Question On Operation Blue Star.

[Khalasthan86]

As we all know that Operation Blue Star, was to kill Sikhs and Bhindranwale, and Indian Army made the exuse of flushing "terrorists" out.

They said they went to arrest Sant Bhindranwale (the exuse they made)

The question is "Did the army have a arrest warrant against Sant Ji?".

IF they didn't have a arrest warrant, doesn't that make it illegal???

BHUL CHUK MAAF

[BuddhaDal]

No they did not have an arrest warrant on Sant Jee and so hence the attack was illegal.

[BhaiSukhSingh]

As we all know that Operation Blue Star, was to kill Sikhs and Bhindranwale, and Indian Army made the exuse of flushing "terrorists" out.

They said they went to arrest Sant Bhindranwale (the exuse they made)

The question is "Did the army have a arrest warrant against Sant Ji?".

IF they didn't have a arrest warrant, doesn't that make it illegal???

BHUL CHUK MAAF

is it illegal killing innocent the goverment have covered there backs if they didnt have warrents for the attack or singhs they will just get em now to them it was legal !! to us it was a sacrafice

[raj_karega_khalsa]

“the then deputy commissioner of Amritsar, Gurdev Singh…said that he had categorically informed the highest officials of the Punjab government that if they wanted to arrest Bhindranwale, there would be no major difficulty in organizing it. The chief minister, the governor of Punjab and other senior officials told him that the directive to take action against Bhindranwale had to come from Delhi.”

-Kumar, Ram Narayan, et. al., Reduced to Ashes, p. 34

[babbar_sher]

thats a good question, never thought of it like that.

but then again what were they going to arrest sant ji on? supporting anandpur sahib resolution....

[Namaskaar]

Could someone explain to me why did sant ji start building reinforcements around the akaal takht? and also why didnt he leave akal takht and fight somewhere else?

[babbar_sher]

Could someone explain to me why did sant ji start building reinforcements around the akaal takht? and also why didnt he leave akal takht and fight somewhere else?

its because sikhs knew the government is planning to attack harminder sahib. i remember reading about how the government was planning a attack 1 year before it actually happened, they were just waiting for a day they could kill more innocent sikhs.

and about sant ji not leaving and fighting somewhere else you have to remember bhindranwale wasnt there target, sikhs were the target. because at that time we had clearly reached a point where everyone wanted to live in india with equal rights and the government didnt want to give us our rights, so they attacked harminder sahib thinking it will send us to stone ages.

also remember indian government had attacked 40 other gurudwaras that day, so sant ji not being there would have only meant more of harminder sahib being destroyed. thats why sant ji had said the day government attacks harmidar sahib the foundation of khalistan will be laid.

[S1ngh]

The question is "Did the army have a arrest warrant against Sant Ji?".

Only state police or federal (central) police department can arrest someone with arrest warrant. Only court issue the arrest warrant and local police carries it out (in normal procedure). To issue the arrest one needs to have strong case with lots of good standing proof. They got no enough proof on Sant ji and they were afraid of the public backlash if they arrest Sant ji. Army main purpose is to keep country protected from Invaders or to attack other countries upon the orders of Prime minister. What happened in Amritsar in 80's is totally illegal thing to do in the law books of India.

[raj_karega_khalsa]

Journey of Sovereignty

-Bhai Santbir Singh

Over the last few days a debate has been going on Sikhe.com concerning the role of Jarnail Singh in the destruction of the Akal Takht and the army action against the Darbar Sahib Complex in 1984.

For the last seventeen years the constant claim of some Sikhs, that somehow Shaheed Baba Jarnail Singh was to blame for the destruction of the Akal Takhat and how it would have been much better had he not been in the complex and that by being there he invited the army action, makes two things clear to me. One, we are a people with a slave mentality. We blame ourselves for the crimes committed against us by the State. And two, our knowledge of Sikh history is narrow and lacks an intelligent understanding of our history and traditions.

The belief that the sanctity of a place, especially the Darbar Sahib complex, must be kept at all costs and that Jarnail Singh should have done everything in his power to ensure it was not defiled in any way is an argument that flies in the face of Sikh ideology and tradition.

