I have a comprehensive explanation saying that there is no relation of any indian ancestor with any of those african or caribean or australoid tribes or andaman tribes

Indians have no relation with african tribes or infact any other tribes except those caucasian european tribes.

I heard that the european race and american tribes were same before 30,000 years. ( i am not saying this this was being released by Dicovery Candada program title "original Eve" date: Sun May 5 21:11:56 2004.
So, as u can see these two races just branched before 30,000 years.
Well this is the fact.

OK IF THIS IS THE FACT, THEN australoid tribes which date back to over 60000 years are totally altogher different evolutionary people. Any person cannot or should not compare or try to relate these races with anyother races in the world, coz they are over 60000 years old and thinking in the context of just 30000 years betwen europeans and american tribes.lol and dravidian civilization ( the civlization of black people of india is jut 4000 years old)
And australia and india are not neighbors lol. may be china or indonesia might be

Indian just has no separation between europe.
Well, there is himalayas but it does not separate india and afganistan lol.
Infact dravidian civilization was near to afganistan.
The difference between those guys (aryans) who came sooo late (just 2000 years back) and dravidians is only slight difference i skin color.
They are pure white, while these guys have brown or weatish skin color.
I totally admit the fact there are certain people in india who had their ancestors even before 10000 or more years.They should be dark like hell and have bad face structures.
But u look at the indian faces u can see that most of the black guys in india have similar face features like that of europeans (caucasians) like sharp nose, same kind of hair, etc
We indians are really beautiful people even if we are going to compare we guys wiht the whole world

When there are different tribes like mongolian, european etc which say that they are superior, man
why not we guys when we deserve it????
AND DO U FIND ANY INDIAN SAYING THAT THEY ARE PROUD TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH AFRICAN???????/
NEVER LOL.
JUST THINK ABOUT THOSE INDIANS WHO ARE SETTLED IN SOUTH AFRICA, EVEN THEY WILL NOT TRY TO ASSOCIATE THEMSELVES WITH AFRICANGUYS

Myth of One Hindu Religion Exploded

3.1 The Different Indian Races

Sometimes definitions are put forward hypothesising that `Hindu' is a racial term, and that there supposedly exists `A Hindu Race'. This is a completely false guess, and this chapter explodes this myth of `One Hindu Race'. Indeed, there are a whole multitude of completely different races confouned under this hypothetical `Hindu' race :
Sudroids are Africoid - Anthropological investigations have revealed that the Sudras consist of several Black races, some akin to Australoids (the Kolarians or Austric speakers) and some akin to the Africans (the Dravidoids). Recent genetic analyses have confirmed this view, and much evidence from archaeology, physical anthropology, etc. prove this fact [ Sud ]. The view that the Sudras represent a differentiate of the Aryan race is wholly false, as it cannot explain differences in physical anthropology such as the flat Sudric nose (plattyrhinism) and thick lips.
Indo-Aryans - The Indo-Aryans are of Caucasoid stock, quite unrelated to the black-skinned aboriginal Negroid-Australoids. Linguistically, physiognomically and genetically the Indo-Aryans are closely related to Europoids.
Rajputs are Scythian - The Rajputs are descendants of Scythic (East Iranic) immigrants who entered India much after the Aryans. Although false genealogies were invented by the Aryan Brahmins in order to subvert the Rajput religion of Solarism (`Saura') and convert them to the 6 astika schools of Brahmanism, a detailed analysis shows that the Rajputs are Scythics.
The Indo-Islamic (Mughalloid) Race - The Muslims of South Asia are overwhelmingly descendants of `Foreign Mussulman Immigrants', ie. Arabic, Iranic and Turkic races. Even in Bangladesh, more than half of the Muslims are of `Aristocratic Foreign' (`ashraf') descent [ Ris ]. They are hence not Aryan converts.
Mongoloids - Pure Mongoloids inhabit the Himalayas, and the extreme north-east. Genetic analyses have shown them to be more closely related to Chinese and Japanese peoples, a fact which is also borne out by their physiognomy and languages.
Indo-Mon-Khmer Race - The majority of East Indics (Assamics, Vangics, Odrics etc.), except the Aryan upper castes and the Kolarian lower castes, are of Indic Mon-Khmer (a branch of Mongoloids or East Asiatics) stock. Sir Risley has amply demonstrated this stratification in East India [ Ris ]. Thus, there is no such thing as a `Hindu Race'. Such concepts exist only in the minds and books of bigoted Brahmin anthropologists. 3.2 Race and Religion

