The eighties, of course, began with Indira Gandhi’s return to office amidst the articulate intelligentsia’s continuing distrust of her and they have ended with the exit from office of her son, Rajiv Gandhi, amidst the same intelligentsia’s disillusionment with him. But the decade can also be differently framed.
It can, for instance, be said, quite legitimately, that the eighties began with the assassination of Baba Gurcharan Singh, lead of the allegedly heterodox Nirankari sect among the Sikhs, by a group of militant Sikhs, and that they have ended with the ‘election’ on the gun point to the Lok Sabha of individuals who make no secret of their support for the terrorists, if not for Khalistan. The father and wife of Beant Singh, the assassin of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, figure among these ‘representatives’ of the Panth.
The two frames doubtless merge if we assume, as a lot of ‘distinguished’ Indians loud in their protestations of democratic norms and fair play do, that Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi have been largely responsible for the alienation of the Sikh community and the outbreak, spread and continuance of terrorism. Have we not been told times without number that Giani Zail Singh, with Sanjay Gandhi’s support, brought the till then little known Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale into prominence, that Indira Gandhi played with the future of Punjab when she dismissed the Akali Government in the state in 1980 and then deliberately refused to accept a reasonable settlement with the Akalis because she wanted to play the ‘Hindu card’ in the 1984 elections, and that Rajiv Gandhi was guilty of bad faith first when he failed to punish those guilty of the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi in the wake of his mother’s murder and later when he found ‘excuses’ not to transfer Chandigarh to Punjab, as he had agreed to, in his accord with Sant Longowal?
I have no desire to defend either Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi. On the contrary, I am convinced that both mismanaged the Punjab problem on a variety of counts which need not be gone into here. Even so I find it extraordinary that so many educated Indians should suffer something close to complete loss of memory and show near total disregard for history.
In the discussions on Punjab, it is rarely that anyone ever recalls the extraordinary British effort spread over almost a century to separate the Sikhs from the Hindus and to give them a distinct identity, the circumstances surrounding the rise of the Akali Dal, the Akali demand for a separate sovereign Sikh ‘homeland’ at the time of partition, its revival by them in the form of the agitation for a Punjabi Suba after independence, the nexus between the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and Akali politics in secular India, the repudiation by the Akalis of their solemn pledge at the time of the formation of the unilingual Punjab in 1966 that they would make no more demands on the Indian state on behalf of the Panth as such, the Anandpur Sahib resolution as it was first formulated in 1973 and as it finally evolved in 1978. Surely no one can suggest that these issues are not pertinent to a serious discussion of the Punjab problem and Indira Gandhi’s and Rajiv Gandhi’s failure to tackle it effectively.
There can be little doubt that Bhindranwale’s arrival on the scene helped crystallise the demand for Khalistan and to give a terroristic dimension to Akali politics. But by that very logic, the Bhindranwale phenomenon could not have been wholly the product of ‘machinations’ on the part of the Congress leadership. The Frankenstein materialised gradually step by step. His rise, like Hitler’s, could possibly have been stopped if the necessary political will had existed at an appropriate early stage. But it must be admitted that, as in Hitler’s case, the circumstances were propitious for Bhindranwale.
Bhindranwale first came into prominence when he organised an attack on a Nirankari gathering in April 1978. We might recall that then the Janata Party was in power in New Delhi and the Akalis in Chandigarh. This circumstance does not necessarily exonerate the Congress leadership. But it is still rather difficult to believe that Giani Zail Singh and Sanjay Gandhi, not to speak of Indira Gandhi, had put him to this dangerous ‘mission’, especially if we care to remember that the Nirankaris had as a rule supported the Congress.
There can be no question that Indira Gandhi failed to rise to the occasion at the time of the assassination of the Nirankari Baba, though she visited the Nirankari Bhavan in Delhi along with Sanjay Gandhi on the occasion, not only to condole the Baba’s death but also to demonstrate her goodwill for the Nirankaris. She should have seen to it that Bhindranwale was arrested and tried on the charge of involvement in the murder. Instead, she prevaricated and allowed Bhindranwale to behave as if he was law unto himself.
In the absence of the availability of her notes, if any, and the minutes of the discussions with her colleagues and aides, if they exist at all, it is clearly not possible to say why she acted the way she did. But I feel that either she herself was frightened regarding the possible reaction among the Sikhs, or someone close to her managed to so terrorise her. Her entire conduct up to the time of ‘Operation Bluestar’ in June 1984 bears testimony to this possibility. She not only allowed the Akali agitation to be conducted from within the precincts of the Golden Temple but permitted the terrorists to convert it into a fortified sanctuary and armoury. It may, however, also be legitimate to ask how many of her critics would have endorsed a decision on her part to use force to clear the temple of the Akalis and the terrorists.
Indira Gandhi was not the decisive leader she is often made out to be by her admirers and detractors alike. More often than not she fought back only when she had been driven, or felt driven, into the corner. Inevitably, decisions taken in desperation lacked careful calculation and planning and contained within them the seeds of future trouble. ‘Operation Bluestar’ was one such decision. Judging by the total failure of intelligence, it was not carefully planned. Even newspaper reporters could have given the government better information on deployment in the Golden Temple than it appeared to possess. It is, of course, also possible that intelligence reports were ignored.
Equally important, the decision was in all probability taken in panic. Reports then had it that some intelligence agency had told her that the terrorists were about to proclaim the establishment of Khalistan from the temple. If that was in fact the case, she had only to take a pause to realise that such a declaration would be meaningless and that, if anything, it would strengthen her position to deal with the terrorists more effectively.
