tradition of “sants”, an important part of rural Sikh life. Henceforth his family saw him solely in Sikh religious congregations known as satsangs, though his son Ishar Singh would describe his youth as being "well looked after" and "never in need." As a missionary Sant of the Taksal, he would tour the villages to give dramatic public sermons and reading of scripture. He preached the disaffected young Sikhs, encouraging them to return to the path of the Khalsa by giving up consumerism in family life and abstaining from drugs and alcohol, the two main vices afflicting rural society in Punjab, and as a social reformer, denounced practices like the dowry, and encouraged a return to the simple lifestyle following the increased wealth of the state following the Green Revolution; as one observer noted, "The Sant's following grew as he successfully regenerated the good life of purity, dedication and hard work.... These basic values of life...had been the first casualty of commercial capitalism." His focus on fighting for the Sikh cause appealed to many young Sikhs. Bhindranwale never learned English but had good grasp of Punjabi language. His speeches were released in the form of audio cassette tapes and circulated in villages. Later on, he became adept with press and gave radio and television interviews as well. His sermons urged the centrality of religious values to life, calling on the members of congregations to be:

"…one who takes the vows of faith and helps others take it; who reads the scriptures and helps others do the same; who avoids liquor and drugs and helps others do likewise; who urges unity and co-operation; who preaches community, and be attached to your Lord’s throne and home."

From July 1977 to July 1982, he extensively toured cities and villages of Punjab to preach the Sikh faith. He also visited other states and cities in India, mostly in gurdwaras, in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. His meetings were attended by rapt "throngs of the faithful - and the curious." He advocated against decreasing religious observance, cultural changes occurring in Punjab, rising substance abuse, and use of alcohol and pornography, encouraging religious initiation by taking amrit and fulfilling religious obligations, including wearing the outward religious symbols of the faith, like the turban and beard. He appeared at a time when leaders were not engaged in the community, traveled from city to city instead of being based in an office or gurdwara and delegating, solved domestic disputes and showed no interest in a political career, seeing himself foremost as a man of religion. People soon began to seek his intervention in addressing social grievances, and he began to hold court to settle disputes. This reflected the widespread disenchantment among the masses with expensive, time-consuming bureaucratic procedures that often did not ensure justice. Bhindranwale’s verdicts were widely respected and helped to gain him enormous popularity, as well as his "remarkable ability" as a preacher and his ability to quote religious texts and evoke the relevance of historical events in the present time.

Khushwant Singh, a critic of Bhindranwale, allowed that “Bhindranwale's amrit parchar was a resounding success. Adults in their thousands took oaths in public to abjure liquor, tobacco and drugs and were baptized. Videocassettes showing blue films and cinema houses lost out to the village gurdwara. Men not only saved money they had earlier squandered in self-indulgence, but now worked longer hours on their lands and raised better crops. They had much to be grateful for to Jarnail Singh who came to be revered by them."

References

Comments

Hi @JoyceGW1: Any thoughts on this section? I'm planning to put it up in a day or so. Sapedder (talk) 13:08, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Sapedder: Sorry I got busy. It looks fine to me overall, just tried to trim it a tiny bit. My apologies that I seem to have no easy way to show you what I changed so I am just sharing the version below. I see no issue in moving either version to the article now but may come back to suggest some further changes (mostly editorial in nature) later. Thanks, JoyceGW1 (talk) 07:46, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@JoyceGW1: No problem, the changes make sense so I'll incorporate them. I'll hold off on implementing for a bit longer, for any further input you may have. Sapedder (talk) 09:45, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Conflict with Nirankaris

Main article: 1978 Sikh–Nirankari clashes

On 13 April 1978, the anniversary of the founding of the Khalsa, a Sant Nirankari convention was organized in Amritsar, with permission from the Akali state government. The practices of the "Sant Nirankaris" subsect of Nirankaris was considered as heretics by the orthodox Sikhism expounded by Bhindranwale, though the conflict between the Sikhs and the Sant Nirankaris preceded Bhindranwale; the Sant Nirankaris had been declared by the priests of the Golden Temple as enemies of the Sikhs in 1973, and the Damdami Taksal had opposed them since the 1960s. They had exemplified both the internal and external threats to Sikhism that Bhindranwale spoke of in speeches, as their scriptures made derogatory references to the Guru Granth Sahib, the sect's leader proclaiming himself as a guru in its place, and because of their affiliation with Congress.

From Golden Temple premises, Bhindranwale delivered a stirring sermon at the Golden Temple, after which a large contingent of about two hundred Sikhs led by Bhindranwale and Fauja Singh, the head of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, left the Golden Temple and proceeded to the Nirankari Convention. The peaceful protest of the Sikhs was shot at by members of the Nirankaris, who had come with firearms. Fauja Singh allegedly attempted to behead Nirankari chief Gurbachan Singh with his sword but was shot dead by Gurbachan's bodyguard. , In the ensuing violence, several people were killed: two of Bhindranwale's followers, eleven members of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and three members of the Sant Nirankari sect. Bhindranwale's care of the dead and injured increased his popularity and his supporters proliferated. This event brought Bhindranwale to limelight in the media.

A criminal case was filed against sixty two Nirankaris, by the Akali led government in Punjab. The case was heard in the neighbouring Haryana state, and all the accused were acquitted on grounds of self-defence. The Punjab government Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal decided not to appeal the decision. The case of Nirankaris received widespread support in the media and the orthodox Sikhs claimed this to be a conspiracy to defame the Sikh religion. Bhindranwale increased his rhetoric against the enemies of Sikhs. A letter of authority was issued by the Akal Takht ostracizing the Sant Nirankaris. The chief proponents of this attitude were the Babbar Khalsa founded by the widow, Bibi Amarjit Kaur of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, whose husband Fauja Singh had been at the head of the march in Amritsar; the Damdami Taksal led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who had also been in Amritsar on the day of the outrage; the Dal Khalsa, formed after the events; and the All India Sikh Students Federation. His "very public" rhetoric of Indira Gandhi's involvement in the trials was one of the initial reasons the central government became concerned with Bhindranwale, as well as the historic martial identity Sikhs were returning to because of him. Under Bhindranwale, the number of people joining the Khalsa increased. The rhetoric that were based on the "perceived 'assault' on Sikh values from the Hindu community", also increased in this period.

In the subsequent years following this event, several murders took place in Punjab and the surrounding areas, allegedly by Bhindranwale's group, and the new Babbar Khalsa, which opposed Bhindranwale. The Babbar Khalsa activists took up residence in the Golden Temple, where they would retreat to, after committing "acts of punishment" on people against the orthodox Sikh tenets. On 24 April 1980, The Nirankari head, Gurbachan was murdered. Bhindranwale took residence in Golden Temple to allegedly "escape arrest" when he was accused of the assassination of Nirankari Gurbachan Singh. The police retaliated by raiding the houses of suspects, beating up inmates and killing a few in faked 'encounters,' killing twenty-four thusly, which would infuriate Bhindranwale, who termed it as the killing of innocent Sikhs. without any due process. It would turn out that a member of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, Ranjit Singh, surrendered and admitted to the assassination three years later, and was sentenced to serve thirteen years at the Tihar Jail in Delhi.

References

Assassination of Lala Jagat Narain

On 9 September 1981, Lala Jagat Narain, the founder editor of the newspaper Punjab Kesari, was murdered. He was viewed as a supporter of the Nirankari sect and had written several editorials that had condemned Bhindranwale. An Arya Samaji known for his staunch communal tendencies reflected in his daily newspaper in Punjab, Lala had urged Hindus of Punjab to reply to government census that Hindi and not Punjabi was their mother tongue and decried the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. His paper played a significant role in "fanning the flames of communal hatred between Hindus and Sikhs," and the Hindi press based in Jalandhar consistently vilified the Sikhs, without making any distinction between one Sikh group or another. Narain had been present at the clash between the Nirankaris and the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and had served as a witness in the court case of the incident.

Punjab Police issued a warrant for Bhindranwale's arrest in the editor's murder, as he had often spoken out against the well-known editor. Bhindranwale at that time was present in Chando Kalan, a Haryana village 200 miles from Amritsar. The Punjab Police planned a search operation in an attempt to locate and arrest Bhindranwale on September 14, 1981. Bhindranwale and others Sikh religious leaders alleged that police behaved illegally with the Sikh inhabitants of the village during the search in which the valuables from homes belonging to Sikhs were reported to have been looted and two buses owned by the Damdami Taksal containing a number of Birs (copies) of the Guru Granth Sahib were set on fire.

There was violence in Chando Kalan when the Punjab Police team reached the location, between supporters of Bhindranwale and police. The buses had also contained written records of sermons of Bhindranwale for posterity. The burning of his sermons had angered Bhindranwale, who secured himself in his fortified Gurdwara Gurdarshan Parkash located at Mehta Chowk.

