Thirty-eight years ago, in June 1984, army stormed the Golden Temple Amritsar to dislodge Bhindranwale and his armed militants who had occupied the Akal Takth. They were entrenched there for three months and were running a parallel government from there resolving disputes and conflicts. Army had to use artillery and tanks because the militants were in fortified positions and were firing rocket propelled armour piercing grenades, and machine guns. Estimated causalities including civilians mainly pilgrims range from a few hundred to 18-20,000. This was op Blue Star.

Blue Star’s aftereffects were cataclysmic. Four months after the operation. prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh guards. That triggered anti-Sikh riots that killed 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi and 5-12,000 in 40 other cities in India. Two years later, Gen A S Vaidya, the army chief at the time of Bluestar and its main organiser, was assassinated in Pune by two Sikh militants.

At the time of Blue Star, separatist movement for a sovereign Khālistān in Punjab region was at the peak. Op Blue Star was followed by op Wood Rose and op Black Thunder 1 and 2. Consequent to these, and to heavy police crackdown, and to faction infights and public disillusionment with the movement, the Insurgency and Khālistān movement petered out in mid-1990.

Punjab is like a dormant volcano. Khālistān has backing of expat Sikhs from Canada, Italy, and the UK, and from ISI of Pakistan. A few militant groups were arrested by police in Punjab in 2018.
Continue reading OPERATION BLUESTAR REVISITED