But as I review the unfolding of the tragedy in Punjab, I find it difficult to resist the conclusion that Indira Gandhi’s was not just the failure of an individual, or even of a government, though it cannot be seriously denied that the individual in question did not demonstrate the necessary judgement and the government the necessary competence. I see that failure as the failure of the entire Indian intelligentsia. For, to the best of my knowledge, no one has suggested a viable and a long-term solution to the problem. This assessment applies as much to those who have favoured a ‘soft’ line as to those who have favoured a ‘tough’ line. Indeed, the two can be said to represent two sides of the same coin.
The Indian intelligentsia is, of course, predominantly Hindu; but it is Hindu only in name. In reality, it is culturally disarmed and therefore inherently incapable of playing the role political independence has allotted to it. Indeed, this apparently harsh statement too does not tell the whole truth. Which is that the intelligentsia carries a heavy alien baggage which has virtually paralysed it. Like a paralytic, it is capable of only jerky movements inevitably lacking in direction and purpose.
The disarming of the Indian elite began with Muslim rule and continued well after the collapse of the Moghul empire. Since this aspect of our history has been misrepresented, regardless of whether it has been approached from the Hindu or the Muslim angle, I cannot possibly hope to make up this deficiency. I have, therefore, to content myself with a few observations.
The North Indian elite, which collaborated with Muslim rulers, understandably took to the Persian language and culture. The more notable point, however, is that even the resistance to Muslim rule was political and not cultural. The Rajput and Maratha ruling elites, for instance, copied as best they could the Moghul court practices and manners. We do not know what the end result would have been if this process had not been hampered by the popular resistance to Islamic civilisation, particularly as a result of the growth of the Bhakti movement, and if it had finally not been terminated by British conquest of India. That issue, however, need not detain us. More pertinent for us is the fact that with the arrival of the British on the scene, the old elite was replaced by a new one anxious to imitate them. This process has gone on ever since, our political independence notwithstanding.
Thanks to the orthodox, particularly among the Brahmins, the ancient civilisation has not altogether disappeared but in the absence of a vigorous and self-affirming leadership, it has been in a state of stagnation for centuries and it so remains today. Old India has not been able to throw up a single movement of any consequence. Even the ‘reformist’ movements, including the Arya Samaj, have been the handiwork of the Western educated middle class youth.
This cultural emasculation has been sought to be legitimised and dignified in the name of the western concept of secularism. In reality, the two have nothing in common. Secularism in the West is not culturally neutral. On the contrary, it sums up the quintessence of Western civilisation, beginning with the Greek classical age in the middle of first millennium BC. It does not seek to eliminate essential aspects of Christianity as such from the public domain. It only seeks to limit the interference of the Church as an institution, which once entertained imperial ambitions, into secular affairs. Science has doubtless cut into the influence of the Church but this has been a natural process fully understandable and legitimate in terms of Western civilisation. Secularism in our case has been an imposition and the imposition has been possible because we have been culturally emasculated and disarmed.
On top of it all has been imposed another borrowed concept, the concept of an all-powerful state capable of riding roughshod, and entitled to ride roughshod, over society and of a ‘paternalistic’ (read socialistic) state charged with the impossible tasks of assuring economic development and ‘social justice’. Such a concept, totally alien to our way of doing things, could never have taken hold if our society had not been thoroughly fragmented by the British and our values and social arrangements not been discredited by them. And since it has continued to command allegiance after independence, the process of social fragmentation and discrediting of our value systems has gathered momentum. Indian unity is in danger as never before.
In an arrangement which emphasises the supremacy of the political realm, competition for political power could not but intensify after the end of foreign rule. In an arrangement where the ancient civilisational adhesive has been wilfully removed, ethnic ‘difference’, whether of religion or of caste, could not but be invented and over-emphasised and the unique strength of India – diversity in unity – converted into a grave weakness. Communalism and casteism are the obverse side of the coin of ‘secular nationalism’.
So thorough has been our intellectual emasculation that even the trauma of partition failed to shake us into fresh and vigorous thinking. The rise of terrorism in Punjab is a continuation of the same old story; even the guise is not unfamiliar. But even this menace has failed to arouse us from our deathly slumber. We continue to sleep-walk and mutter borrowed slogans. What better proof of our collapse than that we should be anxious to induct as MPs relations of a former Prime Minister’s assassin who are proud of the doer of that deed and hold out threats of a similar deed against another former Prime Minister!
Individuals are, at best, or at worst, agents of such forces. It is pointless, naive and even dishonest to blame them. To cite an example, while Nehru may well have been the most thorough and best known imitator of the West, all of us have been imitators in our own way. And as for Indira Gandhi, she lived essentially by concepts she had imbibed from her father, even if her own instinctive responses were different, sharper in my view. We have to get to the source of the malady if we are to be able to tackle it at all.
The process is going to be prolonged and painful. To look for an easy and quick solution is to court defeat and disaster. Certainly no easy exit is even conceivable in Punjab and Kashmir. The presence of Pakistan across the border must aggravate the consequences of our own failures.
Rajiv Gandhi was too innocent of politics to be even aware of the complexity of the issues at stake in Punjab, or for that matter in Kashmir. He had to fail and he failed. Nothing more need be said about the genuflections he went through except to hope that VP Singh would have learnt the futility of such genuflections.
Sunday Mail, 7 January 1990