After the Golden Temple Assault

...One involves the settlement of a territorial dispute with neighboring, largely Hindu Haryana, carved out in 1966 in deference to the wishes of the dominant Sikh peasantry of what is now Punjab...

...Except once the Frankenstein of Sikh fundamentalism was created there was no controlling it...

...Although it was known that the 72-acre complex had become the headquarters of well-armed agitators demanding increased autonomy for the state where the Sikhs are a majority, she was no doubt supremely aware that her order invited the risk of rebellion in the ranks...

...and it has the unenviable job of maintaining law and order in the northeast, the scene of protracted tribal unrest...

...The Prime Minister used to take pride in her strong southern base—until she lost Karnata-ka and Andhra Pradesh...

...While this is undeniably true, it is wrong to treat secularism as justifying a spurious sort of "nationalism" that would deny a community its individuality in the name of integration...

...The economy ground to a halt, but the terrorism that was being directed and fed from behind the protective walls of the Golden Temple escalated...

...Gandhi's notorious son, the late Sanjay, with his strategy for restoring his mother's political fortunes in the state by promoting Bhindranwale and other previously unknown extremists...

...Enter Mrs...

...For if at the moment she can expect to reap a rich harvest of Hindu votes as a consequence of her strong-arm tactics, she also has to resign herself to losing an important state to her opponents...

...On the other hand, Sikh historian and journalist Khush-want Singh, a former adviser to Mrs...

...The terrorists killed over 300 people, half of them moderate Sikhs, in the course of the ugly compaign of fear and intimidation that they launched in August 1982...

...Gandhi was on a terrorist hit list—a remark that rightly drew strong objections from New Delhi and an apology from London...

...And one immediate result of Operation Bluestar, the military code name for the June 5-6 attack on the Temple, was indeed a spate of mutinies...

...Under the relatively weak, regionally based Janata coalition that took over the capital, state politics was allowed free rein...

...The story dates back to the years 197780, when Mrs...

...Jawans (soldiers) spontaneously took to the streets—some, in fits of hysterics, even attempted a march to Amritsar to avenge the action taken against the extremists...

...They particularly groomed the Sikhs—a community with a tradition of martial prowess (against the Mughals and other invaders)—to be loyal to authority...

...The task is a daunting one, but its urgency was again underscored by the death, disaffection and widespread turmoil that marked the curbing of religious terrorism in the northwestern state of Punjab...

...That response presented an opportunity for some Hindu leaders—especially in the opposition Janata and Bharatiya Janata parties—to be the intermediaries in salving the wounded feelings of India's 12 million Sikhs...

...a bare 1,000 or so of the over 1 million men and women in the Armed Forces deserted...

...But things were different now, according to Chouhan, who in an interview on the BBC said that Mrs...

...and banned nonmilitary vehicles from the roads...

...Certainly the revolt was unprecedented: Never before had soldiers acted in concert against India or obliquely referred to it as "Hindustan," implying either that it was meant for Hindus or dominated by a repressive government embodied in Indira Gandhi...

...cut off local rail and bus service...

...Most observers concede that Chandigarh should be handed over to Punjab, and that the investment should be made in constructing a comparable new capital for Haryana (second only to Punjab in agricultural production...

...Gandhi must pay for her sacrilege...

...The repeatedly resounding defeats suffered by Congress (I) in those states have proved that India is an amalgam of regional forces, that it is presumptuous to posit a national or mainstream party capable of carrying the entire country...

...ALIENATING THE SIKHS After the Golden Temple Assault BY DARRYL D'MONTE Bombay The overwhelming need of the hour in India is finding a political—rather than military— means of defusing the growing tensions among the country's many sects and communities...

...Gandhi's Congress (I) party, could no longer exert control...

...Eight months ago, things reached the point where the state administration, headed by Darbara Singh of Mrs...

...Prime Minister Indira Gandhi hesitated a long time before sending out troops to storm the Golden Temple at Amritsar...

...Reports of Operation Bluestar's toll vary from the official figure of493 dead to estimates of more than 1,000, plus 1,200 wounded...

...One of those cut down in the Temple was Jarnail Singh Bhin-dranwale, the most fanatic commando leader, who along with his followers achieved instant martyrdom in the Sikhs' emotional reaction to the sight of their shrine being violated...

...The Prime Minister now faces the problem of finding an acceptable Sikh figure to negotiate with—and fairly quickly...

