The recent assassination attempt on Lieutenant-General Kuldip Singh Brar in London is a grim reminder that the ghosts of the Punjab insurgency are still with us so many years after the last shots were fired. Indira Gandhi’s decision to send troops into the Golden Temple in June 1984 — troops Gen. Brar commanded — set off events which would claim tens of thousands of lives, including her own. Historians have long debated if Mrs Gandhi’s decision to storm the temple was correct. This much, though, there is a consensus on: the murderous events of the summer of 1984 were an outcome of a vicious political dance, in which Mrs Gandhi’s Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal sought to outmanoeuvre each other by using Sikh militancy. Helped by Pakistan’s intelligence services, the religious fanatics both parties patronised made a determined push to create a separate Sikh state, Khalistan. Punjab has since become one of India’s most peaceful States, a product of not only a bloody counter-insurgency campaign, but the rejection by ordinary Sikhs and Hindus of the cult of death which ruled Punjab from 1983 to 1993. In recent years, though, Khalistan groups have been re-emerging, particularly in the diaspora. The arrests made in Britain in connection with the attempt on Gen. Brar’s life make it clear such organisations have regained resources and organisational capacities.
If the ghosts of the Khalistan movement have reappeared today, it is at least in part because politicians have been busy opening up the crypts into which its memory had been consigned. Inside the Golden Temple, an 18-foot memorial to the Khalistan terrorists is being built next to the Akal Takht, the highest seat of Sikhs’ spiritual authority. Pro-Khalistan posters have reappeared in many towns; even as the government has ignored these, it has cracked down on heterodox religious groupings. Having shown itself unable to address simmering economic frustration among its core landed-peasant constituency, the SAD-led alliance government has embraced religious-chauvinist causes, seeking to secure its political flanks from attack. This is a profoundly misguided strategy. Parkash Singh Badal, himself long a key target of terrorists, knows better than most that the Khalistan movement never represented Sikh opinion. Indeed, the Akalis and the Congress must realise that peace in Punjab can only be sustained by unequivocal support for the secular culture and traditions of the State. And by ensuring that the raw wound left by the Indian legal system’s failure to punish the perpetrators of the November 1984 massacre of Sikhs is healed quickly with the balm of justice.
Some points are worth considering. We ourselves launched Bhindranwale in Punjab with a free hand to "tame" the Akali Dal and he decided to go the whole hog by implementing the saying, "In for a penny, in for a pound!" Blaming Pakistan for Punjab's problems of that time is pure bullshit to cover up our own double-shuffle.
Though general Sikh population would not buy the idea of violence or may
be even Khalistan.. But blaming SAD or any other sikh organization for
sporadic happenings is not fair either.. Just one thing needs to be done
to put all this to rest. Punish Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar
Jakhar..Mainstream Indian media so conveniently ignores to bring this
side .. A lot of burns would be healed. If they die a natural death
without reasonable punishment, chance to bring peace could be
permanently lost.
This is SO staged. This man deserves an Oscar. "Four bearded men attacked him" and he calls NDTV not Emergency services?!?! This kind of dishonesty can only be expected from a man who has the gall to bomb a holy place of worship that has fed Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains etc for 500 years EVERY single day except for the few days he decided to attack. Congress is doing everything to high-light their past "fake victories" so that they can deviate from real issues plaguing the common man in India and now they used Brar as a pawn.
Disagree. Punjab has not forgotten what happened before during or
after Blue Star. Sheer Political incompetence and Selfishness on the
part of the Central Government led up to Blue Star. Further
incompetence ensured that sensible advice - eg. that by Gen SK Sinha -
was not heeded and the massacre at Harmandir Sahib occurred. This was
the only instance in Independent India where the Central Government
used a massive display of armed might leading to the death of
thousands of innocent persons. This was followed up later the same
year by further Political Incompetence and Thuggery leading to the
massacre of further thousands of innocents in plain public view. What
message did all of this send to the Sikh populace? Should they have
felt welcome in the Indian Democratic setup after all of this? It
seems that just as in Kashmir the corrupt Polity of India would rather
not solve controversial issues but let them fester to be used as per
Political Convenience
its a matter great concern that mr.Brar was attacked by such elements.we
should condemned as far as possible.our diversity is our strength.
It is unfortunate that the Govt could not provide adequate protection to a brave General who did what he was ordered to by his politcal masters.
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