References

Comments

Hi @JoyceGW1: for the next round I'm planning to add the above two sections (neither of them are particularly large edits in terms of bytes added imo, so I thought to combine them in this round). Leave any thoughts when you find a moment. Also, if you wanted to make any more stylistic edits to the previously discussion section, feel free to. Sapedder (talk) 23:21, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

@Sapedder: I qualified one statement in the first section after some source checks. Good to go I think. Thanks, JoyceGW1 (talk) 08:55, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Nice catch, I've added the sections. Sapedder (talk) 11:13, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Incident at Mehta Chowk

As his location became common knowledge, the police surrounded the gurdwara at Mehta Chowk. Darbara Singh insisted on Bhindranwale's arrest, though the central government feared the possibility of clashes as large numbers of Sikhs had gathered at the gurdwara in his support. For negotiating Bhindranwale's surrender, the senior officers went inside the gurdwara. Bhindranwale agreed to surrender for arrest at 1:00 p.m. on September 20, 1981 but added a condition that will do so only after addressing the religious congregation. This condition was accepted by the police. At the agreed time he emerged address a large crowd of his followers who armed with spears, swords and several firearms. Several prominent Akali leaders such as Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Harchand Singh Longowal and the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee's Jathedar Santokh Singh were present. Bhindranwale delivered a sermon proclaiming his innocence and against the state government trying to have him arrested, receiving the support of almost every senior Akali leader, also against the perceived injustices done to the Sikhs and himself. He ended his speech asking the mob not to act violent after his arrest. Bhindranwale then surrendered himself to the police for arrest and was being taken to a circuit house (guest house) instead of prison.

According to the villagers, the Punjab police had deliberately set fire to the buses in Bhindranwale's absence from Chando Kalan after the Haryana police had left; according to the government, there had been an "exchange of fire" between the villagers and the police, as well as "incidents of arson." The clashes with police resulted in the death of at least 11 persons. On the day of his arrest, three armed men on motorcycle opened fire using machine guns in a market in Jalandhar in retaliation, killing four people and injured twelve. The next day, in another incident at Tarn Taran one Hindu man was killed and thirteen people were injured. On 25 September, in Amritsar a goods train was derailed. On 29 September, an aeroplane of Indian Airlines was hijacked and taken to Lahore. Several bomb blasts were made in Punjab's Amritsar, Faridkot and Gurdaspur districts.

Several violent incidents happened in Punjab during the next 25 days after the arrest. The Akali Dal leadership was in the process of reestablishing its Sikh credentials after its secular administration during its protests against the Emergency, and under Longowal decided to publicly support Bhindranwale, the most popular Sikh religious leader in Punjab at that point. Bhindranwale also got support from the President of the SGPC, Tohra and the Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Gurdial Singh Ajnoha. India's Home Minister, Giani Zail Singh, then announced in the Parliament that there was no evidence against Bhindranwale in his involvement in Lala Jagat Narain's murder. On 15 October 1981 Bhindranwale was released by the Punjab Police. After his release he was able to keep the party on a strongly nationalist course, and released a public statement approving the murders of Gurbachan Singh and Lala Jagat Narain and that the killers deserved to be honoured and awarded their weight in gold, according to KPS Gill. In a statement regarding Narain in early 1982 for the publication India Today, Bhindranwale stated:

"We are no extremists or communalists. Give us one instance when we insulted or hit anyone. But the Government terms us extremists. We are extremists if we protest when our Gurus are painted as lovers of wine and women by the Lala's newspapers. I preach that all Sikhs must observe their tenets and be the Guru's warriors. Let all Hindus wear their sacred thread and put tilak on their foreheads, we shall honour them. I stand for Hindu-Sikh unity. Let the Hindus at least once declare that they stand for Sikh-Hindu unity. Let the prime minister, whose forefathers our Guru Tegh Bahadur saved by sacrificing his life, declare that she is for unity."

References

Comments

@JoyceGW1: The next section for your perusal; it is meant to replace sections 3.4 and 3.5. For smaller sections like this one, I will probably stick to about seven days, so if you agree and make any edits to it, I'll add it next weekend. Some of the larger/more significant edits (like the ones coming up) I'll probably leave up closer to ten days. Sapedder (talk) 11:13, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@Sapedder: Maybe this section can be titled - Arrest at Mehta Chowk And Release. For the 20 September 1981 incident, the cited source Mahmood says 'sprayed a crowded marketplace in Jallandhar with machine gun fire'. I wonder why it does not specify the number killed or that they all practiced the same faith, casting a shadow on KP Gill's claim. There might very well be other neutral sources that confirm this claim but I am unable to locate one right now. JoyceGW1 (talk) 07:50, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@JoyceGW1: I agree, I've changed the section name to something I think is more suitable and neutral. I also went ahead and fixed the quote as per Mahmood and Tully/Jacob, neither of whom mention the faith of those killed. KP Gill is neither an academic nor a neutral party, so I have no issue minimizing his usage at every point as his institution has a history of fudging the numbers anyway, though I've kept him in for fairness. I've also added a little more from the sources. Sapedder (talk) 23:53, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Sapedder:. To clarify on the title, sorry should have been more explicit in that I did not feel it was not neutral, but just to reflect that there was significant content in the section regarding JSB's release too. I am fine with your proposal as well. The Tarn Taran incident again refers to the faith of the killed and again seems to have been sourced solely to KPG. Mahmood appears to have no mention of this incident. If Tully-Jacob or another source confirms KPG's claim - fine, else probably a good idea to modify this. Otherwise fine with me. JoyceGW1 (talk) 06:34, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

It does look like Tully/Jacob corroborates that, so I'll leave it. But you raised a good point about the section headings in general, I went and changed those in the article, along with adding the above edit, to better reflect the general contents in the sections, as well as to be less sensationalist and skewed. Sapedder (talk) 11:38, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Khalistan

Bhindranwale was not an outspoken supporter of Khalistan, although he often emphasized the separate identity of the Sikhs. Bhindranwale stated his position on Khalistan, a movement which was first introduced in concept during the 1946 independence negotiations. During interviews with domestic and foreign journalists and public speeches through his phrase that "Sikh ik vakhri qaum hai" (or, "Sikhism is a distinct nation"), using the word 'Qaum' (nation, people, or also religion) when referring to the Sikh population of Punjab, though others have argued that "national" is a mistranslation of 'qaum,' as India was a nation of various races and 'qaums.' In a speech given by Bhindranwale on 27 March 1983:

I stayed ten days in Delhi. There I too was asked, just as they ask me here all the time when friends from the newspaper come, [They ask] "Sant Ji, do you want Khalistan?’ I replied; “Brothers, I don’t oppose it nor do I support it. We are silent. However, one thing is definite, if this time the Queen of India does give it to us, we shall certainly take it. We won't reject it. We shall not repeat the mistake of 1947. As yet, we do not ask for it. It is Indira Gandhi's business and not mine, nor Longowal's, nor of any other of our leaders. It is Indira's business, Indira should tell us whether she wants to keep us in Hindustan or not. We like to live together [with the rest of Indians]; we like to live in India.”

While Bhindranwale never explicitly supported Khalistan, in a BBC interview, he stated that if the government agreed to the creation of such a state, he would not refuse and repeat the mistakes made by Sikh leadership during the 1946 independence: “How can a nation which has sacrificed so much for the freedom of the country want it fragmented but I shall definitely say that we are not in favor of Khalistan nor are we against it.” adding that the Sikhs would opt for a separate state only if they were discriminated against and were not respected in India, or if their distinct Sikh identity was in any way threatened. In regards to the idea of the Indian government attacking the Darbar Sahib, he stated, "if the Indian Government invaded the Darbar Sahib complex, the foundation for an independent Sikh state will have been laid." During the days before the assault, government representatives, led by Ambassador Daljit Singh Pannun, met with Bhindranwale in a last ditch effort to negotiate a truce, which Bhindranwale had agreed to initiate dialogue toward. Bhindranwale sought a commitment from Pannun that Sikh youths taken in captivity during the protest movement would no longer be tortured by police. He also sought comment from Gandhi stating that all the problems afflicting the state of Punjab would be resolved through mutual discussion; Pannun offered a window of one month to await comment while Bhindranwale offered one week; the parties settled on a window of ten days, during which Bhindranwale and his men would disarm. Bhindranwale warned of a backlash by the Sikh community in the event of an army assault on the Golden Temple, if the plan was sabotaged, and wanted assurance that if any mishap took place, that Gandhi would not blame his men. The documentation of the reports sent to the central government before Operation Blue Star reads, “We ended this meeting in utmost cordiality and understanding and were happy at the outcome. In fact, I found there was nothing that would frighten the government of India, nor anyone else.” Pannun asserted that Bhindranwale had repeatedly told him that he did not want Khalistan, was “grossly misunderstood,” and had Pannun been treated with honesty and consideration (as he had been "kept in the dark about the impending army operation by vested interests," Operation Blue Star would have never taken place, and "many innocent lives could have been saved." The comment awaited from Gandhi would never come.