The Akaal Takht Sahib (properly called Takht Akaal Bunga Sahib) is a building: brick and mortar, marble and gold. What is more important than the actual building, is the sovereignty of the Khalsa Panth; is the freedom of the Akal Takht. When given a choice between letting a government control the Takht or defending it, and thus perhaps then brining about its destruction, the Nation of the Sikh would rather have it destroyed than come under government control. If to keep its independence the building is destroyed, then that is of no consequence to the Panth. If, after its destruction, the government still takes over, then at least the Khalsa Nation can say we tried our hardest to ensure that the "Throne of the Infinite" remained sovereign. Let us look at some key examples in Sikh history that should help prove this point.

In 1764, Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh and his twenty-nine sathees were the caretakers of the Akal Takht Sahib and the adjoining gurdwaras. Bhai Sahib was one of the top students of Baba Deep Singh and was from the Damdami Taksaal / Shaheedi Misl. At the time, the majority of the Khalsa were in the jungles to the north of Punjab and the deserts in the Rajasthan area. The Sikhs were under heavy persecution from the governments of the time and the Khalsa was regrouping in these wild lands. Very few Sikhs were left in Punjab and these thirty Sikhs had volunteered for the seva of up keeping the Darbar Sahib Complex, especially the Akal Takht and Darbar Sahib. Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh was what we would now call the Jathedar of the Akal Takht Sahib, though that position was not called so until much later in Sikh history.

When the Afghanis under Ahmed Shah Duranni came through Punjab on one of their many invasions of the sub-continent, they found Amritsar deserted (at that time Amritsar was called Chak Guru, Chak Ramdaspur, Guru ka Chak, or just Chak). They came to Darbar Sahib, which they had planned to occupy. Now, if there were no Sikhs there, they would have just occupied the buildings and left. And Sikhs today, would probably say, let them, because then the buildings will be saved. But no. The Khalsa cannot allow any power to have control over the throne given to it by Akal Purakh. This is a timeless throne, one that the Khalsa rules from, answerable only to God. Its independence must be maintained. So, those thirty brave Sikhs came out and took on a large Afghani army. The odds were hugely stacked against them (like they were in 1984), but the thirty Singhs fought extremely bravely. They destroyed many Afghani troops and, ultimately, they were all killed.

For them, dying there and doing everything they could do to protect the sovereignty of the institutions of the Khalsa was much more important and dear to them than their lives. So long as Sikhs were in the Akal Takht, they would not voluntarily let it be taken over by a foreign power.

Now let us look back ten years earlier, to 1757. Baba Deep Singh is considered one of the giants of Sikh history, and rightly so. The first Jathedar of the Damdami Taksaal, his accomplishments are many. He was taught directly by Bhai Mani Singh in intellectual, philosophical and martial traditions. He prepared the first copies of the Guru Granth Sahib from Bhai Mani Singh's original Damdami Bir, the one Guru Gobind Singh had transcribed to Bhai Mani Singh in 1703 at Damdama. Baba Deep Singh fought in battles under Guru Gobind Singh. He fought with Shaheed Baba Banda Singh Bahadur in those early campaigns of the Khalsa Panth after Guru Jee's passing. He was the leader of one of the five Jathas of the Taruna Dal. He was the founding Jathedar of the Shaheed Misl. He fought in the lesser holocaust, the chota Ghallughara, and in all major Sikh battles up to his martyrdom.

In 1757, the Durrani Afghanis were again on an invasion into the sub-continent. They came to Darbar Sahib and occupied the buildings. There were no Sikhs to stop them, or the Sikhs that were there thought they could do nothing to stop the occupation. Baba Deep Singh was at Damdama Sahib at the time and received news of the occupation of the buildings only a few weeks later. When he found out, what did he do? The key question is, what did he do that was any different from what Jarnail Singh did. Sikhs today would have had him sit back and allow the buildings to have been occupied. The Afghanis would use and abuse the buildings and, when it came time to leave, they would, leaving the buildings to be taken over again by the Khalsa. Sikhs today would say, fine, let them, as long as the complex is not destroyed. They would have Baba Deep Singh sit back and say to himself, "Hmmmm, maybe I should let them have it, if we cause problems, maybe some "beyadbee" will come to the buildings." But of course, he did not. The greater "beyadbee" is for the gurdwaras and the Takht of the Khalsa Panth to be under the control of anyone but the nation founded by Guru Nanak.

