The so-called panthic committee has held another so-called sarbat khalsa at the Akal Takht in the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar. This statement does not add up to much. But that is about all that can be said on the subject. The rest is all vague and uncertain. The committee itself is a shadowy body. Its members are listed. But who do they represent and what do they do? The “committee” shot into prominence on April 29 when it proclaimed the establishment of the so-called Khalistan with the Golden Temple as its headquarters. It then disappeared to “reappear” on the Diwali day (November 1) when it “convened” the “sarbat khalsa.” The gathering, despite its small size, can be said to represent a celebration of the pre-Diwali spurt in the killings by the terrorists and a demonstration by the Khalistanis that they can, the presence of the security forces around the Golden Temple notwithstanding, organise a meeting in the shrine. But a link, if any, between the killers and the “panthic committee” has yet to be established. Indeed, it is possible that the committee is a figment which someone is conjuring up to cover up some other agency which is in fact responsible for the killings. It is equally plausible that the agency which has thus celebrated the assassinations with the victory gathering at the Akal Takht is different from the one which has organised the killings.
In the wake of the Khalistan declaration on April 29, reports appeared in some newspapers to the effect that the “panthic committee” had acted in this manner because it had been warned that Pakistan would continue to deny support to the extremists and the terrorists till they produced evidence of their earnestness. These reports were wholly incredible. If the Pakistan government is involved in our Punjab, as appears to be the case, the relevant decisions must be taken by reasonably competent individuals at a fairly high level. Such individuals cannot believe that a Khalistan declaration has any practical importance in what is bound to be a prolonged war of attrition by the terrorists on the Indian state. And no other credible explanation was then available for the action of the “panthic committee.”
Even in retrospect it is not possible to offer a truly satisfactory explanation for the Khalistan declaration on April 29. Insurrectionist movements do not indulge in this kind of bravado. But if the Khalistan declaration was intended to compel the authorities to send the security forces into the Golden Temple, the “sarbat khalsa” too could have the same objective. In the first case, the authorities made a mistake inasmuch as they sent in heavily armed commandos when, unlike at the time of the “Bluestar Operation,” there was no evidence of accumulation of arms in the Golden Temple and whether on his own or at the Centre’s insistence, the Punjab chief minister, Mr. Surjit Singh Barnala, ordered the security forces to go in without the prior approval of his cabinet. Mercifully the authorities have acted with greater discretion this time. No useful purpose would have been served by police entry into the complex; for this time, as last time, the key figures would in all probability have escaped. Indeed, they were not present in the first instance.
Just as the Khalistan declaration could not have been aimed at splitting the Akali Dal, the latest “sarbat khalsa” is unlikely to have been intended to end moves to dump Mr. Barnala. But the former did lead to a split in the Akali Dal and the latter may well buy Mr. Barnala time. He has certainly seized the opportunity to rally his ministerial colleagues behind him in a strong denunciation of the “pro-Khalistan” activists. It is not possible to say whether or not the president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee has denounced the organizers of the “sarbat khalsa” as foreign agents on Mr. Barnala’s behalf. But Mr. Kabul Singh’s statement does not, on the face it, fit into the former SGPC chief’s politics as we know it. Mr. Tohra has at best been ambivalent in his attitude towards the extremists and the terrorists; in reality he has given them encouragement and he has been wanting to get rid of Mr. Barnala in the service of the same cause. The situation in Punjab is rather baffling. The recent developments there need to be investigated and analysed with care. Certainly the temptation to rush to conclusions must be resisted.