In his final interview to Subhash Kirpekar, Bhindranwale stated that "Sikhs can neither live in India nor with India. If treated as equals it may be possible. But frankly speaking I don't think that is possible." Kuldip Brar, who would later head Operation Blue Star, would subsequently put forth that per the Indian intelligence sources in early June 1984, there was a "strong feeling" and "some sort of information" that Bhindranwale was planning to declare Khalistan an independent country any moment with support from Pakistan, that Khalistani currency had allegedly already been distributed, and that this declaration would have increased chances of Punjab Police and security personnel siding with Bhindranwale. The violence and the alleged threat of the civil war in Punjab made the Operation imminent, according to government claims.

Chandan Mitra wrote after observing the insurgency:

“ 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 painted himself 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. ”

References

Comments

@JoyceGW1: Adding the next section for consideration. I was originally planning to add the Dharam Yudh Morcha section next, but I think I'll develop it a bit further in my Sandbox, possibly as a separate article as it has gotten quite large, and write up a smaller draft for this article. Anyway, thoughts when you get a moment, thanks. Sapedder (talk) 11:58, 4 October 2020 (UTC) @Sapedder: Some suggestions, please use or discard.

I do not see a strong reason to have Chandan Mitra's quote in this section. If you rather have it, I am fine though.

'In the early June' paragraph, can perhaps explicitly state 'Indian Government Intelligence' or even say, 'Per Kuldeep Brar'. Worth noting that Kuldeep Brar says 'We had some sort of information..' (emphasis mine)

'During the days before the assault on the Golden Temple': Maybe this part can be made more informative. This is what the cited article says The documentation of the reports sent to the central government before Operation Bluestar reads, “We ended this meeting in utmost cordiality and understanding and were happy at the outcome. In fact, I found there was nothing that would frighten the government of India, nor anyone else.”

Thanks, JoyceGW1 (talk) 10:03, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

@JoyceGW1: For some reason I missed quoting from the Walia article, nice catch. Added a bunch of stuff from it. The Rediff article makes Brar sound even flimsier than usual, and the "some sort of information" hearsay dovetails nicely with the Soviet misinformation that came to light later (and recently added to the Blue Star article courtesy of another user), so I also took your suggestion from there as well. As for the Mitra quote, I did consider removing that particular quote, but I think it actually strengthens our position if we leave it in, as not only does it (imo) somewhat betrays a rare moment of ambiguity from the establishment, but leaving in some contrary perspectives ensures that other users can't moan and complain when we add our quotes, as we are balancing. It's also a legit source that I'll be using in the next posted section, so for that reason I'll leave it in. Sapedder (talk) 23:43, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

@Sapedder: Only to clarify, I was merely thinking if that quote belongs to this Section or could be moved somewhere else. Should have been more explicit. Thanks, JoyceGW1 (talk) 09:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Reportage

Bhindranwale expected misrepresentation from reporters, telling the press, “I know what you are going to print, that you are only working for rupees.” He regarded the media as being puppets for the central government, granting interviews chiefly to reach other Sikhs. Bhindranwale became the focus of press attacks for any violence that took place in Punjab, while police atrocities and torture went unreported. Once Bhindranwale is said to have remarked, “Even if a fly is killed in Punjab, it is blamed on me.” He criticized the coverage by journalists who he had held audience with as distorted, denying that he had ever had anyone killed, and emphasizing that every strident statement he had made had always been in response to provocation by other parties; in an interview with Shekhar Gupta in December 1983:

"Parliament is agitated by what I said last week. The ruling party, the Opposition, they all condemned me. But did anyone take note of the fact that I had only reacted to the threat to the Sikhs in Rajasthan by the Jai Hindu Sangh? I challenge you, examine all my statements. Each one has been in reaction to what someone else said first. Someone else brandishes a lathi, and just because we try to shield ourselves we are held guilty." "That is the game. A Hindu does something and you dismiss him as a petty criminal or communal fanatic. A Sikh does something and you malign the whole community."

He himself addressed what he perceived to be constant distortions by the press in a speech in a college in Karnal, Haryana in early 1982:

“You have learnt from the newspapers, the news, and propaganda by ignorant people, that Bhindranwale is an extremist; that he is a dangerous man, a communalist; that he kills Hindus, There are many Hindus sitting here. You should carefully note how many I injure and how many I kill before leaving. You will be with me. Keep listening attentively. Having listened, do think over who are the communalists: whether they are the turban-wearers or your newspaper owners, the Mahasha (Arya Samaj) Press. Follow your own logic.”

Mark Tully and Satish Jacob contend that the concern of identity survival and fears of assimilation by Hinduism stemming from the Sikhs missing out on getting a homeland after Partition, something that “the Congress, which now ruled India, had played just as decisive a role in ... as the Muslim League," and the subsequent efforts by the Akali Dal to after the consolidation of the Sikh community in the Punjabi Suba to "safeguard their religion in an independent India, which they believed would be a Hindu-dominated nation," was what Bhindranwale's fundamentalism was founded on. They describe Hinduism as having “a remarkable ability to influence and sometimes to absorb other rival faiths," referring to the disappearance of Buddhism and the near-disappearance of Jainism from India, hence why “orthodox Sikhs had good reason to fear Hinduism.” They also mention that the “Akalis did have evidence to support their campaign against Hindu communalism” since after Partition times, and that “militant Hinduism [had taken] political shape with the formation in 1951 of the Bhartiya Jan Sangh,” a right-wing Hindu party whose membership flourished among the region’s Hindus under Arya Samaj influence, a "sore" that Bhindranwale pressed on in his speeches. In regards to this assimilationism, Cynthia Keppley Mahmood contends that the “philosophical tolerance of the Hindu tradition emphasized by many Western admirers, is in fact not matched by a social or political tolerance for non-Hindu groups," and that such tolerance is predicated on the willingness of other groups to "accept the premises on which the encapsulation is based," a particular approach to assimilationism that is akin to "spiritual imperialism." The fear of identity loss was based also on "the backdrop of communal conflict on the subcontinent which gave Sikhs a historical justification to fear for the future of their religion in a Hindi-dominated state."

Authors sympathetic to Congress would also continue to circulate media distortions after his death. While Ramachandran Guha wrote that Bhindranwale preached his followers ‘If the Hindus come in search of you’, ‘smash their heads with television antennas.’ Guha distorted the quote; it had in fact been a rhetorical question, not a command, following the verdict of the Sikh-Nirankari clashes, instigative Arya Samaj-owned media articles, gurdwara desecrations, mob clashes, and police atrocities: “When the Hindus come with their Sten guns, what are you going to do, fight them with your television aerials?” While Khushwant Singh, a resident of Delhi close to Indira Gandhi and congress loyalist, wrote that he "exhorted every Sikh to kill thirty-two Hindus," this had not been any such exhortation, and was stated in a speech in February 1983 as part of a response to threats like that of right-wing Hindu nationalist Bal Thackeray, who had said that India had 70 crore Hindus and two crore Sikhs and there were 35 Hindus to every Sikh; The quote had invoked the words of Guru Gobind Singh of a baptized Sikh being able to fight 125,000 oppressors. The distorted quote, widely circulated in the press, had not at all been an exhortation, but a response to such statements meant to instill confidence in his congregation in spite of being in such a small minority. It was also addressed in October 1983 to warnings from Indira Gandhi of what would happen to Sikhs residing in states outside of Punjab. Bhindranwale's speeches forcefully reminded the Sikhs of their tradition of fighting against superior odds for a just cause, including during the Punjabi Suba movement, the length of which, and the need to struggle for basic language and state rights guaranteed elsewhere in India, had created bitterness among Sikhs.

Bhindranwale also referred to what had been considered the double standard if he had made such statements; other double standards he alluded to in the speech were the failure to register cases against prominent Hindu politicians for making threatening statements against Sikhs, including Swami Adityavesh, an Arya Samaji Congress MLA, who demanded that Sikhs be expelled from Haryana to Punjab, Kewal Krishan, a Congress MLA in Punjab, who threatened to destroy all Sikh organizations, and Harbans Lal Khanna, a BJP MLA in Punjab, who stated publically in Amritsar on 30 May 1981, "Dukki tikki khehan nahin deni, sir te pagri rehan nahin deni; kachh, kara, kirpaan; ehnoon bhejo Pakistan." ('We are not going to let any second or third group exist, we are not going to let a turban remain on any head; the shorts, the iron bangle, the sword, send these to Pakistan’), and had a model of the Golden Temple desecrated by a mob, Baldev Prakash, also a BJP MLA, who had posters of such slogans printed. and extremist president of the Hindi Suraksha Samiti in Patiala, Pawan Kumar Sharma, backed by the Arya Samaj press and former Congress member with links to Bhajan Lal, who in a raid had been discovered with large stocks of arms, explosives, and hand grenades. Amrik Singh would also allude to the double standard of the government's soft behavior towards Dhirendra Brahmachari, who had smuggled 500 guns through Jammu from Spain, in contrast with the government's concern with the Sikhs; Amrik Singh would also state that "Delhi likes Sikhs like Zail Singh and Buta Singh who pay court to the Government. All other Sikhs are called extremists. We don't want secession but seek status of first-class citizens."