Upon learning of the Afghani occupation, Baba Deep Singh set out with his students from the Taksaal at Damdama Sahib in southern Punjab. He was well into his seventies, an age when most would have left their warrior days behind. Of course, a Sikh warrior's days are never behind them. On the way to Amritsar up to five thousand Sikhs joined him. They met the Afghanis at Tarn Taran, about fifteen kilometers from Amritsar, where the battle began. There were at least twenty thousand Afghanis. Baba jee and all the other Sikhs fought bravely.

We all know what happened to Baba Deep Singh. He received a sword blow to his neck and his head left his body. Despite this he kept on fighting, fulfilling a promise he had earlier made in front of the Guru Granth Sahib. He made it close to the Darbar Sahib Complex and fell there, throwing his head to the parkarma of the Darbar Sahib.

Like in 1984 and 1764, the battle of 1757 was lost by the Sikhs. It was an impossible battle to win, one where the question, "why bother", would be asked. Why bother fighting a losing battle? Why go out and be slaughtered if you know your chances of success are slim to none? Why go and fight, if by fighting you are brining more destruction to the very buildings you are dying to protect?

Well, firstly, an unwinnable battle has never been an excuse to not fight for the Nation of the Infinite. In fact, the great Sikhs, like Baba Deep Singh, will travel far distances and pray to God for the chance to be able to partake in such a battle. Yes, ultimately the buildings were destroyed (the Akal Takht Sahib has been destroyed seven times, eight now, and the Darbar Sahib twice), but the Khalsa tried it's everything to keep it free.

Jagmeet Singh has already countered my above points to some extent. He has written that the situation of Baba Jarnail Singh in 1984 is not comparable to Baba Deep Singh's situation of 1757 and Bhai Gurbaksh Singh in 1764. Let us look at the situation of 1984 a little closer. For a better understanding of the situation one should read Jarnail Singh's own speeches, as translated by Ranbir Singh, or better yet, hear the originals.

In 1982, four young students of the Damdami Taksaal were arrested by the police on trumped up charges. The Taksaal was been targeted because of Jarnail Singh's rising popularity, the success of the campaign of getting Sikhs to take Amrit, and the fast growing strength of the All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF).

Jarnail Singh had been head of the Damdami Taksaal, jatha Bhindran-Metha, since 1978 when Bhai Kartar Singh was killed in a supposed car accident. He deputed Kartar Singh's eldest son, Bhai Amrik Singh, to deal with the situation. Bhai Amrik Singh was also the President of the AISSF. The AISSF is an organization set up in the 1920's that had grown stagnant and useless over the years. After the emergency that Indira Gandhi had called in 1975 ended, largely due to the non-violent protest of the Sikhs, Bhai Amrik Singh was elected president in 1978 and he revitalized the foundering organization, the numbers of members in the Indian wide organization went up from ten thousand in 1978 to one hundred thousand by 1980. Those federation activists became the backbone of the movement that Baba Jarnail Singh and Bhai Amrik Singh were to lead.

Bhai Amrik Singh, after going to make enquiries, was also arrested, again on false charges and sent to jail. Jarnail Singh then sent Baba Thara Singh to find out why these innocent Sikhs had been arrested, on what charges and for what reasons. Baba Thara Singh was one of the older members of the Damdami Taksaal, a respected Sikh, whose advice was sought after. He too was arrested. (On a side note, as prisoners, Bhai Amrik Singh and Baba Thara Singh caused the prison officials a lot of problems. All of the Sikh prisoners, who were in jail with them, would quickly renounce alcohol and drugs and to start keeping their hair. They would take amrit, and within a few weeks, the entire Sikh population of a jail would have become religious. They had to be moved from prison to prison. In one jail, where Amrik Singh and Thara Singh had a gurdwara built for the Sikhs, the Hindu inmates asked Baba Thara Singh for him to build something where they too could worship. Baba Thara Singh, of the Damdami Taksaal that the government has claimed again and again was anti-Hindu, then had a Mandir built in the prison for the Hindus.)

