Operation Blue Star & The Course of India: Through the Legal Filter

Abstract

“It was not against Sikhs but terrorists”, the very exact words of Maj. Gen. Brar before the start of a military operation on Indian soil code-named “Bluestar”. Operation Bluestar was carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984 to remove militant religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex in Amritsar, Punjab. On 1 June 1984, after negotiations with the militants failed, Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister gave a ‘go-ahead’ to the controversial Operation. Just after five months of the Operation, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, and it was somewhat compelling not to notice why. 3000 Sikh causalities in the Anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and over 1500 death and causalities in the Operation itself, and Maj. Gen. Brar said it was against terrorists, not Sikhs. The paper introduces the Operation and its main underlying reasons then it goes on to link the events with the political party including how the Khalistan Movement bore the seeds of emergency in 1975 before turning to the legal filter and applying it to every aspect of the decade long disturbance. This disturbance might well be alive today threatening to relapse anytime fracturing the democracy and leading India into a homegrown crisis. The paper discusses how the emergency was also a triggering event, The Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1983, Article 19, Article 15, the formations of SPG, Black-cat commando forces amongst other prominent legal aspects. The paper also discusses how the Operation stained the relations of India with its Sikh diaspora and thus affected its international relations and continues to do so.