Bhindranwale was suspicious of Sikh elites, describing them as a class possessing the ability for multiple allegiances, and therefore, could not be relied upon by a mass movement based upon religious foundations which justified protest against discrimination and abuses of power and repression. As such he was often opposed particularly by some Sikh members of the class with business and land interests outside of Punjab, and those occupying high administrative positions. As part of a preaching tradition, he saw the lives of such Sikhs, described as sycophants of Indira Gandhi for power, as a departure threatening the distinct identity of the Sikhs, and as having to be purified, along with deviationist and Communist trends, of Sikh officers whose loyalty lay with India over the Sikh panth tradition, emphasizing unification of the community and pushing those officers in government service to work for such unity.

Prominent Congress supporters and loyalists would also criticize Bhindranwale, including KPS Gill, the DGP of the state who along with subordinates was accused of massive human rights violations during the police crackdown of the state, including complaints of torture, who would claim that he "mixed radical fundamentalism with incitement to violence," "imitated the tenth Guru Gobind Singh" by carrying a steel arrow, and that "about to launch a fierce movement planned to murder Hindus and all congress (I) MPs and MLAs in all the villages across Punjab on 5 June. Khushwant Singh, a Congress loyalist residing in Delhi who was close to Indira Gandhi, who characterized Bhindranwale as "not bothered with the subtle points of theology; he had his list of do's and don’ts clearly set out,", and an Amarjit Kaur, who opposed the formation of the Punjabi Suba and referred to the Akali Dal as "the enemy within," alleged a plot to kill Hindus by "followers" of Bhindranwale.

Before the Operation Blue Star started, there was a rise in the killings of Hindus and 23 people were killed in the final 24 hours before the announcement of the operation, while October 1983, six Hindu bus passengers were singled out and killed by what the government claimed were Sikh militants, and an Emergency rule was imposed on the state, though the discovery of discarded turbans, pistols, and cartridges found at crime scenes confirmed strong Akali feelings that criminals used turbans as disguises, and the killing of bus passengers was by disguised non-Sikhs. In addition, many such killings that took place between December 1983 and June 1984 were rather the result of personal vendettas, and fundamentalist groups not affiliated, and often opposed, to Bhindranwale, including the Dal Khalsa and Babbar Khalsa, who claimed responsibility for most crimes blamed on Bhindranwale, who denied responsibility for all such acts. Meanwhile, hundreds of individual Sikhs, even many who were not politically involved, had been harassed, beaten and killed in communal mob incidents, and tortured, imprisoned, and killed by police forces for the previous few years during the Dharam Yudh Morcha, amidst lack of government action. A report by S. M. Sathananthan et al. characterized the actions of extremists opposing constitutional Sikh demands as fueled by "one-sided anti-Sikh misinformation from various news agencies." Bhindranwale had commented in 1983:

"Someone killed seven Hindus in a bus. No Sikh has said this was good, everyone deplored it. But because seven Hindus had died, even twenty-four hours didn’t pass. The Ministry was dissolved. President’s Rule was imposed. The region declared as disturbed. However, one hundred and fifty Sikhs died and one man was not charged. Now all of you Sikhs should sit down and figure out as to what the thoughts of this Government of the Hindus are about the turban and the beard."

Press disinformation

Even after Bhindranwale’s death, the press continued to work with the government. When some Punjabi newspapers published information concerning the deaths of Sikh young men, most of whom died while in police custody or in fake encounters, the Punjab Government approached the Press Council of India to enlist its cooperation against its own members, the Punjabi newspapers. The Council, assuming that the official view of the situation in Punjab was the correct one, ignored the protestations of its members and recommended that the Government set up proper arrangements to provide authentic information to the press. The Government continuously harassed newspapers like the daily Ajit, the Akali Patrika, and Charhdi Kala and regularly fed disinformation to the news media; a Times of India article from 11 August 1991 by Dinesh Kumar stated:

"Often and unwittingly .... journalists fall prey to the government disinformation which suavely manages to plant stories .... The confusion gets compounded when government agencies also resort to feeding disinformation on letterheads of militant organizations since there is no way of confirming or seeking clarifications on press notes supposedly issued by militants who are underground and remain inaccessible most of the time."

The writer went on to report:

"A group of journalists, including myself had called on the former governor to lodge a protest against the registration of a case against the Times of India and the Punjabi daily Ajit, last January. After hastily apologising and promising to withdraw the case "shortly" (that the case was ultimately never withdrawn is a different story), the governor had sought the journalists co-operation in tackling the militants, 'Don’t publish press notes that preach violence against an individual, an organisation, etc. but you are free to publish their press notes that encourage inter-gang rivalry,” he said, adding: "We have drawn up a plan for disinformation to be issued on the militants letterheads. We hope that you will co-operate.""

There would also be significant government interference in information released to the media itself. According to Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, "The clearly distorted account of the event released to the media does not speak well for India's vaunted freedom of press. Stories of prostitutes and drugs at the Akal Takht were printed on front pages one week, that recanted in back pages the next. A story suggesting that Bhindranwale had committed suicide was followed by one describing his body as riddled with bullets from head to toe. There is no doubt that an entire apparatus of fear dissemination worked to convince India that the Sikhs were to be distrusted. And by and large, it succeeded," adding that "Compromises with press freedom were accompanied by draconian legislation that was a target of criticism from human rights communities around the world."

According to a journalist traveling with Bhindranwale during 1982, the Central intelligence Department, or CID, which had taped every public speech listening for "seditious" remarks, had heard none by April 1982, and Darbara Singh, despite being ready to "act" against Bhindranwale, had found no grounds to do so. A senior officer in Chandigarh in December 1983 confessed, "It's really shocking that we have so little against him while we keep blaming him for all sorts of things. You certainly cannot assault the temple on the basis of just these charges, get hundreds of people killed and get away with it."

References

Comments

@JoyceGW1: This part is meant to replace section 3.6 (which of course violates a whole bunch of Wiki policies on its own). I've also added a notelist. As for Sathananthan, that source is no longer used, but I've made use of the info through citing Dhillon. At some point I may want to revisit the Sathananthan source to ascertain if it truly cannot be used on its own on the Reliable Sources noticeboard. Anyway, go ahead and leave a comment by next weekend.

Also, I've started a draft of a Dharam Yudh Morcha article in my sandbox, which I'll be further working on and hopefully completing for publication this week. Given its already large size and the fact that it was a nearly two-year-long movement, I think it certainly warrants consideration for its own article, which even one-day events like the Sant Nirankari clashes has. I'll also hopefully complete a smaller summary for this article. Should any issues arise with its publication, just be on the lookout for any pings I may send your way during the course of this week or next. Sapedder (talk) 00:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Sapedder: Looks fine to me for now. May read again later and suggest something, but do not see any reason to hold for that. JoyceGW1 (talk) 09:02, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

@JoyceGW1: Posted, but feel free to make additional changes in this article section or the previous one. Also I will be posting the updated version of the Morcha article in my sandbox shortly. Sapedder (talk) 02:04, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Relocation to the Akal Takht

Main article: Operation Blue Star

In July 1982, at the start of the Dharam Yudh Morcha, the President of Shiromani Akali Dal, Harchand Singh Longowal had invited Bhindranwale to take up residence at the Golden Temple compound. He called Bhindranwale "our stave to beat the government." On 19 July 1982, Bhindranwale took residence with approximately 200 armed followers in the Guru Nanak Niwas guest house, on the precincts of the Golden Temple. Bhindranwale developed a reputation as a man of principle who could settle people's problems about land, property or any other matter without needless formality or delay, more expediently than the legal system. The judgement would be accepted by both parties and carried out. This added to his popularity.

