Did Indira Gandhi promote Khalistan, as has been suggested by the trailer of Kangana Ranaut’s latest film? The simple answer is ‘no’. Indira Gandhi never promoted Khalistan in any way. She never even imagined that Sikhs were a separate nation or an ethnic group because they were not.
What about Indira Gandhi’s relationship with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale? There is nothing on record as yet to suggest that she had any direct contact with him. Bhindranwale on his part had only contempt for Indira Gandhi. In his speeches he would derogatorily refer to her as ‘Bamani’, a contemptuous reference to her caste.
The names of Sanjay Gandhi, Giani Zail Singh and Kamal Nath crop up frequently as those who helped Bhindranwale grow. The name of Darbara Singh, who became chief minister of Punjab for a brief while, is mentioned as the man who ensured that no coercive action would be taken against Bhindranwale even when he openly indulged in wrongdoing.
Bhindranwale was able to get away with wrongdoings because, as Buta Singh—a close confidante of Rajiv Gandhi—explained in a seminar in Delhi in August 1994, in the eyes of the Congress leadership in Delhi, Punjab had a Sikh problem since Independence. The proceedings of the seminar were published almost verbatim by Mani Shankar Aiyar.
The solution envisaged for what was perceived as the Sikh problem of Punjab, first by Jawaharlal Nehru and then by Indira Gandhi, was to be indulgent towards those making communal demands, those who insisted that Sikhs were an oppressed minority that needed to be mollycoddled.
When Partap Singh Kairon, a former Akali leader who joined the Congress because he thought the Akali Dal was veering to the communal side, refused to accept such an estimation of life in Punjab, Nehru chided him.
It was only Kairon’s energy, his strong connection with the people of Punjab and his overt rejection of any religious element in public life that ensured that he was able to keep the propensity of the central leadership of the Congress to overindulge communal demands in abeyance.
After ousting Chief Minister Bhim Sen Sachar for being soft on communal elements, Kairon focused on improving governance in Punjab. For Kairon said in his numerous articles and speeches—that was the only way in which a modern state could earn respect and loyalty from the people who otherwise seek solace in communal groupings. Kairon also showed, empirically, that far from being discriminated against, Sikhs were actually in a dominating position in Punjab, controlling the resources of the state and positions of power.
One of the outcomes of Kairon’s policy of improved governance was that he was able to ensure that the management of gurdwaras in Punjab, through the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), would not be a monopoly of the Akali Dal. It was under Kairon that, for the first time in history, the Akali Dal lost control over the SGPC. Instead, members of the Congress and the Communist Party of India came into decision-making positions in the SGPC.
It was at this juncture that Master Tara Singh, the supremo of the Akali Dal, tried to make himself relevant by insisting that a separate state be carved for Sikhs. Kairon demonstrated that Tara Singh had no support and convinced Nehru to reject the demand. Kairon also managed to win elections with an even greater margin, making it clear to Nehru that the people of Punjab did not stand with communal positions.
After the death of Nehru and Kairon, Indira Gandhi lost no time in cultivating communal elements to gain power. In the case of Punjab, this meant acceding to a partition of Punjab even when there was no popular demand.
It was at such a time that the young Jarnail Singh, at the age of 30, became the chief of taksal Bhindran. Taksal is a mint, a school where young people were minted. Bhindran was the name of the village where the taksal was originally located. Jarnail Singh was appointed to succeed the mentor of the taksal because of his energy and his ability to command respect. He was the head of a school teaching children the right path.
The evident refusal of the modern state to assert itself created a space for the emergence of Bhindranwale as a charismatic leader and helped him gain the confidence of many people as a solver of their problems, which the courts could not.
Within Punjab there was, and continues till today, an argument about the correct way of being a Sikh. As with all living dharma paramparas throughout history, believers on both sides imagine themselves to be correct and often do not hesitate to pick up weapons. It is the modern state with its monopoly of violence, ability to enforce its will and commitment to rules made by humans using conscious rational thought, which has ensured that disagreements within dharma paramparas do not result in bloodshed and wrongdoers are inevitably punished. Historically, people have stood by the modern state because of its efforts to control violence and because it is so much better at providing good governance.
As it happened, Indira Gandhi’s Congress believed that the abilities of the modern state should be entirely focused on keeping her in power and removing any challengers from her path. The Congress party became indifferent to the matter of providing good governance. Inevitably, in the absence of governance, people in distress began to reach out to anyone who seemed to have the ability to assuage their distress.
In Punjab, the inevitable challenger to the Congress was the Akali Dal, which had by now transmogrified into a political party focused on maintaining the autonomy of Punjab within India’s federal structure.
To destabilise the Akali government in Punjab, under the guidance of Giani Zail Singh, Sanjay Gandhi reached out to Bhindranwale. Jarnail Singh had picked up the moniker Bhindranwale after becoming the head of his taksal. It is said that after 1977, with Indira Gandhi being ousted by voters, Sanjay Gandhi and his cronies interviewed a number of Sants from Punjab before settling on Jarnail Singh to become the Congress’ alternative to the Akali Dal in Punjab.
One of the outcomes of such patronage was a refusal among Congress governments to haul up Bhindranwale for the threats he routinely issued to those with whom he disagreed or the violence that he engineered. The evident refusal of the modern state to assert itself created a space for the emergence of Bhindranwale as a charismatic leader and helped him gain the confidence of many people as a solver of their problems, which the courts could not.
By 1980, Bhindranwale was running courts which would provide justice to people in distress. Michael Hamlyn, writing on the developments in Amritsar in the summer of 1983 in The Times, compared Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s influence over his followers with the hold that Ayatollah Khomeini exercised over the insurgency against the Shah of Iran. “The Sant and the Ayatollah are not unlike in their fundamentalist religion and their implacable political views,” Hamlyn wrote.
Bhindranwale by now had developed an entirely fictitious narrative for himself, which he fervently believed. This is how he explained himself to Hamlyn: “I want to liberate the Sikh nation from the yoke of the Hindu. They do not consider the Sikh as an equal citizen with the Hindu or other communities. They have committed sacrilege against the Sikh temples.”
(Views expressed are personal)
M Rajivlochan is a historian and author of making India Great Again: Learning From Our History
(This appeared in the print as 'Blue Star And The Golden Temple')
