Millions of Indians would have given anything in the world to avoid seeing the day when the Indian army would have to enter the Golden Temple complex m Amritsar in a bid to flush out a gang of wanted criminals seeking shelter there. But a malevolent fate ordained it otherwise. This malevolent fate materialized in the form of Bhindranwale and his band of murderers, looters and arsonists. No, to be accurate these enemies of the Indian nation did not materialize out of nowhere. Some of us, as it were, conjured them into existence out of nowhere. It has long been a commonplace that some leaders of the ruling Congress party patronised Bhindranwale and raised him to prominence out of obscurity in order to fight the Akali Dal. But it is equally undeniable that the Akali Dal leadership played straight into his hands. It first raised innumerable demands which no government in New Delhi could concede: it then built up a wholly unjustified sense of grievance among the Sikh community and finally it used this unfounded feeling of grievance to launch an endless series of morchas as if to create an atmosphere in which Bhindranwale and his freebooters could flourish.
For all that we know, there was no covert connection between the Akali leadership headed by Sant Harchand Singh Longowal and the extremist-criminals. For all that we know, the Akali leaders unwittingly made themselves prisoners of the Bhindranwale gang. For all we know, Sant Longowal and his men had begun to recognise the dangerous consequences of their agitation and wished to reach an accord with the Union government but were too frightened to do so. However, in such matters intentions count for much less than actions and their impact on the people. Thus to millions of people in Punjab and elsewhere, the two – the Akali agitation and the violence unleashed by Bhindranwale – came to be seen as two faces of the same coin. It is to the credit of the Union government that it did not allow the distinction between the two to get blurred in its appreciation of the problem. But as innocent men continued to be gunned down day after day, it too was left with no choice but to conclude that the police and the paramilitary forces available to it were not enough to cope with the mounting challenge and that it had to deploy the army in strength.
Once that was done last Saturday night, the die was finally cast. The issue had finally been joined fully between the Indian state and the extremists. The Union government could no longer dither except at the risk of betraying its primary responsibility of upholding the country’s integrity. But to its undying credit that it has exercised the greatest possible restraint in the exercise of its power against Bhindranwale and his men.
As is only too obvious, the government had called in the army last Saturday most reluctantly in the face of the gravest provocation – the slaughter of innocent men day after day for months. It is equally obvious that it sent the army into the Golden temple complex (not to be confused with the temple proper known as Harmandir Sahib where Guru Granth Sahib is kept) on Tuesday night equally reluctantly. The criminals inside the complex had been armed to the teeth. As it has turned out, they were equipped with machine-guns, mortars and even rocket launchers. But while the jawans had to respond to the attacks from within the complex, they were keen to ensure that no damage was done to the Golden Temple proper. In the process they have taken extremely heavy casualties. The number of casualties on Tuesday night speaks for itself. This clinches two points. First, the brigands in the temple complex had been preparing to take on the army and had built up an arsenal whose size had come as a big surprise. Secondly, the army has preferred to take heavy casualties rather than blast from outside the buildings which the murder squads had taken over. This should convince every Sikh, including the Akalis, that the Union government had been left with no opinion but to do what it has done and indeed that the authorities have erred on the side of too much restraint and moderation in the face of the gravest challenge so far lo the county’s integrity.
Despite all the respect and concern the government and the nation as a whole have shown for their sensibilities, some Sikhs are angry that the army should have gone into the Golden Temple complex at all. This is understandable for a variety of reasons. The Sikhs are as deeply religious as they are proud; the Golden Temple is for them what the Grand Mosque in Mecca is for the Muslims; and in the very act of exercising the utmost patience the government blurred the distinction between the temple and the adjoining buildings and lent even the latter a kind of inviolability which they cannot in justice claim. But when a group of fanatics seized the Grand Mosque in 1979as part of their conspiracy to overthrown the Saudi government, the Saudis had no qualms in flushing them out in the only manner open to them – though the use of commandos – and the entire Muslim world had backed them. The stake in our case has been even bigger – the future not just of a government but of the country – and even the government’s worst critics cannot accuse it of hasty action. The Sikh community should appreciate these facts and rise to the occasion as it has done so often in the past, in the larger national interest. A great deal hinges on its response to what has happened. It cannot afford to act in anger and haste.