Bhindranwale and his followers moved to the Akal Takht complex in December 1983

Bhindranwale led the campaign in Punjab from the complex guest house, from where he met and was interviewed by international television crews. On 23 April 1983, the Punjab Police Deputy Inspector General A. S. Atwal was shot dead as he left the Harmandir Sahib compound by a gunman from one of the several groups residing there, in apparent revenge for police conduct. The following day, after the murder, without proof or verification, Longowal claimed the involvement of Bhindranwale in the murder. Reportedly, militants responsible for bombings and murders were taking shelter in some gurdwaras in Punjab. Punjab assembly alleged that the murder in the temple premises confirmed the charges that the extremists were being sheltered and given active support in religious places and the Guru Nanak Niwas, and that Bhindranwale was openly supporting such elements. However, the Congress-led government would later claim that it could not enter the gurdwaras for the fear of hurting Sikh sentiments. After violent incidents including robberies, thefts, vandalism, desecrations of temples and gurdwaras, the murder of six Hindu bus passengers in October 1983, President's rule was imposed in Punjab. During the period, the burning of a gurdwara at Churu, Rajasthan on November 26 increased the violence, and on 14 February the Hindi Suraksha Samiti vandalized a train station by destroying a model of the Golden Temple and pictures of the Sikh gurus. Anti-Sikh mob violence in Haryana from 15 to 20 February, mobilized by CM Bhajan Lal at the behest of leaders in Delhi, and the killing of eight Sikhs in Panipat on 19 February in view of the police station, provoked retaliations.

As the days went by the law and order situation further deteriorated and violence escalated. While the Akalis pressed on with their two-pronged strategy of negotiations and massive campaigns of civil disobedience directed at the Central Government, others were not so enamoured of nonviolence. Communists known as "Naxalites", and armed Sikh groups – the "Babbar Khalsa" and "Dal Khalsa", both of which opposed Bhindranwale, sometimes worked hand in hand and clashed with the police. A covert government group known as the Third Agency was also engaged in dividing and destabilising the Sikh movement through the use of undercover officers, paid informants and agents provocateurs. Bhindranwale himself always kept a revolver and wore a cartridge belt and encouraged his followers to be armed. However, a Chandigarh officer in an interview with the December 1983 issue of India Today explained that the worst offense Bhindranwale could be accused of was "harsh speech rhetoric."

During the debate in the Parliament of India members of both the houses demanded the arrest of Bhindranwale. Sensing a prospect of his arrest from the hostel premises, he convinced the SGPC president Tohra to set up his headquarters on the Akal Takht complex. While the move was supported by Gurcharan Singh Tohra, an Akali who was then President of the SGPC, it was opposed by Harchand Singh Longowal, leader of the Akali political party. On 15 December 1983, Bhindranwale was asked to move out of Guru Nanak Niwas house by members of the Babbar Khalsa who acted with Longowal's support. Longowal by now feared for his own safety. Tohra then convinced the high priest to allow Bhindranwale to reside in Akal Takht. 15 December 1983 Bhindranwale and his supporters moved to the Akal Takht complex and began fortifying the complex with sand bags and light weaponry. Longowal attempted to block the move by persuading Giani Kirpal Singh, then Jathedar (head priest) of the Akal Takht, to use his authority and issue a Hukamnama (edict) disallowing Bhindranwale from relocating to the complex. The temple high priest protested this move as a sacrilege since no Guru or leader ever resided in Akal Takht that too on the floor above Granth Sahib but Tohra agreed to prevent Bhindranwale's arrest, In the end, while Giani Kirpal Singh did protest the move, Bhindranwale's was permitted to relocate. as Bhindranwale believed that the Morcha leader Longowal was negotiating with the government for his arrest. By December 1983, Bhindranwale and his followers, now joined by senior ex-military personnel like Major General Shabeg Singh, retired Major General J.S. Bhullar, retired brigadier Mohinder Singh, and others, had made the Golden Temple complex an armoury and headquarters, fortifying it with sandbags. Mark Tully and Satish Jacob wrote, "All terrorists were known by name to the shopkeepers and the householders who live in the narrow alleys surrounding the Golden Temple... the Punjab police must have known who they were also, but they made no attempt to arrest them. By this time Bhindranwale and his men were above the law." However, Bhindranwale presented himself, along with over 50 of his supporters, at the Deputy Commissioner's residence on the day he moved to the Darbar Sahib complex, revealing his purpose in moving there was not to hide from the law, as the District Magistrate at Amritsar, until shortly before the invasion, was on record as having assured the Governor of the state that he could arrest anyone in Darbar Sahib at any time, though not seeing a need to.

References

Comments

@JoyceGW1: For section 6.2, leave any suggestions. I may add a few more bits later but this is mostly it. Sapedder (talk) 02:04, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Sapedder: I read through it and wanted to check some sources, so maybe couple of days more. Thanks, JoyceGW1 (talk) 07:14, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

@JoyceGW1: No problem, I'm sure good improvements, if any, will be suggested. Also, the Dharam Yudh Morcha article is up and running without any problems. The next edit will draw from that page. Sapedder (talk) 08:25, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

@Sapedder: Most of the aspects I wanted to read about seem to have been sourced to Tully-Jacob, and unfortunately I am unable to access this book. To not hold the article further, I am alright with moving this in. May suggest some updates once I get access. One other (relatively minor) comment - the third sentence of paragraph 1 seems to be repeated at the beginning of paragraph 2. Also the source of the "imminent arrest" claim was not clear to me, whether it is Khushwant Singh or KPG ? In the article it appears to have been sourced to KPG, which would explain its unsubstantiated and vague nature. I would take it out. Thanks, JoyceGW1 (talk) 10:07, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@JoyceGW1: Another link to that source is here, the site's layout is a bit awkward but it gets the job done. One thing I've noticed is that the page numbers the article uses for the source are often way off, so it could definitely use further review. I'm not the biggest fan of the source as it has a clear bias towards Gandhi and the establishment and frequently omits key details, but it's not egregious in the way that the KPG source is, so I've used it strictly for objective info (names, dates, etc.), leaving out the tone/commentary. I got rid of the duplicate sentence, good catch. I believe that the "imminent" thing was from KPG, who apparently could read minds; I've also removed this obvious speculation. I will post this section shortly but feel free to review and make further edits to the section at any time. Sapedder (talk) 01:16, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Dharam Yudh Morcha

The Anandpur Sahib Resolution, and the 1978 Ludhiana Resolution based on it, put socio-economic concerns at the core and called for an end to the center’s control of Punjab’s river waters and its unjust distribution, state control of the headworks, and better procurement prices and and subsidies for the state’s farmers. These issues were of particular concern to the state’s rural Sikh population who supported them, as the Sikhs dominated the agricultural sector and rural areas. Other demands included the maintenance of the ratio of Sikhs in the army, protections of Sikhs outside Punjab, Punjabi as a second language for states with significant Punjabi-speaking populations, amendments to tax and property policies for rural populations, a broadcasting station and a dry port at Amritsar, and a stock exchange at Ludhiana.

From a set of 45 economic, political, religious, and social policies formulated in September 1981, a list of 15 demands would be prepared in October, of which five were economic. The Dharam Yudh Morcha would champion these preliminary demands. The subsequent inclusion of religious demands were a result of polarization of Akali goals following failed negotiations in November with the Congress government, which would raise the spectre of separatism to exploit the fears of Hindu voters and push the Akalis into a corner. Other factors included attempts to ally with, or outbid, more militant Sikh factions, which gained traction following the lack of progress in talks, and the growing religious revivalism that both the Akalis and Congress would attempt to play to gain influence. According to Atul Kohli,

"The repeated failure of the Akalis to wrest power from Congress had left open a political space for those who argued that increased militancy was the only means for protecting Sikh interests. Bhindranwale stepped into that space."

As a result of his rising popularity, Bhindranwale faced opposition from all sides, including the government and rival Sikh factions, both political and militant. One of Bhindranwale’s main concerns in his speeches was condemning factionalism and internal disunity among the Sikhs. The Akali Dal leadership had initially opposed Bhindranwale. While Bhindranwale ceded leadership to the Akali Dal and disavowed political ambition, in 1980 the Akali Dal faced a serious challenge from Bhindranwale and his mass support from the AISSF, the Akali youth wing. As Bhindranwale became increasingly influential, the party decided to join forces with him. In August 1982, under the leadership of Harcharan Singh Longowal, the Akali Dal launched the Dharam Yudh Morcha, or "righteous campaign," in collaboration with Bhindranwale to win more autonomy for Punjab. At the start of the protest movement, in response to long-standing wrongs not addressed by the state's economic and political process, the Akali leaders had, in their Ardas, or prayer, at the Akal Takht, resolved that they would continue the struggle until the Anandpur Sahib Resolution was accepted and implemented by the Government. The Akalis, in their subsequent electoral defeat in 1980, would be forced by the presence of Bhindranwale and his huge base of support in the AISSF to return to its Sikh base, for whom the Anandpur Sahib Resolution had originally been written to regain the declining support of, before it had fallen by the wayside.

