The peo­ple of Pun­jab and the Sikhs across the world live through June 1984 every June. It hap­pened 37 years ago but it feels as if it was yes­ter­day – the heart, body and mind still feel the tremors of the emo­tional earth­quake it caused. The force of those tremors is in­ten­si­fied every year when  June 6 ap­proaches. Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar (Saka Neela Tara), a fancy-sound­ing name given to a dread­ful mil­i­tary ac­tion at the Sikhs’ holi­est shrine, the Golden Tem­ple in Am­rit­sar, was launched on 2nd June 1984 with a ‘na­tional broad­cast to the na­tion’ by In­dian Prime Min­is­ter In­dira Gandhi. It was claimed to have been com­pleted suc­cess­fully on 6th June with the end­ing of the last re­sis­tance by Sikh com­bat­ants to the army’s en­try of Dar­bar Sahib.  State me­dia (TV and Ra­dio) and other non-state me­dia out­lets praised the op­er­a­tion for sav­ing In­di­a’s “unity and in­tegrity” from ‘anti-na­tion­al’ Sikh se­ces­sion­ism. Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity scholar Dr Pri­tam Singh records the pain of the Sikh com­mu­nity and main­tains that though decades have passed, the ac­count of the per­sonal tragedies of the Third Ghal­lu­gara is yet to be recorded.

THE MOST RE­LI­ABLE ES­TI­MATES OF THE TO­TAL NUM­BER OF DEATHS dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar range from 5,000 to 7,000. It was a tragedy that could have been avoided if – and it is a big if – In­dira Gandhi had had the vi­sion to reach a po­lit­i­cal set­tle­ment with the mod­er­ate Akali lead­er­ship. Most Akali Dal de­mands – re­gard­ing fed­eral de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion, river wa­ter rights, ter­ri­to­r­ial read­just­ment and the trans­fer of Chandi­garh to Pun­jab as its cap­i­tal – could have been ne­go­ti­ated. Ra­jiv Gandhi did agree to each of these de­mands, and many more be­sides, in the 1985 Ra­jiv-Lon­gowal Ac­cord. He im­ple­mented none.

In­dira Gand­hi’s po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sion to use the ‘Hindu card’ to gain elec­toral vic­to­ries led her to choose a dan­ger­ous path of con­fronta­tion, first with the Akalis and even­tu­ally with the en­tire Sikh com­mu­nity. She paid for this mis­cal­cu­la­tion with her life, but still left the com­mu­ni­ties of Pun­jab and In­dia in gen­eral scarred and po­larised.

This po­lar­i­sa­tion peaked with the geno­ci­dal vi­o­lence against the Sikh mi­nor­ity in Delhi and many other North In­dian Hindu ma­jor­ity towns in No­vem­ber 1984 af­ter the as­sas­si­na­tion of In­dira Gandhi by two of her Sikh se­cu­rity guards. Sikh na­tion­al­ists in Pun­jab were even­tu­ally de­feated, at least mil­i­tar­ily, by the 1990s, but Hindu na­tion­al­ism was pro­moted so pow­er­fully that the Hindu na­tion­al­ists suc­ceeded within a few decades in cap­tur­ing the In­dian state.

In the Sikhs’ col­lec­tive mem­ory of 1984, the deaths by army ac­tion in June and those by geno­ci­dal mob vi­o­lence in No­vem­ber con­sti­tute two ends of the same arc of killings. The two can­not be sep­a­rated and, there­fore, re­main in­deli­bly linked to the mem­ory of Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar, which is seen as the trig­ger both for the killings and for later dis­ap­pear­ances, killings in cus­tody and deaths by ‘en­coun­ters’ dur­ing the mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions against the armed Sikh op­po­si­tion move­ment af­ter the events of 1984.

Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar is grad­u­ally find­ing a place in the Sikh prac­tice of Ar­daas (prayer). This prac­tice is unique in the his­tory of world re­li­gions be­cause it gives col­lec­tive mem­ory a cen­tral place. On all im­por­tant oc­ca­sions – birth, mar­riage, death, new job, pro­mo­tion, pass­ing an ex­am­i­na­tion, new house, Gur­purab cel­e­bra­tions (in ho­n­our of the Gu­rus’ birth­days), or even the daily rit­u­als in a gur­d­wara – the Ar­daas re­counts in cap­sule form the his­tory of the Sikh faith.

The Ar­daas nar­ra­tive starts with the found­ing of the faith by Guru Nanak, its con­tin­u­a­tion by his nine suc­ces­sors and the sac­ri­fices made by the tenth guru Guru Gob­ind Singh’s four sons (Sahibzade), the Five Beloved Ones (Panj Pi­are), the Forty Lib­er­ated Ones (Chali Mukte) and nu­mer­ous other mar­tyrs right up to the pre­sent time. Sikhs have a long mem­ory. Ud­ham Singh waited for 21 years to avenge the Jal­lian­wala Bagh mas­sacre of 1919 by as­sas­si­nat­ing Michael O’D­wyer in 1940. The Nax­alite Sikhs pun­ished a Sikh land­lord Ajaib Singh Kokri, a wit­ness against the rev­o­lu­tion­ary Bha­gat Singh, by as­sas­si­nat­ing him in 1974, 43 years af­ter Bha­gat Singh was hanged in 1931. The so­cial­i­sa­tion from early child­hood of any­one grow­ing up in a Sikh house­hold (ir­re­spec­tive of the po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion of the house­hold) in­volves such a fo­cused ex­er­cise in his­tor­i­cal re­mem­brance that most adult Sikhs re­mem­ber the Ar­daas by heart, whether they are il­lit­er­ate farm­ers or uni­ver­sity aca­d­e­mics. The Ar­daas con­tributes to mak­ing an ac­tive his­tor­i­cal be­ing who re­mem­bers the past, re­lates that past to the pre­sent and imag­ines the shap­ing of the fu­ture.

Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar has come to be re­mem­bered as the Teeja Ghal­lughara (the third holo­caust).  Many gur­d­waras out­side In­dia and per­haps some even in In­dia have in­cor­po­rated the re­mem­brance of the teeja Ghal­lughara in the Ar­daas. In Sikh his­tor­i­cal mem­ory, there have been two Ghal­lugha­ras be­fore Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar – the Chhota Ghal­lughara (the small holo­caust) and the wadda Ghal­lughara (the big holo­caust). The Chhota Ghal­lughara took place in May 1746 when, ac­cord­ing to es­ti­mates made by the cel­e­brated Sikh his­to­rian Prof. Ganda Singh, about 10,000 Sikh men and women were killed. The wadda Ghal­lughara took place in Feb­ru­ary 1762 when about 30,000 Sikh men, women and chil­dren were slaugh­tered. Ac­cord­ing to one as yet un­con­firmed es­ti­mate, about half of the to­tal Sikh pop­u­la­tion was liq­ui­dated dur­ing the wadda Ghal­lughara.

These were the dark­est times in the his­tory of the Sikhs. These mas­sacres could have de­mor­alised them to the point of ex­tinc­tion, but, in­spired by the mem­o­ries of their gu­rus and mar­tyrs, they re­grouped and within a few decades of the Wadda Ghal­lughara, emerged lit­er­ally from the ashes to be­come the de facto rulers of Pun­jab in the last quar­ter of the 18^th Cen­tury. By 1799, one of them (Ran­jit Singh) for­malised that de facto rule to be­come the Ma­haraja of Pun­jab. The force of mem­ory weighed upon him too and he ruled, there­fore, in the name of the gu­rus. Some fea­tures of feu­dal de­gen­er­a­tion that emerged dur­ing his rule re­sulted from his dis­so­ci­a­tion from the mem­ory of the path of the Gu­rus.

