Indira Gandhi Planned The Golden Temple Attack 2 Year Earlier And Attacked On The Most Auspicious Day For Sikhs To Murder Maximum Innocent Worshippers

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The timing of Operation Blue Star was planned on a Sikh religious day—the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev ji, the founder of the Harmandir Sahib—which caused higher casualties among the Sikh community. Sikhs from all over the world visit the temple on this day. Many Sikhs view the timing and attack by the Indian Army as an attempt to inflict maximum casualties on Sikhs and demoralise them, and the government is in turn blamed for the inflated number of civilian dead for choosing to attack on this day.

By Kanwaljit Singh Gill

Every yea, in the first week of June, the Sikh community all around the world will very sadly be thinking about 1984 Blue Star Operation and paying homage to Shaheeds (martyrs) and thousands of innocent lives lost in that Indian army attack on the Golden Temple (Darbar Sahib).

There will be all kind of discussions about who did what and who was wrong and how this Operation could have been avoided. As usual the Indian Govt, Media etc. will blame Sant Bhindrawale and his followers and justify Indira Gandhi’s army attack on Darbar Sahib. But all these years nobody has dared to blame Indira Gandhi for planning this army action long time earlier for political benefits in the next elections. Because Indira Gandhi had succeeded to fool the public, media and opposition leaders like BJP’s LK Advani etc. that she was against army action till last day.

But all these years the Indian Govt, political leaderships, media etc. have failed to question is that why Indira Gandhi had started planning this army action in 1982-83 if it was supposedly a last minute effort? Were conditions that bad in Punjab and Darbar Sahib in 1982-83 that Indira Gandhi asked army to prepare for the army attack?

According to Indian army Lt. Gen. Sinha, Indira Gandhi had asked him for Darbar Sahib attack 18 months earlier. But he was against such an army action. But if he had to then before the attack he wanted to cut power, food, water supplies to Darbar Sahib and give chance to innocent worshippers to come out before any army action. He wanted minimum number of innocent lives lost in such action. But Indira Gandhi didn’t like his idea because Indira Gandhi wanted maximum damage and innocent killings in this army action. Then Indira Gandhi decided to bypass senior Sinha and appointed junior General Vaidya as Army Chief because he agreed to do everything that Indira Gandhi wanted him to do.

But nobody has ever questioned why Indira Gandhi had started planning this army action in 1982-83 when conditions weren’t that bad that required such an army action?

Nobody has ever questioned Indira Gandhi why she didn’t like Lt. Gen. Sinha’s plans that would have resulted in minimum damage and innocent killings? Why Indira Gandhi bypassed senior Sinha and appointed junior Vaidya as army Chief in July 1983? Why army had started training with a replica of Darbar Sahib in Doon valley? Why Indira Gandhi had sought British Government support and advice about such an army action?

The answer is very simple that Indira Gandhi was upset with Sikhs because they had played big role in opposition to her Emergency rule. And she always wanted to get revenge from Sikhs and punish them for opposing her. She wanted to present the Sikhs as big terrorist threat supported by Pakistan to get Hindutava majority support and votes in next elections. That is why she never took the army action right away. She let things worsen in Punjab. She never made any sincere efforts to solve Punjab problem peacefully by accepting some of the very genuine demands. She never wanted peace in Punjab. And to worsen the situation she even used Black cats to act as Sikh terrorists to kill innocents especially Hindus. So that media, public and opposition leaders etc. start demanding big action against Sant Bhindrawale and his followers. She did all this to successfully take action according to the plans that she made in 1982-83.

To justify her plans of army action the government always claimed that there were 200-300 terrorists in Darbar Sahib. Now the question is what kind of big threat those 200-300 terrorists really were that Indian Government had to surround whole Punjab with army and impose curfew? Not only Darbar Sahib many other Gurudwaras in Punjab were attacked by the army.

The timing of Operation Blue Star was planned on a Sikh religious day—the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev ji, the founder of the Harmandir Sahib—which caused higher casualties among the Sikh community. Sikhs from all over the world visit the temple on this day. Many Sikhs view the timing and attack by the Indian Army as an attempt to inflict maximum casualties on Sikhs and demoralise them, and the government is in turn blamed for the inflated number of civilian dead for choosing to attack on this day.

And to hide all these innocent killings, Indira government kicked out all the news journalists from Punjab. There were no bystanders as the shoot on sight order during curfew was already in effect. The media blackout throughout the Punjab resulted in widespread doubt regarding the official stories and aided the promotion of hearsay and rumour. The operation is criticised on four main grounds: the choice of time of attack by Government, the heavy casualties, the loss of property, and allegations of human rights violations by Army personnel.

If Indira Government had no bad intentions to kill innocents then why did they ordered all journalists out of Punjab? But despite Indira Government’s efforts to hide everything and no true reports come out, one British journalist somehow managed to stay there and he reported seeing army killing people with hands tied behind their backs. This thing was confirmed by one Maj. Gen. Jamwal who admitted to such innocent killings. But he said that he refused to follow these orders because it was against International UN laws. This is something confirmed by Maj. Gen. Jamwal who was involved in this Blue Star Operation.

But unfortunately despite all these facts, the Indian Govt, Justice system, media, public etc. don’t want to blame Indira Gandhi for this army attack on Darbar Sahib, damaging a very holy place and killing thousands of innocent persons. Why don’t they want to question that why Indira Gandhi started planning this army action in 1982-83, why she didn’t accept Lt. Gen. Sinha’s suggestion that could have resulted in minimum damage and innocent killings, why Indira Gandhi bypassed senior Sinha and appointed junior Vaidya as army Chief, why whole Punjab was surrounded with army and many other Gurudawaras attacked, why all journalists kicked out if they had nothing to hide and kill innocents?

If anybody from the Government, army, media etc. has any answers to these questions then please let us know the truth. It has been 33 years to this tragedy and we still don’t know the real truth about the operation and the real guilty person.

Kanwal jit Singh Gill is a Surrey based Sikh activist and writer.