Later, noting Indira Gandhi’s intransigence, it appeared that the Akali leaders were willing to water down their demands. Bhindranwale reminded his audiences that it had been Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Surjit Singh Barnala, Balwant Singh and other leaders who had been were signatories to the Anandpur Sahib Resolution and that he was not present when the Resolution was adopted. He insisted, however, that having said the Ardas at the Akal Takht, no Sikh could go back on his solemn word. Longowal's core political base began to wither; about a third of his SGPC members and district Akali presidents reportedly defected to Bhindranwale. Bhindranwale promised the Sikh masses that he would not allow the chief Akali leadership to fail them as during the Punjabi Suba movement.

Despite the Resolution's endorsement of the "the principle of State autonomy in keeping with the concept of Federalism," Indira Gandhi and the central government took a hard line, emphasizing the Sikh demands and treating them as tantamount to secession, thus putting moderate Sikh politicians at a competitive disadvantage in an increasingly frustrated and militant political arena. She would be later characterized by prime minister Charan Singh as following "a megalomaniacal policy based on elitist philosophies," and her successor Rajiv Gandhi would later describe the Resolution as "not secessionist but negotiable," recognizing the failures of her autocratic style of governance. Thousands of people joined the movement as they felt that it represented a real solution to their demands, such as a larger share of water for irrigation, and return of Chandigarh to Punjab. By early October, more than 25,000 Akali workers courted arrest in Punjab in support of the agitation.

Protests

The basic issues of the Dharam Yudh Morcha were related to the prevention of the digging of the SYL Canal, the redrawing of Punjab's boundaries following the Punjabi Suba movement to include left-out Punjabi-speaking areas, the restoration of Chandigarh to Punjab, the redefining of relations between the central government and the state, and greater autonomy for the state as envisioned in the Anandpur Sahib Resolution and as was constitutionally due. The most important demand was the restoration of the state's river waters as per constitutional, national and international norms based on riparian principles; more than 75% of the state’s river water were being drained from the state, to Rajasthan and Haryana, which were non-riparian states, and its accompanying hydropower potential, powered by Punjab’s only natural wealth.

Following failed talks, the Nehr Roko Morcha, or “struggle to stop the canal,” was launched on April 24, 1982 by the Akali Dal at the village of Kapuri, Punjab to prevent the initial digging of the SYL Canal which would have diverted most of the state's water to Haryana, resulting in volunteer arrests. The Dharam Yudh Morcha was launched later that year on 4 August, following an Akali Dal meeting in July at Amritsar; Bhindranwale and Jathedar Jagdev Singh Talwandi were persuaded to lead it under the Akali Dal banner and Longowal’s leadership, and began with Akalis courting arrest with a large number of volunteers. Bhindranwale, leaving his base in Chowk Mehta for the Golden Temple, joined his movement to have Amrik Singh and two other followers released after his arrest on 19 July to the larger Akali movement for their political, economic, cultural, and religious demands; Amrik Singh had offended the appointed Punjab Governor Marri Chenna Reddy by protesting the mass arrest of the Akali volunteers and pleading their case.

During the implementation of various agricultural restrictions under Congress, the Akali Dal had accomplished little in response, and in addition, the possibility of forging an Akali-Congress partnership in Punjab was being privately explored. This caused the decline of support for the Akalis and the concurrent increase of support for Bhindranwale's message among both educated orthodox Sikhs and the rural population, along with what was increasingly seen as the ineffectual Akali approach of protests and inter-party collaboration in producing results for Punjab, leaving open a political space for those who argued that increased militancy was the only means for protecting Sikh interests.

The Akali movement gained momentum in August and September, and the government began to run out of room in jails for the over 25,000 volunteer protesters. Over 100,000 protestors would be arrested over the course of the morcha. The central government, instead of preempting any Akali agitation in regard to the Punjab by constitutionally referring all the legal issues to the Supreme Court, which the Akali Dal had demanded, played up the threat of extremism and law and order, and appeared disinclined to solve the issues justly or constitutionally. The government also framed the movement as a religious issue, while ignoring the more numerous economic issues central to the Declaration and the morcha to prevent the economic ruin of the state.. The considered view of the Governor of West Bengal sent to Punjab, B. D. Pande, that a political problem required a political solution, went unheeded.

In response to demands that the Supreme Court be consulted in regards to concerns that the center was unconstitutionally usurping water from Punjab, the central government found loopholes to circumvent such a demand, instead offering a tribunal, which did not have the authority to override the Punjab Reorganization Act to begin with, and never issued a final decision over an issue critical to agricultural growth and state development.

Police

Under the pretext of maintaining law and order, central state actions in the form of false encounters, tortures and killings in police custody, as well as extrajudicial police invasions and oppressive lockdowns in rural Punjab, increased. It became known that during the period, certain police officials and others had been guilty of excesses or violence. Atrocities committed by named officers were narrated in open meetings by Bhindranwale or the concerned victims, but neither the charges of the victims, reports to the authorities, nor other complaints were responded to by the administration to rectify current complaints or improve future procedures, much less for punishing the offenders. This perceived official apathy and callousness led many began to believe that what was happening was at the behest of the administration, and that state violence was being practiced to defame Sikhs to turn public opinion in order to sidetrack the real issues of state resources and constitutional procedure, as neither issues nor reported rights violations were being addressed. Bhindranwale spoke of staged crimes, in which Sikhs were accused of theft or violence, with the intention of linking the falsely accused to Bhindranwale, with any declared act being said to be on his orders, and that many of the Sikhs arrested on false accusations were tortured and killed. Accusations of violent force on the Sikhs also included the earlier burning of buses belonging to the Damdami Taksal containing Sikh scriptures, and Sikh train passengers being singled out and beaten on false pretenses.

Out of 220 deaths during the first 19 months of the Dharam Yudh Morcha, 190 had been Sikhs, with over 160 Sikhs killed during the first 16 months, with the Akalis alleging that reactive killings were being done by agent provocateurs, and reports appearing that such communal incidents had been initiated by Congress to inflame Hindu feelings. Despite emphatic demands for a detailed judicial inquiry, the central government was unwilling to initiate any such process. Extrajudicial killings by the police of orthodox Sikh youth in rural areas during the summer and winter of 1982 and early 1983 resulted in retaliatory violence.

Bhindranwale was particularly upset about the police atrocities and the murder of scores of Sikhs in the garb of false and contrived police encounters. He was often heard criticizing the double standards of the Government in treating Hindu and Sikh victims of violence, citing various incidents like the immediate appointment of an inquiry committee to probe Lala Jagat Narain's murder while not for the killing of the Sikhs, including the 4 April firing on peaceful Sikh protesters of the successful Rasta Roko agitation on 4 April 1983 killing 24, believing that this partisan behavior of the Government was bound to hasten the process of alienation of the Sikhs. He reprimanded the press for suppressing incidences of police atrocities, and of the double standards of dealing with Sikhs.

A team sponsored by the PUCL, with Justice V. M. Tarkunde as Chairman and famed journalist Kuldip Nayar as a member, to assess the police excesses against Sikhs. It reported:

"We had no hesitation in saying in our report that the police had behaved like a barbarian force out for revenge. They had even set houses of a few absconders on fire and destroyed utensils, clothes and whatever else they found in them. Relatives of the absconders were harassed and even detained. Even many days after the excesses committed by the police, we could see how fear-stricken the people were. Villagers gave us the names of some of the police sub-inspectors and deputy superintendents involved; some of them, they said, had a reputation of taking the law into their hands.”

In the words of Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, BBC correspondents, these deadly encounters were justified as a reasonable method of avoiding lengthy court trials:

"There was a series of what the Indian police call 'encounters'- a euphemism for cold-blooded murder by the police. Darbara Singh admitted as much to us."

Though Akali demands were largely for the developmental welfare of the state of Punjab as a whole, with no demands in regards to other communities and was directed at the government, police killings, including extrajudicial actions of fatal torture and mutilations of detainees, with some subsequently declared as escapees, as well as unprovoked attacks on innocent individual Sikhs, were carried out by mobs of the Hindi Suraksha Samiti, mobilized by the Arya Samaj. These incidents sparked off retributory attacks against them by Sikh youths. After the launch of the Dharam Yudh Morcha, and subsequent governmental inaction in regards to police brutality, Sikh activists began committing retaliatory acts of political violence. An assassination attempt was made on Chief Minister of Punjab Darbara Singh and two Indian Airlines flights were hijacked.

