Insurgency in Punjab

In the 1950s there was a demand for linguistic reorganisation of the state of Punjab, which the government finally agreed in 1966 after protests and recommendation of the States Reorganisation commission.[14] The state of Punjab was later split into the states of Himachal Pradesh, the new state Haryana and current day Punjab.[27]

While the Green Revolution in Punjab had several positive impacts, the introduction of the mechanised agricultural techniques led to uneven distribution of wealth. The industrial development was not done at the same pace of agricultural development, the Indian government had been reluctant to set up heavy industries in Punjab due to its status as a high-risk border state with Pakistan.[28] The rapid increase in the higher education opportunities without adequate rise in the jobs resulted in the increase in the unemployment of educated youth.[14] The resulting unemployed rural Sikh youth were drawn to the militant groups, and formed the backbone of the militancy.[29]

After being routed in 1972 Punjab election, the Akali Dal put forward the Anandpur Sahib Resolution in 1973 to demand more autonomy to Punjab.[16] The resolution included both religious and political issues. It asked for recognising Sikhism as a religion separate from Hinduism. It also demanded that power be generally devoluted from the Central to state governments.[14] The Anandpur Resolution was rejected by the government as a secessionist document. Bhindranwale then joined the Akali Dal to launch the Dharam Yudh Morcha in 1982, to implement Anandpur Sahib resolution. Thousands of people joined the movement, feeling that it represented a real solution to demands such as a larger share of water for irrigation and the return of Chandigarh to Punjab.[30]

Bhindranwale had risen to prominence in the Sikh political circle with his policy of getting the Anandpur Resolution passed, failing which he wanted to declare a separate country of Khalistan as a homeland for Sikhs.[18] Indira Gandhi, the leader of the Akali Dal's rival Congress, considered the Anandpur Sahib Resolution as a secessionist document.[17] The Government was of the view that passing of the resolution would have allowed India to be divided, making a Khalistan.[31]

Attempts were made by the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi to prop up Bhindranwale to undermine the Akali Dal, a Sikh religious political party.[32][21] On 13 April 1978, the day to celebrate the birth of Khalsa, a Sant Nirankari convention was organized in Amritsar, with permission from the Akali state government. The practices of "Sant Nirankaris" sect of Nirankaris was considered as heretics by the orthodox Sikhism expounded by Bhindranwale.[32] From Golden Temple premises,[33] A procession of about two hundred Sikhs led by Bhindranwale and Fauja Singh of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha left the Golden Temple, heading towards the Nirankari Convention. In the ensuing violence seventeen people were killed.[34] A criminal case was filed and accused were acquitted on self defence.[35] The Punjab government Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal decided not to appeal the decision.[36]

Bhindranwale increased his rhetoric against the enemies of Sikhs. A letter of authority was issued by Akal Takht to ostracize the Sant Nirankaris. A sentiment was created to justify extra judicial killings of the perceived enemies of Sikhism.[37] The chief proponents of this attitude were the Babbar Khalsa founded by the widow, Bibi Amarjit Kaur of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, whose husband Fauja Singh had been at the head of the march in Amritsar; the Damdami Taksal led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who had also been in Amritsar on the day of the outrage; the Dal Khalsa, formed with the object of demanding a sovereign Sikh state; and the All India Sikh Students Federation, which was banned by the government.

In the subsequent years following this event, several murders took place in Punjab and the surrounding areas by Bhindranwale's group and the new Babbar Khalsa.[35] The Babbar Khalsa activists took up residence in the Golden Temple, where they would retreat to, after committing "acts of punishment" on people against the orthodox Sikh tenets. Police did not entered the temple complex to avoid hurting the sentiments of Sikhs.[35] On 24 April 1980, The Nirankari head, Gurbachan was murdered.[38] Bhindranwale took residence in Golden Temple to escape arrest when he was accused of the assassination of Nirankari Gurbachan Singh.[39] Three years later, a member of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, Ranjit Singh, surrendered and admitted to the assassination.

