Ac­tivist-writer Ajmer Singh an­swers many ques­tions ag­i­tat­ing the Sikhs and raises sev­eral more for Sikhs and oth­ers to an­swer in his third book of what is trans­form­ing into an an­thol­ogy of con­tem­po­rary his­tory of Pun­jab. His book, 1984-Unimag­ined Cat­a­stro­phe, in Pun­jabi ex­plores the gen­e­sis of the Indo-Sikh con­flict and of­fers a deep in­sight into the Hindu mind and the Sikh re­sponse dur­ing the tur­bu­lent times of the eight­ies and nineties of the last cen­tury. 

Why did 1984 hap­pen? What is the gen­e­sis of the Indo-Sikh con­flict? How is the In­dian state a pro­tec­tor and pro­moter of Hindu na­tion­al­ism? What is the eth­nic char­ac­ter of the In­dian state? Is the In­dian es­tab­lish­ment neu­tral? What is the sta­tus of Dar­bar Sahib, also known as Golden Tem­ple in the minds of the av­er­age Sikh? What is the theo-po­lit­i­cal sta­tus of Dar­bar Sahib? Why Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale chose Dar­bar Sahib Com­plex as the fight­ing ground? Or did he chose? Why are Sikhs to­day un­will­ing to ac­cept the mar­tyr­dom of mar­tyrs of 1984 with the same spirit as they ac­cept the mar­tyr­dom of Baba Deep Singh and his com­pa­tri­ots?

In his new book, 1984-Un­chit­vaya Ke­har, the po­lit­i­cal the­o­rist and ac­tivist in the per­sona of Ajmer Singh analy­ses the en­tire gamut of Sikh-Hindu re­la­tions, pre and post 1984 and of­fers an in­sight into the labyrinthine lanes of con­tem­po­rary po­lit­i­cal his­tory of Pun­jab. 

Ajmer Singh has re­cently donned the man­tle of an au­thor, though he did con­tribute ex­ten­sively through mono­graphs and news­pa­per ar­ti­cles in the do­main of so­cial equal­ity and hu­man rights. With­out minc­ing words, with­out be­ing apolo­getic and with­out let­ting the ar­gu­ment go off-tan­gent, Ajmer Singh of­fers in this 12 chap­ter book, in-depth analy­sis, ev­i­dence and ex­po­si­tion of the eter­nal con­flict that con­fronts the Sikh na­tion, which de­spite los­ing thou­sands of its chil­dren to the pyre of rev­o­lu­tion is still strug­gling to come to terms with the nu­ances of the strug­gle and seems un­de­cided about the res­o­lu­tion of the po­lit­i­cal con­flict and the des­tiny of its peo­ples.  

“Why did 1984 hap­pen? What is the gen­e­sis of the Indo-Sikh con­flict? How is the In­dian state a pro­tec­tor and pro­moter of Hindu na­tion­al­ism? What is the eth­nic char­ac­ter of the In­dian state? Is the In­dian es­tab­lish­ment neu­tral? What is the sta­tus of Dar­bar Sahib, also known as Golden Tem­ple in the minds of the av­er­age Sikh? What is the theo-po­lit­i­cal sta­tus of Dar­bar Sahib? Why Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale chose Dar­bar Sahib Com­plex as the fight­ing ground? Or did he chose? Why are Sikhs to­day un­will­ing to ac­cept the mar­tyr­dom of mar­tyrs of 1984 with the same spirit as they ac­cept the mar­tyr­dom of Baba Deep Singh and his com­pa­tri­ots?”

The 432 page book, well-pro­duced by the Am­rit­sar-based pub­lish­ers Singh Broth­ers, with an at­trac­tive and rel­e­vant ti­tle is es­sen­tially 1984 –past, pre­sent and fu­ture.  Likely to up­set many and en­rage oth­ers, the book does plain speak­ing about the role of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia, the Akali lead­ers and those Sikhs who were en­trenched in high po­si­tions in the gov­ern­ment, but who not only failed to un­der­stand the pain of the Sikh peo­ple, but in fact col­luded and con­spired with the per­pe­tra­tors who were fully pre­pared, armed and clear about “teach­ing Sikhs a les­son” –not in the com­monly per­ceived sense of tem­po­rary po­lit­i­cal ret­ri­bu­tion for an ad­verse po­lit­i­cal act or set of acts, but to brow­beat and sub­ju­gate them so that they do not raise the “ugly head” of “unique iden­tity”, op­po­si­tion, re­volt and re­bel­lion.  

