New revelations show British advised India months prior to 1984 massacre at Golden Temple
The reason why the sun never sets on The British Empire is because God doesn’t trust the British in the dark.
– Anon
Punjab; the “land of five rivers”; three of the rivers are now in Pakistan, and two in the Indian state of Punjab.
This June will mark the 30th anniversary of India’s brutal 1984 “Operation Blue Star”. Operation Blue Star constituted two components; a military attack at the Sikh holy temple, Harmandir Sahib (the Golden Temple) in Amritsar, Punjab; and extended violence into villages. Recent revelations about British complicity in India’s massacre shine new light on the tragedy that took place thirty-seven years after Britain formally ended its colonial rule there.
బ్యాక్ గ్రౌండ్
By 1983, a large number of Punjabi separatists had turned the Golden Temple into a base from which they advocated for an independent country; Khalistan. In the Summer of June 1984 — as many Sikhs gathered at the Golden Temple to celebrate the martyrdom of a Sikh teacher and leader (Guru Arjan Dev Ji) — the Indian military invaded with tanks, artillery, helicopters, armoured vehicles, and other weapons. The military killed at least 574 people, some put the number at 3,000. Historical artefacts were seized and some hand-written manuscripts of Sikh Gurus destroyed. On 3 June 1984, the Indian government imposed a 36-hour curfew on the state of Punjab with all methods of communication and public travel suspended. Electricity supplies were also interrupted, creating a total blackout and cutting off the state from the rest of India and the world. Complete censorship was enforced on the news media.
India’s third Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was in power at the time. Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards retaliated by assassinating her on 31 October 1984. Riots ensued. Sikh families – as far as in New Delhi – hid in the basement of Hindu friends’ homes.
Four years before her assassination, author Salman Rushdie portrayed Mrs Gandhi as a monster in his magical-realist novel Midnight’s Children;
…green and black the Widow’s hair and clutching hand and children and little balls and one-by-one and torn-in-half and little balls go flying green black her hand is green her nails are black as black.
Under Indira Gandhi (only child of the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru) protestors and union and other work-place organisers were imprisoned (anywhere from “a few thousand [to] fifty thousand”[i]), freedom of the press curtailed and opposition parties banned, slums were demolished without warning, and the sterilisation of people in slums enforced. The title bestowed on India as “the world’s largest democracy”; a fallacy.
ఎడబాటు
Concerned with the building case for a separate Khalistan, Indira Gandi ordered Operation Blue Star. This was followed by a violent counter-insurgency campaign. Between 1984 and 1995 Punjab’s security forces killed tens of thousands (estimates are between 6,000 – 40,000) of Sikhs as part of a counter-insurgency operation; an operation characterised by systematic and widespread human rights abuses, including torture, extrajudicial executions, and “disappearances.”[ii] Last week, on 4 February 2014, the British government confirmed that it had provided the Indian military with advice in the months leading up to the attack on the Golden Temple. A military advisor was sent to India in the interests of building better bi-lateral trade (primarily in weapons) relationships; and in the knowledge that an attack would only exacerbate tensions in Punjab.
The British announced their involvement after the release of de-classified communications forced a Cabinet Secretary Report (into allegations of UK involvement in the Indian operation at Sri Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar in 1984).
On the date that the Cabinet Secretary Report was released this last week, 4 February 2014, William Hague (the current British Foreign Secretary) confirmed that Thatcher’s government had appointed a military advisor who visited Delhi four months prior to the attack. Apparently, the British military specialist appointed advised; “any military option should involve a surprise attack using helicopter-borne troops”. In interviews this week, William Hague was keen to state that this advice was given “in the interests of reducing casualties and bringing about a swift resolution”.[iii]
William Hague’s statement was repeated in the UK’s mainstream media without question or analysis.[iv] But, a full reading of the Cabinet Secretary Report does not validate William Hague’s assertion. In fact, there was no evidence in the communications reviewed that the British were concerned about employing a strategy that would reduce civilian casualties. The communications illuminate only one concern in Thatcher’s government; the desire to maintain a good “bilateral relationship” including in relation to defence-related sales (report released by Cabinet Secretary[v]).
Violence following 1984
Between 1984 and 1995 Indian security forces committed serious human rights abuses against tens of thousands of Sikhs. Thousands of people were tortured, killed or forcibly disappeared[vi], a practice that was exacerbated by a system that rewarded officers for killing alleged militants.[vii] The Punjab Police falsely reported extrajudicial executions, custodial deaths and “disappearances” as “encounters” or “escapes” from custody the vast majority of which began with illegal detention and torture.[viii] The Cabinet Secretary’s Report found that the British authorities were well aware in advance that “an operation by the Indian authorities could, in the first instance, exacerbate the communal violence in the Punjab.”[ix] Thatcher’s government assisted with an operation which they knew in advance would lead to an exacerbation of tensions in Punjab.