Baba Jarnail Singh surveyed the situation and decided on a course of action. Six of the members of his Jatha had been arrested on false charges and were being tortured in jail. Two of them were the top Sikhs of the Taksaal. In mid-July 1982, he went to Akal Takht Sahib and there did an ardaas and launched a morcha against the government to secure the freedom of these six innocent Sikhs. Jarnail Singh was already hugely popular and many thousands had been administered amrit by the Damdami Taksaal in the previous few years, so the morcha quickly became a large-scale movement.

Traditional Sikh leaders, specifically the Big Three of the Akali Dal, Chief Minister Parkash Singh (Badal), President of the SGPC Gurcharan Singh (Tohra) and President of the Akali Dal, Harchand Singh (Longowal), decided to start a panthic wide morcha and merge it with Jarnail Singh's morcha. They thought they could feed off the popularity of Jarnail Singh, that he would be under their control and that they could use him as a figurehead, a pawn of theirs. They underestimated his morals and principals and his ability to understand the wider situation, to comprehend what was really on the line. They especially failed to understand how intelligent he really was, something that western commentators have also done, believing this was just a "simple rustic preacher".

All of them also discounted the ability of his "lieutenants". Bhai Amrik Singh galvanized the Sikh youth around India and was seen as a pious and deeply religious man. Harminder Singh (Sandu) had a brilliant organizational mind and it was he who organized many of the morcha's actions. Bhai Manvir Singh (Chaheru) and Bhai Surinder Singh (Sodhi) were trained in the police and army and they carried and planned out many of the covert actions that later became necessary when the government began to target innocent Sikhs. And of course former army General, Sahbeg Singh, who organized the defenses to the army action of June 1984. All of these Sikhs and many more were at the disposal of Jarnail Singh during the two yearlong morcha.

The Akali Dal leaders named their morcha the Dharam Yudh Morcha or, translated, the Holy War Morcha. What is a morcha? When and why did they come into popularity with the Sikhs as a tool for political change?

Morchas literally means an armed position in a war. In the past century it has come to mean a non-violent mass protest. Morchas were first used to free historical Gurdwaras from the control of the corrupt Hindu mahants, who were backed by the British Government, and to secure specific demands from the government.

The first morcha was the Rikab Ganj Morcha, which began when the British tore down a wall of the Rikab Ganj Gurdwara in New Delhi, where Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib's body had been consigned to flames, to build a road. After that first morcha, more and more morchas began until the government finally allowed the Sikhs to set up their own central body to govern Gurdwaras, the SGPC.

Famous morchas were the Guru ka Bagh Morcha, Jaito Morcha (when the British officials of Nabha state stopped an Akhand path of the Guru Granth Sahib midway), Chabian da Morcha (when the keys to the toshakhana of the Darbar Sahib complex were confiscated) and, of course, the massacre at the Nankana Sahib Morcha.

Later, after the British left the sub-continent, morchas were taken out soon after so called independence. One of the early ones was a morcha to be able to say Punjabi Suba (the new so-called democratic Indian government had banned the slogan of "Punjabi Suba Zindabaad", or "Long live the Punjab state", and then of course the long hard fought fight for Punjabi Suba itself. The morchas against Indira Gandhi's false 'emergency', which she imposed when the Supreme Court found her guilty of election fraud, are also famous.

How is a morcha conducted?

They work on a principle of non-violence. Sikhs would go out to the Gurdwara they were trying to free, or just out into the streets, and court arrest. The idea being, that the mass arrests and civil disobedience would force the government to cede to the demands. Also, the mass arrests would bring the government's prison and justice systems to a halt. Against the British, who weren't interested in the complete destruction of the Sikhs, and who did not partake in extra-judicial killings, torturing of innocent citizens and other excesses, the morchas were successful. But as the Indian Government grew more and more blatant in its effort to destroy the Sikhs, these morchas grew inefficient.

The Dharm Yudh Morcha was taken out in order to bring about the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR). The ASR written in 1972 at Anandpur Sahib, hence the name, made a long list of demands of the government. Many were small simple demands, like having a radio broadcast from Darbar Sahib, attaining holy city status for the city of Amritsar, renaming a train after the Darbar Sahib and other such things.

But the key demands were much more serious in nature. They demanded that Chandigarh be given to Punjab, along with other Punjabi speaking areas left out of the 'Punjabi speaking Punjab' whose boundaries were drawn up in 1968 on a linguistic basis. Water rights were also integral to the Resolution. The free right to carry arms and the recognition of the Sikhs as a distinct nation (much as the Quebec sovereignists demand that French Canadians be recognized as a distinct nation).

