Kids Corner

1984

Indira Gandhi: Midwife to The Birth of Khalistan?

by RAJINDER PURI

 

 

In the fifth volume of the series of its history, the Congress Party has made available to a contemporary daily an advanced copy of the book.

The volume carries an article by veteran journalist Inder Malhotra who was earlier the political editor of The Statesman and later a resident editor of The Times of India.

Departing from traditional Congress sycophancy, Malhotra has authenticated the widely-held belief that the late Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had been promoted by former President Zail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi with the consent of Indira Gandhi. At that time, while the Congress headed by Indira Gandhi ruled the Centre, the Akali party governed Punjab. Bhindranwale was promoted by the Congress in order to divide moderate Sikhs led by the Akalis from the fundamentalist fringe encouraged to support Bhindranwale.

Thereby, Indira Gandhi sought to weaken and oust from Punjab the Akalis. It may stun people that in the pursuit of a short term political goal, Gandhi could sink to such a low political level.

In fact, she did much worse. She actually gave the go ahead to the demand for a Khalistan state in order to further her political design. This scribe was privy to sufficient circumstantial evidence to conclude this. At that time, before the formal demand for Khalistan had been made, the late Jagjit Singh Chauhan accompanied by  Balbir Singh Sandhu visited my residence to acquaint me with their proposal. They said that they intended to formally announce the formation of Khalistan from the precincts of the Golden Temple.

They asked me for my views. I told them that it was a daft idea. Demographic distribution and geography rendered the idea impractical and irrational. Instead, I said, a stronger case could be made to unify entire Punjab extending from Peshawar to Ambala!

The discussion ended and the two left. If memory serves me right, I referred to this meeting in a column written subsequently for the Sunday Observer published from Bombay.

Later, Chauhan again contacted me. He said he was going to meet Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with whom he wanted to discuss his proposal. He wanted to consult me before he met her. On the evening of his meeting with Gandhi, he fixed an appointment with me. He said he would be outside the gate of the Taj Man Singh hotel where he was scheduled to meet someone else later. I drove to the hotel and found him waiting outside the gate. This was at the exit gate of the hotel adjacent to Kapurthala House which was then being used as a guest house by the Punjab government. We sat in the car and talked briefly.

He said he could persuade Gandhi to support him. I listened with polite disbelief and we parted. I reversed my car to return the way I had come. He started walking very slowly, hesitantly, towards the Taj Hotel. His slow, halting gait intrigued me. After driving some distance I pulled my car to the side and looked back. He was entering Kapurthala House where possibly he was staying as a guest!

A short while later, Chauhan and Balbir Singh Sandhu as stated to me earlier, announced the formation of Khalistan from the precincts of the Golden Temple. They distributed at that time either printed currency notes of independent Khalistan or a postage stamp, I forget which. The media covered the event. I had no reason to disbelieve Chauhan's meeting with Gandhi.

Despite the announcement of a sovereign Khalistan, the Central government headed by Indira Gandhi was curiously constrained from taking appropriate action.

There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to her popular image, Indira Gandhi took decisions betraying a total lack of political sense. There is much evidence to prove this. Her disastrous handling of the aftermath of the Bangladesh War, her restoration of diplomatic ties with China after Beijing had rejected the Colombo proposals, her stupid promotion of the LTTE to embarrass Sri Lanka, and other political events testify to her political mediocrity or worse.

Whether her political follies arose from a mediocre mind or from some other unknown external political factor, history has yet to determine. But it is important for a new generation of Indians operating in the information era to acquaint themselves with the truth of their post-Independence history. They deserve to know the truth about India's iconic leaders, warts and all.

Today, as the nation sinks in graft, totters with insecurity and helplessly sees governance and the political system crumbling, knowing the truth about our recent past could be the first step to reclaim our future.

The author is a veteran journalist and political columnist.

[Courtesy: The Statesman]

May 14, 2011

Conversation about this article

1: Devinder Singh (India), May 14, 2011, 6:12 AM.

A leader discerns the forces that are at play around him. He/she acts on these forces to his/her best advantage.

2: I.J. Singh (New York, U.S.A.), May 14, 2011, 10:21 AM.

I wonder now what do they have to say - these people in India, former Indian government officials and political honchos, who defend Indian government on the events of 1984 and relentlessly attack Sikhs in the diaspora as Khalistani crusaders and India-haters. That's why I and many others in the diaspora have been pushing for an honest inquiry and some justice, something like a 'Truth & Reconciliation' initiative as a more charitable alternative. (Charitable for the government operatives, that is). Truth will out, I know; I just hope and pray that it happens within this generation.

