The morning of June 15, 1984, felt hotter than usual. The even hotter Indian Air Force twin engine Dakota of the World War II vintage with aluminum bucket seats added to the gloomy, apprehensive and tense atmosphere. Soon, it took off for the war zone with about a dozen journalists, the first group from Chandigarh. The war zone was none other than the Darbar Sahib complex1 , the holiest of the holy shrines of the Sikhs, in Amritsar. The sizzling temperature inside the non-pressurised aircraft came down after it gained some height. As the aircraft landed in the Air Force area of Amritsar’s Raja Sansi Airport, it was ‘greeted’ by armoured combat vehicles of the Army, guns pointing towards it as if an enemy plane had intruded. The Air Force was expecting the district administration to arrange transportation for taking journalists to the scene of action. However, it turned out to be a long wait for the Punjab Roadways bus to arrive. The temperature hovered above 40 degrees Celsius and the Air Force officials tried to make the scribes comfortable in the small briefing room within the limited resources available with them. One of the two women journalists almost fainted. The rickety bus arrived only two hours later. Initially, it appeared a lack of coordination. However, the delay was part of some design as the journalists were not to be taken around the entire shrine complex, as we came to know later. The bus headed for the command headquarters. We entered the operations room where a large map of the ‘battlefield’ that was Darbar Sahib Complex was displayed on the wall. After briefing by the commander of the operation Major General Kuldip Singh Brar, the press party proceeded towards the war zone. From the main entrance towards the Ghanta Ghar (Clock Tower demolished years ago) side, the shrine complex which had been subjected to very heavy firing reminded of the ravages of World War II. The big clock above this entrance had stopped ticking, somewhere around the time the action had begun early in the morning on June 4. And there it hung, frozen in time. Inside, the stink of the fetid human flesh was palpable. The silence was deafening. On the historic, intricately carved silver doors of the Darshani Deodi leading to the sanctum sanctorum, a notice had been pasted: UNDER ARMY OCCUPATION, rightly proclaimed in capital letters. The Army authorities went an extra mile to explain how the damage to the central shrine had been averted. But what about the irreparable damage inflicted upon the collective Sikh psyche? It was not for the first time that the complex had been attacked. It had been ruined earlier also. The Sikhs haven’t yet forgotten the invasion by Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali, who wrecked Punjab during his eighth incursion on India in 1762. He had blown up this centre of inspiration for Sikhs with explosives and had filled the Sarovar, the holy tank around the shrine, with earth and animal bones. But, those were foreign invaders from the Central Asian region. Here, the forces of occupation were our very own people. Haversacks of the soldiers lay piled up in the two staircases leading to the first floor of Darbar Sahib. The historic Bir of Guru Granth Sahib (Holy Scriptures bestowed upon the high status of the Guru) on the first floor was partially covered in a white bloodstained sheet. Putting the Bir in order was a traumatic experience, which continued to haunt me for many years despite my Leftist background. In the war zone, the only order was disorder. This was a place where even a person in uniform would not be allowed inside with belt on. The House of God recognizes no worldly power. But then the shrine had already been desecrated by the gun-wielding militants, who had taken control of it much before the June action. The situation had deteriorated to such an extent that young women preferred to stay away from Darbar Sahib. This author is witness to a situation when in January, 1984, a young married woman who had gone to pay obeisance from Chandigarh was aghast at what was happening there, bowed her head from outside and came back. It was perhaps for the first time in history that the shrine had become the centre of the armed Sikh struggle for an independent state. This had, however, not been proclaimed as the aim of the confrontation with the Indian state till then. Even the location of Akal Takht2 just opposite Darbar Sahib would never justify such fortification of the shrine by the militants. The complex has a fortress known as Bunga Ramgarhia overlooking Darbar Sahib but it had been built for its protection. The Shiromani Akali Dal had been launching all its peaceful agitations after offering prayers at Akal Takht. However, converting it into the centre of Sikh armed struggle never stood