Dur­ing the dark times the Sikh com­mu­nity faced from 1716, when the Sikh war­rior Banda Singh Ba­hadur was mar­tyred, to 1799 when Ran­jit Singh came to power, Har­man­dar Sahib (later known more pop­u­larly as the Golden Tem­ple) be­came the nerve cen­tre for the moral, po­lit­i­cal, mil­i­tary, spir­i­tual and even eco­nomic em­pow­er­ment of the com­mu­nity. While liv­ing the life of guer­rilla com­bat­ants against the Moghul pow­ers, the lead­ing mem­bers of the com­mu­nity would meet twice a year on Vaisakhi and Di­wali for de­lib­er­a­tions and col­lec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing for the fu­ture sur­vival of the com­mu­nity. Once in the precincts of the Har­man­dar Sahib, they con­sid­ered them­selves pro­tected by the Guru and had no fear of any earthly pow­ers such as the Moghul rulers they had to con­front. The mys­tique of the Har­man­dar grew and this mys­tique has con­tin­ued and strength­ened over the cen­turies. The Golden Tem­ple has lit­er­ally be­come the heart of the com­mu­nity.

The death, de­struc­tion and sac­ri­lege caused dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar pierced the heart not only of the Sikhs but also of many Pun­jabi Hin­dus. The dev­as­ta­tion it caused in the per­sonal lives of so many mil­lions has still not been fully recorded and ac­knowl­edged be­cause the po­lit­i­cal di­vide over the at­ti­tudes to­wards Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar has over­shad­owed the hu­man sto­ries. The most ad­versely af­fected were the com­mu­ni­ty’s el­ders – both men and women.

The death, de­struc­tion and sac­ri­lege caused dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar pierced the heart not only of the Sikhs but also of many Pun­jabi Hin­dus. The dev­as­ta­tion it caused in the per­sonal lives of so many mil­lions has still not been fully recorded and ac­knowl­edged be­cause the po­lit­i­cal di­vide over the at­ti­tudes to­wards Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar has over­shad­owed the hu­man sto­ries. The most ad­versely af­fected were the com­mu­ni­ty’s el­ders – both men and women.

I will share two sto­ries from my fam­ily. One rel­a­tive was an Akali ac­tivist -Sar­dar Gur­dial Singh Jat­tana of vil­lage Panni Wala Fatta, who had faced im­pris­on­ment and po­lice beat­ings dur­ing the long-drawn-out Pun­jabi Suba move­ment (the strug­gle for a Pun­jabi speak­ing state that suc­ceeded par­tially in 1966); nev­er­the­less, he was very proud of hav­ing lived a life of dig­nity. He was in his eight­ies when Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar hap­pened. He lost his men­tal bal­ance – one mo­ment, he would swear at In­dira Gandhi, the In­dian prime min­is­ter who or­dered the army ac­tion at the Golden Tem­ple, and the next he would laugh un­con­trol­lably. Some­times, he would re­gain some nor­mal­ity and would ques­tion why he lived the last years of his life in so much pain. His tor­tured in­ner life came to an end within a few years.

The other story is very close to me per­son­ally. It is about my un­cle -Sar­dar Bachan Singh Dhillon (my ma­maji, my moth­er’s brother) whom I was very fond of. I was first in­tro­duced, at the age of twelve, to the world of com­mu­nism when he brought a lo­cal com­mu­nist ac­tivist to the house for a meal. My un­cle was a brave and very lively per­son. He was so dev­as­tated by the pain caused by the army ac­tion at the Golden Tem­ple that he never laughed again af­ter­wards. He would not talk too much about it ex­cept once in a while in anger. It sad­dened me deeply to see him suf­fer­ing silently in this way. He lived for about 15 years af­ter the Op­er­a­tion, and a few years be­fore his death, I told him once, want­ing to cheer him up, that I wanted to give him a pre­sent and that he could choose what to re­ceive. He took only a few sec­onds and said that he wanted me to buy a Ke­sari (saf­fron) coloured tur­ban for him. Even if it was sym­bolic, the world of re­nun­ci­a­tion and sac­ri­fice was all that was left for him. For me, the mem­o­ries of my un­cle’s pain and that of Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar are in­ex­tri­ca­bly linked.

