Operation Bluestar unfortunate but necessary
Recent revelations about the alleged involvement of British intelligence agents in assisting India in Operation Bluestar, must be investigated immediately and in detail. The controversial military operation was in response to a significant internal security challenge that threatened to dismember the nation. It also precipitated one of the country's biggest crises. Yet, 30 years after the Operation which violently divided society, led to the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and subsequent riots against the Sikh community, the Indian public knows little about that 10-day long operation. Documents declassifed in london suggest that by February 1984, the Government of Indira Gandhi had requested advice from Margaret Thatcher’s regime over the removal of Sikh militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and that london had dispatched a Special Air Service agent to New Delhi with some sort of a plan. This assertion is on the basis of two specific letters — one sent by Thatcher's principal private secretary to his counterpart in the British Foreign Secretary’s office, dated February 6, and the second letter was sent by the latter to his counterpart in the Home Secretary’s office, dated February 23. Both are marked ‘top secret and personal', and have been made public by the British MP, Mr Tom Watson. The authenticity of the letters and their contexts need to be examined. Meanwhile, the contents of the letters have raised questions on New Delhi's long-held version of Operation Bluestar. The then Government had justified its handling of the operation on the ground that the situation had spiralled out of control so quickly that it had no choice but to launch an attack on terrorists holed up inside the temple. The Army had just about a week to plan the mission, as lieutenant General Kuldip Singh Brar, who led Operation Bluestar, has acknowledged. There was little intelligence about the strength of the militants inside the temple; no one even had a layout of the shrine. But the declassified letters show that Indira Gandhi's Government was planning an offensive as early as in February 1984; the Operation happened in June.
Expectedly, many in India and the UK have questioned the theory of British involvement. lt Gen Brar has stated that there was no foreign assistance in the mission. Mark Tully, former BBC bureau chief and author of Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's last Battle, has pointed out that relations between India and the UK were not warm those years. British diplomats in New Delhi at that time had tried to offer the UK's experience in dealing with Irish rebels but the Indian Government had turned it down. He also said that it was unlikely that British agents, specialising in commando-type missions, would be involved in a full-scale infantry operation like Operation Bluestar.
Whatever the case may be, Operation Bluestar was necessary to protect the integrity and sovereignty of India. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had turned the shrine into a terrorist headquarter, stockpiling weapons and issuing sermons of violence and death from there. That Bhindranwale was a Congress creation, and that questions can be raised on the manner in which Indira Gandhi had handled the separatist Khalistani movement in the early stages, are separate issues.