The new Union home minister, Mr PV Narasimha Rao, is wholly justified in drawing attention to the failure of the Akali Dal and the SGPC to preserve the sanctity of the Golden Temple in Amritsar and prevent its conversion into the headquarters, arsenal and sanctuary of terrorists and criminals headed by Bhindranwale. Indeed, no words can be too strong to condemn this failure in view of its disastrous consequences. But what about the government’s own performance in this very regard? It has a case of sorts. It has argued, in essence if not in so many words, that it did not allow the police to go into the temple even in hot pursuit of criminals because it did not wish to offend the sentiments of the Sikh community, that its men did not search the trucks carrying food as well as arms into the temple for the same reason, that many of the Punjab police officers were sympathetic to and in fact in league with the terrorists and, therefore, did not do their duty, and that its intelligence was poor. But those arguments cannot stand scrutiny.
For example, while it was only proper for the government to be sensitive to the susceptibilities of the Sikh community, it cannot on that account exonerate itself of the responsibility of having allowed the Golden Temple to become what it did. Its failure to act became all the more inexcusable once it realized that the extremists ensconsed there were terrorizing not only the people and the police in the state but also the Akali leaders and thereby making it impossible for the latter to negotiate a mutually acceptable settlement with the authorities. It can contend that the Akalis would have refused to negotiate if it had taken measures against the terrorists. There would be some merit in this proposition. But by the same token it made no sense either to continue the negotiations or to blame the SGPC for not moving against the terrorists.
From the government’s various statements, it is not possible to say whether or not it accepted the bona fides of the Akali leaders themselves. While Mrs. Gandhi’s statement in Parliament on Monday would indicate that she did not, in view of their adherence to the Anandpur Sahib resolution, with its secessionist overtones, no one else has spoken in that refrain on behalf of the government. But one thing is clear. Which is that New Delhi did not have a strategy for coping with the challenge in Punjab. Such a strategy would of necessity have involved strong action against the extremists. That would have either paved the way for a meaningful dialogue with the Akalis or ended the talks with them. In either event, the country would have been better off than it has been as a result of the policy of drift. The denial of the Golden Temple and other gurdwaras as sanctuaries to extremists and other kinds of criminals would itself have made for a qualitative difference in the situation.
As for the Punjab police, their record speaks for itself. But they too might have behaved differently and performed better if they had been allowed to enter the Golden Temple immediately in the wake of Mr. Atwal’s murder on April 23, 1983. But setting this point aside for the time being, once the CRPF and the BSF units had been inducted into the state in sufficient strength, they could easily have been used to cordon off the Golden Temple and other gurdwaras which the terrorists were using as sanctuaries and arsenals. This was done but belatedly. And we have it on the authority of officers of these paramilitary forces that they wanted to search the trucks taking food and clandestinely arms into the Golden Temple but were prevented from doing so by the Punjab police. On whose orders were the police acting? Was the Union government cognisant of their blatant interference in the work of the CRPF and the BSF? If yes, why did it not countermand those silly orders? If not, what were the governor and the advisers handpicked by it doing.
It is difficult to believe that the government could have been ignorant of what was going on in the Golden Temple complex, however bad the Punjab state intelligence. For one thing, central intelligence agencies were present in Punjab and they could not have been so thoroughly infiltrated by the terrorists as the Punjab police had been. For another – and this is the more important point – every child in Amritsar knew that the temple had been converted into a fortress. It is possible that detailed intelligence regarding fortifications and placement of guns was not available to the army authorities when they went in and that they suffered heavy casualties on that account. But that is an altogether different problem. Right now the issue is whether or not the government knew broadly what was happening in the Golden Temple. The answer has to be in the affirmative and once that is accepted, it cannot evade its share of responsibility.
In his reply to the debate in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Mr. Rao cleverly skirted these issues. Mr. Khushwant Singh greatly facilitated his task by his emotional and unreasoned criticism of the government’s action in ordering the army to flush out the terrorists from the Golden Temple. Mr. Rao did not need to set up a dummy whom he could then proceed valiantly to demolish. Mr Singh set himself up as the dummy. But that cannot absolve the government of its share of the responsibility. Needless to add, the record of the opposition, with some honourable exceptions, is so bad that it can have no locus standi in the matter at all. By and large it had nothing to recommend except acceptance of most Akali demands, however unreasonable. So whatever the government’s failings, the opposition has hardly any right to point an accusing finger at it.