it was around 9 am on May 25 and Akal Takht was already overcrowded. All India Sikh Students Federation President Amrik Singh was holding his court, settling disputes of the people in a corner on the upper floor. At this time he had also come to slip into Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s role in some respects, especially in making interventions in dispute management. Sant Bhindranwale had been making such interventions for the last few months and providing quick justice to people. It was the shortest cut, bypassing the long and tedious judicial process. People would come to him even with land disputes. Sant Bhindranwale was sleeping, his room locked from inside. He had woken up very early and was now taking a nap in the hot and sultry morning. His associates from the Damdami Taksal were oiling their guns in the adjoining room. Amrik Singh, donning the role of Sant Bhindranwale in resolving disputes of the people, was not to the liking of many as it was being interpreted as over ambitiousness. This was conveyed to me by Rachhpal Singh, the soft-spoken personal assistant of Sant Bhindranwale who tried to impress upon me to talk to the Sant about it. After waiting for about an hour, I decided to leave. I had gone to Amritsar to cover the Akali developments and the assignment was over. However, Rachhpal persuaded me to wait for some more time as Sant Bhindranwale would be annoyed with them in case I left without meeting him. He opened the door after some time to go to the toilet, people waiting there rushed into his room. He returned to his room and on spotting me in one corner, signaled me to wait. After about half an hour, only Amrik Singh was left with him. I told Sant Bhindranwale that I wanted some time with him alone. Amrik Singh left. What followed was about one-hour interaction during which the possibility of Army attack had also come under discussion. I asked him what could the way out be in such a tense build up. He answered, straight and simple, “Let the government enter into an honourable solution with the Akali Dal on the demands. All those in jail including those relating to the militant activity should be given general amnesty. I will return to my headquarters at Mehta Chowk.” The air was filled with apprehension but Sant Bhindranwale was calm. For a moment, I could not believe what he was saying. However, after Operation Bluestar I came to know that he had made the same proposition to an interlocutor who called on him on May 28 and the conversation was tape recorded. According to highly-placed sources in the Congress, the cassette was taken to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. This was my last interaction with Sant Bhindranwale. While traveling from Chandigarh, I had seen Army convoys moving to Amritsar. Operation Bluestar was on. Operation Bluestar had to be there. The story based upon this interaction was filed after the Army action was spiked. Years after Operation Bluestar, Capt Kanwaljit Singh, one of the saner voices in the Shiromani Akali Dal, looked back and drew conclusion that this extreme confrontation could have been avoided had any of the two sides taken the initiative. Capt. Kanwaljit was one of those who had taken the initiative but he was not considered an important leader then. However, he had visualized the ramifications of the frightening situation. He shared this with me once while discussing the situation prevailing prior to Operation Bluestar. With the situation deteriorating all over, including in the Darbar Sahib complex, he had suggested suspension of the agitation for a few weeks to Harchand Singh Longowal in early April. This could have provided a breather but Longowal was silent to the proposition. He held that in case Indira Gandhi was resorting to deadly politics, the Akali Dal could still have avoided the June action by suspending the agitation. Moreover, the suspension would have made a clear distinction between the Akalis and the militants. The reports about Centre’s decision to invade the Darbar Sahib complex appeared in as early as the last week of February, 1984 giving the militants a lot of time to prepare for the show down with the Indian state. It referred to the Centre’s plans to launch a decisive action to flush out the militants from the holiest of the holy Sikh shrine. According to this report, the PM had an unscheduled meeting with Chandra Shekhar and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Atal Behari Vajpayee. Both these leaders later rushed to consult Communist Party of India General Secretary C. Rajeshwara Rao to know the Left’s reaction to what they had heard from the PM. Later, neither Chandra Shekhar nor Vajpayee, at any stage, hinted that Indira Gandhi had taken them into confidence on Operation Bluestar.1Shekhar was the only senior leader who later strongly reacted against the Army action. The same day, The Telegraph carried a hard hitting editorial under the caption “Cowards of Punjab”, excerpts from which are reproduced here: “There are a handful of men inside, some with sophisticated semi-automatic weapons, who are misusing the sanctity of this holy place to challenge not only the law but also the spirit of the nation. These men, and their leader, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, are cowards of course, who, unable to face either the people or the authorities, are hiding from the law by misusing the respect, which this nation gives to Sikhism and holy institutions of that religion. If these pretenders like Bhindranwale had any courage, or if their spurious passions had any genuine popular support, they would not need such sanctuaries. No leader who has wrought change in his or her country through a popular movement, armed or unarmed, has needed the protection of walls; the crowds have ensured what protection from authority the leader may need. Since Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale does not have the real support of Punjab’s people, he brandishes the