Ac­cord­ing to the au­thor the ra­tio­nale for the book lies in the words of scholar Howard Zinn, who says that, “When you take in­ter­est in the past, it ceases to re­main the past and be­comes the pre­sent, there­fore to un­der­stand the pre­sent, go cen­turies be­hind or in the fu­ture, do not bother as it is re­quired to un­cover the di­men­sions of the whole prob­lem in ques­tion….” This is pre­cisely what Ajmer Singh has done. He has trav­eled deep into his­tory, trac­ing the unique sta­tus of Dar­bar Sahib and the tra­di­tion of mar­tyr­dom amongst the Sikhs.  

In the early chap­ters, Ajmer Singh com­pre­hen­sively dwells on why Dar­bar Sahib fas­ci­nates every Sikh –be­liever, ag­nos­tic and the un­de­cided. He un­cov­ers layer af­ter layer of Sikh his­tory of the me­dieval times which though was a pe­riod of re­pres­sion for the Sikhs, but is fondly re­called as the Golden pe­riod of Sikh his­tory.  He of­fers ex­am­ple af­ter ex­am­ple as to how Sikhs at the time of Di­wali and Baisakhi, un­mind­ful of death that stalked them at every step, reached the sa­cred holy tank sur­round­ing the sanc­tum sanc­to­rum of Dar­bar Sahib, re­ju­ve­nat­ing their com­mit­ment to Sikhism and if need be, to at­tain mar­tyr­dom to de­fend their faith. 

In his char­ac­ter­is­tic pithy, vi­sion­ary, log­i­cal and di­rect ap­proach, Ajmer Singh has raised the bar of po­lit­i­cal de­bate on what is com­monly con­strued as the Pun­jab prob­lem, en­abling the read­ers and ac­tivists to be crit­i­cally aware than to take things for granted.  Whether it is deal­ing with the char­ac­ter of  Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale or the role of  BJP leader Atal Bi­hari Va­j­payee, the au­thor does not re­sort to com­part­men­tal­is­ing his thoughts in a par­tic­u­lar mould and id­iom. His stance through­out the book is un­com­pro­mis­ing.  

Apart from a few Eng­lish his­to­ri­ans, not many have had the courage to men­tion that it was only the Sikhs who did not re­lent any­time in his­tory when their holi­est of holies -Dar­bar Sahib was at­tacked. Ajmer Singh cat­e­gor­i­cally men­tions in the book that it is the unique theo-po­lit­i­cal sta­tus of Dar­bar Sahib, which the Hindu mind has failed to com­pre­hen­sively com­pre­hend which lies at the root of the prob­lem. He fur­ther goes on to say that per­haps the Hindu can­not de­ci­pher the prob­lem, and that “you have to be born Sikh to un­der­stand the Sikh psy­che in so far as it re­lates to Dar­bar Sahib” It is fail­ure to un­der­stand this and its en­tire ram­i­fi­ca­tions which led Mrs. In­dira Gandhi to storm the Golden Tem­ple with the might of the In­dian army, navy and air force says the au­thor.  

