Indian Haste: Operation Blue Star

By Zaheerul Hassan

Much have been written on the topics “Massacre against Sikhs” or in government terms “Operation Blue Star”, or “Ghallughara" but constant factor   of the operation remains the same i.e. “Crushing ruthlessly Sikhs at Golden Temple”. In this regard government plea was, entering and elimination Sikhs freedom fighters were unavoidable due to their presence   inside of the most holy place of the Sikhs.  During this operation over 20000 Sikhs have been killed and thousands suffered bullet injuries inside the temple and its surrounding areas. The battle lasted nearly 56 to 60 hours from 4 a.m. on June 4 to about 4 p.m. on June 6. The firing was almost incessant and continuous till consolidation of operation.

 Although, global community condemned armed forces inhuman action but the Indian government has shamelessly  alleged that  the operation was inevitable, since Sikhs headed by Bhai Amrik Singh, President of the A.I.S.S.F. and Bhindranwale's were going to announce Sikh state “Khalistan”

 Anyhow, any angle of the killing of innocent Sikhs cannot be justified and would be termed as unique type of State Terrorism which has been carried out by so called democratic government against legal citizens. Indian state action against Sikh community should also probe in the light of  the “characteristics of terrorism” which have been tabulated  by a renowned scholar, Dr. Amy Zalman, PhD in his famous article, “State Terrorism -- A Definition of State Terrorism”.

 According to Zalman, “state terrorism” can be viewed under the characteristics: (1) the threat or use of violence; (2) a political objective; the desire to change the status quo; (3) the intention to spread fear by committing spectacular public acts; (4) the intentional targeting of civilians.  Thus, last characteristics i.e. “targeting innocent civilians” stands out in efforts to distinguish state terrorism from other forms of state violence and Operation Blue Stat does fall characteristic of state terrorism.

Notably, history is full of examples where state machineries under the  direction of their masters  having  explicit  ideology tried to enforce their thoughts, failing which   played havoc with the lives of the masses. Zalmn in his article also mentioned an example when shortly after the overthrow of the French monarch in 1793, a revolutionary dictatorship decided to root out anyone who might oppose or undermine the revolution. In this process, tens of thousands of civilians were killed by guillotine for a variety of crimes. Now, just evaluate Sikh genocide, where initially Hindu intruders’ pitched Muslims against Sikhs at the time of partition and afterwards launched state sponsored operations against Sikhs in Golden temple and against Muslims of Gujrat.

Thousands of innocent people of Sikh and Muslim communities   have been murdered all over India since 1947. Thus, covert Indian design amidst was on elimination of minorities to convert India into pure Hindu State.

 Nevertheless, the casualties of 20,000 of Sikhs in operation Blue Star are much more in numbers than much state sponsored terrorism against single community. For example, according to Attenborough's film Gandhi and features in Salman Rushdie's epic book, in 1919 General Reginald Dyer, slaughtered at closer to 1,000 people in Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Likewise, Indian Casualties in 1962 Sino-Indian War were 1,383 Killed, and in Indo-Pak Wars were 3000 plus 6,843 killed and 9,851 wounded. Principally, speaking in the said episodes casualties were from the different segments of the societies in which people either scarified their lives for the India or slaughtered by the foreign rulers. 

Again, Israeli carried out state terrorism against Gazans, the Marines' massacre of civilians at Haditha in Iraq, the American military's deliberate bombing of civilian targets in Vietnam, the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (neither of which had military value), the British and American razing of European cities in World War II - they all fit in  the classic definition of terrorism. But killing of own people by Indian Sikhs in Golden Temple is unique type of state terrorism. The world scholars, investigators and researchers still failed to understand the real causes of hurriedly launching of Operation against the Sikhs by the Congress government of India.

It would not be wrong in saying that fact Sikh Prime Minister Manmohan Singh still failed to provide justice to Sikh community despite passing 29 years. Now, Sikhs has   started demanding an Independent state “Khalistan” .

The writer can be approached through zameer36@gmail.com