The key demand was that India be reorganized so that the states would have more autonomy from the center. It was envisioned that the center would only have control over foreign affairs, defense, currency and internal trade. Every thing else would be under the provision of the individual states. This was a demand that would have begun to solve many of the problems of the Indian state that had been more than obvious after the British had left the sub-continent in 1947.

Panthic wide morchas were taken out in a very specific way. The panthic leaders would all make an ardaas at the Akal Takht, promising that they would not stop the morcha until the panth's demands were met. Then, the panthic leaders would stay in the Darbar Sahib complex, usually at Guru Nanak Nivaas or in the Sarais.

Living at the Akal Takht was not unheard of and Jarnail Singh was not the first to stay there. Fateh Singh had also stayed in the Akal Takht when he was taking his supposed fasts unto death in the 1960's. As Jarnail Singh pointed out, Fateh Singh stayed on a bed in the Takht, while Jarnail Singh slept on the floor. In addition, Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh and his twenty-nine sathee Singhs also stayed in the Akal Takht. Living in the Takht itself was not a unique thing.

On a daily basis, volunteer Sikhs would come in large numbers, go to Darbar Sahib and then go on to listen to speeches of the Panthic leaders and to kathaas, tadis, poems and other speeches. The morcha participants would then go do ardaas at Akal Takht and then go to court arrest. These Sikhs would come organized in groups, with a Jathedar at their head. This had become the pattern of running a morcha. The Dharam Yudh Morcha was taken out in the same way.

Jarnail Singh started his morcha only for the release of the Sikhs of his jatha who were unjustly arrested. After the Panthic leaders started their morcha and joined it with the one Jarnail Singh already had going, he threw himself in full force with the panthic wide morcha. At the Akal Takht, all the Panthic leaders and Jarnail Singh did ardaas, saying they would never stop the morcha until the Panth's demands were met.

As a leader of the morcha, Jarnail Singh stayed in the Darbar Sahib complex, just as leaders had for the last forty years and just as the different Akali Dal leaders were doing at the same time. His staying in the Darbar Sahib complex was exactly in line with Panthic tradition. Harchand Singh (Longowal), Gurcharan Singh (Tohra), Balwant Singh (Ramoowalia) and other panthic leaders were all staying in the complex as well.

Many thought that once the Sikhs of the Damdami Taksaal had been released, Jarnail Singh would then stop his morcha or take a back seat position. When it became clear that his personality was taking over the morcha and that the masses were following him and not the old Akali Dal leaders, those leaders were hoping for such a turn of events. But, Jarnail Singh maintained that he was not going to go back on the ardaas he had made at the Akal Takht.

Now, for those who have no respect for the Guru Granth Sahib, or for the Guru Khalsa Panth, taking an ardaas in front of the Guru and making a promise in front of the Guru is no big deal. But for those Sikhs who have respect for the Granth Sahib and think of it as their true Guru, such a promise must be fulfilled. Come what may, that promise must be kept.

Just as Baba Deep Singh had made a promise to fight and free Darbar Sahib, just as Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh had made a promise to defend the Darbar Sahib complex whatever the circumstances, Jarnail Singh made a promise that he would keep the morcha going until its demands would be fulfilled. There could be no going back on a promise made before the Guru. There can be no negations on terms that one has decided on in front of Guruji. The Akali Dal leaders had no problem with going back on promises made before the Guru, promises they had made to the sangat again and again. Those same leaders who had said they would fight to their death for the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, quickly sold out the Sikh people in negotiations with the Centre, ignoring many of the key demands of the Resolution.

When Harchand Singh signed the Rajiv-Longowal accord in 1985, he had gone back on most of the promises he had made in front of the Guru. Except for Longowal, many of these Akali Dal politicians are now leaders in the Punjab Government and have not even tried to bring about one the demands of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, forget the major demands, not even the minor ones. The number of promises that Chief Minister Parkash Singh himself has broken would be a mile long. But Jarnail Singh was no Badal. A promise that he made in front of the Guru Granth Sahib could never be broken. He had made a promise that he would bring about the demands of the Dharam Yudh Morcha, or die trying, and he did just that.