In 1964, Pakistani state owned radio station began airing separatist propaganda targeted for Sikhs in Punjab, which continued during the Indo-Pak war of 1965.[40] Pakistan had been helping the Sikh secessionist movement since the 1970s. The Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had politically supported the idea of Khalistan wherever possible. Under Zia ul Haq, this support became even more prominent. The motive for supporting Khalistan was the revenge for India's role in splitting of Pakistan in 1971 and to discredit India's global status by splitting a Sikh state to vindicate Jinnah's Two-nation theory.[6] Zia had seen this as an opportunity to weaken and distract India in another war of insurgency following the Pakistani military doctrine to "Bleed India with a Thousand Cuts". Hamid Gul (who had led ISI) had stated about Punjab insurgency that "Keeping Punjab destabilized is equivalent to the Pakistan Army having an extra division at no cost to the taxpayers."[41]

A section of Sikhs turned to militancy in Punjab; some Sikh militant groups aimed to create an independent state called Khalistan through acts of violence directed at members of the Indian government, army or forces. Others demanded an autonomous state within India, based on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. A large numbers of Sikhs condemned the actions of the militants.[45]

Anthropological studies have identified fun, excitement and expressions of masculinity, as explanations for the young men to join militants and other religious nationalist groups. Puri et al. state that undereducated and illiterate young men, and with few job prospects had joined pro-Khalistan militant groups with “fun” as one of the primary reasons. It mentioned that the pursuit of Khalistan was the motivation for only 5% of “militants”.[46][47] The terrorists captured by the Indian Police had indicated a dominant criminal profile amongst them. Many terrorists were hard core criminals involved in major criminal cases before joining terrorism. Among the arrested terrorists were Harjinder Singh Jinda, who was a convicted bank robber and had escaped from prison, Devinder Singh Bai, a suspect in murder case and was Bhindranwale's close associate, and two drug smugglers, Upkar Singh and Bakshish Singh.[40]

According to Human Rights Watch in the beginning on the 1980s, Sikh separatists in Punjab attacked non-Sikhs in the state.[48] In October 1983, Sikh militants stopped a bus and shot six Hindu passengers. On the same day, in another location a group of militants killed two officials during an attack on a train.[21]^:174 Trains were attacked and people were shot after being pulled from buses.

The Congress(I)-led Central Government dismissed its own Punjab's government, declaring a state of emergency, and imposed the President's Rule in the state. During the five months preceding Operation Blue Star, from 1 January 1984 to 3 June 1984, 298 people had been killed in various violent incidents across Punjab. In five days preceding the Operation, 48 people had been killed in the violence.[21]^:175

Operation Bluestar was an Indian military operation carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984, ordered by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to remove militant religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar, Punjab.[49] In July 1983, the Sikh political party Akali Dal's President Harcharan Singh Longowal had invited Bhindranwale to take up residence in Golden Temple Complex.[50][23] Bhindranwale later on made the sacred temple complex an armoury and headquarter,[51] for his armed uprising for Khalistan.[52] In the violent events leading up to the Operation Blue Star since the inception of Akali Dharm Yudh Morcha, the militants had killed 165 Hindus and Nirankaris. Even 39 Sikhs opposed to Bhindranwale were killed. The total number of deaths was 410 in violent incidents and riots while 1,180 people were injured.[53]

Counter Intelligence reports of the Indian agencies had reported that three prominent heads of the Khalistan movement Shabeg Singh, Balbier Singh and Amrik Singh had made at least six trips each to Pakistan between the years 1981 and 1983.[6] Intelligence Bureau reported that weapons training was being provided at gurdwaras in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Soviet intelligence agency KGB reportedly tipped off the Indian agency RAW about the CIA and ISI working together on a Plan for Punjab with a code name "Gibraltar". RAW from its interrogation of a Pakistani Army officer received information that over a thousand trained Special Service Group commandos of the Pakistan Army had been dispatched by Pakistan into the Indian Punjab to assist Bhindranwale in his fight against the government. Large number of Pakistani agents also took the smuggling routes in the Kashmir and Kutch region of Gujarat, with plans to sabotage.[6]

On 1 June 1984 Indira Gandhi ordered the army to launch the Operation Blue Star.[54] A variety of army units along with paramilitary forces surrounded the temple complex on 3 June 1984. The army used the public address systems and loudspeakers to encourage the militants to surrender. Requests were also made to the militants to allow the trapped pilgrims to come out of the temple premises, before the clash with the army. However no surrender or release of pilgrims happened till 7 PM on 5 June.[55][55] The fighting started on 5 June with skirmishes and the battle went on for three days ending on 8 June. A clean-up operation codenamed as Operation Woodrose was also initiated throughout Punjab.[6]

