As retailer Sukhdeep Singh visits the Golden Temple in northern India, Sikhism’s holiest shrine, he laments the bloodbath 30 years ago that catapulted his religion into controversy.
The Indian military’s 1984 assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar — called Operation Blue Star — was aimed at flushing out militants holed up inside demanding an independent Sikh homeland.
Thirty years later, support for such a homeland is all but dead, with Sikhs, particularly younger ones, more interested in jobs than a separate nation, experts said.
Photo: AFP
“I regret the events of 1984,” Singh said, ahead of the anniversary on Friday of the assault that killed at least 400 people.
“People don’t want any more violence and bloodshed,” said the 31-year-old, who lives in Melbourne and was visiting his family in Amritsar in Punjab State.
“I think we are better off remaining with India,” he added.
Sikh hardliners’ struggle for “Khalistan,” or the land of the pure, peaked during the 1970s with demands for its creation in Punjab, between India and Pakistan.
The struggle culminated in the assault on the temple — ordered by the government — which also substantially damaged the building.
The Sikh community was enraged by what it felt was desecration of the revered shrine, and later that year then-Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her own Sikh bodyguards.
The assassination triggered anti-Sikh riots in which about 3,000 people were killed, many of them on the streets of New Delhi.
By the mid-1990s, demands for “Khalistan” were fading away, although the anniversary of the raid is still observed every year with protests, especially in Punjab.
“People in Punjab have moved on from 1984,” said Sukhdev Sandhu, a prominent Sikh in Punjab opposed to the homeland.
“The movement flourished in the past because of the support from the youth, but now the younger generation has different priorities,” he told reporters. “They want employment not guns.”
However, support for the independence movement still exists among the Sikh diaspora in the UK, Canada and the US.
The overseas population of Sikhs, estimated to number between 18 million and 30 million, has maintained strong connections with Punjab since migrants first left the subcontinent in the 19th century.
The diaspora still tries to mobilize support for Khalistan, and even provides funds to keep the separatist idea alive, said Kanwar Pal Singh, spokesman of the Dal Khalsa group, which is still pushing for the homeland.
Still-simmering anger over the temple raid was evident when Kuldip Singh Brar, commander of Operation Blue Star, was attacked on a London street in 2012. A Sikh gang was found guilty of the revenge knife attack, which the commander survived.
“The aspirations of the diaspora for a Sikh country are very strong,” said Kanwar Pal Singh, whose outfit publishes literature to promote the idea of Khalistan and organizes June 6 protests. “They feel history has been unkind to Sikhs, while Hindus got India, Muslims got Pakistan, but Sikhs missed the bus.”
Analysts say Punjab’s geopolitical significance — the landlocked region shares borders with Pakistan and restive Kashmir — means sovereignty is almost impossible.
“Also, the Sikhs have integrated nicely with the Hindus and there is no longer any discrimination against the community,” said Beer Good Gill, professor of history at Amritsar’s Guru Nanak Dev University.
“We have had a Sikh as our prime minister for 10 years,” she said referring to Manmohan Singh, who retired at the just-concluded election.
Sandhu said public opinion in Punjab, where the movement was strongest, turned against the militants who over the years became embroiled in deadly crime.
“[The public] started informing police of [militants’] presence when they saw they were killing their own neighbors,” Sandhu said. “It was the beginning of the end of Khalistan. Today it’s been reduced to mere tokenism.”
“It only exists in pamphlets and slogans raised each year when the Blue Star anniversary is observed,” he said.
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