P Chidambaram recently stirred a hornet’s nest at Khushwant Singh Literary Festival, Kasauli, by questioning Indira Gandhi’s decision to authorise the Indian Army to launch Operation Blue Star (1984) for ferreting out the Khalistani terrorists from the sacred precincts of Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib). Though Chidambaram admitted that the military operation was a collective decision of the government and military top brass, he affirmed that Mrs Gandhi had to pay for the same with her own life. One might remember that the then Chief of Army Staff, Arunkumar Shridhar Vaidya, was also assassinated shortly after his retirement in 1986 by Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh Sukha in Pune. The assassins told the court that they were avenging the wound caused by Operation Blue Star.

Operation Blue Star was an unfortunate and ill-timed campaign. The actual action began on the morrow of the martyrdom day of Guru Arjun Dev (June 3), leading to a large number of pilgrims in Golden Temple, to attend the ceremony, getting caught in the crossfire. There is wide divergence in the casualty figures quoted by the government and the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) respectively. The Operation, however, exposed the degree of ghastly preparations that the terrorists had made in and around the Golden Temple. The Akal Takht building had been fortified like any dug-out position as in modern warfare. The terrorists could keep the synchronised campaign of the armed forces at bay for nearly three days before capitulating. The terrorists fired upon Harchand Singh Longowal and G.S. Tohra to prevent their surrendering before the Indian Army along with 350 pilgrims near Guru Nanak Niwas in the first hour of June 6. Consequently, 70 persons, including 30 women and five children, were killed. It took the army another 24 hours to mop up the operations.

According to the White Paper on Punjab Agitation released by the Government of India on July 10, 1984, in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, 41 light machine guns, 57 sten guns, 377 Point 303 Rifles, 83 SLR (7.62 mm), 88 12-bore guns, 52 7.62 mm Chinese rifles, 71 assorted rifles, 49 revolvers, 33 pistols, 61 country-made 12-bore pistols, 2 RPG (anti-tank weapon), and 128 land-mines were recovered along with huge quantities of ammunition/explosives. Gold weighing 5.4 kgs, silver 1.4 kgs, precious stones weighing 1.44 kgs were recovered along with cash worth INR 31,53,559. Pakistani currency notes of Rs 1,29,966 were also recovered from the terrorists (White Paper, P.169-170). A grenade manufacturing factory had been set up inside the Golden Temple, whose photo was reproduced in the White Paper.

The Indian Army had underestimated the depth of the defensive fortification in and around the Golden Temple. The White Paper admitted the inadequacy of tactical intelligence about the quantity of arms and ammunition possessed by the terrorist gangs (P.44). Ironically, this build-up was the handiwork of one who was once their own peer, viz. General Shahbeg Singh. Shahbeg Singh, a........

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