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| death_cause = Killed in gunfight during [[Operation Blue Star]] |
| death_cause = Killed in gunfight during [[Operation Blue Star]] |
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| death_date = {{Death date and age|1984|6|6|1947|6|2}} |
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1984|6|6|1947|6|2}} |
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| monuments = Gurdwara Yaadgar Shaheedan, Amritsar<ref name=chopra>{{cite book |last=Chopra |first=Radhika |title=Amritsar 1984: A City Remembers |date=2018 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield, 2018 |location=Patiala, Punjab, India |isbn=9781498571067 |pages=2, 24|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1oVuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=yaadgar+shaheedan+bhindranwale&source=bl&ots=WL5JD4NcAh&sig=ACfU3U10ndOE6e-QWKEAzfDRfMcwTgvL1Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiU4eLcq9znAhUCba0KHcCGC-gQ6AEwA3oECA0QAQ#v=onepage&q=shaheedan&f=false |accessdate=22 February 2020 |language=English}}</ref> |
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| occupation = Sikh Preacher, Head of Damdami Taksal |
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| occupation = Sikh preacher, head of Damdami Taksal, advocate of the [[Anandpur Sahib Resolution]] |
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| organization = [[Damdami Taksal]] |
| organization = [[Damdami Taksal]] |
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| movement = [[Khalistan movement]] |
| movement = [[Khalistan movement]] |
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| spouse = Pritam Kaur (m. 1966–1984) |
| spouse = Pritam Kaur (m. 1966–1984) |
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| children = 2 |
| children = 2 |
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| title = |
| title = [[Sant (religion)|''Sant'']]{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=75}} |
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}} |
}} |
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'''Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale''' ({{IPA-pa|dʒəɾnɛːlᵊ sɪ́ŋɡᵊ pɪ̀ɳɖrãːʋaːɭe|lang}}; born '''Jarnail Singh Brar''';<ref name="SH"/> 2 June 1947 – 6 June 1984) was the fourteenth{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=160}} [[jathedar]], or leader, of the prominent orthodox Sikh religious institution [[Damdami Taksal]]. He was an advocate of the [[Anandpur Sahib Resolution]].<ref>{{cite news|title = Bhindranwale firm on Anandpur move| work = Hindustan Times| date = 5 September 1983}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title = Bhindranwale, not for Khalistan| work = Hindustan Times| date = 13 November 1982}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title = Sikhs not for secession: Bhindranwale| work = The Tribune| date = 28 February 1984}}</ref><ref name="Joshi, Chand 1984 p. 129">Joshi, Chand (1984). ''Bhindranwale: Myth and Reality'' New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. p. 129.</ref> He gained national attention after his involvement in the [[1978 Sikh-Nirankari clash]]. |
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'''Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale''' ({{IPA-pa|dʒəɾnɛːl sɪ́ŋɡ pɪ̀ɳɖɾãːʋaːɭe|lang}}; born '''Jarnail Singh Brar''';<ref name="SH"/> 2 June 1947 – 6 June 1984) was a militant<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/10spec1.htm|title=Why Osama resembles Bhindranwale|website=Rediff|access-date=2019-03-22}}</ref> leader of the Sikh organization [[Damdami Taksal]]. He gained prominence due to his involvement in the [[1978 Sikh-Nirankari clash]]. He symbolized the revivalist, extremist and terrorist movement in Punjab.<ref name="CrenshawM381"/> In 1983, to escape arrest, he along with his militant cadre occupied and fortified the Sikh shrine [[Akal Takht]].<ref name="MuniTerrorism">{{cite book |last1=Muni |first1=S. D. |title=Responding to Terrorism in South Asia |date=2006 |publisher=Manohar Publishers & Distributors|isbn=978-8173046711 |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYraAAAAMAAJ&q=bhindranwale+terrorist&dq=bhindranwale+terrorist&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW1cCzk4_cAhULN48KHT8RBrgQ6AEIOzAE |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162330/https://books.google.com/books?id=PYraAAAAMAAJ&q=bhindranwale+terrorist&dq=bhindranwale+terrorist&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW1cCzk4_cAhULN48KHT8RBrgQ6AEIOzAE |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> [[Operation Blue Star]] was launched to remove him and the armed militants from the [[Golden Temple]] complex. |
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In the summer of 1982, Bhindranwale and the [[Akali Dal]] launched the [[Dharam Yudh Morcha]] (movement for the righteous struggle), 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.<ref name="Akshay1991">{{cite book|author=Akshayakumar Ramanlal Desai|title=Expanding Governmental Lawlessness and Organized Struggles | date=1991|publisher=Popular Prakashan|isbn=978-81-7154-529-2|pages=64–66 }}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Van Dyke|2009|p=980}} Over time Bhindranwale grew to be a leader of Sikh militancy.{{sfn|Fair|2005|p=128}}{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=77}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/10spec1.htm|title=Why Osama resembles Bhindranwale|website=Rediff|access-date=2019-03-22}}</ref> |
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Bhindranwale was the head of the orthodox Sikh religious school Damdami Taksal and held the title of missionary "Sant", a common religious title in Punjab. Over the period Bhindranwale grew up as a leader of Sikh militancy.{{sfn|Fair|2005|p=128}} 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.{{sfn|Van Dyke|2009|p=980}} The growth of Bhindranwale was not solely by his own efforts.{{sfn|Fair|2005|p=128}} In the late 1970s Indira Gandhi's [[Indian National Congress|Congress]] party supported Bhindranwale in a bid to split the Sikh votes and weaken the Akali Dal, its chief rival in Punjab.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> Congress supported the candidates backed by Bhindranwale in the 1978 [[Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee|SGPC]] elections. The Congress leader [[Giani Zail Singh]] allegedly financed the initial meetings of the separatist organisation Dal Khalsa.<ref name="Akshay1991"/><ref name="Stanley1996">{{cite book|author=Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah | title=Leveling crowds: ethnonationalist conflicts and collective violence in South Asia | year=1996 | publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-20642-7|page=106 }}</ref> In the 1980 election, Bhindranwale supported Congress candidates. Bhindranwale was originally not very influential, but the activities of Congress elevated him to the status of a major leader by the early 1980s.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> This later turned out to be a miscalculation as Bhindranwale's separatist political objectives became popular among the agricultural [[Jat Sikhs]] in the region.{{sfn|Fair|2005|p=128}} |
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In 1982 Bhindranwale and his armed group moved to the [[Golden Temple]] complex and made it his headquarters. Bhindranwale would establish what amounted to a "parallel government" in Punjab,{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=67}}<ref name="Mahmood_WY"/><ref name="Robert2008"/> settling cases and resolving disputes. In 1983, to escape arrest, he along with his militant cadre resided in and fortified the Sikh shrine [[Akal Takht]].<ref name="MuniTerrorism">{{cite book |last1=Muni |first1=S. D. |title=Responding to Terrorism in South Asia |date=2006 |publisher=Manohar Publishers & Distributors|isbn=978-8173046711 |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYraAAAAMAAJ&q=bhindranwale+terrorist&dq=bhindranwale+terrorist&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW1cCzk4_cAhULN48KHT8RBrgQ6AEIOzAE |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162330/https://books.google.com/books?id=PYraAAAAMAAJ&q=bhindranwale+terrorist&dq=bhindranwale+terrorist&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW1cCzk4_cAhULN48KHT8RBrgQ6AEIOzAE |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> 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.<ref name="TH_Mi6">{{cite news|title=RAW chief consulted MI6 in build-up to Operation Bluestar|url=http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/raw-chief-consulted-mi6-in-buildup-to-operation-bluestar/article5579516.ece|publisher=[[The Hindu]]|date=16 January 2014|accessdate=31 January 2014|location=Chennai, India|first=Praveen|last=Swami|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140118044721/http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/raw-chief-consulted-mi6-in-buildup-to-operation-bluestar/article5579516.ece|archive-date=18 January 2014|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> Bhindranwale died and the temple complex was cleared of militants. |
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In the summer of 1982, Bhindranwale and the [[Akali Dal]] launched the [[Dharam Yudh Morcha]] (battle for righteousness), with its stated aim being the fulfilment of a list of demands based on the [[Anandpur Sahib Resolution]] to create an autonomous state for Sikhs. Thousands of people joined the movement in the hope of acquiring a larger share of irrigation water and the return of [[Chandigarh]] to Punjab.<ref name="Akshay1991">{{cite book|author=Akshayakumar Ramanlal Desai|title=Expanding Governmental Lawlessness and Organized Struggles | date=1991|publisher=Popular Prakashan|isbn=978-81-7154-529-2|pages=64–66 }}</ref> Bhindranwale was responsible for launching Sikh militancy during the 1980s.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal77"/> Bhindranwale also increased the level of rhetoric on the perceived "assault" on Sikh values by the Hindu community.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal77"/> |
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Bhindranwale has remained a controversial figure in Indian history.<ref name="BBC_ToI">{{cite news |title=BBC documentary 'provokes furious response from Sikhs |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/BBC-documentary-provokes-furious-response-from-Sikhs/articleshow/5465239.cms |accessdate=11 January 2019 |publisher=The Times of India |date=18 January 2010}}</ref> While the Sikhs' highest temporal authority [[Akal Takht]] describe him a 'martyr',<ref name="rediff.com">{{Cite web |url=http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/06sikh.htm |title=Akal Takht declares Bhindranwale 'martyr' |access-date=13 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020150941/http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/06sikh.htm |archive-date=20 October 2012 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> with immense appeal among rural sections of the Sikh population,<ref name="Mahmood_WY"/><ref name="Economist_echo"/> who saw him as a powerful leader<ref name="Economist_echo"/> who stood up to Indian state dominance and repression,<ref name="purewal">{{cite journal |last1=Singh |first1=Pritam |last2=Purewal |first2=Navtej |title=The resurgence of Bhindranwale's image in contemporary Punjab |journal=Contemporary South Asia |date=2013 |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=133-147 |doi=10.1080/09584935.2013.773291 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2013.773291 |accessdate=4 April 2020}}</ref> to the government symbolized the revivalist, extremist and terrorist<ref name="CrenshawM">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw |first1=Martha |title=Terrorism in Context |date= 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162242/https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="Economist_echo">{{cite news |title=An echo of terrorism |url=https://www.economist.com/asia/2003/06/12/an-echo-of-terrorism |accessdate=11 January 2019 |work=A martyr is declared in Punjab |publisher=The Economist |date=12 June 2003|quote=FOR most Indians, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was a terrorist. But to Sikhs he was a powerful leader who led a violent campaign for an independent state called Khalistan}}</ref> movement in Punjab.<ref name="CrenshawM381"/> |
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In 1982 Bhindranwale and his armed group moved to the [[Golden Temple]] complex and made it his headquarters. From inside the complex, Bhindranwale led the [[insurgency|Punjab insurgency]] campaign in Punjab.<ref name="Robert2008"/> In June 1984 [[Operation Blue Star]] was carried out by the [[Indian Army]] to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed militants from the buildings of the [[Harmandir Sahib]] in the Golden Temple Complex.<ref name="TH_Mi6">{{cite news|title=RAW chief consulted MI6 in build-up to Operation Bluestar|url=http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/raw-chief-consulted-mi6-in-buildup-to-operation-bluestar/article5579516.ece|publisher=[[The Hindu]]|date=16 January 2014|accessdate=31 January 2014|location=Chennai, India|first=Praveen|last=Swami|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140118044721/http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/raw-chief-consulted-mi6-in-buildup-to-operation-bluestar/article5579516.ece|archive-date=18 January 2014|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> Bhindranwale died and the temple complex was cleared of militants. |
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Bhindranwale has remained a controversial figure in Indian history.<ref name="BBC_ToI">{{cite news |title=BBC documentary 'provokes furious response from Sikhs |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/BBC-documentary-provokes-furious-response-from-Sikhs/articleshow/5465239.cms |accessdate=11 January 2019 |publisher=The Times of India |date=18 January 2010}}</ref> While the Sikhs' highest temporal authority [[Akal Takht]] describe him a 'martyr', he is widely regarded in India as a [[terrorist]].<ref name="rediff.com">{{Cite web |url=http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/06sikh.htm |title=Akal Takht declares Bhindranwale 'martyr' |access-date=13 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020150941/http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/06sikh.htm |archive-date=20 October 2012 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="CrenshawM">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw |first1=Martha |title=Terrorism in Context |date= 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162242/https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="Economist_echo">{{cite news |title=An echo of terrorism |url=https://www.economist.com/asia/2003/06/12/an-echo-of-terrorism |accessdate=11 January 2019 |work=A martyr is declared in Punjab |publisher=The Economist |date=12 June 2003|quote=FOR most Indians, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was a terrorist. But to Sikhs he was a powerful leader who led a violent campaign for an independent state called Khalistan}}</ref> |
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==Early life== |
==Early life== |
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Bhindranwale was born as Jarnail Singh Brar to a [[Jat Sikh]] family in 1947 in the village of Rode, |
Bhindranwale was born as Jarnail Singh Brar to a [[Jat Sikh]] family in 1947 in the village of Rode,{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=75}} in [[Moga District]] located in the region of [[Malwa (Punjab)|Malwa]].<ref name="Brar_son">{{cite web|url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-sants-son/262240|title=The Sant’s Son|publisher=}}</ref> The grandson of Sardar Harnam Singh Brar, his father, Joginder Singh Brar was a farmer and a local Sikh leader, and his mother was Nihal Kaur.<ref name="SH"/> Jarnail Singh was the seventh of seven brothers and one sister.<ref name="IT">{{cite news|title=100 People Who Shaped India|work=India Today|last=Singh|first=Tavleen|date=14 January 2002|url=http://www.india-today.com/itoday/millennium/100people/jarnail.html|accessdate=28 October 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080620164214/http://www.india-today.com/itoday/millennium/100people/jarnail.html|archive-date=20 June 2008|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref> He was put into a school in 1953 at the age of 6 but he dropped out of school five years later to work with his father on the farm.<ref name="Rode_Bro">{{cite news |last1=Rode |first1=Harcharan Singh |title=My brother Bhindranwale |date=2 June 2014}}</ref> |
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He married Pritam Kaur, the daughter of Sucha Singh of [[Bilaspur, Yamuna Nagar|Bilaspur]] at the age of nineteen. |
He married Pritam Kaur, the daughter of Sucha Singh of [[Bilaspur, Yamuna Nagar|Bilaspur]] at the age of nineteen.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=75}}<ref name="OutlookSon">{{cite news |title=The Sant’s Son |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-sants-son/262240 |accessdate=19 May 2019 |work=outlookindia.com |publisher=Outlook |date=19 October 2009}}</ref> The couple had two sons, Ishar Singh and Inderjit Singh, in 1971 and 1975, respectively.<ref name="SH">{{cite web|title=Saint Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (1947–1984) |publisher=Sikh-history.com |last=Singh |first=Sandeep |url=http://www.sikh-history.com/sikhhist/personalities/bhindranwale.html |accessdate=18 March 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070324110547/http://www.sikh-history.com/sikhhist/personalities/bhindrenwale.html |archive-date=24 March 2007 }}</ref> After the death of Bhindranwale, Pritam Kaur moved along with her sons to Bilaspur village in [[Moga district]] and stayed with her brother.<ref name="OutlookSon" /> She died of heart ailment at age 60, on 15 September 2007 in [[Jalandhar]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Bhindranwale's widow dead|work=The Tribune|date=16 September 2007|url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070916/punjab1.htm#20|accessdate=19 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071008083423/http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070916/punjab1.htm#20|archive-date=8 October 2007|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> |
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==Damdami Taksal== |
==Damdami Taksal== |
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[[File:Damdami Taksal Logo.svg|thumb|The Logo of the [[Damdami Taksal]], reads 'the [[Shabd]] is forged in the True mint' in Punjabi ([[Gurmukhi]]).]] |
[[File:Damdami Taksal Logo.svg|thumb|The Logo of the [[Damdami Taksal]], reads 'the [[Shabd]] is forged in the True mint' in Punjabi ([[Gurmukhi]]).]] |
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In 1965, he was enrolled by his father at the [[Damdami Taksal]] also known as Bhindran Taksal, a religious school, near [[Moga, Punjab]], then headed by Gurbachan Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale.<ref name="SH"/> The name Bhindran Taksal was made after the village of Bhindran Kalan where its chief Gurbachan Singh Bhindranwale lived.<ref name="HawleyBhindran"/> After a one-year course in Sikh studies he returned to farming again. He continued his 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.<ref name="Harnik_deolPunjab">{{cite book|last=Deol| first=Harnik|title=Religion and Nationalism in India: The Case of the Punjab| publisher=Routledge |year =2000 |isbn=0-415-20108-X|page=168}}</ref> |
In 1965, he was enrolled by his father at the [[Damdami Taksal]] also known as Bhindran Taksal, a religious school, near [[Moga, Punjab]], then headed by Gurbachan Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale.<ref name="SH"/> The name Bhindran Taksal was made after the village of Bhindran Kalan where its chief Gurbachan Singh Bhindranwale lived.<ref name="HawleyBhindran"/> After a one-year course in Sikh studies he returned to farming again. He continued his 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.<ref name="Harnik_deolPunjab">{{cite book|last=Deol| first=Harnik|title=Religion and Nationalism in India: The Case of the Punjab| publisher=Routledge |year =2000 |isbn=0-415-20108-X|page=168}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=55}} |
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Kartar Singh Khalsa died in a car accident on 16 August 1977. Before his death, Kartar Singh had appointed the then 31-year-old{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=75}} Bhindranwale as his successor, in preference to his son Amrik Singh,<ref name="Harnik_deolPunjab"/> who, “instead of resenting the choice," became "a confidante and collaborator of Jarnail Singh."{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=iv}} |
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Bhindranwale attained the religious title of "Sant", also held by around eight thousand Sikhs in Punjab.<ref name="Brar_son"/> He left home and relinquished his family duty. He gave his full-time to Taksal.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal"/> His family could only see him in Sikh religious ceremonies known as [[Satsang]].<ref name="Brar_son"/> As a [[missionary]] Sant of Taksal, he would tour the villages to give dramatic public sermons and reading of scripture.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal77">{{cite book |last1=Mahmood |first1=Cynthia Keppley |title=Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants |date=1996 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0812215922 |page=77 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FqvTRUrwt2UC |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162158/https://books.google.com/books?id=FqvTRUrwt2UC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> He preached the disaffected young Sikhs, encouraging them to return to the path of [[Khalsa]] by giving up consumerism in family life and abstaining from drugs and alcohol.<ref name="Harnik_deolPunjab199">{{cite book|last=Deol| first=Harnik|title=Religion and Nationalism in India: The Case of the Punjab| publisher=Routledge |year =2000 |isbn=0-415-20108-X|page=199}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal77"/> |
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Bhindranwale was formally elected the 14th [[jathedar]] of the Damdami Taksal at a [[bhog]] ceremony at Mehta Chowk on 25 August 1977.<ref name="Brar_son"/><ref name="SH"/> He adopted the name "Bhindranwale" meaning "from Bhindran," referring to the village of Bhindran Kalan, where the Bhindran Taksal branch of the Damdami Taksal was located,<ref name="Brar_son"/><ref name="HawleyBhindran">{{cite book |last1=Singh |first1=Pashaura, Michael Hawley |title=Re-imagining South Asian Religions: Essays in Honour of Professors Harold G. Coward and Ronald W. Neufeldt |date=2012 |publisher=Brill|isbn=978-9004242371 |page=38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qT0yAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA38&ots=0D6y_DQg5d&dq=Bhindran%20Kalan&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q=Bhindran%20Kalan&f=false}}</ref> and attained the religious title of "Sant".<ref name="Brar_son"/> He concluded most of his family responsibilities to devote full time to the Taksal, thus following a long tradition of “sants”, an important part of rural Sikh life.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=55}} Henceforth his family saw him solely in Sikh religious congregations known as [[satsang]]s, though his son Ishar Singh would describe his youth as being "well looked after" and "never in need."<ref name="Brar_son"/> As a [[missionary]] Sant of the Taksal, he would tour the villages to give dramatic public sermons and reading of scripture.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=77}} He preached the disaffected young Sikhs, encouraging them to return to the path of [[Khalsa]] by giving up consumerism in family life and abstaining from drugs and alcohol.<ref name="Harnik_deolPunjab199">{{cite book|last=Deol| first=Harnik|title=Religion and Nationalism in India: The Case of the Punjab| publisher=Routledge |year =2000 |isbn=0-415-20108-X|page=199}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=77}} |
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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, encouraging Sikhs to receive amrit, observe the Sikh appearance given by the Guru, and live according to the teachings of Guru Granth Sahib., with his main philosophy as "nashe chaddo, amrit chhako, gursikh bano" (Give up addictions, receive amrit, become good Sikhs).{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=i}} Under Bhindranwale, the number of people joining the Khalsa increased.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=77}} |
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Khushwant Singh, a critic of Bhindranwale, allowed that “Bhindranwale's ''amrit prachar'' 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 |