3: Kanwarjeet Singh (Franklin Park, New Jersey, U.S.A.), May 14, 2011, 2:50 PM.

So Puri is stating partly what Sikhs have been saying for the past three decades. Nothing new here except the maligning of Bhindranwale. Indira Gandhi may have supported Bhindranwale against one of her enemies - the Akalis - but just like an opportunist politician, she always intended to deal with him later. This is from the 'Art of War' - "Use an enemy to fight an enemy." U.S.A. did this with Saddam and Iran and then again with the Taliban and Soviet Union. Bhindranwale had the right agenda but not all the right people with him - another factor is that as always, the Sikhs were not united. The Congress and, I must say, most Hindus always saw Sikhs as a threat. The first idea to eliminate Sikhs physically was a miserable failure (1975-1992). Then using the RSS ideology, they tried to kill Sikhs spiritually by attempting to integrate Sikhi with Hinduism and never accepting it as a separate faith (1992-2000). This succeeded to some extent but was not completely successful. The evidence to support this is clearly found in the statements of Hindu leaders, the non acceptance of Anand Karaj, etc. The last attempt was to now attack the Sikh religion and way of life directly by promoting fake babas and sants, mixing Sikh religion with low level vulgar music (same singers who sing vulgar songs were seen tying a piece of cloth on their heads and singing praises of the Gurus minus Guru Gobind Singh), demeaning Sikhs in Hindi movies so that the younger Sikh generation would leave the Sikh following out of shame and ridiculed by their peers, and finally by building more temples around existing gurdwaras to push their agenda down our throats (2000 onwards). The final strategy seems to have been successful to quite an extent. However before we completely put the blame on the others, I think our own community is highly responsible - in the past few years we have forgotten the concept of sangat (unity replaced by in-fighting), dasvand (replaced by greed typically misusing gurdwara and sangat funds), humility (replaced by arrogance), etc., etc. If we need to halt the slide and reverse the real loss to Sikhi, every Sikh individual needs to act now.

4: G.C. Singh (U.S.A.), May 15, 2011, 10:46 AM.

There is no doubt that Indira Gandhi was using the bogey of Khalistan to conduct genocide against Sikhs. While the story about this shady character Jagjit Singh Chohan may be true, the charges that Bhinderanwale was the creation of Congress is a bold faced lie and is part of the propaganda against Sikhs, fighting for justice and human rights. Bhinderanwale never demanded Khalistan. He said that the foundation of Khalistan will be laid the day Indian army will attack Harmandar Sahib. His supporters in a overwhelming majority feel that he was the defender Of glorious Sikh traditions and made the supreme sacrifice. His detractors and the media in general portray him as a fundamentalist and obscure preacher who was propped up by Congress to divide the Akali party. The Indian media, of course, will say and do anything to defame him because he could not be bought. The sole reason of his killing was because he was preaching the Guru's message and was very successful in reversing the trend of apostasy in Sikh youth in Punjab. Interestingly, while Bhinderanwale, the "Congress agent" was killed in Operation Blue Star, the Akali leaders who were supposedly "enemies of the Congress", were safely ferried to comfortable guest houses.

5: N. Singh (Canada), May 15, 2011, 10:53 PM.

Likewise with Chauhan ... after ranting and raving against the Indian Government and for the creation of Khalistan, and spending time in "exile" in the UK, he was mysteriously able to comfortably retire in India, all with the blessing of the Government of India! Interesting, considering that innocent Sikh youths were picked up, tortured and then disappear - yet Chauhan was able to live in peace and prosperity.

6: Rajinder Puri (India), December 25, 2011, 7:49 AM.

I never said that Indira Gandhi CREATED Bhindranwale. She covertly supported him to divide the Akalis. As for Bhindranwale not demanding Khalistan, I believe I was the first to state this after meeting Bhindranwale exactly one month before Operation Bluestar. I went there to find a compromise formula. I obtained it after talking to both Bhindranwale and Longowal inside the Golden Temple. I went there on a personal request of Rajiv Gandhi although I was a strong opponent of his mother. Despite my success with Bhindranwale and Longowal, the government conducted Operation Bluestar. I wrote at length on the subject in my article, "Remembering 1984".

7: Gurdeep Singh (Bhatinda, Punjab), April 20, 2014, 7:53 AM.

Good article.

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