guns of a few fanatics so that the country might be impressed with his display of silly bravado. Tragically, this game is being conducted by adolescents who do not know the price of life or the meaning of anything larger than their pathetic need for self-promotion. And so the extremists, each day, shame their own glorious Sikh martial traditions by behaving like bullies and thugs, killing an innocent here and an innocent there. What does Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, whose intellect and grasp of national affairs would be laughable were it not so frighteningly simplistic and dangerous, hope to achieve behind the sandbags piled on the roof on which he spends the winter days within the precincts of the Golden Temple? A revolution? Somebody should tell Jarnail Singh, since it is impossible to believe that he will ever realize it himself, that revolutions are not made by hit and run cowards like him. The sadder part of this story is that this leader of cowards is a consequence of degenerate democratic politics, which the state of Punjab has had the misfortune to undergo since the coming of the Congress (I) in 1980. The nation has had to pay a heavy price for this. It is now time that mollycoddling stopped. However, Delhi should be wary of one thing. First it made Jarnail Singh an extremist; it should not now turn him into a martyr. The opposition parties might have a point when they say that since it was the Congress (I), which created the mess in Punjab, the same party should try and untangle it. But that would, in the end, be a purely destructive attitude. The majority of the Akali Dal obviously is eager as anyone else to be rid of extremism of Sant Bhindranwale. It is those parties who still have some credibility with the Akalis who must take the lead in creating the conditions for the return of normalcy. We need violence neither in Punjab nor in Haryana (where incidentally, the government of Bhajan Lal is not without sin either). We all have to work together to prevent an irritation from becoming a cancer. The politics might have been degenerate but the conviction and the commitment of the militants led by Sant Bhindranwale could not be overlooked. The media was being used to build public opinion in favour of the Army action. The role of the media not only in relation to the militant movements in Punjab but in other regions of the country, including the Naxalite movement, is a subject matter of study in itself. They proved to be mavericks, not cowards. Sant Bhindranwale had a military strategist in Major General Shabegh Singh, who had planned the fortification of the complex. However, it was a small yet dedicated group pitted against the might of the Indian state. Provocative posters were brought out by the BJP in Delhi while calling for a bandh against violence in Punjab. The posters showed dead bodies only of the Hindu victims in Punjab and Haryana with a heading saying, “How long will you watch the situation?” The call for bandh coincided with the Akali call to burn Article 25 of the Constitution. On February 27, the call saw response from Akali workers at Chandigarh and some other places in Punjab. The situation was signaling the communal build up outside Punjab. It could be part of the grand design of the rulers to mobilize public opinion in favour of the planned Army action. The BJP was already pressing for decisive action. In the aftermath of the February 14 communal violence, CPI (M) leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet wrote to Longowal in March pleading him to withdraw the agitation. He argued: “The dominant feature of today’s situation is that a growing polarization on communal lines is taking place threatening not only the unity of the Punjabi people but also the values of secularism, patriotism and nationalism created during the struggle for independence through the sacrifices of thousands and thousands of our people.... at this juncture, it was expected of you as a believer in Hindu-Sikh unity to suspend the movement and work for Hindu Sikh unity.... I appeal to you to give up the agitation against Article 25 of the Constitution, to sharply denounce the activities of the Sikh extremists as anti-national and to declare that gurdwaras will not be allowed to be used to harbour criminals. By these bold steps, you will be able to force the unwilling hands of the central government to concede the just demands”. Surjeet further observed, “Your call for observance of Azad Panth Saptah can only add fuel to the fire. The concept of Azad Panth can only provide grist to the mill of Sikh extremists from whom you have been trying to demarcate yourself.... The new slogan of Azad Panth that you have raised now is nothing but a slogan to provide a theoretical basis for Khalistan. Whether you realise it or not, your movement which was against the central government is being converted into anti-Hindu movement. I do not want to minimise the role of Hindu communalists to divide and disrupt the unity of not only the Punjabi people but also in creating a feeling of hatred against the Sikhs in other parts of the country as well”. However, it was the stubborn attitude of the government at the Centre and the apprehension of getting marginalized, which had forced the Akalis to raise the demand. At a time when the countdown had already started for the decisive state action, Sant Bhindranwale reiterated the call for armed struggle. Leaders including Sukhjinder Singh, Harinder Singh Kahlon and Amarjit Singh Chawla at a political conference near Kartarpur in Jalandhar district called upon the Sikh masses to march towards the Darbar Sahib complex in case the security forces raided the shrine. At another conference at Patiala on March 13, the AISSF leaders threatened retaliation against the Hindus in case the security forces attacked the shrine complex. The BJP observed Protest Day by staging dharnas at the district headquarters in Punjab on March 25 against the killing of innocent persons.