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crops. They had much to be grateful for to Jarnail Singh who came to be revered by them."<ref>Singh, Khushwant, A History of the Sikhs. Volume II: 1839–1988, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1991, pp. 330–331.</ref> |
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==Politics== |
==Politics== |
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In the late 1970s Indira Gandhi's [[Indian National Congress|Congress]] party attempted to co-opt Bhindranwale in a bid to split Sikh votes and weaken the Akali Dal, its chief rival in Punjab.<ref name="Akshay1991"/><ref name="Kuldip_Lines"/><ref name="CrenshawM381">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw |first1=Martha |title=Terrorism in Context |date= 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |page=381 |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162242/https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="Robert2008">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pSyRgcSQhuIC&pg=PT187|title=India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation|author1=Robert L. Hardgrave|first=|author2=Stanley A. Kochanek|publisher=Cengage Learning|year=2008|isbn=978-0-495-00749-4|location=|pages=174|accessdate=}}</ref>{{rp|174}} Congress supported the candidates backed by Bhindranwale in the 1978 [[Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee|SGPC]] elections. 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 [[1980 Indian general election|resumed power in 1980]], would find out that he could not be controlled or directed.<ref name="CrenshawM382">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw |first1=Martha |title=Terrorism in Context |date= 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC&lpg=PA382&dq=%22Sanjay%20Gandhi%22%20bhindranwale%20New%20York%20times&pg=PA382#v=onepage&q=%22Sanjay%20Gandhi%22%20bhindranwale%20New%20York%20times&f=false |pages=382-388}}</ref><ref name="Kuldip_Lines"/> The Congress CM (and later President) [[Giani Zail Singh]],<ref>''Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's last battle'' by Mark Tully. Pan in association with Cape, 1986. p. 57 {{ISBN|978-0-330-29434-8}}</ref> who allegedly financed the initial meetings of the separatist organisation Dal Khalsa,<ref name="Akshay1991"/><ref name="Stanley1996">{{cite book|author=Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah | title=Leveling crowds: ethnonationalist conflicts and collective violence in South Asia | year=1996 | publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-20642-7|page=106 }}</ref> amid attempts to cater to and capitalize on the surge in Sikh religious revivalism in Punjab.<ref name=mitra/> This later turned out to be a miscalculation by Congress, as Bhindranwale's [[Regionalism (politics)|regionalist]], and eventually separatist political objectives became popular among the agricultural [[Jat Sikhs]] in the region,{{sfn|Fair|2005|p=128}} as he would advocate for the state's water rights central to the state's economy, in addition to leading Sikh revivalism. |
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Bhindranwale symbolized the revivalist, extremist and terrorist movement in Punjab,<ref name="CrenshawM381"/> and was responsible for the launching the Sikh Militancy.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal77"/> Under Bhindranwale, the number of people joining the Khalsa increased. The rhetorics that were based on the "perceived 'assault' on Sikh values from the Hindu community", also increased in this period.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal77"/> Bhindranwale and his friend Amrik Singh started carrying firearms at all times, this practice was defended referring to the Sikh religious value of carrying a [[Kirpan]] which is also a weapon.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal77"/> Bhindranwale had started, carrying in his hand a steel arrow, thereby imitating the tenth [[Guru Gobind Singh]].<ref name="satp prophet"/><ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=bxhuAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=arrow Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's last battle] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180709154555/https://books.google.com/books?id=bxhuAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=arrow |date=9 July 2018 }}'' by Mark Tully. Pan in association with Cape, 1986. p. 129 {{ISBN|978-0-330-29434-8}}</ref> |
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In 1979, Bhindranwale put up forty candidates against the Akali candidates in the [[SGPC]] election for a total of 140 seats, winning four seats.<ref>{{cite book | last=Singh |first=Khushwant | year=2005 | month= | title=A History of the Sikhs: Volume II: 1839–2004 | publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | location=[[New Delhi]] | isbn=0195673093 | pages=332 }}</ref> A year later, Bhindranwale used Zail Singh's patronage to put up candidates in three constituencies' during the general elections,<ref>Tully (1985), p. 177.</ref> winning a significant number of seats from Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Ferozepur districts.<ref name=mitra/> Despite this success, he would not personally seek any political office. According to an analysis by anthropologist Cynthia Mahmood Keppley, |
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{{quote|“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.”{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=80}}}} |
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The [[Damdami Taksal]] additionally 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 [[The Emergency (India)#Sikh opposition|Emergency]] rule, even in her presence as far back as 1975.<ref name="Mahmood_WY">{{cite book | author1=C. K. Mahmood | title=Why Sikhs Fight (Anthropological Contributions to Conflict Resolution) | url=https://books.google.com/?id=521m3YG-N38C&pg=PA11&dq=why+sikhs+fight+mahmood#v=onepage&q=why%20sikhs%20fight%20mahmood&f=false | publisher=The University of Georgia Press | page=17| isbn=9780820317656 | year=1996 }}</ref>{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=75}} 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.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=159}} 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.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=158}} |
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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,"<ref name=mitra>{{cite news |title=Bhindranwale's rise from a small-time priest was meteoric |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india-today-35th-anniversary/story/20111226-india-today-newsmake-of-1980s-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-750018-2011-12-15 |accessdate=10 July 2018 |publisher=India Today |date=15 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191104014724/https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india-today-35th-anniversary/story/20111226-india-today-newsmake-of-1980s-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-750018-2011-12-15 |archive-date=4 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> 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."{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=160}} In a speech on 8 March 1984, Bhindranwale stated, “Let no one ever imagine that some leader or minister can own me. Yes, some people say that Bhindranwale has fallen into so and so's lap; that so and so has bought Bhindranwale.... Let no rich man think that anyone possessing a chair, anyone who is a leader, any minister, can buy me. Those with chairs can buy others with chairs but regarding the Taksal: when this Taksal... is bought, verily the whole world will be bought. Who are these politicians - whichever party they might belong to - to think they can buy Bhindranwale?”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=402}} |
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From his rise in popularity in 1978, until 6 June 1984 when Bhindranwale died, Bhindranwale propagated and practised hate thorough the orthodox Sikh tenets for six years. He used "Amrit Prachar", which is the propagation of the tenets of the Sikh faith and mixed radical fundamentalism with incitement to violence.<ref name="satp prophet"/> Author Khushwant Singh, summarized his ‘revelations’, that "Bhindranwale was not bothered with the subtle points of theology; he had his list of do's and don’ts clearly set out in bold letters. He took those passages from the sacred texts which suited his purpose and ignored or glossed over others that did not. He well understood that hate was a stronger passion than love: his list of hates was even more clearly and boldly spelt out".<ref>Singh, Khushwant, A History of the Sikhs. Volume II: 1839–1988, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1991, pp. 330–331.</ref> |
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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.”{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=55}} |
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===Congress=== |
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Bhindranwale rise in popularity is accredited to his alleged role as an agent of India's Congress party, particularly through his connection with former Congress CM (and later President) [[Zail Singh]].<ref>''Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's last battle'' by Mark Tully. Pan in association with Cape, 1986. p. 57 {{ISBN|978-0-330-29434-8}}</ref> Bhindranwale received both political and financial assistance from Congress (I) with an objective to destabilize the Akali Dal.<ref name="Kuldip_Lines"/> According to Times of India, he was nurtured to cut the Akali Dal's influence.<ref name="CrenshawM381">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw |first1=Martha |title=Terrorism in Context |date= 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |page=381 |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162242/https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="Robert2008">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pSyRgcSQhuIC&pg=PT187|title=India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation|author1=Robert L. Hardgrave|first=|author2=Stanley A. Kochanek|publisher=Cengage Learning|year=2008|isbn=978-0-495-00749-4|location=|pages=174|accessdate=}}</ref>{{rp|174}} According to the New York Times, [[Sanjay Gandhi]] recruited Bhindranwale after Indira Gandhi lost the [[1977 Indian general election]].<ref name="CrenshawM382">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw |first1=Martha |title=Terrorism in Context |date= 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC&lpg=PA382&dq=%22Sanjay%20Gandhi%22%20bhindranwale%20New%20York%20times&pg=PA382#v=onepage&q=%22Sanjay%20Gandhi%22%20bhindranwale%20New%20York%20times&f=false |page=382 }}</ref> Bhindranwale received public attention after the Nirankari clash in 1978. In 1979, Bhindranwale put up forty candidates against the Akali candidates in the [[SGPC]] election for a total of 140 seats, he won only four of the seats.<ref>{{cite book | last=Singh |first=Khushwant | year=2005 | month= | title=A History of the Sikhs: Volume II: 1839–2004 | publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | location=[[New Delhi]] | isbn=0195673093 | pages=332 }}</ref> A year later, Bhindranwale campaigned actively for Congress in three constituencies' during the general elections.<ref>Tully (1985), p. 177.</ref> Due to his lack of success in election politics, he later claimed he did not personally seek any political office. Zail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi were considered as the architects of the Congress party's Bhindranwale strategy. Even then Congress was unable to control Bhindranwale after coming back to power in the [[1980 Indian general election]].<ref name="CrenshawM381"/><ref name="Kuldip_Lines"/> |
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===Conflict with Nirankaris=== |
===Conflict with Nirankaris=== |
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{{main|1978 Sikh–Nirankari clashes}} |
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On 13 April 1978, the day to celebrate the birth of [[Khalsa]], a peaceful [[Sant Nirankari Mission|Sant Nirankari]] convention was organized in Amritsar, with permission from the Akali state government. The practices of "Sant Nirankaris" sect of Nirankaris was considered as heretics by the orthodox Sikhism expounded by Bhindranwale.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal78">{{cite book |last1=Mahmood |first1=Cynthia Keppley |title=Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants |date=1996 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0812215922 |page=78 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FqvTRUrwt2UC |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162158/https://books.google.com/books?id=FqvTRUrwt2UC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> From Golden Temple premises,<ref name="Guha_IndiaGandhi">{{cite book |last1=Guha |first1=Ramachandra |title=India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy |date=2008 |publisher=Macmillan |location=[https://scroll.in/article/732426/the-bhindranwale-cult-how-politics-allowed-an-obscure-preacher-to-challenge-indian-democracy Excerpts] |isbn=978-0330396110 |edition=illustrated, reprint |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/India_After_Gandhi.html?id=29lXtwoeA44C |accessdate=10 July 2018}}</ref> Bhindranwale delivered an angry sermon in which he declared that he would not allow this convention and would "''go there and cut them to pieces''".<ref name="satp prophet" /> A procession 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.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Mark|last1=Tully|first2=Satish|last2=Jacob|title=Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle|url=https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull|url-access=registration|date=1985|page=[https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull/page/59 59]}}</ref> Fauja attempted to behead Nirankari chief [[Gurbachan Singh]] with his sword but was shot dead by Gurbachan's bodyguard, while Bhindranwale escaped.<ref name="satp prophet" /> In the [[1978 Sikh-Nirankari clash|ensuing violence]], several people were killed: two of Bhindranwale's followers, eleven members of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and three members of Nirankari sect.<ref name="satp prophet">{{Cite book |url=http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/nightsoffalsehood/falsehood4.htm |title=Punjab: The Knights of Falsehood – Psalms of Terror |last=Gill |first=K.P.S. |work=Satp.org |publisher=Har Anand Publications |year=2008 |isbn=978-8124113646 |access-date=29 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014135815/http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/nightsoffalsehood/falsehood4.htm |archive-date=14 October 2017 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all}}</ref> This event brought Bhindranwale to limelight in the media.<ref name="IT_Rise">{{cite news |last1=Mitra |first1=Chandan |title=Bhindranwale's rise from a small-time priest was meteoric |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india-today-35th-anniversary/story/20111226-india-today-newsmake-of-1980s-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-750018-2011-12-15 |accessdate=6 July 2018 |work=India Today 35th anniversary |publisher=India Today |date=15 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706161850/https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india-today-35th-anniversary/story/20111226-india-today-newsmake-of-1980s-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-750018-2011-12-15 |archive-date=6 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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On 13 April 1978, the day to celebrate the birth of [[Khalsa]], a [[Sant Nirankari Mission|Sant Nirankari]]{{refn|group=note|Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon writes: It has been alleged that the Nirankaris of Delhi were clandestinely supported and promoted by the Government in pursuance of its policy to create schism and ideological confusion among the Sikhs. It is an important fact that, except for some Arya Samajists in the [1870s], never has any Hindu, Muslim or Christian spoken a word against the lofty spiritual status of the Sikh Gurus. Hence, the broadcast of insinuations directed against the Sikhs came as a painful surprise to the community. Apart from seriously hurting the Sikh sentiments, all this gave rise to a mounting suspicion or even conviction that the Delhi based centre of these Nirankaris had official backing, because otherwise no one could dare to attack the Sikhs so openly. Many other facts and factors also strengthened this suspicion. <br>A write up by a prominent journalist, Satpal Baghi of Ferozepur in the Indian Express, notes: <br>"The genesis of the real trouble between the Nirankaris and Akalis goes back to the years when Mrs. Indira Gandhi headed the Union Government. She wanted to weaken the Shiromani Akali Dal, but found that Akalis could not be brought to heel. She thought of an elaborate plan to strengthen the Nirankari sect not only in Punjab but throughout the country and abroad. Official patronage was extended to the Nirankaris, much to the chagrin of Akalis who have always considered the Nirankaris as heretics. <br>"In pursuit of this policy of divide and rule, Mrs. Gandhi personally gave clearance for a diplomatic passport to be issued to the Nirankari Chief and the Indian High Commissioners and Ambassadors abroad were instructed to show him respect and regard. This was meant to help the sect to improve its image and increase its following abroad. During Mrs. Gandhi's regime, the Nirankaris were known to be receiving financial help from secret Government funds, not open to audit or scrutiny by Parliament. <br>"During Emergency the recalcitrant attitude of the Akalis further annoyed Mrs. Gandhi and Mr. Sanjay Gandhi. Efforts for building a parallel organisation among the Sikhs of Punjab as a counterblast to the Akalis were intensified. At the insistence of Mrs. Gandhi, the Congress regime began giving great official patronage to the Nirankari sect. Mr. H.S. Chhina. I.A.S. a staunch Nirankari, was appointed Chief Secretary to the Punjab Government, in 1976. <br>"As a result of open official patronage and support, this sect got a considerable boost within the administrative set-up of the Punjab Government. Mr. Chhina appointed Mr. Niranjan Singh, I.A.S., as Deputy Commissioner of Gurdaspur. Mr. Niranjan Singh tried his best to enlarge the field of operation of the Nirankaris. It is during this period that Sant Bhindranwale took up the challenge posed by this growing sect.'"{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|pp=155-156}}}} convention was organized in Amritsar, with permission from the Akali state government. The practices of "Sant Nirankaris" sect of Nirankaris was considered as heretics by the orthodox Sikhism expounded by Bhindranwale.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=78}} From Golden Temple premises,<ref name="Guha_IndiaGandhi">{{cite book |last1=Guha |first1=Ramachandra |title=India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy |date=2008 |publisher=Macmillan |location=[https://scroll.in/article/732426/the-bhindranwale-cult-how-politics-allowed-an-obscure-preacher-to-challenge-indian-democracy Excerpts] |isbn=978-0330396110 |edition=illustrated, reprint |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/India_After_Gandhi.html?id=29lXtwoeA44C |accessdate=10 July 2018}}</ref> Bhindranwale delivered an angry sermon in which he declared that he would not allow this convention and would "''go there and cut them to pieces''".<ref name="satp prophet" /> A procession 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.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Mark|last1=Tully|first2=Satish|last2=Jacob|title=Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle|url=https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull|url-access=registration|date=1985|page=[https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull/page/59 59]}}</ref> Fauja attempted to behead Nirankari chief [[Gurbachan Singh]] with his sword but was shot dead by Gurbachan's bodyguard, while Bhindranwale escaped.<ref name="satp prophet" /> In the [[1978 Sikh-Nirankari clash|ensuing violence]], several people were killed: two of Bhindranwale's followers, eleven members of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and three members of Nirankari sect.<ref name="satp prophet">{{Cite book |url=http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/nightsoffalsehood/falsehood4.htm |title=Punjab: The Knights of Falsehood – Psalms of Terror |last=Gill |first=K.P.S. |work=Satp.org |publisher=Har Anand Publications |year=2008 |isbn=978-8124113646 |access-date=29 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014135815/http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/nightsoffalsehood/falsehood4.htm |archive-date=14 October 2017 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all}}</ref> This event brought Bhindranwale to limelight in the media.<ref name="IT_Rise">{{cite news |last1=Mitra |first1=Chandan |title=Bhindranwale's rise from a small-time priest was meteoric |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india-today-35th-anniversary/story/20111226-india-today-newsmake-of-1980s-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-750018-2011-12-15 |accessdate=6 July 2018 |work=India Today 35th anniversary |publisher=India Today |date=15 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706161850/https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india-today-35th-anniversary/story/20111226-india-today-newsmake-of-1980s-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-750018-2011-12-15 |archive-date=6 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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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. |
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.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=79}} The Punjab government Chief Minister [[Prakash Singh Badal]] decided not to appeal the decision.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=58-60}}<ref>Gopal Singh, A History of the Sikh People, New Delhi, World Book Center, 1988, p. 739.</ref> 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.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=79}} Bhindranwale increased his rhetoric against the enemies of Sikhs. A letter of authority was issued by [[Akal Takht]] to ostracize the Sant Nirankaris. A sentiment was created to justify extra judicial killings of the perceived enemies of Sikhism.<ref>Singh (1999), pp. 365–366.</ref> 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 with the object of demanding a sovereign Sikh state; and the [[All India Sikh Students Federation]], which was banned by the government.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=79}} |
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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. |
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.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=79}} 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.<ref name="gill2017punjab">{{cite book |last1=Gill |first1=K.P.S. and Khosla, S |title=Punjab: The Enemies Within : Travails of a Wounded Land Riddled with Toxins |date=2017 |publisher=Bookwise (India) Pvt. Limited |location=[http://www.jantakareporter.com/blog/operation-blue-star-bhindranwale/123753/ Excerpt] |isbn=978-8187330660 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n3zHAQAACAAJ |access-date=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180621015737/https://books.google.com/books?id=n3zHAQAACAAJ |archive-date=21 June 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Bhindranwale took residence in [[Golden Temple]] to escape arrest when he was accused of the assassination of Nirankari Gurbachan Singh.<ref>India in 1984: Confrontation, Assassination, and Succession, by Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr. Asian Survey, 1985 [[University of California Press]]</ref> 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.<ref name="SikhCoalition">{{cite web |
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|title=Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale – ''Life'', Mission, and Martyrdom |
|title=Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale – ''Life'', Mission, and Martyrdom |
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|publisher=Sikh Educational and Religious Foundation |
|publisher=Sikh Educational and Religious Foundation |
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|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529153236/http://sikhcoalition.org/SantJarnailSingh.pdf |
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|archivedate=29 May 2008 |
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}}</ref> 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. |
}}</ref> without any due process. 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. |
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=== Assassination of Lala Jagat Narain === |
=== Assassination of Lala Jagat Narain === |