The army had grossly underestimated the firepower possessed by the militants. Militants had Chinese made rocket-propelled grenade launchers with armour piercing capabilities. Tanks and heavy artillery were used to attack the militants using anti-tank and machine-gun fire from the heavily fortified Akal Takht. After a 24-hour firefight, the army finally wrested control of the temple complex. Casualty figures for the Army were 83 dead and 249 injured.[56] According to the official estimate presented by the Indian government, 1592 were apprehended and there were 493 combined militant and civilian casualties.[11] High civilian casualties were attributed to militants using pilgrims trapped inside the temple as human shields.[57]

The Operation Bluestar was criticized by many Sikhs bodies, who interpreted the military action as an assault on Sikh religion.[58] Four months after the operation, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in vengeance by her two Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh.[23]

Public outcry over Gandhi's death led to the killings of more than 3,000 Sikhs in the ensuing 1984 anti-Sikh riots.[24] In the aftermath of the riots, the government reported that 20,000 had fled the city; the People's Union for Civil Liberties reported "at least" 1,000 displaced persons.[59] The most-affected regions were the Sikh neighbourhoods of Delhi. Human rights organisations and newspapers across India believed that the massacre was organised.[60][61][62] The collusion of political officials in the violence and judicial failure to penalise the perpetrators alienated Sikhs and increased support for the Khalistan movement.[63]

The Operation Blue Star and Anti-Sikh riots across Northern India were crucial events in evolution of the Khalistan movement. The extremist groups grew in numbers and strength.[6] The financial funding from the Sikh diaspora sharply increased and the Sikhs in US, UK and Canada donated thousands of dollars every week for the insurgency. Manbir Singh Chaheru the chief of Sikh militant group Khalistan Commando Force admitted that he had received more than $60,000 from Sikh organisations operating in Canada and Britain. One of the militant stated, "All we have to do is commit a violent act and the money for our cause increased drastically."[64] Indira Gandhi's son and political successor, Rajiv Gandhi, tried unsuccessfully to bring peace to Punjab.[51]

The opportunity that the government had after 1984 was lost and by March 1986, the Golden temple was back in control of extremist Sikh organisation Damdami Taksal.[6] By 1985, the situation in Punjab had become highly volatile. In December 1986, a bus was attacked by Sikh militants in which 24 Hindus were shot dead and 7 were injured and shot near Khuda in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab.[65]

By providing military support and modern sophisticated weapons to the Sikh extremists, the Pakistani ISI caused a large number of casualties in Punjab.[6] AK-47 provided by ISI was primarily used by the militants as an ideal weapon in their guerilla warfare, based on its superior performance in comparison to other weapons. While the Indian policemen fighting the militants had .303 Lee–Enfield rifles that were popular in the World war II and only a few of them had 7.62 1A self loading rifles. These weapons were outmatched by automatic AK-47s. Modern explosive arms were also supplied by the ISI. According to KPS Gill the terrorists mainly used crude bombs but since 1990s more modern explosives supplied by Pakistan had become widespread in usage among them. The number of casualties also increased with more explosives usage by the terrorists.[6]

A terrorist from Babbar Khalsa who had been arrested in early 1990s had informed Indian authorities about Pakistani ISI plans to use aeroplanes for Kamikaze attacks on Indian installations. The Sikhs however refused to participate in such operations on religious grounds as Sikhism prohibits suicide assassinations.[6] Between 1981 and 1984 the Sikh terrorists had undertaken several aircraft hijackings. In a hijacking in 1984 a German manufactured pistol was used and during the investigations, the German Intelligence Service BND confirmed that the weapon was part of a weapon consignment for Pakistani government. The American government had then issued warnings over the incident after which the series of hijackings of Indian aeroplanes had stopped.[6]

Between 1987 and 1991, Punjab was placed under an ineffective President's rule and was governed from Delhi. Elections were eventually held in 1992 but the voter turnout was poor. A new Congress(I) government was formed and it gave the police chief of the state K.P.S. Gill a free hand.

The extremist violence had started with targeting of the Nirankaris and followed by attack on the government machinery and the Hindus. Ultimately the Sikh terrorists also targeted other Sikhs with opposing viewpoints. This led to further loss of public support and the militants were eventually brought under control of law enforcement agencies by 1993.[26] Since 1993, the Punjab insurgency has petered out, with a last major incident being the Assassination of Chief Minister Beant Singh occurring in 1995.[6]

• 1984 Anti-Sikh riots
• Operation Blue Star
• Khalistan
• 1991 Punjab killings
• 1987 Punjab killings
• List of Victims of Terrorism in Indian Punjab