As I stated earlier, Indira Gandhi's response to the Dharam Yudh Morcha, ensured that it would not be successful. In the old days they would arrest the Sikhs, thereby putting them into the justice system. What Gandhi began to do, was to release the morcha participants right away, without charging them. While they released the common Sikhs, the police would keep the leaders of the morchas in jail and torture or kill them. This served completely to nullify the tactics of the morcha. As the police, the Hindu right wing organizations and the Hindu governments of neighbouring states to Punjab, especially Haryana and Rajasthan, began to target Sikhs more and more, Jarnail Singh became increasingly the man that the Sikhs turned to for assistance and protection. What he did in that situation is also widely misunderstood, but to get into that right now would be going too far off the topic.

Let us now look at another common criticism of Jarnail Singh concerning the destruction of Darbar Sahib. Many bring up the point of the carrying of arms by Jarnail Singh and other Sikhs who were with him. They also criticize the armed encampments and fortifications built into the Darbar Sahib complex by Shaheed General Sahbeg Singh. Some quotes of Guru Gobind Singh should help clear up the point. He should be the expert on what is and what is not allowed for the Khalsa.

Guru Gobind Singh Sahib has said:

"Panj hathiar bahn keh, darshan koh avana."

"Wearing five arms then come and do my darshan."

Many critics of the Khalsa say that a kirpan is a useless weapon in the modern world. That one cannot do anything with a kirpan. I hate to use this as an example, but the terrorists of September 11, 2001 did quite a lot with just box cutters. A kirpan, of a decent size and of good quality, is the bare minimum of personal defense. With one, a person can at least defend himself or herself or defend others who are in distress. In a choice between nothing and a kirpan, a kirpan can help in an emergency. It is the least the Khalsa should wear on themselves. If you are able, and if the situation thus requires, a Sikh of the Guru should wear more weapons on their person. Guru jee asks for at lest five.

Guru Gobind Singh further writes:

"Binaa shashtre keshang narang bhaid jannoh.

Ghai kahn teh pakreh leh saidahnoh.

Eh morh aagya sunoh meraih pyareh

Bina tegangh keshang divoh nah deedareh"

Which translates as,

“Without weapons and uncut hair a person is but like a sheep.

Held by the ear they can be taken anywhere.

Listen to this command of mine, my beloved:

Without a sword and uncut hair, do not come into my presence.â€

Weapons are integral for attaining sovereignty. As Mao said, "Power comes through the barrel of a gun." Guru jee made an incredibly astute statement on the role of politics, religion and weapons in the following quote. This quote is the central guiding principle of Sikh polity:

"Tabh in bhinoh Gareeb navaj

Shashtren keh adeehn heh raj

Raj binah neh dharma chaleh heh

Dharam binah sabh dhaleh maleh heh"

The translation of which would be

“The Protector of the Poor says

Weapons are the key to sovereignty

Without sovereignty religions cannot flourish

Without religion all are completely destroyed."

The above three quotes are of Guru Gobind Singh jee's hand. I wonder if those who criticize Jarnail Singh for arming himself and for putting up fortifications around Darbar Sahib would have it in them to criticize Guru Gobind Singh.

In this ongoing debate, some one has also brought up the point that Guru Har Gobind made sure not to fight in the Darbar Sahib complex, that he first sent a small contingent of Sikhs out to fight at Lohgarh the night before the main battle and then the next day the battle took place at a village close to Amritsar.

Guru Har Gobind had a strong fort built on the outskirts of the city. He had control of all of Amritsar and many of the adjoining villages. It is not comparable to draw a parallel between this and the 1984 situation. The Sikhs did not have control of all of Amritsar in 1984. If they did, they would have, for sure, ensured that the battle took place far from the Darbar Sahib complex, hopefully on the out skirts of the city. But how could a few hundred fighters ever hope to defend and fortify an entire city when they had no control of it? Remember also that the army made the first move. They surrounded the complex completely and then attacked. On the Sahaheedi Purb of Guru Arjun Sahib at that. A strange choice considering the huge number of devotees who always come and visit the Gurdwara on that day. The battlefield was not Jarnail Singh and Sahbeg Singh's to decide.