Following protestor deaths, Swaran Singh restarted negotiations on behalf of Gandhi with the Akalis after releasing all arrested Akali volunteers, reaching agreements on Chandigarh, river waters, Centre-State relations, and the Amritsar broadcast, which were approved by a cabinet subcommittee. While Swaran Singh relayed the government's approval of the agreement, Gandhi had changed it significantly before submitting it to Parliament. The talks would collapse after this action, and Longowal would announce in November 1982 the continuation of the protests in Delhi during the 1982 Asian Games. Another round of talks between the Akalis and Congress MP Amrinder Singh was successful, but was sabotaged by Bhajan Lal, the Chief Minister of Haryana, who stated that protests, which were largely stifled, would not be allowed in Haryana during the event, and ensured than Sikhs allowed to pass through, regardless of social position, whether retired military, politician, or ordinary citizen, were subjected to various procedures including invasive friskings and removal of turbans; Sikhs understood this humiliation not just individually but as a community, and according to journalist Kuldip Nayyar, "from that day their feeling of alienation [had] been increasing."

Bhindranwale, then regarded as the "single most important Akali leader," announced that nothing less than full implementation of the Anandpur resolution was acceptable to them. The Sikh volunteers who answered his call on 3 September 1983 were not satisfied with either the methods or the results of Longowal's methods, as a rift emerged between the two leaders, with Bhindranwale referring to Longowal's rooms in the Golden Temple complex as "Gandhi Niwas" ("Gandhi residence"), and Longowal referring to his rooms as a wild "Chambal" region. Bhindranwale would denounce the double standard of Congress-supporting hijackers, who had demanded the release of Indira Gandhi after her post-Emergency arrest, being rewarded with seats in the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly, while demanding punishment for Sikh protestors who had done the same. He would comment in 1982, "If the Pandey brothers in Uttar Pradesh hijack a plane for a woman (Mrs. Gandhi) they are rewarded with political positions. If the Sikhs hijack a plane to Lahore and that too for a cause, they are dubbed traitors. Why two laws for the same crime?" With the release of Amrik Singh in July 1983, Bhindranwale felt confident of the advancement of the movement without the Akali leadership; they would part ways in December, two months after the imposition of President's Rule.

References

Comments

@JoyceGW1: The next section, mostly based off the article that it was drawn from. It's a big section so I'll leave it up for a few extra days past the usual window. I may trim it down further if I see more ways to do so. Leave any thoughts at your earliest convenience, after you get through the sources for the previous section as needed. I foresee only one or two more rounds of edits left after this one, as the last few concluding sections I'll do as a group. Thanks, Sapedder (talk) 02:53, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Sapedder: Sorry took a while. I read through it and seems OK to me. Thanks, JoyceGW1 (talk) 09:02, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Insurgency

Main article: Punjab insurgency

When the insurgency against the central government began, it was against the main backdrop of unresolved Anandpur Sahib Resolution claims and an increased sense of disillusionment with the democratic process, which when it worked seemed to end up with Sikhs’ not achieving satisfactory representation, and when it did not, ended up with the dictatorship of Emergency rule, as well as the backdrop of communal conflict on the subcontinent which gave Sikhs a historical justification to fear for the future of their religion in a Hindi-dominated state. The failure of the central government to address political, social, and economic problems of the Sikhs facilitated the rise of militancy. Sikh demands had been fundamentally political rather than religious, while prolonged intransigence by the central government on water, state border, and devolutionary issues, in addition to centralization, led to alienation and militancy. Bhindranwale accused Indira Gandhi of sending Darbara Singh, former Congress chief minister of Punjab, to "wreak atrocities on the Sikh nation."

On 8 February 1984, the Akalis held a successful bandh to demonstrate their strength and continued commitment to non-violent struggle. The following week, a tripartite talk with five cabinet ministers, five Akali leaders, and fifteen leaders from opposition parties came close to a successful settlement, but was deliberately sabotaged once again by Bhajan Lal with more anti-Sikh violence in Haryana. This was followed by Akali to express frustration in further protests, leading to their arrest along with many volunteers. In May 1984, Longowal announced another morcha to be initiated on June 3, the day Operation Blue Star would be launched, practicing civil disobedience by refusing to pay land revenue, water or electricity bills, and block the flow of grain out of Punjab. Gandhi's emissaries met Akali leaders on May 27 to once again suggest the negotiation of a settlement, but though the Akalis showed signs of yielding, Bhindranwale would accept nothing short of the full implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had with himself a group of devoted followers armed with firearms who served as his bodyguards and acolytes, occasionally as willing and unpaid killers. Bhindranwale urged all Sikhs to buy weapons and motorcycles, which would be helpful to fight state oppression, instead of spending on television sets. He believed that amritdharis (baptized Sikhs) should also be shastradharis (weapon bearers), as had been required by Guru Gobind Singh for defensive purposes. Bhindranwale and Amrik Singh started carrying firearms at all times, hearkening to the Sikh religious duty of carrying a Kirpan, which is also a weapon, and police brutality on Sikh protestors.

Bhindranwale's call to Sikhs to keep weapons as required by their faith was misrepresented by the press. Commenting on this, he said, "I had given a statement that in every village there should be a motorcycle and three young men with three revolvers of high quality. Opposition newspapers, the Mahasha (Arya Samaj) Press, have published this news: ‘Bhindranwale says, get these and kill Hindus.’ Have you ever heard me say that?” As Indira Gandhi began to use the term "extremists," a term meant to push Punjab back into line with the government, Sikhs were relieved of duty from police and military forces in large numbers. Sikhs in government positions were profiled by police across India from the 1970s to the 1990s, who arrested and tortured suspected criminals at will.

On 12 May 1984, Ramesh Chander, son of Lala Jagat Narain and editor of Hind Samachar group was alleged by Kuldip Nayar to have been murdered by "supporters" of Bhindranwale. Lala's paper had had a "shrill tone when reporting on Sikh issues," and "was widely dubbed pro-Hindu," with its "tone" changing only subsequently. In 1989, seven editors and seven news hawkers and newsagents were killed in a planned attack on the freedom of media house to cripple it financially. Punjab Police had to provide protection to the entire distribution staff and scenes of armed policemen escorting news hawkers on their morning rounds became common.

A few Sikh leaders raised their voice against Bhindranwale's presence in the Akal Takht complex. Giani Partap Singh, an eighty year old former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, had criticised Bhindranwale for the arsenal of modern weapons in the Akal Takht, and was shot at his home in Tahli Chowk, as were Niranjan Singh the Granthi of Gurdwara Toot Sahib, Granthi Jarnail Singh of Valtoha, and Granthi Surat Singh of Majauli. The violence incidents increased and reached its peak in the months before Operation Blue Star. An arsenal had been created within the Akal Takht over a period of several months. Trucks that were engaged for kar seva (religious service) and bringing in supplies needed for the daily langar were used for bringing in guns and ammunition into the Golden Temple. The police failed to check these vehicles, reportedly on instructions from superiors. During a random check, one truck was stopped and many sten guns and large quantity of ammunition was found. After the operation Blue Star, KPS Gill would allege that the militants had even set up a facility to manufacture grenade and to fabricate sten-guns inside the temple complex. Meanwhile, incidents began to increase with sometimes more than a dozen killings happened in a day in the last few months before the operation.

Militant organizations would lose popular support by the late 1980s, years after Bhindranwale's death, once their membership had begun to attract lumpen elements that joined the movements for the allure of money, rather than the long cherished cause of a separate homeland for the Sikhs. Separatists were accused by Indian authorities and critics for being responsible for crimes including assassination, bank robbery, home invasion, organising training camps, and stockpiling weapons.

The Babbar Khalsa were opposed to Bhindranwale and his initial strategy of opting to join the Akalis' protest movement for Punjab's rights instead of immediately pursuing more militant means; it was more focused on propagating its view of Sikh religious life than on politics and states' rights, and contested with Bhindranwale for dominance of the movement. The rivalry intensified in April and May 1984, with the two groups blaming each other for several assassinations. Bhindranwale would subsequently be regarded as the head of the movement.

References

Comments

@JoyceGW1: The penultimate edit. After this one, the concluding sections are left, which I'll probably do as a group. Sapedder (talk) 02:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Sapedder:. I made a minor edit after source check. Other than this, would propose trimming the hyperbole and storytelling from KPG, such as replacing The violence incidents increased ...... before the operation.[15] with the following Trucks that were engaged for kar seva (religious service) and bringing in supplies needed for the daily langar were allegedly being used for bringing in guns and ammunition into the Golden Temple. The police failed to check these vehicles, reportedly on instructions from superiors.[15] JoyceGW1 (talk) 18:00, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Negotiations

The planning for Operation Blue Star was initiated long before Bhindranwale had relocated to the complex in December 1983 and begun to fortify it, running sand-model exercises for the attack on a Golden Temple replica in the Doon Valley over 18 months prior. Over 125 other Sikh shrines were simultaneously attacked, According to Gen. S.K. Sinha, it had not been a last resort, but on Gandhi's mind since after the 1982 Akali agitations. During publicly recorded speeches in May and July in 1983 (still several months before relocating to the Akal Takht and initiating efforts to fortify it) Bhindranwale warned that senior officers of the CID were planning to initially occupy Taksal and Nihang camps of Mehta, and gradually take control of the Golden Temple. A previous request to solicit the use of army personnel and tanks had been made by Chief Minister Darbara Singh and Prime Minister Gandhi to aid in the arrest of Bhindranwale at Mehta Chowk in 1982. However, then military commander Lt. Gen. S.K. Sinha, a "dear friend" of General Shabeg Singh, Bhindranwale's military advisor, viewed the request as "very strange" and advised against the use of military force considering the sanctity of the complex and potential repercussions. While Bhindranwale surrendered peacefully at Mehta Chowk, Sinha would opt for early retirement when the same request came again two years later for him to deploy tanks and army personnel to conduct Operation Blue Star, and what he advised against, his replacements Gen. A. S. Vaidya (selected by Gandhi to supersede Sinha) and Lt. Gen. Krishnaswamy Sundarji did "gladly."