In all ancient cultures, race and religion were intricately linked. Each race had its own religion. In Europe, the Germanic race practiced its Germanic religion, the Greeks had the Greek or Hellenic religion, and the Slavs followed the Slavic religion. It thus follows, that since there is no one Hindu race, there is also no one Hindu religion. Hence the Sudroid races of Dravidians, Dalits, Adivasis and Kols all follow Shaivism or Sudric Religion. The Aryans follow Vedism and Vaishnavism, collectively referred to as the 6 orthodox (`astika') schools of Brahmanism. The Mongoloids generally follow Shaktism, while the Sino-Tibetan peoples follow Tantrism. 3.2.1 Vedic Origin of Vaishnavism Vishnu is one of the gods which were worshipped by the Vedic Aryans. He was not one of the more important ones, yet he oultived all his Vedic rivals to become the supreme god of the Aryan Religion. How was this possible ? Because of his feature of incarnation : Most other Vedic gods (Indra, Brahma, etc.) were declared as incarnations of Vishnu, as were many other minor non-Vedic Aryan tribal dieties (eg. the deified king Rama, and Krishna). Similarly, many local pre-Brahmanic gods were declared as incarnations of Vishnu, leading to the spread of the Vaishnava religion. Soon, the original Vedic religion split into two faiths : Vedism and Vaishnavism. Pockets of pure Aryan Vaidiks, who refused to follow the Puranas and other Vaishnava scriptures, remained. The division is analogous to that between Jews and Christians. Just as the Christians accept the Judaic Pentateuch, but have additional texts, so the Vaishnavas accept the Vedas but follow additional scriptures. Vaishnavism and Vedism are as much separate religions as Judaism and Christianity. However, they are still grouped under the term of `Brahmanism'. Two pre-Aryan gods could not be incorporated in this Vaishnava pantheon: these were Shiva (the Dravidian God) and Mahadev (the Tibetic God of Tantrism).
3.2.2 Tibetic Origin of Tantrism The original religion of the Sino-Tibetan peoples of India and Tibet was Bon religion, what may be called Proto-Tantrism, since many concepts of Tantrism can be found in Bon religion. The mad fantasy propagated by the modern-day Aryan Vaidikas and Vaishnavas holds that this Tantrism is a derivative of Vedic religion. Such fallacies have no foundation in any of the Vedic texts. Please keep in mind that the Vedic Aryans are those same monsters who invaded India, destroying the Harappan civlization, smashing thousands of Shaiva and Shakta temples. These barbarians raped, looted and destroyed the Indus Valley cities till no trace of them remained. Are such people even capable of imagining such an intellectual philosophy as Tantrsim, let alone be the originators of such a faith ? The answer is no. It cannot be. And I shall prove that below. The Tantric religion has been presecuted by the Brahmanist fanatics of the 6 orthodox schools for over two thousand years, and the Sinto-Tibetan peoples have been exterminated from many parts of India by the racist Vedic Aryans. That Tantrism is of Tibetan origin, being derived from the ancient Bon TIbetan religion, is evident from the following :
`Chinese Rites' - Tantrism is referred to as `The Chinese Rites' in the Indian Tantric texts themselves [ Alchmey, p.149 ], indicating their origin from `China' or Tibet, `Mahachina' being reserved for China Proper.

Fifth Veda - The legend of the Fifth Veda as narrated in the Tantric texts describe it falling from heaven into Tibet, and thus the people of that country are referred to as adepts at the "Rites of the 5th Veda". As per another legend, Brahma memorized all the 5 Vedas. He taught the 4 Vedas to the Brahmans, but kept the 5th Veda (ie. the Tantras) safe for a time when mankind was ready. Due to Brahma's arrogance, Shiva cut off his head, and the 5th Veda then fell to Tibet, where its inhabitants took up the study with great zeal [ Alchemy, p.149 ]. Thus, as per the Tantras themselves, the original home of Tantrism is clearly stated to be Tibet.

