From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, the movement for an independent Khalistan, a Sikh nation in Punjab, threatened to sever this vital region from India.
Its major proponent, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who had been head of the orthodox Sikh religious school Damdami Taksal, would symbolize the Sikh separatist movement.
To some, Bhindranwale is remembered as a martyr to a movement which stood up to Indian state dominance. To others, he represents a dark period in Punjab’s history of militancy, violence and state repression in that period.
When India became independent in 1947, Punjab was partitioned. East Punjab with a Hindu and Sikh majority population became a part of India and the Muslim majority West Punjab became a part of Pakistan.
When the Indian Punjab was reorganized after independence as a Punjabi speaking state in 1966, the Sikhs for the first time became a majority religious group there.
But the failure of the moderate constitutionalist Sikh Akali Dal to make progress in advocating for further Sikh demands contributed to the rise of popularity of Bhindranwale.
These included the transfer of Chandigarh as a capital city to Punjab—it was serving as the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana states – and the restructuring of federal arrangements to allow more administrative and financial powers to the states.
This last demand was articulated in the 1973 Anandpur Sahib Resolution.
Initially, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party supported Bhindranwale in a bid to split Sikh votes and weaken the Akali Dal, its chief rival in Punjab.
In 1982, Bhindranwale entered the political struggle against the policies of the central government. He took up residence in the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar and his popularity grew.
Gandhi decided to take action. In October 1983, emergency rule was imposed in Punjab. Operation Blue Star, the military assault on the Golden Temple began June 1, 1984.
Bhindranwale and most of the militant leadership were killed. It also resulted in the deaths of a large number of Sikh civilians, while the heavy artillery severely damaged the Temple.
In response, Gandhi’s two Sikh bodyguards assassinated her on Oct. 31. This was followed by anti-Sikh riots that lasted four days in many parts of India. Upwards of 2,000 Sikhs in Delhi and several other cities were murdered by rampaging mobs.
The following decade saw thousands of civilian casualties, hundreds of detentions without charge or trial, and thousands of extrajudicial executions and “disappearances.” It is estimated that upward of 25,000 people were killed, the majority of them Sikhs.
In the 1990s Punjab began a process of recovery from the previous two decades of violence and draconian police actions.
But Operation Bluestar has not been forgotten, and the symbol of Bhindranwale has re-emerged.
His defiance and sacrifice has been hailed as resembling those of the great Sikh martyrs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The many Sikhs in support of him should caution us from believing the demand for a sovereign Khalistan has ceased completely.
This ideal has a long-term attraction to Sikhs who feel a strong identity as a nation and draw on their historical 19th century Sikh kingdom under Ranjit Singh as a precedent.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