A whole gen­er­a­tion has grown up af­ter the Op­er­a­tion and many in this new gen­er­a­tion have be­come par­ents. They hear and read about the Op­er­a­tion and are try­ing to un­der­stand its mean­ing to re­con­nect to the his­tory of their par­ents, their grand­par­ents, and be­fore. Many of them are de­vis­ing new tools and me­dia to re­late to that his­tory. Of many doc­toral dis­ser­ta­tions, I have eval­u­ated as an ex­ter­nal ex­am­iner, one by Shruti De­v­gun of Rut­gers Uni­ver­sity, USA on ‘Re-Pre­sent­ing Pasts: Sikh Di­as­poric and Dig­i­tal Mem­o­ries of 1984’ stands out for its sub­ject and method­ol­ogy. Her the­sis fo­cuses on the work of an in­ter­gen­er­a­tional co­hort of Sikhs in the di­as­pora (in the USA and Canada) who are try­ing to piece to­gether the frag­ments of painful pasts ‘to give cul­tural mean­ing and shape to bro­ken trau­matic ex­pe­ri­ences’. Through their work, they are punc­tur­ing and per­haps de­mol­ish­ing, the In­dian State’s nar­ra­tives of Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar. This painful ‘mem­ory work’ is cre­at­ing new spaces for them to un­der­stand and con­nect with the pain of the vic­tims of many other geno­cides e.g., the Jews, the Pales­tini­ans, the Ar­me­ni­ans and the Rwan­dan Tut­sis.

The wounds may never heal but by con­nect­ing your pain to the pain of oth­ers, the mean­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence of pain is trans­formed.

Ref­er­ences:

Sidhu, Jas­pal Singh, 2018. ‘Em­bed­ded Me­dia Builds Hege­monic Nar­ra­tive of In­dian Na­tion-State’. In: Jas­pal Singh Sidhu and Anil Chama­dia (eds.) Em­bed­ded Jour­nal­ism: Me­di­a’s Pro­jec­tion of Sikhs as Demons. New Delhi: Me­dia Stud­ies Group, pp. 89-123.

Singh, Pri­tam, 1984. ‘AIR and Do­or­dar­shan Cov­er­age of Pun­jab af­ter the Army Ac­tion’. Eco­nomic and Po­lit­i­cal Weekly, 8 Sep­tem­ber.

Singh, Pri­tam, 1985. ‘Gov­ern­ment Me­dia and Pun­jab’. Eco­nomic and Po­lit­i­cal Weekly, 12 Jan­u­ary.

Singh, Pri­tam, 1985a. ‘Role of Me­dia’. In: Am­rik Singh, ed. Pun­jab in In­dian Pol­i­tics: Is­sues and Trends. Delhi: Ajanta, 1985, pp. 155–84.

Singh, Pri­tam, 2018. ‘The In­dian Me­di­a’s Ma­jori­tar­ian Bias Dur­ing the 1984 Hap­pen­ings’. In: Sidhu and Chama­dia (eds.) op.ct. pp. 124-158.

Notes: 1. An ear­lier ver­sion of this ar­ti­cle was first pub­lished by The Wire (6th June, 2021).
2. Im­age credit- ‘Nine­teen Eighty-Four’ copy­right The Singh Twins: www.singh twins.co.uk

Dr Pri­tam Singh has a DPhil from the Uni­ver­sity of Ox­ford and is Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus at Ox­ford Brookes Busi­ness School. He is the au­thor of ‘Fed­er­al­ism, Na­tion­al­ism and De­vel­op­ment: In­dia and the Pun­jab Econ­omy.’  In June 2015, he was awarded the Dis­tin­guished Achieve­ment Award in Po­lit­i­cal Econ­omy For The Twenty-First Cen­tury by the World As­so­ci­a­tion of Po­lit­i­cal Econ­omy at its Tenth Fo­rum held at Jo­han­nes­burg, South Africa, and in May 2021, the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia (River­side) ho­n­oured him with a ‘Life­time Achieve­ment Award for his dis­tin­guished con­tri­bu­tion to the Pun­jab Re­search Group in the UK to pro­mote Sikh and Pun­jab Stud­ies.’