According to KPS Gill, the government sent a team led by Narasimha Rao to try to convince Bhindranwale to back out, but he was adamant, and refused all efforts made by the Indira Gandhi administration to negotiate a settlement short of full inplementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, rejecting, for instance, the offer to give Chandigarh to Punjab in exchange for areas of southwestern Punjab state, as Chandigarh had been promised exclusively to Punjab in a formal communication issued by the Union government on January 29, 1970. The negotiations failed and the law and order situation in Punjab continued to deteriorate. Indira Gandhi tried to persuade the Akalis to support her in the arrest of Bhindranwale. These talks ended up being futile. On 26 May, Tohra informed the government that he had failed to convince Bhindranwale and that Bhindranwale was not under anyone's control. As Gandhi had no intention of implementing the Anandpur Sahib Resolution and feared the loss of Hindu electoral support, and as the Akali Dal also feared losing power, as over 40 SGPC members and 130 Akali leaders, including former legislators, had revolted against Longowal's leadership in favor of Bhindranwale, Akali Dal and central government interests had finally converged. Faced with imminent army action and with Longowal abandoning him, Bhindranwale declared "This bird is alone. There are many hunters after it".

Army action in the Punjab, which had been discussed in December 1983 to consolidate Hindu votes for Congress, began on 3 June, the day of Longowal's planned morcha. Punjab's borders were sealed off and intrastate movement was disabled by the troop presence, with the water and electricity supply to the Golden Temple cut off. Exploratory fire was attempted on 4 June, with army commandos and CS gas proving ineffective on 5 June. The use of tanks on the complex began on 6 June, with tanks, helicopters, and other means used to deter the thousands of upset villagers attempting to gather in Amritsar, along with any other attempted gathering at over 125 other gurdwaras which had been taken over preemptively by the state. The main action was concluded by 6 June, in which a large number of pilgrims, including women and children, had been killed, and young men shot, by incensed troops who had entered the complex, with their hands tied back with their own turbans, with others dying of suffocation in the guest rooms set up as detainment camps. The operation resulted in 700 army casualties and 5,000 civilian deaths.

Death

In June 1984, after the negotiations failed, Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi ordered Operation Blue Star, an Indian Army operation carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984, to remove Bhindranwale and his armed militants from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar, Punjab. Bhindranwale was killed in the operation. Army officers and soldiers commented on 'the courage and commitment' of the followers of Bhindranwale who died in action.

According to Lieutenant General Kuldip Singh Brar, who commanded the operation, the body of Bhindranwale was identified by a number of agencies, including the police, the Intelligence Bureau and militants in the Army's custody. Bhindranwale's brother also identified Bhindranwale's body. Pictures of what appear to be Bhindranwale's body have been published in at least two widely circulated books, Tragedy of Punjab: Operation Bluestar and After and Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's Last Battle. BBC correspondent Mark Tully also reported seeing Bhindranwale's body during his funeral.

In 2016, The Week quoted former members of the confidential Special Group (SG) of India’s Research and Analysis Wing as stating that SG had killed Bhindranwale using AK-47 rifles during Operation Blue Star, despite the Para SF claiming responsibility for it.

Legacy

Cynthia Keppley Mahmood wrote in Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues With Sikh Militants that Bhindranwale never learned English but mastered Punjabi. He was adept at television, radio and press interviews. Keppley further stated that "those who knew him personally uniformly report his general likability and ready humour as well his dedication to Sikhism". The author further states that "Largely responsible for launching Sikh militancy, he is valorized by militants and demonised by enemies and the accounts from the two divergent sources seem to refer to two completely different persons."

Though journalist Khushwant Singh believed himself to be on an alleged hit list, he allowed that the Sikh preacher-become-activist genuinely made no distinction between higher and lower castes, and that he had restored thousands of drunken or doped Sikh men, inured to pornographic films, to their families, and that Operation Blue Star had given the movement for Khalistan its first martyr in Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. In 2003, at a function arranged by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, at Akal Takhat Amritsar under the vision of president SGPC Prof. Kirpal Singh Badungar and Singh Sahib Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti, former jathedar of the Akal Takht made a formal declaration that Bhindranwale was a "martyr" and awarded his son, Ishar Singh, a robe of honour. Harbans Singh's The Encyclopedia of Sikhism describes Bhindranwale as "a phenomenal figure of modern Sikhism".

In popular culture

A movie named Dharam Yudh Morcha (film) released on 2016 was based on Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale it mostly depicted the Sikhs' struggle for preserving Punjabi language and Anandpur Sahib resolution. Though the movie was banned to avoid controversy, it is still available easily on online platforms.

Notes

References

Comments

@JoyceGW1: The last three sections, which should conclude things here. Your help thus far is appreciated, and would appreciate your continued help elsewhere as needed, as well as keeping an eye on the page going forward. Sapedder (talk) 06:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@JoyceGW1: Any thoughts on these last sections? Sapedder (talk) 23:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Bibliography

• Sandhu, Ranbir Singh (1999). Struggle for Justice: Speeches and Conversations of Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale (1st ed.). Dublin, Ohio, U.S.A.: Sikh Educational & Religious Foundation. ISBN 9780967287416. Retrieved 23 March 2020. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley (1996). Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 50-80. ISBN 978-0812215922. Retrieved 25 March 2020. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dhillon, Gurdarshan Singh (1996). Truth about Punjab: SGPC White Paper (1st ed.). Amritsar, Punjab: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. ISBN 978-0836456547. Retrieved 25 March 2020. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Telford, Hamish (1992). "The Political Economy of Punjab: Creating Space for Sikh Militancy". Asian Survey. 46 (11): 969–987. JSTOR 2645265. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Singh, Sangat (1999) The Sikhs in History, New Delhi, Uncommon Books
• Dilgeer, Harjinder Singh (2011) Sikh History in 10 volumes (vol. 7, 9), Waremme, Sikh University Press
• Tully, Mark; Satish Jacob (1985). Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's Last Battle. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-02328-4.
• Fair, C. Christine (2005), "Diaspora Involvement in Insurgencies: Insights from the Khalistan and Tamil Eelam Movements", Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 11: 125–156, doi:10.1080/13537110590927845
• Van Dyke, Virginia (2009), "The Khalistan Movement in Punjab, India, and the Post-Militancy Era: Structural Change and New Political Compulsions", Asian Survey, 49 (6): 975–997, doi:10.1525/as.2009.49.6.975
• Pettigrew, Joyce (1987). "In Search of a New Kingdom of Lahore". Pacific Affairs. 60 (1): 1–25. doi:10.2307/2758827. JSTOR 2758827. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pettigrew, Joyce (1995). The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerilla Violence. London, UK: Zed Books. ISBN 978-1856493567. Retrieved 20 April 2020. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Singh, Joginder (2003). "Setting Agenda for Sikh Militancy: A Study of Punjabi Vernaculars". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 64: 1083–1090. JSTOR 44145535. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bakke, Kristin (2015). Decentralization and Intrastate Struggles: Chechnya, Punjab, and Québec (illustrated ed.). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107094383. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Jetly, Rajshree (2008). "The Khalistan Movement in India: The Interplay of Politics and State Power". International Review of Modern Sociology. 34 (1): 61–75. JSTOR 41421658. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Deol, Harnik (2000). Religion and Nationalism in India: The Case of the Punjab (Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia) (1st ed.). New York City, U.S.A.: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415201087. Retrieved 17 June 2020. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kumar, Ram Narayan; Singh, Amrik; Agrwaal, Ashok; Kaur, Jaskaran (2003). Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab: Final Report, Volume 1. Kathmandu, Nepal: South Asia Forum for Human Rights. ISBN 9789993353577. Retrieved 2 July 2020. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dhillon, Kirpal S. (2006). Identity and Survival: Sikh Militancy in India, 1978-1993. London, United Kingdom: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780143100362. Retrieved 2 July 2020. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)