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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 the acts of Bhindranwale.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> 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. 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.<ref>{{cite book |last = Jalandhri |first = Surjeet |title = Bhindranwale |publisher = Punjab Pocket Books |year = 1984 |location = Jalandhar |page = 25}}</ref> |
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 the acts of Bhindranwale.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> An [[Arya Samaj]]i known for his staunch communal tendencies reflected in his daily newspaper in Punjab,{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=166}} 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."<ref>''Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's last battle'' by Mark Tully. Pan in association with Cape, 1986. p.65-66,102 {{ISBN|978-0-330-29434-8}}.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last = Jalandhri |first = Surjeet |title = Bhindranwale |publisher = Punjab Pocket Books |year = 1984 |location = Jalandhar |page = 25}}</ref> |
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Punjab Police issued a warrant for Bhindranwale's arrest in the editor's murder |
Punjab Police issued a warrant for Bhindranwale's arrest in the editor's murder,<ref name="Guha_IndiaGandhi"/> 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.<ref name=ms_ChandoKalan>{{cite book | last = Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | publisher = J. Cape | url = https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access = registration | year = 1985 | location = London | edition = e-book | page = 259 | access-date = 8 July 2018 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=252}} |
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There was violence in Chando Kalan when the Punjab Police team reached the location, between supporters of Bhindranwale and police.<ref name= ms_ChandoKalan/> The buses had also contained written records of sermons of Bhindranwale for posterity.<ref name=ms_ChandoKalan262>{{cite book | last = Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | publisher = J. Cape | url = https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access = registration | year = 1985 | location = London | edition = e-book | page = 262 | access-date = 8 July 2018 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> The burning of his sermons had enraged Bhindranwale. After absconding for several days, Bhindranwale secured himself in his fortified Gurdwara Gurdarshan Parkash located at Mehta Chowk.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
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=== Arrest at Mehta Chowk === |
=== Arrest at Mehta Chowk === |
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The police surrounded the |
The police surrounded the gurdwara at Mehta Chowk. 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 fiery sermon inciting the mob against the Government and against the alleged 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. The mob roused by Bhindranwale's speech opened fire on the police who were taking him away. The clashes with police resulted in the death of 11 persons.<ref name="satp prophet"/><ref name=ms_264>{{cite book | last = Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | publisher = J. Cape | url = https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access = registration | year = 1985 | location = London | edition = e-book | page = 264 | access-date = 8 July 2018 | df = dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="gill2017punjab"/> |
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On 20 September 1981, on the day of his arrest, in retaliation three armed men on motorcycle opened fire using machine guns in a market in [[Jallandhar]] and killed four Hindus and injured twelve.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=81}} 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.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
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===Violence after the arrest=== |
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On 20 September 1981, on the day of his arrest, in retaliation three armed men of his group on motorcycle opened fire using machine guns in a market in [[Jallandhar]] and killed four Hindus and injured twelve.<ref name="Cynthia_Bhindr">{{cite book |last1=Mahmood |first1=Cynthia Keppley |title=Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants |date=1996 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0812215922 |page=81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FqvTRUrwt2UC |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162158/https://books.google.com/books?id=FqvTRUrwt2UC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> 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.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
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Several violent incidents happened in Punjab during the next 25 days after the arrest. The Akali Dal under Longowal decided to support Bhindranwale. Bhindranwale also got support from the President of the SGPC, Tohra and the [[Jathedar of the Akal Takht]], Gurdial Singh Ajnoha.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> 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.<ref name="satp prophet"/> After his release he 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.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
Several violent incidents happened in Punjab during the next 25 days after the arrest. The Akali Dal under Longowal decided to support Bhindranwale. Bhindranwale also got support from the President of the SGPC, Tohra and the [[Jathedar of the Akal Takht]], Gurdial Singh Ajnoha.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> 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.<ref name="satp prophet"/> After his release he 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.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
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==Dharam Yudh Morcha== |
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The Akali Dal was initially opposed to Bhindranwale.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> While Bhindranwale ceded leadership to the Akali Dal and disavowed political ambition, the Akali leadership viewed his soaring popularity with the rural masses as a potential threat to their hegemony over Sikh affairs, intensifying their campaign to harass and discredit him after August 1983.{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xxiii}} However, 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'' ("Group for the Righteous fight") in collaboration with Bhindranwale to win more autonomy for Punjab. At the start of the protest movement in August 1982, 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. Later, noting [[Indira Gandhi]]’s intransigence, it appeared that the Akali leaders were willing to water down their demands.{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|pp=xxiii-xxiv}} 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. {{sfn|Sandhu|1999|pp=xxiii-xxiv}} Longowal's core political base began to wither; about a third of his SGPC members and district Akali presidents reportedly defected to Bhindranwale.<ref name="CrenshawM382"/> |
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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 more strident Sikh demands and treating them as tantamount to secession, thus putting moderate Sikhs at a competitive disadvantage in an increasingly militant political arena.<ref name="CrenshawM382"/> She would be later characterized by prime minister Charan Singh as following "a megalomaniacal policy based on elitist philosophies,"<ref name="CrenshawM382"/> and her successor Rajiv Gandhi would later describe the Resolution as "not secessionist but negotiable."<ref name="CrenshawM382"/> 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.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> By early October, more than 25,000 Akali workers courted arrest in Punjab in support of the agitation.<ref name="JSChima"/> |
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The Akali Dal was initially opposed to Bhindranwale.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> However, 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'' ("Group for the Religious fight") in collaboration with Bhindranwale to win more autonomy for Punjab. The movement was hijacked by Bhindranwale who declared that it will continue until all the demands in the [[Anandpur Sahib Resolution]] were fulfilled.<ref name="itp1"/> |
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The basic issues of the Dharam Yudh Morcha were related to the prevention of the digging of the [[Sutlej Yamuna link canal|SYL Canal]], deemed unconstitutional, 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; the Akali Dal had not demanded anything more than what was constitutionally due to Punjab.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=5}} The main thrust of the Morcha was against the economic erosion of the state of Punjab, with 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 unconstitutionally from the state,{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=5}} to Rajasthan and Haryana, which were non-[[riparian]] states,{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=207}} and its accompanying hydropower potential, powered by Punjab’s only natural wealth.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=207}} |
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Indira Gandhi considered the Anandpur Resolution as a secessionist document and evidence of an attempt to secede from the Union of India. The resolution was made fundamental to Bhindranwale's cause as the demand for autonomy was phrased such a way that would have given more authority to the Sikhs than Hindus in Punjab.<ref name="itp1">{{cite web|url=http://www.india-today.com/itoday/millennium/100people/jarnail.html|title=Prophet of Hate:J S Bhindranwale|last=Singh|first=Tavleen|publisher=India Today|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080620164214/http://www.india-today.com/itoday/millennium/100people/jarnail.html|archivedate=20 June 2008|accessdate=22 December 2009}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> |
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Bhindranwale's focus was the unfulfilled promises and the unconstitutional and unaccountable drain of Punjab's resources, especially water resources, by the central government. Awareness of the water issue created by the Congress leadership spread among the people of rural Punjab, and they looked to Bhindranwale to protect their socio-economic and religious aspirations; Bhindranwale assured them that he would not allow vested interests to betray the cause of Punjab, especially in the socio-economic field.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=197-198}} The ''Nehr Roko Morcha'' (“Stop the Canal movement” 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{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=187}}; the Dharam Yudh Morcha was launched later that year on 4 August 1982, 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.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=188-189}} |
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After the launch of the Morcha, Sikh extremists began committing acts of political violence. An assassination attempt was made on [[Chief Minister of Punjab (India)|Chief Minister of Punjab]] [[Darbara Singh]] and two Indian Airlines flights were hijacked by the terrorists.<ref name="JSChima"/> By early October, more than 25,000 Akali workers courted arrest in Punjab in support of the agitation.<ref name="JSChima"/> |
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The central government, instead of taking the constitutional path and forestalling any Akali agitation in regard to the Punjab problem by 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, choosing to make scapegoats out of the police, the Administration and the Chief Minister for pursuing its own political designs, and appeared disinclined to solve the issues justly or constitutionally.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=197-198}} The government also framed the movement as a religious issue, announcing only the granting of symbolic requests to holy city status to [[Amritsar]] and the right to wear [[kirpan]]s while ignoring the more numerous economic issues central to the Declaration and the ''morcha'' to prevent the economic ruin of the state.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=207}}. |
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To restart the talks with the Akali leadership, Indira Gandhi ordered the release of all Akali workers in mid October and sent Swaran Singh as her emissary. Bhindranwale who was then regarded as "''single most important Akali leader''" announced that nothing less than full implementation of the Anandpur resolution was acceptable to them. Other Akali leaders joined the negotiations but a compromised settlement failed to emerge.<ref name="JSChima">{{cite book |last1=Chima |first1=Jugdep S |title=The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements |date=2008 |publisher=Sage Publications India |isbn=978-8132105381 |pages=71–75 |url=https://books.google.com/?id=qJaHAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA73&dq=asian%20games%20akali%20convention&pg=PA72#v=onepage&q=asian%20games%20akali%20convention&f=true |accessdate=19 August 2018}}</ref> |
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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.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=197-198}} It became known that during the period, certain police officials and others had been guilty of high-handed 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 nor such reports to the authorities nor any complaints in that regard ever evoked any response from the administration to rectify current complaints or improve future procedures, much less for punishing the guilty.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=197-198}} This perceived official apathy and callousness led many began to believe that what was happening was pursuant to the studied direction 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.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=197-198}} |
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Out of 220 killings during the first 19 months of the Dharam Yudh Morcha, 190 had been Sikhs, with the Akalis alleging that 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 enquiry, the central government was unwilling to initiate any such process.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=197-198}} |
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Bhindranwale was particularly upset about the police atrocities and the murder of scores of Sikhs in the garb of false and contrived police encounters.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=198}} 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 enquiry committee to probe Lala Jagat Narain's murder and none for the killing of the Sikhs, believing that this partisan behavior of the Government was bound to hasten the process of alienation of the Sikhs.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=198}} He reprimanded the press for suppressing incidences of police atrocities.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=198}} |
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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: |
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{{quote|"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.”{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=198-199}}}} |
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In the words of Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, BBC correspondents: |
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{{quote|"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."{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=199}}}} |
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Dr. Ranbir Singh Sandhu, professor [[emeritus]] of Ohio State University, in a personal conversation with [[I. K. Gujral]] at an international conference held at [[UCLA]] in October 1987, relays: |
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{{quote|“Hindu leaders were content to go along with the Government or indeed to demand more strict action against the Sant. They paid no heed to the Sant’s complaints of human rights in Punjab. Typical of this attitude was a statement by Gujral who said, in the course of an eloquent speech, that the Sikh struggle had been peaceful but was taken over by violent elements. [I] asked him if he was referring to Sant Bhindranwale as the 'violent elements.' He agreed. [I] reminded him that Sant Bhindranwale, in one of his speeches, had mentioned that over 140 persons [(by that point)] had been killed and another one thousand crippled in police torture up to that date and that, the Sikhs had tried persuasion with the police, legal action in the courts and appeals to the national leaders and the press but that nobody had made any effort to stop the torture and the killings in custody, and that the Sant had then gone on to ask the public as to how long the Sikhs should continue to quietly suffer without defending themselves. [I] asked Gujral as to whether, in his opinion or according to his information, Sant Bhindranwale was lying and if not, what did leaders like him do about the killings and torture by the police and what should the Sant have done in the face of this oppression? Gujral replied that he had never thought about the problem from that point of view.”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xlvii}}}} |
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The 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 by bandhs, or mobs, of the Hindi Raksha Samiti sparked off retributory attacks against them by Sikh youths.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=199}} |
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In a speech on 18 May 1983, Bhindranwale commented on the hitherto peaceful movement in a speech: |
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{{quote|“Listening to the views of Sant Baba Harchand Singh Ji Longowal, worthy of respect. President of the Shromani Akali Dal you must have understood, with respect to the time to come, that this movement for protection of the rights of Punjab, for assistance to the oppressed, and for securing our rights, has been going on peacefully for quite some time. We have heard even now that our policy, our program, is peaceful. The Sikh has always been peace-loving, is peaceful, and will try to remain peaceful. |
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However, when extreme oppression comes to be practiced against peaceful people, some among the younger generation who adopt the way of Satguru Hargobind Sahib, the True King, desire to abandon the path of peacefulness. When all methods including persuasion, legal recourse, and appeal have been tried and found to be of no avail a Sikh of the Guru has, of necessity, to adopt that way. The Singhs have shown tremendous peacefulness. They have been peaceful and we have orders to stay peaceful and will stay so. However, considering the methods the Government has begun to adopt, it is possible that these may result in the future becoming very murky. It is possible that, contrary to the intentions of the Sikhs, circumstances may force the future to become even more terrible than 1947. |
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[…] |
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I also beseech the young people. We must stay peaceful, but there are limits to peacefulness. Sitting on a heated metal plate is peacefulness. Being caged and then being beheaded is peacefulness. However, now they have set fire to our Guru [Granth Sahib] and we have been peaceful. How can one be more peaceful than that? |
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[…] |
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We do not go to anyone’s home, we do not loot anybody's shop, nor do we lay siege to any place. However, if someone intoxicated by his power as a ruler attacks our home, we are not sitting here wearing bangles that we shall continue to suffer as eunuchs and as lifeless people. |
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So, love your Sikh faith. We have to stay completely peaceful. However, I shall humbly say this to all the young men, to the entire congregation assembled here, and to anyone staying for the night, Singhs, do not panic. |
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[…] |
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I definitely ask the people in the villages that all the young men should be fully prepared. The Government is trying very hard to start Hindu-Sikh riots. Avoid this as long as you can. However, if the Hindus also get into the Government's boat and start to dishonor the daughters and sisters of the Sikhs and to take off the Sikhs' turbans, then, in order to save our turban, we shall take what steps the Khalsa, following the path shown by Guru Gobind Singh Ji, has always taken in the past. We might have to adopt those methods, but we shall do so only when we are forced. We shall not resort to those methods on our own. We have to be peaceful. This is all that I had to humbly say to you.”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=120-123}}}} |
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On the ongoing anti-Sikh violence in Haryana, he declared, "I want to tell Mrs. Gandhi that our patience is getting exhausted. She should stop playing with fire. This is not Assam. We will die like soldiers at the hands of the police. We will tolerate no further ruse until she stops playing Holi with our blood."{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=207}} |
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After the launch of the Morcha, and subsequent governmental inaction in regards to police brutality,{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=197-198}} Sikh activists began committing retaliatory{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=197-198}} acts of political violence. During Bhindranwale's time, both his critics and supporters agree that Indian police had been using the term 'encounters' as a euphemism for "cold-blooded murder" carried out extra-judiciously against alleged 'terrorists.' This fact was acknowledged by then Chief Minister of Punjab, Darbara Singh.<ref>''Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's last battle'' by Mark Tully. Pan in association with Cape, 1986. p.105 {{ISBN|978-0-330-29434-8}}.</ref> These deadly encounters were justified as a reasonable method of avoiding lengthy court trials.<ref>''Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's last battle'' by Mark Tully. Pan in association with Cape, 1986. Preface {{ISBN|978-0-330-29434-8}}.</ref> An assassination attempt was made on [[Chief Minister of Punjab (India)|Chief Minister of Punjab]] [[Darbara Singh]] and two Indian Airlines flights were hijacked by the terrorists.<ref name="JSChima"/> To restart the talks with the Akali leadership, Indira Gandhi ordered the release of all Akali workers in mid October and sent Swaran Singh as her emissary. Bhindranwale who was then regarded as the "''single most important Akali leader''" announced that nothing less than full implementation of the Anandpur resolution was acceptable to them. Other Akali leaders joined the negotiations but a compromised settlement failed to emerge.<ref name="JSChima">{{cite book |last1=Chima |first1=Jugdep S |title=The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements |date=2008 |publisher=Sage Publications India |isbn=978-8132105381 |pages=71–75 |url=https://books.google.com/?id=qJaHAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA73&dq=asian%20games%20akali%20convention&pg=PA72#v=onepage&q=asian%20games%20akali%20convention&f=true |accessdate=19 August 2018}}</ref> |
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In November 1982, Akali leader Longowal announced that the Akali Dal would disrupt the [[1982 Asian Games|Asian Games]] that as to be held in Delhi by sending teams of Akali workers to Delhi to protest and court arrest.<ref name="JSChima"/> To prevent the disruptions [[Haryana government]] sealed the border between Delhi and Punjab and frisking of travellers was followed.<ref name="JSChima"/><ref>{{cite news | url = http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-05/india/29622770_1_bhajan-lal-syl-punjab | title = Bhajan Lal lived with 'anti-Sikh, anti-Punjab' image | author = Sanjay Sharma | work = The Times of India| date = 5 June 2011 | accessdate = 26 December 2011 }}</ref> The security measures proved effective and Akali Dal could only organize small and scattered protests in Delhi. |