justified. At the same time, all these actions of the militants too can never provide legitimacy to Operation Bluestar. While coming out of the sanctum sanctorum, a senior officer pointed at the exact place where Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale3 had been shot dead. This differed from the briefing by higher authorities in the operations room earlier. Predictably, as he realized the mistake, he quickly ‘corrected’ it. Contrary to the then official claim that the body of Sant Bhindranwale was recovered from the basement of the Akal Takht along with that of his associates Major General Shabeg Singh (retd.) and All India Sikh Students Federation President Amrik Singh, he was shot in front of Jhanda Bunga4 as he came out from the basement. The ashes of Sant Bhindranwale, Amrik Singh and Major General Shabeg Singh were immersed along with 200 other persons at Kiratpur Sahib on June 145. Heaps of stinking unidentified bodies were loaded onto the municipal corporation’s garbage trucks and carried to the cremation ground near Gurdwara Shaheedan. For years, the myth of Sant Bhindranwale having escaped was perpetuated both by the Damdami Taksal and indirectly by the government agencies, though for different reasons. Sant Bhindranwale was denied martyrdom by the very organisation he headed and was formally accorded the exalted status by the Damdami Taksal years later on May 28, 2005. This, despite the fact that the bodies of the trio had been identified by Deputy Superintendent of Police (City) Apar Singh Bajwa, the eye witness from Punjab Police, and Subedar Harcharan Singh, brother of Sant Bhindranwale. Their bodies were consigned to flames as per the Sikh rites in the presence of Amritsar Deputy Commissioner Ramesh Inder Singh. It was Baba Joginder Singh, father of Sant Bhindranwale, who had pleaded the then Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee President Gurcharan Singh Tohra not to use the expression martyr for him. He held that Sant Bhindrawale had not been killed during the Army action, but had escaped. However, he had already been accorded this status as per the Sikh tradition, indirectly in a joint statement by Akali leaders Parkash Singh Badal and Surjit Singh Barnala, both of whom were moderates. Most of the bodies – of men, women and children — were cremated without identifying them. It was years later that Dal Khalsa came out with a list of militants, majority of them from the Damdami Taksal, who died during the action. The youngest to have been shot in the Army action was the two-week-old son of Rachhpal Singh, the soft-spoken personal assistant to Bhindranwale. He died in the lap of his mother who survived the bullet injury. Many of those killed were devotees and Akali Dal workers who were camping to court arrest as part of the agitation launched by the party. The SGPC also has an incomplete list, based upon the applications it received from the families seeking compensation for the next of kin who died in the Army action, mostly the Akali workers. “A large majority of those who died inside the Golden Temple during Operation Bluestar were common devotees who had come to the shrine on June 3 on the occasion of the fifth Sikh Guru Arjan Dev’s Martyrdom Day. Apart from Bhindranwale’s armed followers, I counted a little over 800 dead bodies inside the temple complex,” DSP Apar Singh Bajwa told BBC News in an interview on June 3, 2004. Akal Takht6, which over the years had come to acquire the distinction of being the unique supreme Sikh institution for prayer and politics, was still smoldering. During the Army attack, Sant Bhindranwale and most of his men had holed up in the heavily fortified basement of this building, which had been subjected to intense tank firing. As the team of journalists reached Akal Takht, Abinashi Singh, personal assistant to Tohra, and Akal Takht Jathedar GianiKirpal Singh, were seen trying to salvage whatever they could from the debris. The stink in the Akal Takht area was nauseating; it appeared as if some bodies were still buried in there. Abinashi Singh greeted us with an uneasy grin amid that shocking and horrific atmosphere and the face of Giani Kirpal Singh looked glum. Though Operation Bluestar was pre-meditated and planned months in advance, the calculations had gone awry in the face of stiff and unanticipated resistance put up by the militants. The militants’ dedication and conviction to the cause and their fighting spirit was conceded even by Lt. General K. Sundarji, General Officer Commanding, Western Command, at the first press conference held at Chandigarh on the operation. Entry was still forbidden into the serai7 area. Escorting Army officers prevented journalists from going there and the media convoy was taken back to Raja Sansi. The water