Book Review of The Khalistan Conspiracy

“This was not the first or the last time that a religious and sectarian divides in Indian society was about to be exploited by the ruling or opposition parties for political gains. Such exploitation will continue as long as the country does not have a well-informed and politically evolved electorate, capable of seeing through such games and electing their representatives based purely on past performance and/or future potential to look after their interests.”

The above lines from the book, authored by G. B. S. Sidhu, presents a continuing conundrum which plagues not only the Indian polity today but has also deeply affected the administrative fabric. A former IPS officer from the UP Cadre who joined the Research and Analysis Wing in 1972 and superannuated from there, he has squarely blamed the Congress coterie then for the snow-balling of the Khalistan problem.

Apart from the organisation where he worked on central deputation, which gave him access to certain little-known facts, he is the son-in-law of one of India’s well-regarded Minister for External Affairs, Sardar Swaran Singh. A senior member of the Congress, conversations with the latter have formed the basis of certain conclusions made by the author.

The book discusses the Khalistan problem in two phases categorised as OP-1 and Op-2. It is the claim of the author that immediately after winning the elections in January 1980, a Punjab centric operation was launched by the Congress with the objective of creating certain situations which would help the party win the general elections scheduled, five years later, in January 1985. The genesis, as per the author, was the advice rendered by Giani Zail Singh to Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of the then Prime Minister, that Akali Dal-Janata party government in Punjab could be destabilised if the moderate policies followed by the Akali leadership came under attack from a carefully selected Sikh sant. It is for this purpose that Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was chosen.

This is a bit difficult to accept though as the political outfit concerned is hardly known for being far-sighted or adhering to long-term strategies. This is not to dispute that Bhindranwale was built up to counter the Akali’s. Just that the objective must have been short-term political gain in Punjab.

Regarding the progress of Op-2, the author writes “… the bitter pill of falsehood had to be repeatedly sugar-coated by its creators before it would be administered in the form of Operation Blue Star…” He writes about “1 Akbar Road Group”, which took certain decisions. The author claims that in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and after the swearing in of Rajiv Gandhi as her successor, Fotedar called up the then Home Minister Narsimha Rao and conveyed that, for better coordination, 1 Akbar Road Group was taking over control of Delhi police. Although the situation worsened thereafter, Sidhu does mention that a few brave and conscientious officers from various ranks chose not to pay attention to the contrary signals emanating from the top. An assertion of this nature made by the author is serious in nature and perhaps recognising this, he has indeed cited two sources based on whose information he has drawn such conclusions.

Although much restrained in his expression, the authors disgust with Delhi police, especially senior officers, is reflected when he says, “… a whole ‘book of shame’ could have been written based on the contents of those conversation alone.” He is referring to his monitoring of Delhi police wireless network for three days and nights, post the assassination. This he was able to do on a specific radio already made available to him.

An interesting fact that emerges is that two days after Operation Blue Star, on 8 June 1984, in a conversation with the author at the office, the then Chief of RAW, Gary Saxena was already speaking about the possible assassination of Prime Minister’s by Sikh extremists, a reality that manifested itself four months later. In fact, the author recalls two instances where Indira Gandhi had herself mentioned that the Punjab imbroglio will result in her being killed by the extremists. Excepting that, and most unfortunately, the killers were police officers mandated to protect the very person whose life they snuffed out.

The author reveals that shortly after Operation Blue Star, he along with his wife and children had an occasion to visit Gurudwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi where he encountered provocative placards, exhorting Sikh brethren to assassinate Indira Gandhi. The following day at the office he conveyed this to Saxena mentioning that elementary knowledge of the Sikh history, especially from rural areas, would indicate that there would be a large number of individuals willing to risk their lives to avenge the damage caused to the Harminder Sahib. The author concluded by conveying that there was a high probability of the Prime Minister being assassinated.

A bare reading of the book conveys the impression that the Punjab terrorism sprang up primarily because of “1 Akbar Road Group”. This is a rather simplistic and unfair conclusion especially when it is seen that after the conclusive defeat in 1971, the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was looking for an opportunity to get even. Punjab was singled out because it was a border state, the pride of the Indian Army and prosperous. It is possible that the arrival of a character like Bhindranwale gave certain ideas to the ISI. A large portion of the blame is on the inactivity and inaptitude on part of the local police, but beyond a point, as large-scale killings became common, it was for the for the leadership of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to have acted decisively. This ultimately did happen resulting in terrorism being wiped out from the state.

No purpose is served in blaming politicians as without exception they have only two objectives- state power and money. The description in the book of the November 1984 killings in Delhi, in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, should remind a discerning reader of a similar happening in another part of the country, 18 years later.

The author says that the revocation of Article 370 by the NDA government in August 2019 must have come as a rude shock to the Pakistani authorities. Therefore, ISI is expected to bolster pro-Khalistan propaganda in Punjab and countries such as UK and USA where there is a sizable Sikh diaspora. Uncanny as it may sound, his predictions have come true recently as can be seen from the happenings connected with Amritpal Singh, and the vandalism at the High Commission premises in London and consulate premises in San Francisco.

Cabinet Secretary C R Krishnaswamy Rao, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister P C Alexander and Home Secretary T N Chaturvedi find mention as having played a pivotal role. The author mentions that R N Kao who was brought in as a Senior Adviser, was not in his element and tried in his own way to moderate the hard stance being adopted with regard to the solution to the problem.

The book identifies three different ways of functioning of government servants. The first category is comprised of those who would do anything to please their bosses, in the hope that their services will be rewarded. The second category consists of those who render appropriate advice on all occasions without expecting anything in return. However, once a decision was taken by their bosses, right or wrong, they would abide by it till the end. To the third category belong those hard-working and conscientious officers who had no personal axe to grind and carried out the tasks assigned to them in right earnest. The author places P C Alexander, R N Kao and B Raman, in these three categories, respectively. The last mentioned is the late Bahukutumbi Raman, from the 1961 IPS batch of the Madhya Pradesh cadre who retired as Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat.

The book recalls in a meticulous manner several heart rendering events of the past, which the present generation of administrators, law enforcement officials and members of the public can never imagine that happened once upon a time in Punjab.