In 1995, human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra discovered government municipal cremation records revealing that over 6,000 secret cremations had taken place in three crematoria in Amritsar. After he made these records public, members of the Punjab Police abducted, illegally detained, and tortured Mr. Khalra, killing him in October 1995.[x]
In spite of limited investigations (by the Indian Central Bureau of Intelligence investigation — which found more than 2,000 mass cremations — and a Indian National Human Rights Commission investigation into human rights violations in Punjab) the full extent of human rights abuses associated with the “disappearances” in the northern Indian state of Punjab remains to be investigated. None of the key architects of this counter-insurgency strategy who bear substantial responsibility for the atrocities committed in Punjab have been brought to justice.[xi]
For sometime, those supporting calls for accountability in Punjab ran the risk of being labelled militants and terrorists.
Partition & the case for separation
The case for a separate Khalistan can be mapped back to the partition of ‘British’ India. Punjab means ‘the land of five rivers’, although three are now in Pakistan – together with a number of religious sites of importance to Sikhs. In August 1947, as many celebrated independence from the British – 10 million people were displaced from their homes during partition – either (as Muslims) seeking to leave India and enter Pakistan, or as Hindus and Sikhs (predominantly), seeking to leave Pakistan and enter India. My four grandparents were among those forced to leave their homes in what had become Pakistan overnight. Displacement in Punjab counted for roughly 70% of all displaced persons. Leaving behind their property, the elderly and disabled – fearing for their lives – more than 5 million Muslims moved from India to Pakistan, and more than 4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to India.
The independence of ‘British’ India in August 1947 is celebrated every year, on 14 August in Pakistan and 15 August in India. Bangladesh’s is celebrated on 26 March as it gained independence from West Pakistan (now Pakistan) in the late hours of 25 March 1971, after 300,000 to 3million civilians died in a civil war which displaced a further 8 to 10 million people. The repercussions of a partitioned sub-continent remain evident in the three countries.
గమనికలు:
[i] Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India, pg 399
[ii] Ensaaf Publications (http://www.ensaaf.org/publications/); REDRESS and Ensaaf joint submission to India’s UN Universal Periodic Review (2009) http://www.redress.org/downloads/country-reports/India_Universal%20Periodic%20Review_Ensaaf_REDRESS.pdf; Human Rights Watch 2009 Press Release (http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/11/02/india-prosecute-those-responsible-1984-massacre-sikhs); Human Rights Watch 2007 Report (http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/10/17/protecting-killers-0)
[iv] The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/10616669/Sikhs-accuse-Britain-of-sacrilege-after-Golden-Temple-massacre-advice-confirmed.html); Reuters (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/04/uk-britain-india-golden-temple-idUKBREA130PP20140204); BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26027631); The Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2552108/British-SAS-officer-DID-advise-Indian-government-ahead-deadly-raid-Golden-Temple-resulted-3-000-deaths.html)
[v] Cabinet Secretary Report (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alleged-uk-link-to-operation-at-sri-harmandir-sahib-amritsar-1984)
[vi] Ensaaf and Human Rights Watch, Protecting the Killers: A Policy of Impunity in Punjab, India (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2007) (“Protecting the Killers”) Pg. 13;
[vii] Ibid., pgs. 13-14. R.N. Kumar, A. Singh, A. Aggrwal and J. Kaur, Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab (Kathmandu: South Asia Forum for Human Rights, 2003); pgs. 56, 58.
[viii] ఐబిడ్.
[ix] Cabinet Secretary Report, Documents already in the Public Domain; https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277281/Documents_Already_in_the_Public_Domain.pdf
[x] Protecting the Killers; p.g. 64, citing State (CBI) v. Ajit Singh Sandhu & Others, Additional Sessions Judge Bhupinder Singh, Patiala, Session No. 49‐T of 9.5.1998/30.11.2001, Judgment (November 18, 2005). The Supreme Court of India recently upheld the convictions of five police officers sentenced to life imprisonment for the abduction and murder of Jaswant Singh Khalra: Prithipal Singh Etc. v . State of Punjab & Anr. Etc, Criminal Appeals No. 523‐527 of 2009, Judgment (November 4, 2011) (Crim. App. Juris., Supreme Court of India).
[Xi] ఐబిడ్.
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