In November 1982, Akali leader Longowal announced that the Akali Dal would disrupt the [[1982 Asian Games|Asian Games]] that as to be held in Delhi by sending teams of Akali workers to Delhi to protest and court arrest.<ref name="JSChima"/> To prevent the disruptions [[Haryana government]] sealed the border between Delhi and Punjab and frisking of travellers was followed.<ref name="JSChima"/><ref>{{cite news | url = http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-05/india/29622770_1_bhajan-lal-syl-punjab | title = Bhajan Lal lived with 'anti-Sikh, anti-Punjab' image | author = Sanjay Sharma | work = The Times of India| date = 5 June 2011 | accessdate = 26 December 2011 }}</ref> The security measures proved effective and Akali Dal could only organize small and scattered protests in Delhi. |
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In late July 1983, finding an increasing number of his followers arrested day by day, Bhindranwale left his base in Chowk Mehta for the Golden Temple to start a campaign for their release there. Also from there, he joined this campaign to the Akali campaign for their political, economic, cultural, and religious demands.<ref>J.S. Grewal, "The Sikhs of Punjab", [[The New Cambridge History of India]], Cambridge, 1998, p. 222.</ref> |
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===Khalistan=== |
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Since the early 1980s, Bhindranwale was supported by [[Pakistan's ISI]] on his radical separatist stand, plans and operations.<ref name="Kiessling_ISI"/><ref name="NDTV_34year"/> Bhindranwale had started the efforts for his demand in 1982, and by mid-1983 had managed to gain support for his plan to divide India.<ref name="NDTV_34year"/> ISI created a Punjab cell in the ISI headquarters to support and help him in spreading militancy in the Indian Punjab state. The arms and ammunition used by his group were provided by ISI. Terrorist training camps were set up in Karachi and Lahore to train the young Sikhs.<ref name="Kiessling_ISI">{{cite book |last1=Kiessling |first1=Hein |title=Faith, Unity, Discipline: The Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-1849048637 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_cgDgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT146&dq=bhindranwale%20ISI&pg=PT146#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20ISI&f=false |accessdate=14 September 2018}}</ref><ref name="Kaoboys">{{cite book |last1=Raman |first1=B. |title=The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down Memory Lane |publisher=Lancer Publishers LLC |isbn=978-1935501480 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nsBerwgsf38C&lpg=PP1&dq=bhindranwale%20ISI&pg=PT101#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20ISI&f=false |accessdate=14 September 2018}}</ref> Counter Intelligence wing of the Indian agencies had reported that three prominent heads of the Khalistan movement [[Shabeg Singh]], Balbir Singh and [[Amrik Singh]] had made at least six trips each to Pakistan between the years 1981 and 1983.<ref name="Kiessling_ISI"/> |
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==Reportage== |
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Bhindranwale stated his position on Khalistan 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").<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal79"/> He used the word 'Qaum' (nation or also religion) when referring to the Sikh population of Punjab as an implicit endorsement of the Khalistan movement,<ref>''Globalization and Religious nationalism in India: The Search for Ontological Security'' by Catarina Kinnvall. Routledge, {{ISBN|978-1-134-13570-7}}. p. 170</ref> a movement which was first introduced in concept during the 1946 independence negotiations.<ref>''Globalization and Religious nationalism in India: The Search for Ontological Security'' by Catarina Kinnvall. Routledge, {{ISBN|978-1-134-13570-7}}. p. 106</ref> Bhindranwale was known to be a supporter of the creation of a Sikh majority state of [[Khalistan]].<ref name="NDTV_34year"/> |
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Bhindranwale expected misrepresentation from reporters, saying to press people, “I know what you are going to print, that you are only working for rupees.” {{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=67}} He granted 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.{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=201}} Once Bhindranwale is said to have remarked, “Even if a fly is killed in Punjab, it is blamed on me.”{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=203}} He had in fact called for Sikh-Hindu unity as reported by the Indian Express ("Bhindranwale's call for Hindu-Sikh unity," 4 January 1982){{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xliv}} and himself addressed what he perceived to be constant distortions by the press in a speech in a college in Karnal, Haryana in early 1982: |
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{{quote|“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.”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=2}}{{refn|group=note|Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon describes and relays passages of a report on the Punjab situation:<br>"Another factor that inflamed the position was the active association of the Arya Samaj leaders. Many of them were influential Congressmen, who openly sided with the Nirankaris and indulged in very unfortunate propaganda against the Sikhs. That the Arya Samaj leadership and their influence has been a very major factor in the Hindu-Sikh relations and increasing the gravity of the Punjab situation is also evidenced in the report. 'Hindu-Sikh Conflict In Punjab: Cause and Cure' by S.M. Sathananthan (London). K.T. Lalwani (London), S. Raghunath lyenger (Lagos). Prof. G.P. Manuskhani (Bombay), Asha Bhatnagar (Jaipur) et. al. These persons belonging to different professions came all the way from far off places to personally study the Punjab situation. They moved from place to place in the State and met a cross section of the people and concluded as under: <br>'The present Hindu-Sikh conflict is the saddest tragedy of post-partition Indian History. Its genesis lies in a narrow-minded attitude of certain sections of the community, that totally refutes the traditional Hindu virtues of tolerance and understanding. One also wonders, why the Sikhs are always pushed into agitation for their basic constitutional demands, the kind of which were never denied to other States and communities. Why was Punjab the last linguistic State to be formed (10 years late)? Why is Punjab the only state in India whose capital Chandigarh is governed by the Central Government? There are many such unanswered questions which deserve serious probing and full national exposure. Indian news agencies and papers will do well to investigate the reasons for Hindu-Sikh conflict arising from Hindu opposition to Sikh demands, even though their demands were made to the Government (and not to the Hindus of Punjab and Haryana). While most of the Sikh demands are for the welfare of Punjab State, not one demand is anti-Hindu or hurts Hindu sentiments in any way.<br>'If you were to trace the background of a reporter or an editor behind a particular anti-Sikh report, you would probably find him to be an Arya-Samajist. Late Lala Jagat Narain's persistent role in anti-Sikh activities (including that of his support to the Nirankaris) and his staunch communal tendencies were clearly reflected in his popular daily newspaper in Punjab.'"{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=166}}}}}} |
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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. Bhindranwale had said "''we are not in favour of Khalistan nor are we against it''". To which he added, "''if the Indian Government invaded the Darbar Sahib complex, the foundation for an independent Sikh state will have been laid.''"<ref>Sandhu (1999), p. lvii.</ref> The BBC reported that he was daring law enforcement to react to his actions of fortifying the Golden Temple in order to bolster support.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6570000/newsid_6572600/6572653.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&news=1&bbcws=1 |title=Player – 1984: Troops raid Golden Temple |publisher=BBC News |date=6 June 1984 |accessdate=9 August 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121113105306/http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6570000/newsid_6572600/6572653.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&news=1&bbcws=1 |archive-date=13 November 2012 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> During the days before the assault, government representatives met with Bhindranwale in a last ditch effort to negotiate a truce. Bhindranwale warned of a backlash by the Sikh community in the event of an army assault on the Golden Temple.<ref>Walia, Varinder. [http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071219/aplus1.htm "Man who made efforts to avert Op Bluestar is no more"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829190812/http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071219/aplus1.htm |date=29 August 2008 }}, "[[Tribune India]]", Amritsar, 18 December 2007.</ref> In his final interview to Subhash Kirpekar, Bhindranwale stated that ''Sikhs can neither live in India nor with India.''<ref name=ms_lastInterveiw>{{cite book | last = Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | publisher = J. Cape | url = https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access = registration | year = 1985 | location = London | edition = e-book | page = 555 | access-date = 8 July 2018 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> |
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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.<ref>''Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's last battle'' by Mark Tully. Pan in association with Cape, 1986. p. 35 {{ISBN|978-0-330-29434-8}}.</ref> 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."{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=118-119}} 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."{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=121}} |
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Bhindranwale's group were killing the Sikhs who had been speaking against Bhindranwale and the idea of Khalistan.<ref name="AmarjitK_KillPlan">{{cite book |last1=Kaur |first1=Amarjit |title=The Punjab Story |date=2004 |publisher=Lotus |isbn=978-8174369123 |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Punjab_Story.html?id=iNBbBAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y |accessdate=13 July 2018}}</ref> In early June 1984 the intelligence sources reported that Bhindranwale was planning to declare Khalistan an independent country any moment with support from Pakistan. Khalistani currency had already been distributed. This declaration would have increased chances of Punjab Police and security personnel siding with Bhindranwale.<ref name="rediff_interview_pakistan">{{cite web |
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|url = http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/03inter.htm |
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|title = 'Pakistan would have recognised Khalistan' |
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|work = The Rediff Interview/Lieutenant General Kuldip Singh Brar (retired) |
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|author = Amberish K Diwanji |
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|publisher = [[Rediff.com]] |
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|date = 3 June 2004 |
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|accessdate = 2009-01-23 |
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|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090129052453/http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/03inter.htm |
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|archive-date = 29 January 2009 |
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|url-status = live |
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|df = dmy-all |
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}}</ref> The violence and the threat of the civil war in Punjab made the Operation imminent.<ref name="AmarjitK_KillPlan"/> |
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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.''’<ref name="Guha_IndiaGandhi"/> 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?”{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=79}} While Khushwant Singh, a resident of Delhi close to Indira Gandhi{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xiv}} and congress loyalist,{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=141}} wrote that he "exhorted every Sikh to kill thirty-two Hindus,"<ref name="Khushwant_32Hindu">{{cite book |last1=Singh |first1=Khushwant |title=Why I Supported the Emergency |date=2015 |publisher=Penguin |location=UK |isbn=978-8184752410 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4cADAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PT135&dq=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&pg=PT144#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&f=false |accessdate=13 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713140216/https://books.google.com/books?id=4cADAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PT135&dq=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&pg=PT144#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&f=false |archive-date=13 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> 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;<ref name="Brar_son"/> The quote had invoked the words of [[Guru Gobind Singh]] of a baptized Sikh being able to fight 125,000 oppressors.{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xliv}}{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=113}} The quote, widely circulated in the press after having its implication distorted,{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xliv}} had not at all been an “exhortation,”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xliv}} but a response to such statements telling those Sikhs not to be afraid just because they were two percent of the population,{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xliv}} as well as similar responses in October 1983{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=308}} to warnings from Indira Gandhi of what would happen to Sikhs residing in states outside of Punjab,{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=308}}<ref name=amarjit83>{{cite book |last1=Kaur |first1=Amarjit |title=The Punjab Story |date=2004 |publisher=Lotus |isbn=978-8174369123 |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Punjab_Story.html?id=iNBbBAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y |accessdate=13 July 2018}}</ref> and the double standard if he had made such statements;{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=308}}{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=280}} 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 Samaj]]i [[Indian National Congress|Congress]] [[Member of the Legislative Assembly (India)|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]] [[Member of the Legislative Assembly (India)|MLA]] in Punjab, who stated publically in [[Amritsar]] on 30 May 1981,{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=332}} ''"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’),{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=375}} and had a model of the [[Golden Temple]] desecrated by a mob,{{sfn|Dhillon|1996|p=205}} and [[Baldev Prakash]], also a BJP MLA, who had posters of such slogans printed.{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=308}}{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=278}} |
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[[Chandan Mitra]] wrote after observing the insurgency:<ref>https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india-today-35th-anniversary/story/20111226-india-today-newsmake-of-1980s-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-750018-2011-12-15</ref> |
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{{Cquote|quote=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.|author= }} |
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Other prominent Congress supporters and loyalists would also criticize Bhindranwale, including [[KPS Gill]], the [[Director general of police|DGP]] of the state who along with subordinates was accused of massive human rights violations during the police crackdown of the state,<ref name="KPSGillProfile">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1975997.stm|title=Profile: KPS Gill|last=Singh|first=Jyotsna|date=8 May 2002|publisher=BBC News|accessdate=4 July 2009}}</ref><ref name=amnesty>{{cite web|publisher=Amnesty International|title=A mockery of justice: The case concerning the "disappearance" of human rights defender Jaswant Singh Khalra severely undermined|url=http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA200071998?open&of=ENG-IND|date=20 July 1999|accessdate=29 November 2008|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017113415/http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA200071998?open&of=ENG-IND|archivedate=17 October 2007}}</ref><ref name=TribuneEyeWitness-1>{{cite news |last= Singh | first= Jangveer | title= K.P.S. Gill visited Khalra in jail, says witness : Recounts tale of police brutality before his 'murder' | work = The Tribune| date= 17 February 2005| url = http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050217/punjab1.htm| accessdate = 29 November 2008}}</ref> who would claim that he "mixed radical fundamentalism with incitement to violence,"<ref name="satp prophet"/> 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.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> Khushwant Singh, a Congress loyalist{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=141}} residing in Delhi who was close to Indira Gandhi,{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xiv}} 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,"<ref>Singh, Khushwant, A History of the Sikhs. Volume II: 1839–1988, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1991, pp. 330–331.</ref>, 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.<ref name="AmarjitK_KillPlan"/> Before the Operation Blue Star started, there was a rise in the killings of Hindus<ref name="Khushwant_32Hindu"/> and 23 people were killed in the final 24 hours before the announcement of the operation,<ref name= ms_Hindu_Killing>{{cite book | last =Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | url =https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access =registration | year = 1985 | location = London | page=408 }}</ref> while October 1983, six Hindu bus passengers were singled out and killed by the Sikh militants and an Emergency rule was imposed on the state.<ref name="Martin_Gus_encyclopedia">{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Gus |title=The Sage Encyclopedia of Terrorism |date=2011 |publisher=Sage Publications |isbn=978-1483305646 |page=544 |edition=Second |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yuLnCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA544&dq=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&pg=PA544#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&f=false |accessdate=13 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713135152/https://books.google.com/books?id=yuLnCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA544&dq=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&pg=PA544#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&f=false |archive-date=13 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> while 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. |
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===Communalism=== |
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Bhindranwale is alleged to have held a deep "hatred of Hindus"<ref>''Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's last battle'' by Mark Tully. Pan in association with Cape, 1986. p. 35 {{ISBN|978-0-330-29434-8}}.</ref> and made statements to incite acts of communal violence between Sikhs and Hindus. Bhindranwale preached his followers ‘''If the Hindus come in search of you''’, ‘''smash their heads with television antennas.''’<ref name="Guha_IndiaGandhi"/> He used examples from the history related to [[Mughal-Sikh Wars]] and preached the Sikhs could do the same now with their "new oppressors". If the few Jews of Israel could keep the more numerous Arabs at bay, then even the Sikhs could and must do the same with the Hindus.<ref name="Guha_IndiaGandhi"/> Bhindranwale used vituperative language in his speeches against the Hindus. In order to solve the Hindu-Sikh problem Bhindranwale exhorted every Sikh to kill thirty-two Hindus.<ref name="Khushwant_32Hindu">{{cite book |last1=Singh |first1=Khushwant |title=Why I Supported the Emergency |date=2015 |publisher=Penguin |location=UK |isbn=978-8184752410 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4cADAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PT135&dq=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&pg=PT144#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&f=false |accessdate=13 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713140216/https://books.google.com/books?id=4cADAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PT135&dq=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&pg=PT144#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&f=false |archive-date=13 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> The individual targeted killings soon converted to massacres.<ref name="Martin_Gus_encyclopedia"/> In October 1983, six Hindu bus passengers were singled out and killed by the Sikh militants and an Emergency rule was imposed on the state.<ref name="Martin_Gus_encyclopedia">{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Gus |title=The Sage Encyclopedia of Terrorism |date=2011 |publisher=Sage Publications |isbn=978-1483305646 |page=544 |edition=Second |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yuLnCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA544&dq=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&pg=PA544#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&f=false |accessdate=13 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713135152/https://books.google.com/books?id=yuLnCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA544&dq=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&pg=PA544#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20hindu%20kill&f=false |archive-date=13 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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===Press disinformation=== |
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In June 1984, Bhindranwale was about to launch a fierce movement planned to murder Hindus in all the villages across Punjab.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> Plans included killings of All congress (I) MPs and MLAs on 5 June. According to Amarjit Kaur, Bhindranwale wanted to start a civil war between the Hindus and Sikhs.<ref name="AmarjitK_KillPlan"/> Before the Operation Blue Star started, there was already a rise in the killings of Hindus<ref name="Khushwant_32Hindu"/> and 23 people were killed in the final 24 hours before the announcement of the operation.<ref name= ms_Hindu_Killing>{{cite book | last =Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | url =https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access =registration | year = 1985 | location = London | page=408 }}</ref> |
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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,{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xlvi}} 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 (newspaper)|Ajit]]'', the ''Akali Patrika,'' and ''Charhdi Kala'' and regularly fed disinformation to the news media;{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xlvi}} a [[Times of India]] article from 11 August 1991 by Dinesh Kumar stated: |
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{{quote|"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."{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xlvi}}}} |
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The writer went on to report: |
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===Insurgency=== |
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{{quote|"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.""{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xlvii}}}} |
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==Insurgency== |
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{{Main|Punjab insurgency}} |
{{Main|Punjab insurgency}} |
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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.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=121}} Sikh demands had been fundamentally political rather than religious, while protracted intransigence by the central government encouraged extremism.<ref name="CrenshawM382"/> |