An­other ques­tion which has baf­fled the Hindu mind and the West­ern scholar alike is the Sikh tra­di­tion of mar­tyr­dom. To sim­plify, Ajmer Singh says that “a Sikh is not nec­es­sar­ily al­ways ready to die un­der all cir­cum­stances and at the call of any­one and every­one.” How­ever, when any is­sue, prob­lem or in­ci­dent or event re­lates with the Gu­rus, Guru Granth Sahib, Gur­bani, his­tory of the Gu­rus, then there is no look­ing back for the Sikh. In view of his unique re­la­tion­ship with the Guru, a Sikh is ready to sac­ri­fice self and fam­ily at the al­tar of faith.  This ex­plains the swelling of num­bers when Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale ex­horted the Sikh youth to up­hold the ban­ner of re­li­gion with­out fear. This is why hun­dreds chose to die with him in the Dar­bar Sahib com­plex and thou­sands con­tin­ued to die post-Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar, un­mind­ful of the strength and reach of the In­dian state.  Any­one try­ing to seek only a worldly ex­pla­na­tion in terms of un­em­ploy­ment, po­lit­i­cal strife and pe­cu­niary gains is more than likely to miss the point. The au­thor quotes civil lib­er­ties ac­tivist, Harji Ma­lik who said that “the Hindu has not been able to un­der­stand what the gen­e­sis of the con­flict is.” 

Was the code-named Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar a war of re­venge by In­dira Gandhi on the ba­sis of anger against Sikhs for their role in the emer­gency?  In a mi­cro sense it was per­sonal but in the per­spec­tive of the sit­u­a­tion, it was a sum-to­tal of sys­temic cri­sis of the In­dian state, the cri­sis of the In­dian state and the crises of In­di­ra’s le­git­i­macy and po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship…..it was the per­cep­tion of the rulers of the time that the at­tack on Dar­bar Sahib is part of the mis­sion to cre­ate a mono­lithic In­dian state. 

“In his char­ac­ter­is­tic pithy, vi­sion­ary, log­i­cal and di­rect ap­proach, Ajmer Singh has raised the bar of po­lit­i­cal de­bate on what is com­monly con­strued as the Pun­jab prob­lem, en­abling the read­ers and ac­tivists to be crit­i­cally aware than to take things for granted.”

Af­ter 1947, the tar­get was the build­ing of a sin­gle In­dian na­tion, where on the face of it, there is di­ver­sity but in ac­tu­al­ity it was a con­tin­u­ing trend of as­sim­i­la­tion. The ac­tiv­i­ties of the po­lit­i­cal party Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal and the re­li­gious prop­a­ga­tion of Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale re­sult­ing in the re­vival­ism of the Khalsa spirit was con­strued as a threat to the above stated mis­sion and the events of 1984 were launched only and pre­cisely to re­but this chal­lenge. 

Enu­mer­at­ing event af­ter event of the pe­riod which has been de­scribed as “loaded with his­tory”, Ajmer Singh says that all spheres of In­dian so­ci­ety -the me­dia, all po­lit­i­cal par­ties with­out ex­cep­tion, the man on the streets of cities, the peo­ple in the hin­ter­lands of In­dia and all com­po­nents of the state…ju­di­ciary, armed forces, bu­reau­cracy ral­lied be­hind the In­dian state with full force and in uni­son. To con­tinue to get sup­port of all sec­tions, the bo­gey of “a for­eign hand” was ex­ten­sively used. This as­pect has been ex­ten­sively dealt in the book with ex­am­ples, facts and ci­ta­tions.  

How did the ju­di­ciary col­lude? There are many ex­am­ples, but let us take just one of them. Salwa Judum, the vig­i­lante of the Chat­tis­garh gov­ern­ment has been de­clared il­le­gal by the re­spec­tive High Court but in the case of Pun­jab, even though then po­lice chief KPS Gill had openly de­clared that they had vig­i­lante groups to act ex­tra­ju­di­cially, the ju­di­ciary was a mute spec­ta­tor…..silently al­low­ing things to hap­pen and even de­liv­er­ing a sus­pended sen­tence to the po­lice chief who was con­victed of moral turpi­tude.  

In the mid­dle of the book, the au­thor ques­tions the com­pe­tency of the Akali lead­er­ship and the sin­cer­ity of the Sikh in­tel­li­gentsia to meet the on­slaught of the state. While the nin­com­poop at­ti­tude of Akali lead­er­ship has been stressed in great de­tail, the au­thor is par­tic­u­larly dis­turbed by the si­lence, lack of in­ter­est and ab­ject fail­ure of the so called Sikh in­tel­li­gentsia and in­tel­lec­tu­als to com­pre­hend the di­men­sions of the prob­lem and of­fer so­lace and so­lu­tions. He at­trib­utes the lack of clar­ity, con­fu­sion and neg­a­tiv­ity of the Sikh re­sponse to this la­cuna and rues the fact that the ap­a­thy still con­tin­ues. 