...The Sikhs' demands, even now, do not seem impossible to satisfy...

...It is similarly felt that a third conflict, having to do with the sharing of the waters of two rivers flowing through Punjab, could also be amicably resolved...

...In Punjab the presiding Akali Dal, an electoral ally of Janata, was peacefully working toward securing several concessions it had established as goals in a 1973 party resolution...

...the growing savagery against Hindus and moderate Sikhs left her no choice...

...Governor's rule had to be imposed, putting Punjab under the direct jurisdiction of the federal government...

...It was fanned by the inflammatory exhortations of exiled spokesmen such as Jagjit Singh Chou-han in London and Ganga Singh Dhil-lon in the United States, founders of their own "parallel" government with postage stamps and new passports for Sikh "nationals...

...No more thorny is the demand that Article 25 of the Indian Constitution be amended to declare Sikhs adherents of an officially distinct religion...

...Gandhi wants with the end of her five-year term approaching in 1985...

...With great emotion he compared the government's action to the 1919 cold-blooded British massacre of unarmed people in Amritsar's Jalian-wala Bagh Park (depicted in the film Gandhi), and then called upon Sikhs to " sheathe their kirpans (miniature swords the orthodox wear as a symbol of their warrior heritage) and take Hindus in their embrace...

...Numerous officers— including Lieutenant General Ranjit Singh Dayal, who was responsible for Operation Bluestar, and four of the six top Army commanders—are Sikh...

...Talk of forming Punjab into a separate nation called Khali-stan gained ground...

...last month it responded to the bloody riots that erupted between Hindus and Moslems in Bombay (see "Why Bombay Burned," NL, May 28...

...Gandhi, appear to have difficulty absorbing is that India's strength—rather than its weakness—lies precisely in the amazing diversity of its people...

...New Delhi soon suspended the publication of all local newspapers...

...This was meant to destabilize the Akali Dal and pave the way for the re-emergence of Congress (I) in Punjab, and it did...

...Khalistanis" have been a very small minority...

...Its reliability and long-standing reputation for nonpartisanship is a legacy of the British...

...But as a former Hindu sect that parted company with Hinduism at the end of the 15th century, it has not yet been accorded separate status...

...Earlier Mrs...

...expelled foreigners and barred foreign correspondents...

...Sikhism preaches a kind of brotherhood without distinctions of caste or class, symbolized by the langars (community kitchens) where anyone can eat free...

...By and large they did not become more mutually antagonistic during the military intervention as was generally feared...

...For all its political deviousness and consequent exacerbation of communalism, Congress (I) has assumed the role of protecting minorities...

...other Akali Dal leaders would likewise be rejected for their nonmilitant stance...

...After many hesitations, Mrs...

...the rest of the population, especially the urban traders, are Hindu...

...set curfews in the state's cities...

...It has come to represent the Sikhs' aspirations for a capital of their own reflecting their power...

...Gandhi has, for now at least, forfeited her own and her party's acceptability to the Sikhs, it is also a fact that they may well find no—peaceful—alternative to pursuing their goals under her leadership...

...the Sikh population had been seeking greater self-rule for Punjab, not independence...

...The last straw was their announced plan of prohibiting the movement of grains out of Punjab, thereby withholding potentially half of the rice and wheat that would otherwise go into India's public distribution system...

...Gandhi's interference with regionally-based sentiment, her desire to bring every state under her sway, has been her undoing...

...Gandhi's crackdown against the extremists made them all suspect...

...Longo-wal, although still incarcerated, is discredited in eyes of most Sikhs for having abandoned the Temple...

...The two major opposition parties are far more communal minded and do not have the slightest chance of winning confidence outside the Hindi-speaking northern belt...

...To move from the theoretical to the practical, whatever the recent rhetoric about separatism, no single Indian state could survive economically or politically outside the union...

...The most moderate and otherwise well-meaning Sikhs also denounced her violation of the shrine, saying it had destroyed their unquestioning belief in the Indian union...

...Yet despite the ferocity of the Sikh reaction, the situation had its positive aspects...

...Another source of friction is the states' joint capital, Chandigarh, amoderncity designed by the famous French architect Le Corbusier...

...Instead, the Sikhs noticeably reserved their ire for the Prime Minister and her government...

...They remained loyal and firmly in control of the troops...

...Gandhi was voted out of power...