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Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had with himself a group of devoted followers armed with firearms who served as his bodyguards and acolytes. Members of his militant group often served as willing and unpaid killers.<ref name="Guha_IndiaGandhi"/> Bhindranwale urged all Sikhs to buy weapons and motorcycles, which would be helpful to fight, instead of spending on the television sets.<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal79"/> He believed that ''Amritdharis'' (baptized Sikhs) should also be ''Shastradharis'' (weapon bearers).<ref name="Cynthia_Taksal79"/> |
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Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had with himself a group of devoted followers armed with firearms who served as his bodyguards and acolytes. Members of his militant group often served as willing and unpaid killers.<ref name="Guha_IndiaGandhi"/> Bhindranwale urged all Sikhs to buy weapons and motorcycles, which would be helpful to fight state oppression, instead of spending on television sets.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=79}} He believed that ''[[amritdharis]]'' (baptized Sikhs) should also be ''shastradharis'' (weapon bearers),{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=79}} as had been required by Guru Gobind Singh for defense against injustice.{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=iii}} Bhindranwale and his friend Amrik Singh started carrying firearms at all times, this practice was defended referring to the Sikh religious duty of carrying a [[Kirpan]], which is also a weapon,{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=77}} and police brutality on Sikh protestors. |
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Bhindranwale was accused by Indian authorities and critics for being responsible for several crimes and acts of terrorism including murdering and inciting hatred toward innocent Hindus, bank robbery, home invasion, organising terrorist training camps, and stockpiling weapons.<ref>Government of India (1984). "White paper on the Punjab agitation", p. 2. Government publication, National government publication.</ref> In its White Paper on Operation Blue Star, the Indian Government published statements made by Bhindranwale in an effort to illustrate his alleged intent to advocate the killing of Hindus in Punjab and to initiate a general exodus from the State for political purposes.<ref>Government of India (1984). "White paper on the Punjab agitation", p. 164. Government publication, National government publication.</ref> |
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Bhindranwale's call to Sikhs to keep weapons as required by their faith was misrepresented by the press as preparations for killing Hindus. 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?”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|pp=xiv-xlvi}} |
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On 12 May 1984, Ramesh Chander, Son of Lala Jagat Narain and editor of [[Hind Samachar]] group was also murdered by the militants of Bhindranwale.<ref name="Kuldip_Lines">{{cite book |last1=Nayar |first1=Kuldip |title=Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography |date=2012 |publisher=Roli Books |isbn=978-8174368218 |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Beyond_the_Lines.html?id=p85bBAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y}}</ref> In addition, seven editors and seven news hawkers and newsagents were also 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.<ref name="IT_media_terror">{{cite news |last1=Pachauri |first1=Pankaj |title=Terrorists adopt new strategy to intimidate media in Punjab |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19890815-terrorists-adopt-new-strategy-to-intimidate-media-in-punjab-816403-1989-08-15 |accessdate=13 July 2018 |publisher=India Today |date=15 August 1989 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714021050/https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19890815-terrorists-adopt-new-strategy-to-intimidate-media-in-punjab-816403-1989-08-15 |archive-date=14 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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Separatists were accused by Indian authorities and critics for being responsible for several crimes and acts of terrorism including murder and incitement, bank robbery, home invasion, organising terrorist training camps, and stockpiling weapons.<ref>Government of India (1984). "White paper on the Punjab agitation", p. 2. Government publication, National government publication.</ref> |
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A few Sikh leaders raised their voice against Bhindranwale in the Golden Temple and other gurdwaras in Punjab. Among the prominent ones was Giani Partap Singh, an eighty year old spiritual leader and a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Partap had openly criticised Bhindranwale for stockpiling firearms and weapons in the Akal Takht. Bhindranwale's occupation of the Akal Takht was termed as an act of sacrilege. Partap was murdered with gunshot at his home in Tahli Chowk. Several other dissenters were also killed. Niranjan Singh who was the Granthi of Gurudwara Toot Sahib, Granthi Jarnail Singh of Valtoha and Granthi Surat Singh of Majauli were among those killed. People criticising Bhindranwale were perceived as his enemies who in turn were branded as enemies of the Sikh faith. The prominent members of the Sikh religion got the message being spread through the ongoing events and were afraid of personal safety.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
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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.<ref name="Kuldip_Lines">{{cite book |last1=Nayar |first1=Kuldip |title=Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography |date=2012 |publisher=Roli Books |isbn=978-8174368218 |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Beyond_the_Lines.html?id=p85bBAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Pachauri |first1=Pankaj |title=Terrorists adopt new strategy to intimidate media in Punjab |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19890815-terrorists-adopt-new-strategy-to-intimidate-media-in-punjab-816403-1989-08-15 |accessdate=13 July 2018 |publisher=India Today |date=15 August 1989 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714021050/https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19890815-terrorists-adopt-new-strategy-to-intimidate-media-in-punjab-816403-1989-08-15 |archive-date=14 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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The violence incidents increased and reached its peak in the months before Operation Bluestar. The sacred Golden Temple was being defiled by the militants. 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, it was found that the militants had even set up a facility to manufacture grenade and to fabricate sten-guns inside the temple complex. At the same time, the number of murders kept increasing in the state and sometimes more than a dozen killings happened in a day.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
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A few Sikh leaders disagreed with Bhindranwale in the Golden Temple and other gurdwaras in Punjab. Among the prominent ones was Giani Partap Singh, an eighty year old spiritual leader and a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Partap had openly criticised Bhindranwale for stockpiling firearms and weapons in the Akal Takht. Bhindranwale's occupation of the Akal Takht was termed as an act of sacrilege. Partap was murdered with gunshot at his home in Tahli Chowk. Several other dissenters were also killed. Niranjan Singh who was the Granthi of Gurdwara Toot Sahib, Granthi Jarnail Singh of Valtoha and Granthi Surat Singh of Majauli were among those killed. [[KPS Gill]] would allege that people criticising Bhindranwale were perceived as his enemies who in turn were branded{{by whom}} as enemies of the Sikh faith.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
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===Turf war with Akali Dal=== |
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Bhindranwale gradually took complete control of the Golden Temple from Akali Dal. The Akali Dal along with its militant wing [[Babbar Khalsa]] contested with Bhindranwale's group for dominance. By April and May 1984, the two groups clashed reached its peak with intimidations and killings. The two groups blamed each other for several assassinations.<ref name="CrenshawM385">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw |first1=Martha |title=Terrorism in Context |date=1 November 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |page=385 |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162242/https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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The violence incidents increased and reached its peak in the months before Operation Bluestar. 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, it was found that the militants had even set up a facility to manufacture grenade and to fabricate sten-guns inside the temple complex. At the same time, the number of murders kept increasing in the state and sometimes more than a dozen killings happened in a day.<ref name="satp prophet"/> |
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==Fortification of the Golden Temple== |
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{{main|Operation Blue Star}} |
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Bhindranwale eventually took complete control of the Golden Temple. The [[Babbar Khalsa]], opposed{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=xliv}} to Bhindranwale's initial strategy of opting to join the Akalis' protest movement for Punjab's rights instead of more militant means, and was more focused on propagating its view of Sikh religious life than on politics and states' rights, contested with Bhindranwale's group for dominance. By April and May 1984, the two groups clashed reached its peak with intimidations and killings. The two groups blamed each other for several assassinations.<ref name="CrenshawM385">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw |first1=Martha |title=Terrorism in Context |date=1 November 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |page=385 |accessdate=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708162242/https://books.google.com/books?id=9nFyZaZGthgC |archive-date=8 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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In July 1982, the then President of [[Shiromani Akali Dal]], [[Harchand Singh Longowal]] invited Bhindranwale to take up residence at the Golden Temple compound. He called Bhindranwale "our stave to beat the government."<ref>Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839–2004, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 337.</ref> On 19 July 1982, Bhindranwale anticipating his imminent arrest<ref name="satp prophet"/> took shelter with a large group of his armed followers, in the Guru Nanak Niwas (Guest house), in the precincts of the [[Harmandir Sahib|Golden Temple]].<ref name="itp1"/> In the chaos of Punjab, 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. The judgement would be accepted by both parties and carried out. This added to his popularity.<ref>Khushwant Singh, "The Genesis," The Punjab Crisis: Challenge and Response, Abida Samiuddin, ed., Delhi, K.M. Mittal, 1985, p. 98; Lt. Gen. J.S. Aurora, "If Khalistan Comes – The Sikhs will be the Losers", Punjab – The Fatal Miscalculation: Perspectives on Unprincipled Politics, eds. Patwant Singh and Harji Malik, New Delhi, Patwant Singh, 1984, p. 140.</ref> |
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===Khalistan=== |
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Bhindranwale was reportedly backed by [[Pakistan's ISI]] on his radical separatist stand, plans and operations. Bhindranwale had started the efforts for his demand in 1982, and by mid-1983 had managed to gain support for his plan to divide India.<ref name="NDTV_34year"/> ISI reportedly supported and helped him in spreading militancy in the Indian Punjab state. The arms and ammunition used by his group were provided by ISI.<ref name="NDTV_34year">{{cite news |title=34 Years On, A Brief History About Operation Bluestar, And Why It Was Carried Out |url=https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/operation-bluestar-34th-anniversary-a-brief-history-about-operation-bluestar-and-why-it-was-carried--1863385 |accessdate=5 July 2018 |publisher=NDTV |date=6 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180705233250/https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/operation-bluestar-34th-anniversary-a-brief-history-about-operation-bluestar-and-why-it-was-carried--1863385 |archive-date=5 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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Bhindranwale stated his position on Khalistan, a movement which was first introduced in concept during the 1946 independence negotiations.<ref>''Globalization and Religious nationalism in India: The Search for Ontological Security'' by Catarina Kinnvall. Routledge, {{ISBN|978-1-134-13570-7}}. p. 106</ref> 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"),{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=79}} using the word 'Qaum' (nation, people, or also religion) when referring to the Sikh population of Punjab,<ref>''Globalization and Religious nationalism in India: The Search for Ontological Security'' by Catarina Kinnvall. Routledge, {{ISBN|978-1-134-13570-7}}. p. 170</ref> In a speech given by Bhindranwale on 27 March 1983: |
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[[File:AkalTakhtGoldenTempleComplex.jpg|thumb|Bhindranwale and his followers moved inside Akal Takht in December 1983]] |
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In 1982, Bhindranwale and approximately 200 armed followers moved into a guest-house called the Guru Nanak Niwas, in the precinct of Harmandir Sahib and made Golden Temple complex his headquarters.<ref name="itp1"/> From inside the temple complex, Bhindranwale led the terrorist campaign in Punjab.<ref name="Robert2008"/> Police could not pursue them inside the Golden temple premises for fear of hurting the religious sentiments of the Sikh community.<ref name="satp prophet"/> From here he met and was interviewed by international television crews.<ref name="itp1"/> 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 Bhindranwale's group.<ref name="Bhanwar">{{cite web |last1=Bhanwar |first1=Harbir Singh |title=Interview |url=http://www.abplive.in/videos/watch-pradhanmantri-episode-14-188744 |publisher=ABP News |accessdate=7 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180726185846/https://www.abplive.in/videos/watch-pradhanmantri-episode-14-188744 |archive-date=26 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> The following day, after the murder, Longowal claimed the involvement of Bhindranwale in the murder.<ref>Longowal said "Whenever the situation becomes ripe for settlement, some violent incident takes place. Longowal was of course not on the side of Bhindranwale and so he accused him. I know Bhindranwale is behind the murder of the DIG", "(The person behind the murder is) The one who is afraid of losing his seat of power" - but there was no proof nor a verification for it.{{cite book |
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{{quote|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.”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=lvi}}{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=73-74}}}} |
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| title = Indian Express |
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| date = 27 April 1983 |
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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.”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=vi}} To which he added, "''if the Indian Government invaded the Darbar Sahib complex, the foundation for an independent Sikh state will have been laid.''"<ref>Sandhu (1999), p. lvii.</ref> During the days before the assault, government representatives met with Bhindranwale in a last ditch effort to negotiate a truce. Bhindranwale warned of a backlash by the Sikh community in the event of an army assault on the Golden Temple.<ref>Walia, Varinder. [http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071219/aplus1.htm "Man who made efforts to avert Op Bluestar is no more"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829190812/http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071219/aplus1.htm |date=29 August 2008 }}, "[[Tribune India]]", Amritsar, 18 December 2007.</ref> In his final interview to Subhash Kirpekar, Bhindranwale stated that ''Sikhs can neither live in India nor with India.''<ref name=ms_lastInterveiw>{{cite book | last = Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | publisher = J. Cape | url = https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access = registration | year = 1985 | location = London | edition = e-book | page = 555 | access-date = 8 July 2018 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> |
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| pages = interview with Longowal |
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| url = |
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Starting mid-1983, [[Pakistan's ISI]] would support the separatist stand, plans and operations.<ref name="Kiessling_ISI"/> ISI created a Punjab cell in the ISI headquarters to support and help him in spreading militancy in the Indian Punjab state. The arms and ammunition used by his group were provided by ISI. Terrorist training camps were set up in Karachi and Lahore to train the young Sikhs.<ref name="Kiessling_ISI">{{cite book |last1=Kiessling |first1=Hein |title=Faith, Unity, Discipline: The Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-1849048637 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_cgDgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT146&dq=bhindranwale%20ISI&pg=PT146#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20ISI&f=false |accessdate=14 September 2018}}</ref><ref name="Kaoboys">{{cite book |last1=Raman |first1=B. |title=The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down Memory Lane |publisher=Lancer Publishers LLC |isbn=978-1935501480 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nsBerwgsf38C&lpg=PP1&dq=bhindranwale%20ISI&pg=PT101#v=onepage&q=bhindranwale%20ISI&f=false |accessdate=14 September 2018}}</ref> Counter Intelligence wing of the Indian agencies had reported that three prominent heads of the Khalistan movement [[Shabeg Singh]], Balbir Singh and [[Amrik Singh]] had made at least six trips each to Pakistan between the years 1981 and 1983.<ref name="Kiessling_ISI"/> |
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In early June 1984 the intelligence sources reported that Bhindranwale was planning to declare Khalistan an independent country any moment with support from Pakistan. Khalistani currency had already been distributed. This declaration would have increased chances of Punjab Police and security personnel siding with Bhindranwale.<ref name="rediff_interview_pakistan">{{cite web |url = http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/03inter.htm |title = 'Pakistan would have recognised Khalistan' |work = The Rediff Interview/Lieutenant General Kuldip Singh Brar (retired) |author = Amberish K Diwanji |publisher = [[Rediff.com]] |date = 3 June 2004 |accessdate = 2009-01-23 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090129052453/http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/03inter.htm |archive-date = 29 January 2009 |url-status= live |df = dmy-all}}</ref> The violence and the alleged threat of the civil war in Punjab made the Operation imminent, according to government claims.<ref name="AmarjitK_KillPlan">{{cite book |last1=Kaur |first1=Amarjit |title=The Punjab Story |date=2004 |publisher=Lotus |isbn=978-8174369123 |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Punjab_Story.html?id=iNBbBAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y |accessdate=13 July 2018}}</ref> |
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| nopp = true }}</ref> Reportedly, militants responsible for bombings and murders were taking shelter in some [[gurdwara]]s in Punjab.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> Punjab assembly noted 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. While Bhindranwale was openly supporting such elements.<ref name= ms_shelter>{{cite book | last =Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | url =https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access =registration | year = 1985 | location = London|edition = e-book | page=393 }}</ref> However, the Congress-led government declared that it could not enter the gurdwaras for the fear of hurting Sikh sentiments.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> After the murder of six Hindu bus passengers in October 1983, President's rule was imposed in Punjab.<ref name="GusMartin2011">{{cite book|editor = Clarence Augustus Martin |title=The Sage Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition| year = 2011|publisher=Sage Publications|isbn=978-1-4129-8016-6|pages=544–}}</ref> |
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[[Chandan Mitra]] wrote after observing the insurgency:<ref>https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/india-today-35th-anniversary/story/20111226-india-today-newsmake-of-1980s-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-750018-2011-12-15</ref> |
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{{Cquote|quote=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.|author= }} |
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===Relocation to the Akal Takht=== |
===Relocation to the Akal Takht=== |
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{{main|Operation Blue Star}} |
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As the days went by the law and order situation further deteriorated and violence around the complex 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]]", armed Sikh groups – the "[[Babbar Khalsa]]" and "[[Dal Khalsa (International)|Dal Khalsa]]", 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.<ref>Gopal Singh, A History of the Sikh People, New Delhi, World Book Center, 1988, pp. 755–756; Zuhair Kashmiri and Brian McAndrew, Soft Target: How the Indian Intelligence Service Penetrated Canada, Toronto, James Lorimer and Company, 1989, pp. 93, 130; Singh (1999), pp. 366–367, 373, 398.</ref> Bhindranwale himself always kept a revolver and wore a cartridge belt and encouraged his followers to be armed.<ref name="Sangat Singh 1999, pp. 380-81">Singh (1999), pp. 380–381, 387–388.</ref> |
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In July 1982, the then President of [[Shiromani Akali Dal]], [[Harchand Singh Longowal]] invited Bhindranwale to take up residence at the Golden Temple compound. He called Bhindranwale "our stave to beat the government."<ref>Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839–2004, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 337.</ref> On 19 July 1982, Bhindranwale anticipating his imminent arrest<ref name="satp prophet"/> took shelter with a large group of his armed followers, in the Guru Nanak Niwas (Guest house), in the precincts of the [[Harmandir Sahib|Golden Temple]].<ref name="itp1">{{cite web|url=http://www.india-today.com/itoday/millennium/100people/jarnail.html|title=Prophet of Hate:J S Bhindranwale|last=Singh|first=Tavleen|publisher=India Today|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080620164214/http://www.india-today.com/itoday/millennium/100people/jarnail.html|archivedate=20 June 2008|accessdate=22 December 2009}}</ref> In the chaos of Punjab, 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. The judgement would be accepted by both parties and carried out. This added to his popularity.<ref>Khushwant Singh, "The Genesis," The Punjab Crisis: Challenge and Response, Abida Samiuddin, ed., Delhi, K.M. Mittal, 1985, p. 98; Lt. Gen. J.S. Aurora, "If Khalistan Comes – The Sikhs will be the Losers", Punjab – The Fatal Miscalculation: Perspectives on Unprincipled Politics, eds. Patwant Singh and Harji Malik, New Delhi, Patwant Singh, 1984, p. 140.</ref> |