Could the attack on the Darbar Sahib Complex and the Akal Takht been avoided. Yes, if the government had ceded to the legitimate and just demands of the Sikhs. If they had not started to kill hundreds of Sikhs in torture cells and false encounters (the number of innocent Sikhs killed from 1980 to 1984 was up to 300 by the time of Blue Star), if they did not set up riots in Hindu dominated States (read Haryana) that targeted Sikhs. If young Sikh women were not raped by police and armed forces. If Guru Granth Sahib's were not desecrated.

Sikhs today blame Jarnail Singh for the escalating nature of the conflict. They blame him for brining about the attack on the Darbar Sahib when all he ever did was try and show the Sikhs that they were slaves in the Indian system and tried to defend the Sikhs against illegal killings and tortures.

If the Operation BlueStar attack was truly done in order to stop the so-called terrorists that had holed themselves up in the Darbar Sahib Complex, then why attack on Guru Arjun Shaheedi purb. Why trap thousands of innocent Sikhs in the complex. Why pretend to be the Red Cross and when people come out for assistance, shoot them dead? Why enact a statewide curfew and a full media blackout? Why stop trains to and from Amritsar? And most importantly, why attack up to 80 other Gurdwaras on the same day? Was Jarnail Singh in all of them? Had he made fortifications in all of those Gurdwaras, over half of which were historical Gurdwaras? Why, after having killed thousands of Sikhs and destroying the Akal Takht, did the army burn down the Sikh reference library, which contained over 1,000 historical Guru Granth Sahib Birs and other texts, many of which were signed and authenticated by the Gurus? Which contained the writings of the Gurus, the arms and clothing of the Gurus and famous Sikhs. Which contained treaties and government orders of the Independent Khalsa Nation from hundreds of years ago. Why burn that down? Why attack all of those Gurdwaras?

Those who say again and again that Jarnail Singh was a pawn in a larger game, or claim that he is to blame for the destruction of the Akal Takht and the death and misery that was to descend upon Punjab in 1984 and after, really do need carefully study the history of events before coming to conclusions. One of the biggest problems the panth faces today, and we do face many, is that we lack an ability to look at our history, put its events into context and learn from them so that we do not make the same mistakes again and again.

Concerning the modern day situation, we need to take a step back and look at the policies of the Indian state in relation to the Sikhs. Learn about how the government has treated us, and is. See how much they respect us, how much care they have for our freedom, our liberty and our lives.

Jarnail Singh is not the man who caused the destruction of the Akal Takht. He is the man who died defending it so that the Khalsa Nation could be woken from its century long slumber and again walk the path of personal sovereignty and independence for itself and for all the peoples of the world. He should not be blamed, but praised, as a shinning example of what a true Sikh is and how a true Sikh lives.

Baba Deep Singh, Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh and now Jarnail Singh. These are some of the heroes of the Khalsa nation, who gave their heads to try and maintain the freedom of the Akal Takht, but never backed down on their principles.

If only we had more Sikhs like them. We wouldn't be nearly as badly off as we are now.

December 14th, 2001

[ladli-fauj]

Could someone explain to me why did sant ji start building reinforcements around the akaal takht? and also why didnt he leave akal takht and fight somewhere else?

its because sikhs knew the government is planning to attack harminder sahib. i remember reading about how the government was planning a attack 1 year before it actually happened, they were just waiting for a day they could kill more innocent sikhs.

and about sant ji not leaving and fighting somewhere else you have to remember bhindranwale wasnt there target, sikhs were the target. because at that time we had clearly reached a point where everyone wanted to live in india with equal rights and the government didnt want to give us our rights, so they attacked harminder sahib thinking it will send us to stone ages.

also remember indian government had attacked 40 other gurudwaras that day, so sant ji not being there would have only meant more of harminder sahib being destroyed. thats why sant ji had said the day government attacks harmidar sahib the foundation of khalistan will be laid.

THis is true as me and one of my uncles were talking what lead up to bluestar, he told me that way before Sant Ji became very famous, the army along with police were already coming into Punjab and getting ready for any type of movement to start, he said that around 1980 that the army and police had come around his village and other villages and were training and when he asked one sardar police man what was going on the policeman laughed and said training.... he said that they brought army and police training around villages where Sikhi was not the main religion around villages