...One has merely to see how her attempt to dislodge the majority National Conference Party of Moslem-dominated Kashmir—a state that remains a bone of contention with Pakistan—has led to the party's soaring popularity and a tremendous upsurge of anti-" Indian" feeling...

...Hence, if through the assault on the Golden Temple Mrs...

...The twin threat of "noncoopera-tion" and stepped-up violence placed the reluctant Indira Gandhi in a position where she had to take the step she rightly dreaded...

...A Khalistan would face the threat of immediate annexation by Pakistan, to whom the strife in a border land has come as a blessing and diversion...

...That is hardly what Mrs...

...One should also remember that barely 52 per cent of Punjab's 18 million inhabitants are Sikhs...

...While out of office at the end of the '70s he continued to play an insidiously divisive role as Mrs...

...In fact, during the first armed revolt in India against the Crown, the so-called Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, Sikhs not only were conspicuously absent "among the mutineers but helped the British regain control...

...To be sure, the long-standing antagonism between the two communities did not suddenly dissolve...

...In any case, simply continuing Governor's rule is certain to heighten resentment in Punjab to Congress (I...

...Their history suggests that even given the undeniable un-happiness of the 100,000 Sikhs in the Army today with the events at Amrit-sar, it was premature to imagine Mrs...

...Sikhs, only 2 per cent of the population, makeup roughly lOper cent of the Indian Army—a tradition stemming from British rule...

...In recent years, the Army has been called upon to quell disturbances across the country with increasing regularity...

...Her Chief Minister in Punjab from 1972-77, India's present President, Zail Singh—a Sikh himself and her ever-willing stooge—was adept at the art of appeasing his coreligionists by agreeing to such steps as renaming public places after revered Sikhs...

...In New Delhi, the rumor mills have even been suggesting that Zail Singh may step down and reassume the mantle of Chief Minister of Punjab...

...Gandhi's agent in the state, the country's most prosperous and a strategic buffer between Pakistan on its west and India...

...What many politicians, including Mrs...

...Understandably shocked, the intelligentsia regarded this as the biggest threat to the nation's unity since it gained independence in 1947...

...Equally distressing was the sight of elderly Sikhs bearing placards declaring that the "war with Hindustan" had begun, that Mrs...

...Tamil Nadu and Kerala have long been opposition strongholds...

...This would be a ludicrous demotion in terms of status, yet he is one of the few individuals who would be palatable to both the Sikhs and to Congress (I...

...Thus it has frequently found itself in Assam State...

...After the vice president of the a vowedly chauvinist Bharatiya Janata, Ram Jeth-malani, decided to take on the legal defense of Harchand Singh Longowal, the president of the moderate Sikh Akali Dal Party who surrendered at the Golden Temple shortly before it was penetrated, criticism from Bharatiya members prompted Jethmalani to resign from his party post...

...Gandhi had shown that she could play the communal card as well as anyone when she found it useful...

...Mrs...

...Numerous commentators worried about the much-cherished concept of a secular nation have been stressing, too, that Hindus and Sikhs share many common cultural traditions...

...She had been expected to order national elections later this year, but the question mark over Punjab has no doubt upset her calculations...

...Prime Minister Gandhi cannot be blamed for finally ordering the Army to act...

...It has happened before...

...Gandhi announced a few months ago that she was prepared to amend Article 25 and to refer the territorial and river disputes to tribunals...

...But by then her previous policy of allowing things to drift had again played into the hands of the extremists, who refused to come to the bargaining table...

...the bulk of Darryl D'Monte, a frequent NL contributor, is writing a book on environmental issues in the Third World...

...A second favorable factor concerns current relations between the Sikhs and Hindus...

...An invasion of their "Holy of Holies" was bound to send shock waves to regiments scattered throughout the vast land...

...In Punjab, of course, normalcy is many months away...

...Any national government will have to contend with India's festering problem of communalism—with the Nagas, Mizos, Assamese and others, no less than with the Sikhs...

...To begin with, the Army uprisings, being small, isolated and born of the heat of the moment, were quickly put down...

...Sikhs believe this is essential if they are to maintain their identity, and it would only be fair to recognize Sikhism as one of the subcontinent's great religions, along with Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam...

...If an election were held tomorrow, the extremists would unquestionably prevail over the more reasonable Akali Dal...

...Gandhi, sounded a conciliatory note when he renounced the prestigious Da-ma Vihushan national award to protest the assault...

...She is, however, fully to blame for creating the conditions that produced the disastrous confrontation while seeking short-term political advantage...