tank in the serai area with gaping holes caused by artillery firing and the two watch towers of the fortress Bunga Ramgarhia spoke of the gravity of the battle that had been fought here. It was later known that armed tanks had been taken inside the complex to attack the Akal Takht, the last point of resistance. The complex stood mute witness to the three-day battle. Every inch of every wall, except the sanctum sanctorum, bore bullet marks. The Akal Takht lay in ruins. It was perhaps for the first time after it was rebuilt (after its destruction in 1762) that the doors of Darbar Sahib had been closed to devotees for such a long time. And this is the shrine that symbolizes openness of this faith, a faith devoted to Sarbat Da Bhala8. The holy city of Amritsar where no one sleeps hungry had been developed around the shrine. The operation ended with the death of Sant Bhindranwale, Amrik Singh, Major General Shabeg Singh and hundreds of others, and arrest of the Shiromani Akali Dal chief and Dharamyudh Morcha (the political agitation launched by the Akali Dal) dictator (The leader commanding the agitation is known as morcha dictator) Harchand Singh Longowal and Tohra, besides others. Expectedly, the attack triggered revolt in the Army and the Sikh soldiers in many cantonments deserted their barracks. Several of these were killed in encounters with the security forces while heading towards Amritsar. The Army also targeted 42 other Gurdwaras across the state as part of this operation. These attacks raised questions at the intention of the government as these shrines were not being used by the militants to take shelter. Tanks had also entered the historic Gurdwara Dukhniwaran at Patiala. Lieutenant General Sundarji, at his press conference in Chandigarh on June 6 evening as reported in The Indian Express the next day, had said, “We went in with prayers on our lips and humility and reverence in our hearts”. Operation Bluestar, the code name for perhaps the biggest ever Army action of its kind in post-independence India, was carried out by imposing three days of curfew across Punjab and Chandigarh, during which even the movement of bullock carts was banned on rural dirt tracks. Punjab, which had been turned into garrison, was cut-off from rest of the world. Entire Punjab had come to a standstill to thwart the movement of protestors marching towards the holy shrine to resist the action. Several of them were killed at different places in the open fire by the security personnel. But the news wasn’t going out; everything was censored in the media. The Sikh protesters were not even spared in Delhi and Srinagar. Tohra’s last meeting with Sant Bhindranwale took place in the Darbar Sahib complex in the presence of General Shabeg Singh late in the night on June 3 after the imposition of curfew in the state. Sant Bhindranwale offered Tohra a safe passage to escape from the complex and leave the country to organise the Sikh struggle from abroad. Tohra, in turn, said that Sant Bhindranwale should himself take this responsibility as he was best suited for the job. Tohra held that his fate would be no different from that of Dr Jagjit Singh Chohan, the rootless Khalistani leader who had returned to England before the launch of the Akali agitation. Tohra had disclosed this years later to me. He had even offered that if need be, in accordance with the Sikh traditions, he could get a directive issued to him from the Panj Piaras9 on the spot to leave the shrine and go abroad. He cited the example of Panj Piaras directing Guru Gobind Singh to quit the fortress at Chamkaur Sahib after it was surrounded by the Mughal forces. Sant Bhindranwale told Tohra that he would have to repent later. The meeting ended on that note. There was no communication between the two after that. Tohra left for Teja Singh Samundari Hall, which houses the offices of the SGPC, while Sant Bhindranwale went back to Akal Takht. As some close associates of Sant Bhindranwale say, he somehow believed that Pakistan will come to their rescue once the Army attacks Darbar Sahib. However, he never shared with them the basis of this belief. As the events unfolded, this hope turned out to be baseless. Later Tohra also confirmed this in a recorded interview. There might have been some basis of this hope of support from across the border. This also indicates the level of involvement of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, which was working in league with the Central Intelligence Agency, especially after the intervention of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. But then, how come Indira Gandhi played that destructive politics in this region, which also suited the design of these powers, despite having been alerted by the KGB? ------------------------------------