OPINION: Rahul Refuses To Learn From History

The current week marks the 40th year of 'Operation Blue Star', one of the worst tragedies India has suffered since Independence. The chain of events leading to the assault on Golden Temple (June 4-8, 1984), and its painful aftermath, constitute the darkest chapters of Indian history. Five months later, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh body guards to avenge the assault on the prime Sikh shrine, and subsequently thousands of innocent Sikhs fell victims to the pogrom unleashed by marauding mobs led by some Congress leaders, screaming 'khoon ka badla khoon' (blood for blood).

It's pertinent to recall the four decades old catastrophic events and dissect them today -- for the forces that brought the horrendous tragedy on India -- are still active. During 1980s, a group of politicians, desperate for power, propelled Punjab and the country on a disastrous course, resulting in the loss of thousands of innocent lives, and pushing the border state back by several decades.

The principal character of the macabre drama, Indira Gandhi, who started internecine fire in Punjab, for petty political objectives, was tragically consumed by it. She let the ginny out, but didn't know how to bottle it back. The usual suspects in any anti-India operation -- Pakistan's ISI and the American mischief arm, the CIA -- too contributed to the cauldron of death and destruction. The result -- permanent painful scars on the Sikh psyche -- a community known for its valour and sacrifices for the country.

A section of the Opposition, led by Congress, in its desperation to dislodge Narendra Modi from power, is resorting to the same time-tested divisive toolkit. There's too much at stake. Modi's rise in Indian politics, his successful pulling the country out of despondency, war on corruption, building a world class infrastructure and raising India's profile in the global arena, has rattled the forces inimical to India -- at home and abroad -- for different reasons.

Modi's emergence as a global leader, notwithstanding his humble origins, is a direct challenge to those who believe in dynastic succession in public life. Unfortunately, bulk of the opposition -- Congress and most of the regional outfits -- fall in this category. For them, Modi is a usurper, an interloper in an exclusive power club, where pedigree is at premium. Hence, the visceral hate against Modi.

Then there are forces -- Jihadis, evangelicals, communists -- all with global networking -- who doctrinally abhor India's pluralistic ethos and existence, steeped in its timeless Vedic culture. They have conflicting agendas, but in India, their interests converge. They have a shared objective of running down and balkanising of India. Most of the Indian political outfits who hate Modi, and global forces who hate India, are working in tandem at present.

To repeat an old adage, "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Have we learnt any lessons from the chain of events leading to 'Operation Blue Star' and its unfortunate aftermath? Mad, unscrupulous pursuit of power often leads to unmitigated disaster, for everyone, including those who initiate such a suicidal course to serve their immediate interests.

A recent book "The Khalistan Conspiracy: A Former R&AW Officer Unravels The Path To 1984" by G.B.S. Sidhu brings out the details of the mayhem that was forced on the country by powers that be. The author, a senior police officer, is a son-in-law of Sardar Swaran Singh, a senior Congress leader, who became a minister in Nehru's Cabinet in 1952 and continued in that position for the next 23 years. Sidhu is an insider, and thus a credible witness of the conspiracy to set Punjab ablaze. He was a Special Secretary of India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and one of the key officers involved in the merger of the princely State of Sikkim with the Indian republic in 1975.

According to him, the genesis of the Khalistan problem can be traced to 1978, "when former Chief Minister of Punjab Giani Zail Singh advised Indira Gandhi's younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, that the Akali Dal-Janata Party coalition government in Punjab could be destabilized if the moderate policies followed by the senior Akali Dal leadership, comprising Harchand Singh Longowal, Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) chairman G.S. Tohra and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, could come under constant attack by a suitable Sikh sant. If a forceful hard-line Sikh leader emerged as their rival, the moderate Akali leaders would be forced to adopt an uncompromising stance on issues of Sikh interest to retain their following. Any significant shift in the policies of the moderate Akali Dal leaders would naturally not be to the liking of Janata Party leaders, who represented mainly urban Hindu business interests."

"With Indira Gandhi's approval sought and Sanjay's ally Kamal Nath on board, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale of Gurudwara Darshan Prakash at Chowk Mehta was chosen as the sant who would do their bidding in Punjab. Even though the demand for Khalistan was attributed to Bhindranwale to make his anti-moderate Akali leadership campaign more effective, nothing significant was achieved through this part of the operation till January 1980, when Indira Gandhi returned to power as prime minister. The general elections for the eighth Lok Sabha were due before January 1985, and in preparation for them the Congress decided to focus on the Bhindranwale-Khalistan issue."

"For clarity's sake, I have named the two phases of this operation as Op-1 and Op-2. I refer to the Punjab-centric operation as Op-1, and the one which started after January 1980 and ended with Operation Blue Star in June 1984 as Op-2. The characters running Op-1 have already been mentioned above. For Op-2, after January 1980, Makhan Lal Fotedar, political assistant to Prime Minister Gandhi, Arun Nehru, Sanjay's cousin and MP from Rae Bareli, and later Arun Singh from the Kapurthala family were added to this group. After Sanjay's death in June 1980, his elder brother Rajiv Gandhi took his place. Sanjay was the main driving force behind Op- 2."

"While I was in Canada, the Congress lost the Punjab State elections in 1977 to the Akali Dal-Janata Party coalition led by Parkash Singh Badal. Soon after this, some sketchy details reached me about former Chief Minister Giani Zail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi trying to destabilize the Akali Dal-led coalition government by enlisting the support of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale of Chowk Mehta gurudwara. Efforts were also being made to plant pro-Khalistan ideas in the minds of Sikhs in Punjab and to link that demand to Bhindranwale."

"As a Sikh born and brought up in Punjab, I knew of only one person -- other than a couple of Sikhs who held pro-Khalistan views in their personal capacity in the pre-1980 period -- and that was Jagjit Singh Chauhan -- who was actively propagating pro-Khalistan views. Even in his case, it was widely believed that his activities were being financed and sponsored by the ISI of Pakistan and some Republican leaders from the US."

What led to the sudden spurt in pro-Khalistan activities in Punjab and abroad only after the Congress came to power in January 1980? Siddhu answers, "the real reason was a conscious decision taken by some senior Congress leaders, soon after Indira Gandhi returned to power in January 1980, to win the next elections (due before January 1985) by first creating and then solving the Khalistan issue through the use of Bhindranwale."

In an official meeting, after V.P. Singh had replaced Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister, Sidhu had warned "that the situation that had been created would be taken advantage of by Pakistan and some Western countries for a long time to come... that the ISI would continue to bolster the pro-Khalistan movement using every possible means to avenge its loss of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in December 1971. Some of the Western countries would use it as an instrument to further their respective geopolitical, commercial and economic interests in their dealings with India."

It's clear that the ogre of Khalistan was created by Indira Gandhi and her two sons- Sanjay and Rajiv, with help from Gilani Zail Singh, and some other side-kicks to win Punjab for Congress. Both, she and the country, paid a heavy price for this short-sighted tragic misadventure. But this malfeasance seems to run in the family. Rahul rants abroad against India, his close association with 'tukde tukde' gang and his frequent mouthing communist cliches questioning India's existence as a nation -- all underline one ugly fact -- he hasn't learnt anything from the sad experience of his father and grandmother.

(Mr. Balbir Punj is a Former Member of Parliament and a Columnist. He can be reached at: [email protected])

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