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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 headquarter in Akal Takht (Shrine representing the temporal power of God) in the Golden temple.<ref name= ms_akal_takht_HQ/> While the move was supported by Gurcharan Singh Tohra, then President of the Gurdwara committee (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. Babbar Khalsa had also the support of the Congress party. Longowal by now feared for his own safety.<ref name="Satish Jacob 1985"/> Tohra then convinced the high priest to allow Bhindranwale to reside in Akal Takht as he had nowhere to go.<ref name= ms_akal_takht_HQ/> 15 December 1983 Bhindranwale and his supporters moved to the Akal Takhat 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.<ref>The Gallant Defender – Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale p. 84</ref> 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 Bhindranwale's demand to prevent his arrest.<ref name=ms_akal_takht_HQ>{{cite book | last = Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | publisher = J. Cape | url = https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access = registration | year = 1985 | location = London | edition = e-book | page = 405 | access-date = 8 July 2018 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> In the end, while Giani Kirpal Singh did protest the move, Bhindranwale's was permitted to relocate.<ref>Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839–2004, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 339–40; Gopal Singh, A History of the Sikh People, New Delhi, World Book Center, 1988, p. 753.</ref> Bhindranwale claimed that he had to move to Akal Takht as Morcha dictator Longowal was negotiating with the government for his arrest.<ref name= ms_akal_takht_HQ/> By December 1983, Bhindranwale and his followers had made the Golden Temple complex an [[arsenal|armoury]] and headquarter for extremist activities.<ref name="LA_accord">{{cite news |title=Sikh Leader in Punjab Accord Assassinated |url=https://articles.latimes.com/1985-08-21/news/mn-1021_1_sikh-militants |accessdate=14 June 2018 |agency=Times Wire Services |publisher=LA Times |date=21 August 1985 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129025949/http://articles.latimes.com/1985-08-21/news/mn-1021_1_sikh-militants |archive-date=29 January 2016 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="Satish Jacob 1985">Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, Amritsar – Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (Calcutta: Rupa & Co. by arrangement with Pan Books, London, 1985)</ref> |
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[[File:AkalTakhtGoldenTempleComplex.jpg|thumb|Bhindranwale and his followers moved inside Akal Takht in December 1983]] |
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In 1982, Bhindranwale and approximately 200 armed followers moved into a guest-house called the Guru Nanak Niwas, in the precinct of Harmandir Sahib and made Golden Temple complex his headquarters.<ref name="itp1"/> From inside the temple complex, Bhindranwale led the terrorist campaign in Punjab.<ref name="Robert2008"/> Police could not pursue them inside the Golden temple premises for fear of hurting the religious sentiments of the Sikh community.<ref name="satp prophet"/> From here he met and was interviewed by international television crews.<ref name="itp1"/> 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 Bhindranwale's group.<ref name="Bhanwar">{{cite web |last1=Bhanwar |first1=Harbir Singh |title=Interview |url=http://www.abplive.in/videos/watch-pradhanmantri-episode-14-188744 |publisher=ABP News |accessdate=7 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180726185846/https://www.abplive.in/videos/watch-pradhanmantri-episode-14-188744 |archive-date=26 July 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> The following day, after the murder, Longowal claimed the involvement of Bhindranwale in the murder.<ref>Longowal said "Whenever the situation becomes ripe for settlement, some violent incident takes place. Longowal was of course not on the side of Bhindranwale and so he accused him. I know Bhindranwale is behind the murder of the DIG", "(The person behind the murder is) The one who is afraid of losing his seat of power" - but there was no proof nor a verification for it.{{cite book | title = Indian Express | date = 27 April 1983 | pages = interview with Longowal | url = | id = | isbn = | nopp = true }}</ref> Reportedly, militants responsible for bombings and murders were taking shelter in some [[gurdwara]]s in Punjab.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> 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.<ref name= ms_shelter>{{cite book | last =Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | url =https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access =registration | year = 1985 | location = London|edition = e-book | page=393 }}</ref> However, the Congress-led government would later declare that it could not enter the gurdwaras for the fear of hurting Sikh sentiments.<ref name="Akshay1991"/> After the murder of six Hindu bus passengers in October 1983, President's rule was imposed in Punjab.<ref name="GusMartin2011">{{cite book|editor = Clarence Augustus Martin |title=The Sage Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition| year = 2011|publisher=Sage Publications|isbn=978-1-4129-8016-6|pages=544–}}</ref> |
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As the days went by the law and order situation further deteriorated and violence around the complex 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]]", armed Sikh groups – the "[[Babbar Khalsa]]" and "[[Dal Khalsa (International)|Dal Khalsa]]", 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.<ref>Gopal Singh, A History of the Sikh People, New Delhi, World Book Center, 1988, pp. 755–756; Zuhair Kashmiri and Brian McAndrew, Soft Target: How the Indian Intelligence Service Penetrated Canada, Toronto, James Lorimer and Company, 1989, pp. 93, 130; Singh (1999), pp. 366–367, 373, 398.</ref> Bhindranwale himself always kept a revolver and wore a cartridge belt and encouraged his followers to be armed.<ref name="Sangat Singh 1999, pp. 380-81">Singh (1999), pp. 380–381, 387–388.</ref> |
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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 headquarter in Akal Takht (Shrine representing the temporal power of God) in the Golden temple.<ref name= ms_akal_takht_HQ/> While the move was supported by Gurcharan Singh Tohra, then President of the Gurdwara committee (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. Babbar Khalsa had also the support of the Congress party. Longowal by now feared for his own safety.<ref name="Satish Jacob 1985"/> Tohra then convinced the high priest to allow Bhindranwale to reside in Akal Takht as he had nowhere to go.<ref name= ms_akal_takht_HQ/> 15 December 1983 Bhindranwale and his supporters moved to the Akal Takht 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.<ref>The Gallant Defender – Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale p. 84</ref> 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 Bhindranwale's demand to prevent his arrest.<ref name=ms_akal_takht_HQ>{{cite book | last = Mark Tully | first = Satish Jacob | title = Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle | publisher = J. Cape | url = https://archive.org/details/amritsarmrsgandh00tull | url-access = registration | year = 1985 | location = London | edition = e-book | page = 405 | access-date = 8 July 2018 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> In the end, while Giani Kirpal Singh did protest the move, Bhindranwale's was permitted to relocate.<ref>Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839–2004, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 339–40; Gopal Singh, A History of the Sikh People, New Delhi, World Book Center, 1988, p. 753.</ref> Bhindranwale claimed that he had to move to Akal Takht as Morcha dictator Longowal was negotiating with the government for his arrest.<ref name= ms_akal_takht_HQ/> By December 1983, Bhindranwale and his followers had made the Golden Temple complex an [[arsenal|armoury]] and headquarter for extremist activities.<ref name="LA_accord">{{cite news |title=Sikh Leader in Punjab Accord Assassinated |url=https://articles.latimes.com/1985-08-21/news/mn-1021_1_sikh-militants |accessdate=14 June 2018 |agency=Times Wire Services |publisher=LA Times |date=21 August 1985 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129025949/http://articles.latimes.com/1985-08-21/news/mn-1021_1_sikh-militants |archive-date=29 January 2016 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name="Satish Jacob 1985">Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, Amritsar – Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (Calcutta: Rupa & Co. by arrangement with Pan Books, London, 1985)</ref> [[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.''"<ref>Tully, p. 94.</ref> 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,<ref name="SikhCoalition"/> 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.<ref name="SikhCoalition"/> |
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[[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.''"<ref>Tully, p. 94.</ref> |
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==Negotiations== |
==Negotiations== |
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The planning for Operation Blue Star was initiated over a year before Bhindranwale had relocated to the complex in December 1983 and begun to fortify it, running sand-model exercises for the attack.<ref name=brig>Sharma, Cf. Brig. Man Mohan (1998). What Ails The Indian Army. Trishul Publications. pp. 273–75. ISBN</ref><ref>Sunday Times, London, June 10, 1984.</ref><ref>Spokesman Weekly, July 16, 1984, p. 28-29</ref> 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 [[Criminal Investigation Department (India)|CID]] were planning to initially occupy Taksal and [[Nihang]] camps of Mehta, and gradually take control of the Golden Temple.{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=186}} 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. [[Srinivas Kumar Sinha|S.K. Sinha]], a 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.<ref name=brig/> 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 replacement [[Krishnaswamy Sundarji]] did "gladly."<ref name=brig/> |
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The government contemplated military moves to arrest Bhindranwale but this would have caused numerous casualties as [[collateral damage]], the Golden Temple being one of the most visited sites in Punjab. It would have also hurt the religious sentiments of the Sikhs.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> Other options such as negotiations were opted for instead. |
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The government sent a team led by [[Narasimha Rao]] to try to convince Bhindranwale to back out but he was adamant,<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> and refused all efforts made by the Indira Gandhi administration to negotiate a settlement.<ref>Mark Tully. Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (p. 138).</ref> The negotiations failed and the law and order situation in Punjab continued to deteriorate.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> Indira Gandhi tried to persuade the Akalis to support her in the arrest of Bhindranwale peacefully. These talks ended up being futile.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> On 26 May, Tohra informed the government that he had failed to convince Bhindranwale for a peaceful resolution of the crisis and that Bhindranwale was no longer under anyone's control.<ref name="RSSandhu_Bio"/> Faced with imminent army action and with the foremost Sikh political organisation, Shiromani Akali Dal (headed by Harchand Singh Longowal), abandoning him, Bhindranwale declared "This bird is alone. There are many hunters after it".<ref name="RSSandhu_Bio">{{cite book |last1=Sandhu |first1=Ranbir S. |title=Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale – Life, Mission, and Martyrdom |date=May 1997 |pages=57–58 |url=http://www.sikhcoalition.org/documents/pdf/SantJarnailSingh.pdf |accessdate=22 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304032434/http://www.sikhcoalition.org/documents/pdf/SantJarnailSingh.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
The government sent a team led by [[Narasimha Rao]] to try to convince Bhindranwale to back out but he was adamant,<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> and refused all efforts made by the Indira Gandhi administration to negotiate a settlement.<ref>Mark Tully. Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (p. 138).</ref> The negotiations failed and the law and order situation in Punjab continued to deteriorate.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> Indira Gandhi tried to persuade the Akalis to support her in the arrest of Bhindranwale peacefully. These talks ended up being futile.<ref name="gill2017punjab"/> On 26 May, Tohra informed the government that he had failed to convince Bhindranwale for a peaceful resolution of the crisis and that Bhindranwale was no longer under anyone's control.<ref name="RSSandhu_Bio"/> Faced with imminent army action and with the foremost Sikh political organisation, Shiromani Akali Dal (headed by Harchand Singh Longowal), abandoning him, Bhindranwale declared "This bird is alone. There are many hunters after it".<ref name="RSSandhu_Bio">{{cite book |last1=Sandhu |first1=Ranbir S. |title=Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale – Life, Mission, and Martyrdom |date=May 1997 |pages=57–58 |url=http://www.sikhcoalition.org/documents/pdf/SantJarnailSingh.pdf |accessdate=22 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304032434/http://www.sikhcoalition.org/documents/pdf/SantJarnailSingh.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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==Legacy== |
==Legacy== |
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Cynthia Keppley Mahmood wrote in ''Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues With Sikh Militants'' that Bhindranwale never learned English but mastered [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]]. He was adept at television, radio and press interviews. |
Cynthia Keppley Mahmood wrote in ''Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues With Sikh Militants'' that Bhindranwale never learned English but mastered [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]]. He was adept at television, radio and press interviews.{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=77}} Keppley further stated that "those who knew him personally uniformly report his general likability and ready humour as well his dedication to [[Sikhism]]".{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=77}} 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."{{sfn|Mahmood|1996|p=77}} |
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Though journalist [[Khushwant Singh]] believed himself to be on Bhindranwale's 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,<ref>Khushwant Singh, "I Felt I Should Reaffirm My Identity as a Sikh," The Punjab Crisis: Challenge and Response, Abida Samiuddin, ed., Delhi, K.M. Mittal, 1985, p. 320; Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839–2004, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 329–30.</ref> and that [[Operation Blue Star]] had given the movement for [[Khalistan]] its first martyr in Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.<ref>Singh (1999), p. 378.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news|title=Takht accepts Bhindranwale's death|work=The Tribune|date=6 June 2003|url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030607/main3.htm|accessdate=25 June 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930044658/http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030607/main3.htm|archive-date=30 September 2007|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> Harbans Singh's ''The Encyclopedia of Sikhism'' describes Bhindranwale as "a phenomenal figure of modern [[Sikhism]]".<ref name=eos>{{cite web |url=http://www.learnpunjabi.org/eos/index.aspx |title=JARNAIL SINGH BHINDRANVAL, SANT (1987-1994) |last1=Major Gurmukh Singh (retd.) |website=Encyclopaedia of Sikhism |publisher=Punjabi University Patiala |access-date=24 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170729230458/http://www.learnpunjabi.org/eos/index.aspx |archive-date=29 July 2017 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
Though journalist [[Khushwant Singh]] believed himself to be on an alleged hit list,{{refn|group=note|Bhindranwale vehemently denied having any hitlist, stating in a speech on 11 May 1983, “If, from this stage, I say something naming someone they say: ‘Bhindranwale has given out the name of such person, now this name has come on the list’ This kind of gossip goes on.”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|p=lii}} Referring to Indira Gandhi in a speech on “Then she has said that Bhindranwale has prepared a hit list. You might even have read this in the newspapers today. I have challenged her and given a warning. Upon my life and upon my breath, let her prove where I got the paper for that hit list, where I got the pen, and the ink and the inkpot. She should get the C.B.I. to check this out. If she proves that I have signed any paper; that I have signed for the purpose of any body's being killed; standing here in the presence of Hazoor, I declare that I shall cut off my head and place it before the congregation. I shall leave Guru Nanak Niwas and go away. But she should tell, she should provide proof. If she does not have any proof but has some honor, dignity and some little decency, she should resign the office of Prime Minister and come before the public in the streets, [it is amazing that] a person occupying an office of such responsibility - being the Prime Minister - should start saying; “He is very dangerous, he has made up a hit list” simply upon listening to news from favorites like Romesh, news from the likes of Virender and Yash [editors of militant Hindu newspapers in Punjab]. Where is that list? It is only in the newspapers. If she has said that a list has been made, who has told her about it? She should apprehend those people who have found it. She should interrogate them the way others, Singhs, are treated. They should tell her where that piece of paper is. She should get that paper and show it to me. I shall go out in handcuffs. So much falsehood! The person who sits on the chair of justice and then is derelict in shouldering the responsibility of the position; is that person worthy of being called human?”{{sfn|Sandhu|1999|pp=293-294}}}} 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,<ref>Khushwant Singh, "I Felt I Should Reaffirm My Identity as a Sikh," The Punjab Crisis: Challenge and Response, Abida Samiuddin, ed., Delhi, K.M. Mittal, 1985, p. 320; Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839–2004, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 329–30.</ref> and that [[Operation Blue Star]] had given the movement for [[Khalistan]] its first martyr in Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.<ref>Singh (1999), p. 378.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news|title=Takht accepts Bhindranwale's death|work=The Tribune|date=6 June 2003|url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030607/main3.htm|accessdate=25 June 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930044658/http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030607/main3.htm|archive-date=30 September 2007|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> Harbans Singh's ''The Encyclopedia of Sikhism'' describes Bhindranwale as "a phenomenal figure of modern [[Sikhism]]".<ref name=eos>{{cite web |url=http://www.learnpunjabi.org/eos/index.aspx |title=JARNAIL SINGH BHINDRANVAL, SANT (1987-1994) |last1=Major Gurmukh Singh (retd.) |website=Encyclopaedia of Sikhism |publisher=Punjabi University Patiala |access-date=24 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170729230458/http://www.learnpunjabi.org/eos/index.aspx |archive-date=29 July 2017 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref> |
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==In popular culture== |
===In popular culture=== |
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A movie named [[Dharam Yudh Morcha (film)]] released on 2016 was based on Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale it mostly depicted Sikhs struggle for preserving Punjabi language and Anandpur Sahib resolution. Though the movie was banned to avoid controversy but still is available easily at online platform |
A movie named [[Dharam Yudh Morcha (film)]] released on 2016 was based on Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale it mostly depicted Sikhs struggle for preserving Punjabi language and Anandpur Sahib resolution. Though the movie was banned to avoid controversy but still is available easily at online platform |
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* [[1984 anti-Sikh riots]] |
* [[1984 anti-Sikh riots]] |
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== |
==Notes== |
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{{Reflist| |
{{Reflist|group=note}} |
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==Bibliography== |
==Bibliography== |
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*Sandhu |
* {{cite book | ref = harv | last = Sandhu | first = Ranbir Singh | title = Struggle for Justice: Speeches and Conversations of Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale | date = 1999 | publisher = Sikh Educational & Religious Foundation | location = Dublin, Ohio, U.S.A. |isbn= 9780967287416 | pages = | edition = 1st | url = https://archive.org/details/StruggleForJustice/ | accessdate = 23 March 2020 | language = English}} |
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* {{cite book | ref = harv |last1=Mahmood |first1=Cynthia Keppley |title=Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants |date=1996 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. |isbn=978-0812215922 |page=50-80 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FqvTRUrwt2UC |accessdate=25 March 2020}} |
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* {{cite book | ref = harv |last1=Dhillon |first1=Gurdarshan Singh |title=Truth about Punjab: SGPC White Paper |date=1996 |publisher=Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee |location=Amritsar, Punjab |isbn=978-0836456547 |page= |edition=1st |url=https://archive.org/details/TruthAboutPunjab/mode/2up |accessdate=25 March 2020}} |
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*Singh, Sangat (1999) The Sikhs in History, New Delhi, Uncommon Books |
*Singh, Sangat (1999) The Sikhs in History, New Delhi, Uncommon Books |
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*Dilgeer, Harjinder Singh (2011) Sikh History in 10 volumes (vol. 7, 9), Waremme, Sikh University Press |
*Dilgeer, Harjinder Singh (2011) Sikh History in 10 volumes (vol. 7, 9), Waremme, Sikh University Press |
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*{{citation |last1=Fair |first1=C. Christine |title=Diaspora Involvement in Insurgencies: Insights from the Khalistan and Tamil Eelam Movements |journal=Nationalism and Ethnic Politics |volume=11 |date=2005 |pages=125–156 |doi=10.1080/13537110590927845 }} |
*{{citation |last1=Fair |first1=C. Christine |title=Diaspora Involvement in Insurgencies: Insights from the Khalistan and Tamil Eelam Movements |journal=Nationalism and Ethnic Politics |volume=11 |date=2005 |pages=125–156 |doi=10.1080/13537110590927845 }} |
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*{{citation |last1=Van Dyke |first1=Virginia |title=The Khalistan Movement in Punjab, India, and the Post-Militancy Era: Structural Change and New Political Compulsions |journal=Asian Survey |volume=49 |issue=6 |date=2009 |pages=975–997 |doi=10.1525/as.2009.49.6.975 }} |
*{{citation |last1=Van Dyke |first1=Virginia |title=The Khalistan Movement in Punjab, India, and the Post-Militancy Era: Structural Change and New Political Compulsions |journal=Asian Survey |volume=49 |issue=6 |date=2009 |pages=975–997 |doi=10.1525/as.2009.49.6.975 }} |
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==References== |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
Revision as of 02:45, 12 April 2020
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale | |
---|---|
Born | Jarnail Singh Brar[1] June 2, 1947 |
Died | June 6, 1984 Akal Takht, Amritsar, Punjab, India | (aged 37)
Cause of death | Killed in gunfight during Operation Blue Star |
Monuments | Gurdwara Yaadgar Shaheedan, Amritsar[2] |
Occupation(s) | Sikh preacher, head of Damdami Taksal, advocate of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution |
Organization | Damdami Taksal |
Title | Sant[3] |
Movement | Khalistan movement |
Spouse | Pritam Kaur (m. 1966–1984) |
Children | 2 |
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (Punjabi: [dʒəɾnɛːlᵊ sɪ́ŋɡᵊ pɪ̀ɳɖrãːʋaːɭe]; born Jarnail Singh Brar;[4] 2 June 1947 – 6 June 1984) was the fourteenth[5] jathedar, or leader, of the prominent orthodox Sikh religious institution Damdami Taksal. He was an advocate of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.[6][7][8][9] 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 (movement for the righteous struggle), 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.[10] 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.[11] Over time Bhindranwale grew to be a leader of Sikh militancy.[12][13][14]
In 1982 Bhindranwale and his armed group moved to the Golden Temple complex and made it his headquarters. Bhindranwale would establish what amounted to a "parallel government" in Punjab,[15][16][17] settling cases and resolving disputes. In 1983, to escape arrest, he along with his militant cadre resided in and fortified the Sikh shrine Akal Takht.[18] 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.[19] Bhindranwale died and the temple complex was cleared of militants.