Mahadeva's Home - `Mahadeva', the phallic god of Tantrism (to be distinguished from the black Dravido-Kolarian Shiva), is based on a Bon `Great God' of the mountains. His home is in the Himalayas, and he is white simply because he is Tibetic (North Mongoloid). Mt. Meru, `Mahadeva's Home', is obviously in the Himalayas, probably near Lake Mansarovar. Hence, the home of the supreme Tantric God is itself located in Tibet; another clear indication of its origins.

Vasishta's Travel to Tibet - As per the Rudrayamala Tantra [ Rudrayamalatantra.XVII ], Vasishta travelled to the sea-shore (this would indicate Bengal) or, as per the Brahmayamala Tantra, [ Brahmayamalatantra I-III ], to the Kamakhya hills, Assam. He observed strict Yoga worship for the Devi Buddhesvari. He did for this for a long time without any results and so cursed the Devi. Then the Devi appeared and said, " he had adopted an altoghter wrong path; her worship was unknown in the Vedas ; it was known only in the country of Mahacina; and that Vasishta would gain his object if he received instruction from Vishnu now residing there as Buddha. There he was surprised to find the Buddha drinking wine enjoying several women. His doubts were soon dispelled by Buddha, who initiated him." [ cf also Mahacinatantra ], [ Taratantram (Gaudagranthamala),Ch.141 ] [ Gupta ] [ cf also Alchemy, p.151 ]. This story once again indicates the source of Tantrism as being Tibet.

Lamaism - Tantrism is still practiced in Tibet, where it is the national religion, under the guise of Lamaism or Vajrayana `Buddhism'. All observers, however, are aware that this religion owes more to Bon than to Buddhism. Tantrism was more of an underground witchcraft movement in India. Orthodox Vaishnavism was not very happy with such beliefs, and in Bengal the Tibetan Buddhists (ie. Tantrics) were crushed by the Brahminist Sena dynasty. These persons welcomed the Islamic invasion, since it led to the destruction of Vaishnavite shrines. The Muslim Sufis further developed the mystic Tibetic Tantrism, mixing it with Arabian alchemy and ancient Egyptian cults (absorbed into Arab Sufism), as clearly depicted in the case of the Madari Sufists. There are thus two fountainheads of mysticism in Asia, one is Tibet, and the other Arabia (eg. the Syrian Harran, and the ancient Sabean shrine of the Ka'aba, a representative of Saturn, the Sabean Priapus, which as per Sufic doctrines was later absorbed into Islam).

`Parvati' - The name of Mahadeva's wife is Parvati, meaning `of the mountain', ie. she came from the Himalayas. She is depicted as fair in Tantric paintings In Dravidian Saiva tradition, by contrast, the black Kali is the consort of Shiva. This shows that the Sudric Shaiva and Tibetic Tantric religions are distinct, separate faiths.

Yab-Yum - Taoism in China has the concept of yin-yang, similar to the Tantric yab-yum concept and the Adi-buddha and Adi-prajna notions in later Buddhism [ Gupta, p.341 ].

Goddess Uma - Uma is another manifestation of Shakti, and is referred to as Haimavati or daughter of Himavat (the Himalaya range) [ Kena Upanishad.III.25 ] [ Chandra, p.123 ]. She is another Tantric goddess from the Tibetic Himalayas.

Taoist Siddhas - The Siddha cult (a medieval Mughal alchmist cult) was, as per its own tradition, introduced by one Taoist alchamist from China: This popular tradition holds that the Siddhas were
"a band of death-defying theriacal and therapeutic alchemists indebted in all respects to Bhoga, a pre-Christian Taoist immigrant from China , who, in his methods of cleaning up the body of impure matter through `reverberation' and `projection' to the pitch of pracitcally cancelling demise, merely sought to promulgate the lesser athanasic precepts of Lao-tse, since the vital objective of the Tao-Teh-King is the transfiguration of the immortalised ethereal body into a permanent garment of celestial virtue, in order to fit it to associate to eternity with the Tao"
-- [ Gupta, p. 193 ] and [ Siddha ]


Mahacina Tantra - One of the Tantras is called `Mahacinatantra', and the doctrines propounded are Taoist and Tibetic Bon. There are no `Bharat Tantras' or `Arya Tantras'; hence to explain Tantrism away as a corruption of Vedic religion is ridiculous.

