Qaisar Mansoor
It happened 38 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 intensifies every year when June 6 approaches.
“Operation Bluestar” was a military operation that was carried out in June 1984, when then-PM Indira Gandhi ordered Indian Army to flush out Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters ensconced in the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Operation Blue Star was an official beginning of a systematic purge of Sikhs community in India.
According to an estimate, about 50,000 Sikhs were killed within a few days. The whole of Amritsar city was sealed and burnt. Shops belonging to Sikhs were looted and their houses were set ablaze by Hindu mobs. In most of the cases, Sikh women were molested and some persons of their community were also burnt. Another tragic dimension of the operation is that historical Sikh artifacts, including all the literature written by the Gurus, was also set ablaze by Indian army.
In the book, The Sikh Struggle, Ramnarain Kumar and George Sieberer write, “The army killed every Sikh who could be found inside the temple-complex. They were hauled out of rooms, brought to corridors on the circumference of the temple and with their hands tied behind their back, were shot in cold blood. Among the victims were many old men, women and children.”
However, all visitors were locked up in rooms for two days without any food, water or electricity and were starved to death.” The brutality of ‘Operation Blue Star’ was not confined to the Harmandir Sahib. Indian armed forces simultaneously attacked 40 other historic gurdwaras all over East Punjab. Ahead 38th anniversary of “Op Bluestar”, more than 6,000 security personnels have been deployed in Amritsar to stop pro- Khalistan slogans. Sikh activists and leaders have marked the Operation Blue Star as the “Ghallughara” (“genocide”) of the Sikhs.
Head of Akal Takht, Giani Harpreet Singh said that all Sikhs want to see a separate Sikh nation “Khalistan.” Dal Khalsa has demanded to mark 6th June as “Khalistan Day”. Dr. Sangat Singh writes in his book, The Sikhs in History, “Indian government has killed over 1 million to 1.2 million Sikhs. Since 1947, Indian government has also killed 50,000 Christians and 100,000 Muslims. The only way to stop this state terrorism is to create a Khalistan state, where Sikhs and other religious people can enjoy their freedom.”
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 try to understand the meaning of it to reconnect to the history of their parents, their grandparents and before.
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 Palestinians, the Armenians and the Rwandan Tutsis.