Un­for­giv­ingly, the au­thor, who through­out his years of po­lit­i­cal ac­tivism was able to un­der­stand the na­ture of this sec­tion of Pun­jab so­ci­ety from close quar­ters, pro­vides a thor­ough analy­sis of why the Sikh in­tel­li­gentsia failed, what were their pri­or­i­ties and how they con­tin­ued to be swayed with the wind of In­dian na­tion­al­ism over­rid­ing peo­ples’ ba­sic and fun­da­men­tal rights and dis­tinct re­li­gious iden­tity. So, ac­cord­ing to the au­thor, it was un­der­stand­able that un­der such cir­cum­stances, the Sikh re­sponse was spon­ta­neous, emo­tional, purely con­fronta­tion­ist and at times, di­rec­tion­less.  

The cat­a­strophic times con­tin­ued for the Sikhs till No­vem­ber 1984 and be­yond. Ajmer Singh says that No­vem­ber 1984 was not the cul­mi­na­tion of events started in June 1984; it was part of a con­tin­uum. He says in the book, “This has been stud­ied in re­la­tion­ship to the holo­caust of the Jews …this in­ci­dent was not an aber­ra­tion….it is the ten­dency of the Hindu to dwarf, un­der­mine and di­lute the dis­tinct iden­tity of the Sikhs, so when you as­sert that, he re­acts.”  Vis-à-vis the Sikhs, his goal is as­sim­i­la­tion and he re­acts vi­o­lently….it started from the re­jec­tion of ja­neu by Guru Nanak at the age of 9….the Hin­du’s ob­jec­tive is as­sim­i­la­tion, so we need to un­der­stand the Hindu mind….his strate­gies….we have to neu­tralise his meth­ods of per­sua­sion, pres­sure and per­se­cu­tion. 

No­vem­ber 1984 should be viewed in this per­spec­tive…it was not an aber­ra­tion, but a pre­med­i­tated plan, ex­e­cuted with fi­nesse, with full sup­port and co­or­di­na­tion of all sec­tions of Hindu so­ci­ety. 

The book also deals with how the De­cem­ber 1984 elec­tions were un­prece­dented ….how the en­tire elec­toral cam­paign was fo­cused on the Sikhs, even in ar­eas where Sikhs were in in­signif­i­cant num­bers and how the ver­dict was an en­dorse­ment of the pogrom against the Sikhs in Delhi and eighty other places which had hap­pened barely four weeks ago. 

“What­ever hap­pened to the Sikhs in 1984 was un­be­liev­able, unimag­in­able, un­for­get­table and un­for­giv­able. -Ajmer Singh”

The vol­ume con­cludes with the Hola Mo­halla in March 1985 at Anand­pur Sahib where a sea of hu­man­ity from all parts of Pun­jab de­scended in an un­prece­dented man­ner to raise the ban­ner of de­fi­ance against the In­dian state. Kesri tur­bans and du­pat­tas dot­ted every inch of the White city of Anand­pur Sahib up­hold­ing the true spirit of the Khalsa to fight back in the event of an on­slaught. 

The au­thor has ac­claimed the role played by Ragis and Dhadis of the Sikhs, who in this pe­riod of acute and ex­treme cri­sis and fear, vir­tu­ally took to the streets and bol­stered the morale of the com­mu­nity through ref­er­ences to Gur­bani and Sikh his­tory.  Their con­tri­bu­tion, ac­cord­ing to the au­thor has not been ad­e­quately ac­knowl­edged. 

Sum­ming up all as­pects of the cat­a­stro­phe that struck the Sikhs, Ajmer Singh says that “what­ever hap­pened was un­be­liev­able, unimag­in­able, un­for­get­table and un­for­giv­able.”