Dakini Tantra - Mark Roberts, researcher on Tantra, writes that the Dakini school of Tantra originated in Tibet :
" It is well recorded that in most ancient times, in a hidden corner of the land that was to become Tibet, the Dakini had a Sacred Domain ~ a land pure of males ~ and it is from their ancient realm that the Dakini first shared the art of Tantra "
-- [ Dakin ]
All attempts to derive Dakini Tantra from Vedic faith are thus illogical.

Mysticism - Mysticism is central to the Tantric religion, and still pervades Sino-Tibetan culture. By contrast, there was no mystic tradition during the Brahmanic Dark Ages (1500 BC - 1000 AD), since the Brahmins maintained India in a period of enforced illiteracy and darkness.

Alchemy - During the golden age of Indian alchemy, 1000 AD - 1800 AD, comprising the era of the Caliphate of Delhi, Tibetic alchmey mixed with Arabic-Islamic alchemy. Free from Orthodox Vaishnavite oppression, Mughalstanic alchemy & Tantrism developed and expanded rapidly, representing a mixture of Islamic Sufic and Tibetic Tantric traditions. Thus, one can construct the following chart of Indo-Tibetic religions : Old Bon Tibetic Religion
/ / \ \
/ Uttara Tantrism Bon Purbi (East Indic) Shaktism
Lamaism / | / \ \
/ | Bengal Assamese Orissa
Kashmir Shaivism | Tantrism Tantrism Tantrism
Tantric Islam, Nath cult etc. | \
Vaishnava Sahajiya Kamakhya
etc. Cult etc.


The Brahminist objection that the extant Tantras are very late and date to
the centuries AD is without consequence. The Tantras which survived the
Brahminic persecutions are renditions and copies of copies of ancient texts and
practices. No Vedic text is found on paper earlier than the 11th century (paper
was introduced by the Moslems), but that does not mean that the Vedas were
composed in the Islamic era. Similarly, these Tantras were composed in Tibet in
the early centuries BC, and only written down much later after centuries of oral
transmission.

Thus, Tibet is the fountainhead of Tantrism, and in fact all mystic knowledge
in the East.


3.2.3 African Origin of Sudroid Shaivism The
Aryans who followed the `astika' Brahminist religions of Vedism and Vaishnavism
(comprising the 6 orthodox schools) obliterated the Sudroid religion of Shaivism
from most of North India by destroying countless Shaiva temples and racially
exterminating Sudroids. Shaivism is related to native African religion as is
evident from :


Shiva's Name Absent in Vedas - The name `Shiva' does not occur even
once as a name of a god in the Vedas. Moreover, the phallus worshippers are
disparagingly referred to as `shishna-devas' and as `Dasyus' in the Vedic texts.
It is thus absurd to claim Shiva is a Vedic god. Only Brahmin historians who are
experts at distorting history can put forth such ludicrous lunacies.


Dravidian Etymology of Shiva - The word `Shiva' is of Dravidian
etymology, `civa' meaning `reddened' or `angry' in Tamil. There is no sensible
etymology from Sanskrit, although wild fantasies have been set forth by the
Brahmins and Vaishnavas, claiming it is derived from `si'. Nothing could be
further from the truth.


African Murungu - The East Africans worship a god called Murungu who
is the exact counterpart of the Dravidian god Murugan. Both have phallic aspects
[ Sud ].


Voodoo - Indeed, one finds a kind of Dravidian `voodoo' among the
untouched Dravidians living in remote areas. The custom of piercing dolls that
represent the victim are to be found amongsst Sudroids.


Black Lingas - The lingas in all of the Shiva temples are made of
black stone, indicating that a Black god is being worshipped. Had Shiva been
white, white marble lingas would have been constructed. It is only in the
Tibetic Tantric tradition that Mahadeva is white.

One should not use the word `Tantrism' for this set of beliefs, since Tantra
means the 5th Veda from Tibet. Moreover, in Tantrism the male and female
principles are treated as equal, while in Sudroid Shaivism the male principle is
treated as more important. `Dravidian' or `Sudra religion' or `Dravidian
Shaivism' are better terms. This faith is independant of Tibetic Tantrism. The
practices may have been similar, but that does not justify their confusion under
one monolithic faith. Just because the Greeks had the Dionysus and Priapus cults
does not mean that they were `Tantrics' or `Shaivites'; similarly the occurrence
of Priapus-like cults among the Dravidians and Bantu Africans does not imply
they are Tantrics.

