Operation Blue Star left Punjab deeply scarred
TWO generations have attained adulthood since Operation Blue Star was clumsily executed 40 years ago — in operational haste and amidst gross underestimation of Sikh militant firepower and crafty fortifications inside the Golden Temple. This eventually compelled the deployment of Vijayanta tanks to end the ferocious fighting, in which hundreds died.
The operation’s security, political and even foreign policy ramifications remain possibly the most wanton of all such internal security actions conducted in post-Independence India and ones that continue to resonate in some mutated form even today. Its most recent manifestation is India’s diplomatic scrimmage with Canada over the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in that country, allegedly at New Delhi’s behest, alongside the intended analogous ‘hit’ on another such extremist in the US.
Blue Star’s immediate fallout was within the Army itself — a mutiny by hundreds of Sikh soldiers from units in Sriganganagar (Rajasthan) and the Sikh Regimental Centre at Ramgarh (now in Jharkhand). These well-armed and duly accoutred mutineers set course for Amritsar in commandeered vehicles to ‘rescue’ the Golden Temple from the Army’s ‘heretical’ attack. Expectedly, their progress was halted by other Army units following extended firefights on highways leading north, in which scores of soldiers died and over 2,600 mutineers were arrested, many of whom were later court-martialled.
However, Blue Star’s history-altering repercussion was the revenge killing of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. This, in turn, triggered the grisly pogrom that lasted three days; officially, 2,733 Sikhs were slaughtered in Delhi alone, though human rights organisations claim over 4,000 had died. Hundreds of others were similarly killed in cities like Kanpur and Bokaro.
The mid-air bombing of Kanishka Air India Flight 182 in June 1985, which killed all 329 people on board, was in retaliation for Blue Star. A year later, retired Gen Arun Vaidya, the Army Chief at the time of the operation, was shot dead by two Sikhs in Pune.
Furthermore, Blue Star stoked a surge in Sikh militancy across Punjab, with hundreds of youngsters, radicalised by the assault on the Golden Temple and the anti-Sikh pogrom, joining the armed uprising against the Indian state in support of their demand for Khalistan. These armed cadres also emerged as misguided arbiters of Sikhism, openly dictating Punjab’s social, linguistic and moral mores. Undermining state authority, in an egregious reversal of roles never witnessed earlier or since in India, militant kangaroo courts dispensed justice in Punjab’s villages and small towns. Summary executions were carried out even in cases of infidelity, dowry, cattle rustling and misappropriation of canal water.
Anarchy gripped Punjab for years after Blue Star, paralysing people’s daily existence. There were horrific massacres of train and bus passengers by militants. Matters deteriorated even further after the Sikh insurgency was seized upon and strategically furthered by Pakistan’s military, adding a worrisome external dimension to a volatile domestic situation. This was eventually stamped out ruthlessly in 1993-94 through concerted counter-insurgency (COIN) operations launched by the Punjab Police and paramilitary forces with the Army’s backing.
Blue Star was a watershed for the Army, which lost 83 officers and jawans in over five days of brutal, close-quarter fighting in scalding temperatures, exacerbated by the temple’s heat-radiating white marble flooring and edifice. And though the Army did achieve its immediate objective of securing the temple premises after eliminating the insurgents’ leaders, including Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the intensity of professional resistance it faced forced it to employ armoured personal carriers and tanks in order to prevail.
Thereafter, for years, Blue Star prompted an internal re-evaluation of the Army’s urban warfare strategy and tactics — an entirely new concept at the time — and underscored the importance of minimising collateral damage in COIN operations. It also highlighted the imperative for better intelligence-gathering, as in planning Blue Star, the Army, assorted security agencies and associated police and paramilitary organisations had all grossly under-assessed the levels of resistance inside the temple. The crafty and professional battlements and varied militant weaponry, like rocket-propelled grenade launchers with armour-piercing capability, and assorted sophisticated small arms and explosives, had also been lowballed.
Blue Star also prompted a relook at inter-services coordination and the induction of specialised equipment and personnel training to undertake urban combat operations, besides the necessity for psychological support mechanisms for soldiers, particularly for those from minority communities, like Sikhs. Consequences such as the soldiers’ mutiny necessitated a thorough reassessment of implementing institutional reforms, with a renewed focus on maintaining the Army’s apolitical and inclusive identity.
However, at that time, the Army’s top brass had seriously contemplated diluting ‘distinctive’ one-class/caste regiments — especially the Sikhs — by replacing them with the jumbled All-India-All-Class (AIAC) structure. But after extended deliberations and internal consultations, it abandoned this proposal over operational considerations. But four decades later, and much to the chagrin of veterans, the AIAC concept has gained credence under the Agnipath scheme of recruiting personnel below officer rank into the armed forces for a four-year tour of duty.
In conclusion, Blue Star remains a brutal testament to the complex interplay of religion, politics and violence in contemporary India. In the broader perspective, it highlights the challenges of administering a diverse and pluralistic society where cultural and religious identities, intermingled with regional aspirations, play a critical role in determining the overall political dynamics. The operation and its aftermath also emphasise the essentiality of dialogue, understanding and magnanimity on both sides of the divide in addressing the grievances and aspirations of diverse communities, lest things got out of hand.