Bhindranwale has remained a controversial figure in Indian history.[20] While the Sikhs' highest temporal authority Akal Takht describe him a 'martyr',[21] with immense appeal among rural sections of the Sikh population,[16][22] who saw him as a powerful leader[22] who stood up to Indian state dominance and repression,[23] to the government symbolized the revivalist, extremist and terrorist[24][22] movement in Punjab.[25]
Early life
Bhindranwale was born as Jarnail Singh Brar to a Jat Sikh family in 1947 in the village of Rode,[3] in Moga District located in the region of Malwa.[1] The grandson of Sardar Harnam Singh Brar, his father, Joginder Singh Brar was a farmer and a local Sikh leader, and his mother was Nihal Kaur.[4] Jarnail Singh was the seventh of seven brothers and one sister.[26] He was put into a school in 1953 at the age of 6 but he dropped out of school five years later to work with his father on the farm.[27]
He married Pritam Kaur, the daughter of Sucha Singh of Bilaspur at the age of nineteen.[3][28] The couple had two sons, Ishar Singh and Inderjit Singh, in 1971 and 1975, respectively.[4] After the death of Bhindranwale, Pritam Kaur moved along with her sons to Bilaspur village in Moga district and stayed with her brother.[28] She died of heart ailment at age 60, on 15 September 2007 in Jalandhar.[29]
Damdami Taksal
In 1965, he was enrolled by his father at the Damdami Taksal also known as Bhindran Taksal, a religious school, near Moga, Punjab, then headed by Gurbachan Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale.[4] The name Bhindran Taksal was made after the village of Bhindran Kalan where its chief Gurbachan Singh Bhindranwale lived.[30] After a one-year course in Sikh studies he returned to farming again. He continued his 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.[31] 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.[32]
Kartar Singh Khalsa died in a car accident on 16 August 1977. Before his death, Kartar Singh had appointed the then 31-year-old[3] Bhindranwale as his successor, in preference to his son Amrik Singh,[31] who, “instead of resenting the choice," became "a confidante and collaborator of Jarnail Singh."[33]
Bhindranwale was formally elected the 14th jathedar of the Damdami Taksal at a bhog ceremony at Mehta Chowk on 25 August 1977.[1][4] He adopted the name "Bhindranwale" meaning "from Bhindran," referring to the village of Bhindran Kalan, where the Bhindran Taksal branch of the Damdami Taksal was located,[1][30] and attained the religious title of "Sant".[1] He concluded most of his family responsibilities to devote full time to the Taksal, thus following a long tradition of “sants”, an important part of rural Sikh life.[32] 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."[1] As a missionary Sant of the Taksal, he would tour the villages to give dramatic public sermons and reading of scripture.[13] He preached the disaffected young Sikhs, encouraging them to return to the path of Khalsa by giving up consumerism in family life and abstaining from drugs and alcohol.[34] 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.[13]
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, encouraging Sikhs to receive amrit, observe the Sikh appearance given by the Guru, and live according to the teachings of Guru Granth Sahib., with his main philosophy as "nashe chaddo, amrit chhako, gursikh bano" (Give up addictions, receive amrit, become good Sikhs).[35] Under Bhindranwale, the number of people joining the Khalsa increased.[13]
Khushwant Singh, a critic of Bhindranwale, allowed that “Bhindranwale's amrit prachar 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."[36]
Politics
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.[10][37][25][17]: 174 Congress supported the candidates backed by Bhindranwale in the 1978 SGPC elections. 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.[38][37] The Congress CM (and later President) Giani Zail Singh,[39] who allegedly financed the initial meetings of the separatist organisation Dal Khalsa,[10][40] amid attempts to cater to and capitalize on the surge in Sikh religious revivalism in Punjab.[41] 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,[12] 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.[42] A year later, Bhindranwale used Zail Singh's patronage to put up candidates in three constituencies' during the general elections,[43] winning a significant number of seats from Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Ferozepur districts.[41] Despite this success, he would not personally seek any political office. According to an analysis by anthropologist Cynthia Mahmood Keppley,
“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.”[44]
The Damdami Taksal additionally 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.[16][3] 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.[45] 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.[46]
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,"[41] 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."[5] In a speech on 8 March 1984, Bhindranwale stated, “Let no one ever imagine that some leader or minister can own me. Yes, some people say that Bhindranwale has fallen into so and so's lap; that so and so has bought Bhindranwale.... Let no rich man think that anyone possessing a chair, anyone who is a leader, any minister, can buy me. Those with chairs can buy others with chairs but regarding the Taksal: when this Taksal... is bought, verily the whole world will be bought. Who are these politicians - whichever party they might belong to - to think they can buy Bhindranwale?”[47]
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.”[32]
Conflict with Nirankaris
On 13 April 1978, the day to celebrate the birth of Khalsa, a Sant Nirankari[note 1] convention was organized in Amritsar, with permission from the Akali state government. The practices of "Sant Nirankaris" sect of Nirankaris was considered as heretics by the orthodox Sikhism expounded by Bhindranwale.[49] From Golden Temple premises,[50] Bhindranwale delivered an angry sermon in which he declared that he would not allow this convention and would "go there and cut them to pieces".[51] A procession 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.[52] Fauja attempted to behead Nirankari chief Gurbachan Singh with his sword but was shot dead by Gurbachan's bodyguard, while Bhindranwale escaped.[51] In the ensuing violence, several people were killed: two of Bhindranwale's followers, eleven members of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and three members of Nirankari sect.[51] This event brought Bhindranwale to limelight in the media.[53]
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.[54] The Punjab government Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal decided not to appeal the decision.[55][56] 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.[54] Bhindranwale increased his rhetoric against the enemies of Sikhs. A letter of authority was issued by Akal Takht to ostracize the Sant Nirankaris. A sentiment was created to justify extra judicial killings of the perceived enemies of Sikhism.[57] 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 with the object of demanding a sovereign Sikh state; and the All India Sikh Students Federation, which was banned by the government.[54]
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.[54] 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.[58] Bhindranwale took residence in Golden Temple to escape arrest when he was accused of the assassination of Nirankari Gurbachan Singh.[59] 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.[60] without any due process. 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.
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 the acts of Bhindranwale.[58] An Arya Samaji known for his staunch communal tendencies reflected in his daily newspaper in Punjab,[61] 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."[62] 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.[63]
Punjab Police issued a warrant for Bhindranwale's arrest in the editor's murder,[50] 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.[64] 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.[65]
There was violence in Chando Kalan when the Punjab Police team reached the location, between supporters of Bhindranwale and police.[64] The buses had also contained written records of sermons of Bhindranwale for posterity.[66] The burning of his sermons had enraged Bhindranwale. After absconding for several days, Bhindranwale secured himself in his fortified Gurdwara Gurdarshan Parkash located at Mehta Chowk.[51]
Arrest at Mehta Chowk
The police surrounded the gurdwara at Mehta Chowk. 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 fiery sermon inciting the mob against the Government and against the alleged 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. The mob roused by Bhindranwale's speech opened fire on the police who were taking him away. The clashes with police resulted in the death of 11 persons.[51][67][58]
On 20 September 1981, on the day of his arrest, in retaliation three armed men on motorcycle opened fire using machine guns in a market in Jallandhar and killed four Hindus and injured twelve.[68] 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.[51]
Several violent incidents happened in Punjab during the next 25 days after the arrest. The Akali Dal under Longowal decided to support Bhindranwale. Bhindranwale also got support from the President of the SGPC, Tohra and the Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Gurdial Singh Ajnoha.[58] 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.[51] After his release he 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.[51]
Dharam Yudh Morcha
The Akali Dal was initially opposed to Bhindranwale.[10] While Bhindranwale ceded leadership to the Akali Dal and disavowed political ambition, the Akali leadership viewed his soaring popularity with the rural masses as a potential threat to their hegemony over Sikh affairs, intensifying their campaign to harass and discredit him after August 1983.[69] However, 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 ("Group for the Righteous fight") in collaboration with Bhindranwale to win more autonomy for Punjab. At the start of the protest movement in August 1982, 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. Later, noting Indira Gandhi’s intransigence, it appeared that the Akali leaders were willing to water down their demands.[70] 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. [70] Longowal's core political base began to wither; about a third of his SGPC members and district Akali presidents reportedly defected to Bhindranwale.[38]
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 more strident Sikh demands and treating them as tantamount to secession, thus putting moderate Sikhs at a competitive disadvantage in an increasingly militant political arena.[38] She would be later characterized by prime minister Charan Singh as following "a megalomaniacal policy based on elitist philosophies,"[38] and her successor Rajiv Gandhi would later describe the Resolution as "not secessionist but negotiable."[38] 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.[10] By early October, more than 25,000 Akali workers courted arrest in Punjab in support of the agitation.[71]
The basic issues of the Dharam Yudh Morcha were related to the prevention of the digging of the SYL Canal, deemed unconstitutional, 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; the Akali Dal had not demanded anything more than what was constitutionally due to Punjab.[72] The main thrust of the Morcha was against the economic erosion of the state of Punjab, with 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 unconstitutionally from the state,[72] to Rajasthan and Haryana, which were non-riparian states,[73] and its accompanying hydropower potential, powered by Punjab’s only natural wealth.[73]
Bhindranwale's focus was the unfulfilled promises and the unconstitutional and unaccountable drain of Punjab's resources, especially water resources, by the central government. Awareness of the water issue created by the Congress leadership spread among the people of rural Punjab, and they looked to Bhindranwale to protect their socio-economic and religious aspirations; Bhindranwale assured them that he would not allow vested interests to betray the cause of Punjab, especially in the socio-economic field.[74] The Nehr Roko Morcha (“Stop the Canal movement” 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[75]; the Dharam Yudh Morcha was launched later that year on 4 August 1982, 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.[76]
The central government, instead of taking the constitutional path and forestalling any Akali agitation in regard to the Punjab problem by 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, choosing to make scapegoats out of the police, the Administration and the Chief Minister for pursuing its own political designs, and appeared disinclined to solve the issues justly or constitutionally.[74] The government also framed the movement as a religious issue, announcing only the granting of symbolic requests to holy city status to Amritsar and the right to wear kirpans while ignoring the more numerous economic issues central to the Declaration and the morcha to prevent the economic ruin of the state.[73].
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.[74] It became known that during the period, certain police officials and others had been guilty of high-handed 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 nor such reports to the authorities nor any complaints in that regard ever evoked any response from the administration to rectify current complaints or improve future procedures, much less for punishing the guilty.[74] This perceived official apathy and callousness led many began to believe that what was happening was pursuant to the studied direction 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.[74]
Out of 220 killings during the first 19 months of the Dharam Yudh Morcha, 190 had been Sikhs, with the Akalis alleging that 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 enquiry, the central government was unwilling to initiate any such process.[74]
Bhindranwale was particularly upset about the police atrocities and the murder of scores of Sikhs in the garb of false and contrived police encounters.[77] 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 enquiry committee to probe Lala Jagat Narain's murder and none for the killing of the Sikhs, believing that this partisan behavior of the Government was bound to hasten the process of alienation of the Sikhs.[77] He reprimanded the press for suppressing incidences of police atrocities.[77]
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.”[78]
In the words of Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, BBC correspondents:
"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."[79]
Dr. Ranbir Singh Sandhu, professor emeritus of Ohio State University, in a personal conversation with I. K. Gujral at an international conference held at UCLA in October 1987, relays:
“Hindu leaders were content to go along with the Government or indeed to demand more strict action against the Sant. They paid no heed to the Sant’s complaints of human rights in Punjab. Typical of this attitude was a statement by Gujral who said, in the course of an eloquent speech, that the Sikh struggle had been peaceful but was taken over by violent elements. [I] asked him if he was referring to Sant Bhindranwale as the 'violent elements.' He agreed. [I] reminded him that Sant Bhindranwale, in one of his speeches, had mentioned that over 140 persons [(by that point)] had been killed and another one thousand crippled in police torture up to that date and that, the Sikhs had tried persuasion with the police, legal action in the courts and appeals to the national leaders and the press but that nobody had made any effort to stop the torture and the killings in custody, and that the Sant had then gone on to ask the public as to how long the Sikhs should continue to quietly suffer without defending themselves. [I] asked Gujral as to whether, in his opinion or according to his information, Sant Bhindranwale was lying and if not, what did leaders like him do about the killings and torture by the police and what should the Sant have done in the face of this oppression? Gujral replied that he had never thought about the problem from that point of view.”[80]
The 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 by bandhs, or mobs, of the Hindi Raksha Samiti sparked off retributory attacks against them by Sikh youths.[79]
In a speech on 18 May 1983, Bhindranwale commented on the hitherto peaceful movement in a speech:
“Listening to the views of Sant Baba Harchand Singh Ji Longowal, worthy of respect. President of the Shromani Akali Dal you must have understood, with respect to the time to come, that this movement for protection of the rights of Punjab, for assistance to the oppressed, and for securing our rights, has been going on peacefully for quite some time. We have heard even now that our policy, our program, is peaceful. The Sikh has always been peace-loving, is peaceful, and will try to remain peaceful.
However, when extreme oppression comes to be practiced against peaceful people, some among the younger generation who adopt the way of Satguru Hargobind Sahib, the True King, desire to abandon the path of peacefulness. When all methods including persuasion, legal recourse, and appeal have been tried and found to be of no avail a Sikh of the Guru has, of necessity, to adopt that way. The Singhs have shown tremendous peacefulness. They have been peaceful and we have orders to stay peaceful and will stay so. However, considering the methods the Government has begun to adopt, it is possible that these may result in the future becoming very murky. It is possible that, contrary to the intentions of the Sikhs, circumstances may force the future to become even more terrible than 1947.
[…]
I also beseech the young people. We must stay peaceful, but there are limits to peacefulness. Sitting on a heated metal plate is peacefulness. Being caged and then being beheaded is peacefulness. However, now they have set fire to our Guru [Granth Sahib] and we have been peaceful. How can one be more peaceful than that?
[…]
We do not go to anyone’s home, we do not loot anybody's shop, nor do we lay siege to any place. However, if someone intoxicated by his power as a ruler attacks our home, we are not sitting here wearing bangles that we shall continue to suffer as eunuchs and as lifeless people.
So, love your Sikh faith. We have to stay completely peaceful. However, I shall humbly say this to all the young men, to the entire congregation assembled here, and to anyone staying for the night, Singhs, do not panic.
[…]
I definitely ask the people in the villages that all the young men should be fully prepared. The Government is trying very hard to start Hindu-Sikh riots. Avoid this as long as you can. However, if the Hindus also get into the Government's boat and start to dishonor the daughters and sisters of the Sikhs and to take off the Sikhs' turbans, then, in order to save our turban, we shall take what steps the Khalsa, following the path shown by Guru Gobind Singh Ji, has always taken in the past. We might have to adopt those methods, but we shall do so only when we are forced. We shall not resort to those methods on our own. We have to be peaceful. This is all that I had to humbly say to you.”[81]
On the ongoing anti-Sikh violence in Haryana, he declared, "I want to tell Mrs. Gandhi that our patience is getting exhausted. She should stop playing with fire. This is not Assam. We will die like soldiers at the hands of the police. We will tolerate no further ruse until she stops playing Holi with our blood."[73]
After the launch of the Morcha, and subsequent governmental inaction in regards to police brutality,[74] Sikh activists began committing retaliatory[74] acts of political violence. During Bhindranwale's time, both his critics and supporters agree that Indian police had been using the term 'encounters' as a euphemism for "cold-blooded murder" carried out extra-judiciously against alleged 'terrorists.' This fact was acknowledged by then Chief Minister of Punjab, Darbara Singh.[82] These deadly encounters were justified as a reasonable method of avoiding lengthy court trials.[83] An assassination attempt was made on Chief Minister of Punjab Darbara Singh and two Indian Airlines flights were hijacked by the terrorists.[71] To restart the talks with the Akali leadership, Indira Gandhi ordered the release of all Akali workers in mid October and sent Swaran Singh as her emissary. Bhindranwale who was then regarded as the "single most important Akali leader" announced that nothing less than full implementation of the Anandpur resolution was acceptable to them. Other Akali leaders joined the negotiations but a compromised settlement failed to emerge.[71]
In November 1982, Akali leader Longowal announced that the Akali Dal would disrupt the Asian Games that as to be held in Delhi by sending teams of Akali workers to Delhi to protest and court arrest.[71] To prevent the disruptions Haryana government sealed the border between Delhi and Punjab and frisking of travellers was followed.[71][84] The security measures proved effective and Akali Dal could only organize small and scattered protests in Delhi.
In late July 1983, finding an increasing number of his followers arrested day by day, Bhindranwale left his base in Chowk Mehta for the Golden Temple to start a campaign for their release there. Also from there, he joined this campaign to the Akali campaign for their political, economic, cultural, and religious demands.[85]
Reportage
Bhindranwale expected misrepresentation from reporters, saying to press people, “I know what you are going to print, that you are only working for rupees.” [15] He granted 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.[86] Once Bhindranwale is said to have remarked, “Even if a fly is killed in Punjab, it is blamed on me.”[87] He had in fact called for Sikh-Hindu unity as reported by the Indian Express ("Bhindranwale's call for Hindu-Sikh unity," 4 January 1982)[88] and 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.”[89][note 2]
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.[90] 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."[91] 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."[92]
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.’[50] 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?”[54] While Khushwant Singh, a resident of Delhi close to Indira Gandhi[93] and congress loyalist,[94] wrote that he "exhorted every Sikh to kill thirty-two Hindus,"[95] 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;[1] The quote had invoked the words of Guru Gobind Singh of a baptized Sikh being able to fight 125,000 oppressors.[88][96] The quote, widely circulated in the press after having its implication distorted,[88] had not at all been an “exhortation,”[88] but a response to such statements telling those Sikhs not to be afraid just because they were two percent of the population,[88] as well as similar responses in October 1983[97] to warnings from Indira Gandhi of what would happen to Sikhs residing in states outside of Punjab,[97][98] and the double standard if he had made such statements;[97][99] 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,[100] "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’),[101] and had a model of the Golden Temple desecrated by a mob,[102] and Baldev Prakash, also a BJP MLA, who had posters of such slogans printed.[97][103]
Other 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,[104][105][106] who would claim that he "mixed radical fundamentalism with incitement to violence,"[51] 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.[58] Khushwant Singh, a Congress loyalist[94] residing in Delhi who was close to Indira Gandhi,[93] 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,"[107], 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.[108] Before the Operation Blue Star started, there was a rise in the killings of Hindus[95] and 23 people were killed in the final 24 hours before the announcement of the operation,[109] while October 1983, six Hindu bus passengers were singled out and killed by the Sikh militants and an Emergency rule was imposed on the state.[110] while 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.
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,[111] 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;[111] 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."[111]
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.""[80]
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.[92] Sikh demands had been fundamentally political rather than religious, while protracted intransigence by the central government encouraged extremism.[38]
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had with himself a group of devoted followers armed with firearms who served as his bodyguards and acolytes. Members of his militant group often served as willing and unpaid killers.[50] Bhindranwale urged all Sikhs to buy weapons and motorcycles, which would be helpful to fight state oppression, instead of spending on television sets.[54] He believed that amritdharis (baptized Sikhs) should also be shastradharis (weapon bearers),[54] as had been required by Guru Gobind Singh for defense against injustice.[112] Bhindranwale and his friend Amrik Singh started carrying firearms at all times, this practice was defended referring to the Sikh religious duty of carrying a Kirpan, which is also a weapon,[13] and police brutality on Sikh protestors.
Bhindranwale's call to Sikhs to keep weapons as required by their faith was misrepresented by the press as preparations for killing Hindus. 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?”[113]
Separatists were accused by Indian authorities and critics for being responsible for several crimes and acts of terrorism including murder and incitement, bank robbery, home invasion, organising terrorist training camps, and stockpiling weapons.[114]
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.[37] 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.[115]
A few Sikh leaders disagreed with Bhindranwale in the Golden Temple and other gurdwaras in Punjab. Among the prominent ones was Giani Partap Singh, an eighty year old spiritual leader and a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Partap had openly criticised Bhindranwale for stockpiling firearms and weapons in the Akal Takht. Bhindranwale's occupation of the Akal Takht was termed as an act of sacrilege. Partap was murdered with gunshot at his home in Tahli Chowk. Several other dissenters were also killed. Niranjan Singh who was the Granthi of Gurdwara Toot Sahib, Granthi Jarnail Singh of Valtoha and Granthi Surat Singh of Majauli were among those killed. KPS Gill would allege that people criticising Bhindranwale were perceived as his enemies who in turn were branded[by whom?] as enemies of the Sikh faith.[51]
The violence incidents increased and reached its peak in the months before Operation Bluestar. 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, it was found that the militants had even set up a facility to manufacture grenade and to fabricate sten-guns inside the temple complex. At the same time, the number of murders kept increasing in the state and sometimes more than a dozen killings happened in a day.[51]
Bhindranwale eventually took complete control of the Golden Temple. The Babbar Khalsa, opposed[88] to Bhindranwale's initial strategy of opting to join the Akalis' protest movement for Punjab's rights instead of more militant means, and was more focused on propagating its view of Sikh religious life than on politics and states' rights, contested with Bhindranwale's group for dominance. By April and May 1984, the two groups clashed reached its peak with intimidations and killings. The two groups blamed each other for several assassinations.[116]
Khalistan
Bhindranwale stated his position on Khalistan, a movement which was first introduced in concept during the 1946 independence negotiations.[117] 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"),[54] using the word 'Qaum' (nation, people, or also religion) when referring to the Sikh population of Punjab,[118] 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.”[119][120]
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.”[121] To which he added, "if the Indian Government invaded the Darbar Sahib complex, the foundation for an independent Sikh state will have been laid."[122] During the days before the assault, government representatives met with Bhindranwale in a last ditch effort to negotiate a truce. Bhindranwale warned of a backlash by the Sikh community in the event of an army assault on the Golden Temple.[123] In his final interview to Subhash Kirpekar, Bhindranwale stated that Sikhs can neither live in India nor with India.[124]
Starting mid-1983, Pakistan's ISI would support the separatist stand, plans and operations.[125] ISI created a Punjab cell in the ISI headquarters to support and help him in spreading militancy in the Indian Punjab state. The arms and ammunition used by his group were provided by ISI. Terrorist training camps were set up in Karachi and Lahore to train the young Sikhs.[125][126] Counter Intelligence wing of the Indian agencies had reported that three prominent heads of the Khalistan movement Shabeg Singh, Balbir Singh and Amrik Singh had made at least six trips each to Pakistan between the years 1981 and 1983.[125]
In early June 1984 the intelligence sources reported that Bhindranwale was planning to declare Khalistan an independent country any moment with support from Pakistan. Khalistani currency had already been distributed. This declaration would have increased chances of Punjab Police and security personnel siding with Bhindranwale.[127] The violence and the alleged threat of the civil war in Punjab made the Operation imminent, according to government claims.[108]
Chandan Mitra wrote after observing the insurgency:[128]
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.
Relocation to the Akal Takht
In July 1982, the then President of Shiromani Akali Dal, Harchand Singh Longowal invited Bhindranwale to take up residence at the Golden Temple compound. He called Bhindranwale "our stave to beat the government."[129] On 19 July 1982, Bhindranwale anticipating his imminent arrest[51] took shelter with a large group of his armed followers, in the Guru Nanak Niwas (Guest house), in the precincts of the Golden Temple.[130] In the chaos of Punjab, 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. The judgement would be accepted by both parties and carried out. This added to his popularity.[131]
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/AkalTakhtGoldenTempleComplex.jpg/220px-AkalTakhtGoldenTempleComplex.jpg)
In 1982, Bhindranwale and approximately 200 armed followers moved into a guest-house called the Guru Nanak Niwas, in the precinct of Harmandir Sahib and made Golden Temple complex his headquarters.[130] From inside the temple complex, Bhindranwale led the terrorist campaign in Punjab.[17] Police could not pursue them inside the Golden temple premises for fear of hurting the religious sentiments of the Sikh community.[51] From here he met and was interviewed by international television crews.[130] 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 Bhindranwale's group.[132] The following day, after the murder, Longowal claimed the involvement of Bhindranwale in the murder.[133] Reportedly, militants responsible for bombings and murders were taking shelter in some gurdwaras in Punjab.[10] 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.[134] However, the Congress-led government would later declare that it could not enter the gurdwaras for the fear of hurting Sikh sentiments.[10] After the murder of six Hindu bus passengers in October 1983, President's rule was imposed in Punjab.[135]
As the days went by the law and order situation further deteriorated and violence around the complex 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", armed Sikh groups – the "Babbar Khalsa" and "Dal Khalsa", 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.[136] Bhindranwale himself always kept a revolver and wore a cartridge belt and encouraged his followers to be armed.[137]
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 headquarter in Akal Takht (Shrine representing the temporal power of God) in the Golden temple.[138] While the move was supported by Gurcharan Singh Tohra, then President of the Gurdwara committee (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. Babbar Khalsa had also the support of the Congress party. Longowal by now feared for his own safety.[139] Tohra then convinced the high priest to allow Bhindranwale to reside in Akal Takht as he had nowhere to go.[138] 15 December 1983 Bhindranwale and his supporters moved to the Akal Takht 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.[140] 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 Bhindranwale's demand to prevent his arrest.[138] In the end, while Giani Kirpal Singh did protest the move, Bhindranwale's was permitted to relocate.[141] Bhindranwale claimed that he had to move to Akal Takht as Morcha dictator Longowal was negotiating with the government for his arrest.[138] By December 1983, Bhindranwale and his followers had made the Golden Temple complex an armoury and headquarter for extremist activities.[142][139] 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."[143] 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,[60] 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.[60]
Negotiations
The planning for Operation Blue Star was initiated over a year before Bhindranwale had relocated to the complex in December 1983 and begun to fortify it, running sand-model exercises for the attack.[144][145][146] 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.[147] 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 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.[144] 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 replacement Krishnaswamy Sundarji did "gladly."[144]
The government sent a team led by Narasimha Rao to try to convince Bhindranwale to back out but he was adamant,[58] and refused all efforts made by the Indira Gandhi administration to negotiate a settlement.[148] The negotiations failed and the law and order situation in Punjab continued to deteriorate.[58] Indira Gandhi tried to persuade the Akalis to support her in the arrest of Bhindranwale peacefully. These talks ended up being futile.[58] On 26 May, Tohra informed the government that he had failed to convince Bhindranwale for a peaceful resolution of the crisis and that Bhindranwale was no longer under anyone's control.[149] Faced with imminent army action and with the foremost Sikh political organisation, Shiromani Akali Dal (headed by Harchand Singh Longowal), abandoning him, Bhindranwale declared "This bird is alone. There are many hunters after it".[149]
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.[150] Bhindranwale had made the sacred temple complex an armoury and headquarter.[142] Bhindranwale was killed in the operation.[151][152]
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.[151] Bhindranwale's brother also identified Bhindranwale's body.[153][27] 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.[154]
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.[13] Keppley further stated that "those who knew him personally uniformly report his general likability and ready humour as well his dedication to Sikhism".[13] 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."[13]
Though journalist Khushwant Singh believed himself to be on an alleged hit list,[note 3] 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,[157] and that Operation Blue Star had given the movement for Khalistan its first martyr in Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.[158] 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.[159] Harbans Singh's The Encyclopedia of Sikhism describes Bhindranwale as "a phenomenal figure of modern Sikhism".[160]
In popular culture
A movie named Dharam Yudh Morcha (film) released on 2016 was based on Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale it mostly depicted Sikhs struggle for preserving Punjabi language and Anandpur Sahib resolution. Though the movie was banned to avoid controversy but still is available easily at online platform
See also
Notes
- ^ Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon writes: It has been alleged that the Nirankaris of Delhi were clandestinely supported and promoted by the Government in pursuance of its policy to create schism and ideological confusion among the Sikhs. It is an important fact that, except for some Arya Samajists in the [1870s], never has any Hindu, Muslim or Christian spoken a word against the lofty spiritual status of the Sikh Gurus. Hence, the broadcast of insinuations directed against the Sikhs came as a painful surprise to the community. Apart from seriously hurting the Sikh sentiments, all this gave rise to a mounting suspicion or even conviction that the Delhi based centre of these Nirankaris had official backing, because otherwise no one could dare to attack the Sikhs so openly. Many other facts and factors also strengthened this suspicion.
A write up by a prominent journalist, Satpal Baghi of Ferozepur in the Indian Express, notes:
"The genesis of the real trouble between the Nirankaris and Akalis goes back to the years when Mrs. Indira Gandhi headed the Union Government. She wanted to weaken the Shiromani Akali Dal, but found that Akalis could not be brought to heel. She thought of an elaborate plan to strengthen the Nirankari sect not only in Punjab but throughout the country and abroad. Official patronage was extended to the Nirankaris, much to the chagrin of Akalis who have always considered the Nirankaris as heretics.
"In pursuit of this policy of divide and rule, Mrs. Gandhi personally gave clearance for a diplomatic passport to be issued to the Nirankari Chief and the Indian High Commissioners and Ambassadors abroad were instructed to show him respect and regard. This was meant to help the sect to improve its image and increase its following abroad. During Mrs. Gandhi's regime, the Nirankaris were known to be receiving financial help from secret Government funds, not open to audit or scrutiny by Parliament.
"During Emergency the recalcitrant attitude of the Akalis further annoyed Mrs. Gandhi and Mr. Sanjay Gandhi. Efforts for building a parallel organisation among the Sikhs of Punjab as a counterblast to the Akalis were intensified. At the insistence of Mrs. Gandhi, the Congress regime began giving great official patronage to the Nirankari sect. Mr. H.S. Chhina. I.A.S. a staunch Nirankari, was appointed Chief Secretary to the Punjab Government, in 1976.
"As a result of open official patronage and support, this sect got a considerable boost within the administrative set-up of the Punjab Government. Mr. Chhina appointed Mr. Niranjan Singh, I.A.S., as Deputy Commissioner of Gurdaspur. Mr. Niranjan Singh tried his best to enlarge the field of operation of the Nirankaris. It is during this period that Sant Bhindranwale took up the challenge posed by this growing sect.'"[48] - ^ Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon describes and relays passages of a report on the Punjab situation:
"Another factor that inflamed the position was the active association of the Arya Samaj leaders. Many of them were influential Congressmen, who openly sided with the Nirankaris and indulged in very unfortunate propaganda against the Sikhs. That the Arya Samaj leadership and their influence has been a very major factor in the Hindu-Sikh relations and increasing the gravity of the Punjab situation is also evidenced in the report. 'Hindu-Sikh Conflict In Punjab: Cause and Cure' by S.M. Sathananthan (London). K.T. Lalwani (London), S. Raghunath lyenger (Lagos). Prof. G.P. Manuskhani (Bombay), Asha Bhatnagar (Jaipur) et. al. These persons belonging to different professions came all the way from far off places to personally study the Punjab situation. They moved from place to place in the State and met a cross section of the people and concluded as under:
'The present Hindu-Sikh conflict is the saddest tragedy of post-partition Indian History. Its genesis lies in a narrow-minded attitude of certain sections of the community, that totally refutes the traditional Hindu virtues of tolerance and understanding. One also wonders, why the Sikhs are always pushed into agitation for their basic constitutional demands, the kind of which were never denied to other States and communities. Why was Punjab the last linguistic State to be formed (10 years late)? Why is Punjab the only state in India whose capital Chandigarh is governed by the Central Government? There are many such unanswered questions which deserve serious probing and full national exposure. Indian news agencies and papers will do well to investigate the reasons for Hindu-Sikh conflict arising from Hindu opposition to Sikh demands, even though their demands were made to the Government (and not to the Hindus of Punjab and Haryana). While most of the Sikh demands are for the welfare of Punjab State, not one demand is anti-Hindu or hurts Hindu sentiments in any way.
'If you were to trace the background of a reporter or an editor behind a particular anti-Sikh report, you would probably find him to be an Arya-Samajist. Late Lala Jagat Narain's persistent role in anti-Sikh activities (including that of his support to the Nirankaris) and his staunch communal tendencies were clearly reflected in his popular daily newspaper in Punjab.'"[61] - ^ Bhindranwale vehemently denied having any hitlist, stating in a speech on 11 May 1983, “If, from this stage, I say something naming someone they say: ‘Bhindranwale has given out the name of such person, now this name has come on the list’ This kind of gossip goes on.”[155] Referring to Indira Gandhi in a speech on “Then she has said that Bhindranwale has prepared a hit list. You might even have read this in the newspapers today. I have challenged her and given a warning. Upon my life and upon my breath, let her prove where I got the paper for that hit list, where I got the pen, and the ink and the inkpot. She should get the C.B.I. to check this out. If she proves that I have signed any paper; that I have signed for the purpose of any body's being killed; standing here in the presence of Hazoor, I declare that I shall cut off my head and place it before the congregation. I shall leave Guru Nanak Niwas and go away. But she should tell, she should provide proof. If she does not have any proof but has some honor, dignity and some little decency, she should resign the office of Prime Minister and come before the public in the streets, [it is amazing that] a person occupying an office of such responsibility - being the Prime Minister - should start saying; “He is very dangerous, he has made up a hit list” simply upon listening to news from favorites like Romesh, news from the likes of Virender and Yash [editors of militant Hindu newspapers in Punjab]. Where is that list? It is only in the newspapers. If she has said that a list has been made, who has told her about it? She should apprehend those people who have found it. She should interrogate them the way others, Singhs, are treated. They should tell her where that piece of paper is. She should get that paper and show it to me. I shall go out in handcuffs. So much falsehood! The person who sits on the chair of justice and then is derelict in shouldering the responsibility of the position; is that person worthy of being called human?”[156]
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) - 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
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{{cite book}}
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- ^ a b c Sandhu 1999, p. xlvi.
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- ^ Longowal said "Whenever the situation becomes ripe for settlement, some violent incident takes place. Longowal was of course not on the side of Bhindranwale and so he accused him. I know Bhindranwale is behind the murder of the DIG", "(The person behind the murder is) The one who is afraid of losing his seat of power" - but there was no proof nor a verification for it.Indian Express. 27 April 1983. interview with Longowal.
{{cite book}}
: Unknown parameter|nopp=
ignored (|no-pp=
suggested) (help) - ^ Mark Tully, Satish Jacob (1985). Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (e-book ed.). London. p. 393.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Clarence Augustus Martin, ed. (2011). The Sage Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Second Edition. Sage Publications. pp. 544–. ISBN 978-1-4129-8016-6.
- ^ Gopal Singh, A History of the Sikh People, New Delhi, World Book Center, 1988, pp. 755–756; Zuhair Kashmiri and Brian McAndrew, Soft Target: How the Indian Intelligence Service Penetrated Canada, Toronto, James Lorimer and Company, 1989, pp. 93, 130; Singh (1999), pp. 366–367, 373, 398.
- ^ Singh (1999), pp. 380–381, 387–388.
- ^ a b c d Mark Tully, Satish Jacob (1985). Amritsar; Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (e-book ed.). London: J. Cape. p. 405. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ a b Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, Amritsar – Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (Calcutta: Rupa & Co. by arrangement with Pan Books, London, 1985)
- ^ The Gallant Defender – Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale p. 84
- ^ Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839–2004, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 339–40; Gopal Singh, A History of the Sikh People, New Delhi, World Book Center, 1988, p. 753.
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- ^ Mark Tully. Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (p. 138).
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