It is important to distinguish the White Tibetic Mahadeva, the Black Old
Dravidian Shiva; and the Roman Hermes, Greek Priapus and Nordic Odin; they have
no relation. These are similar gods in different religions.

However, in common usage in India, Tantra refers to any non-Vedic practice,
and incorporates many Dravidian beliefs. Some scholars indeed hold Tantra to be
of Dravidian origin, dating back to the pre-Aryan Indus Valley [ 2T ]. There
were however, Mongoloid inhabitants in the Indus Valley, and hence Tantrism is
not to be discounted as a possible Indus Valley faith.


3.2.4 Mon-Khmer Origin of Shaktism Shaktism,
involving the veneration of Shakti, is still a major religion of the Mon-Khmer
races of India. That this religion is of non-Vedic Mon-Khmer origin is proven by
the following facts :


Matriarchy - The Mon-Khmer peoples follow matriarchal customs, and
hence veneration of the Shakti or female principle, is natural for them.
Polyandry, matrilineal succession and other customs indicate the dominance of
women and the respect they were given in Mon-Khmer society.


Brahminist Vaishnava Persecution of Women - The Aryan religions of
Vedism, Vaishnavism, Buddhism and Jainism have the slightest regard for women.
In fact, Vedism and Vaishnavism are the most dehumanising religions on record as
far as treatment of women is concerned. The horrific practices of Vedic sati,
dowry and Vedic female infanticide are just some of the examples of the inhuman
treatment meted out to women living under the restrictions imposed by the Vedas.
Given this dismal record, it is inconceiveable to imagine a Vedic origin for
Shaktism.


Destruction of Shakta shrines - This religion and its followers were
also subject to savage persecution by the Aryan Vaishnavas. Thus, Arjun waged
war against the `Nagas' during the Mahabharatan Holocaust. Indeed, one only has
to go to any Vaishnava temple in India. All were built on the site of Shaiva,
Shakta or Tantra shrines after their desecrating, plundering and demolition. Far
from being the originators of these noble religions, the Aryan Vaishnavas and
Vaidiks have been the savage destroyers of these faiths.

Can you quote what book and page that info was on in Mark Tullys book or article. I have about 4 of his books and can find the article your talking about.

marc tully witnessed in 1984 indra ghandi sending in trucks of weopons to justify a total assault on golden temple.

For your information Chaunakya you stupid fool there were panj pyare(5 Beloved ones) they were from all the castes you shiithead. Bhai Kuldip Manak,Bhai Mehal Mittal,Bhai Jaspal Bhatti,Bhai Kamaljit Neeru and Bhai Lal Chand Jamla Jatt

khalistan forever? hhaehahehaehaheehehh...maybe the 13th Guru, XLNC will gather weapons and hide in the Dixie Gurudwara...

khalistan forever

HINDUISM WAS NOT BEING PRACTICED IN THE SENSE YOU THINK. hinduism is a sea of cultures forced together for practical administration. care to explain the stark difference of religious beliefs between kashmir brahmins, tamil hindus, bengali hindus, gujrati hindus, nepali hindus? how do you explain the differences of belief systems with each of these peoples geographically located in different parts with their own languages, customs, opposing beliefs (some of which believe in statues, others sun god others indra and others various anima entity whilst others belive that statue worshipis wrong? care to explain how these different peoples never inter mixed for thousands of years? surely if they were hindus under one umbrella religion there would have been a meltdown between them why not? why wouldnot one fellow hindu mix with the other for thousands of years if they shared the belief of sanatan dharm?

how do you explain the different racial ethnicity of the kashmiri brahmin compared to the tamil? how do you explain the difference of religious belief between them? the lingual, way of life etc?

Dravidians hahahahahahahhh those freaky looking dark ugly short smelly people? they look like chamaars and thats what they are..........

history,

check your facts! I took an indian history class in college and the professor told us that the persians came all called the area of india Hindustan. Therefore the people that lived in Hindustan were called Hindus. The meant all the people as a whole not as a religion. but at that time most indians were in fact practicing what we now call Hinduism so the word hindu became interchangable with religion and race.

The religion and culture of India is highly misunderstood. The term Hinduism was coined by the British about 200 years ago to denote all religions and worships outside of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.

Many think that Hinduism with its millions of gods is the dominant animistic religion of the Hindus and the caste system is an integral part of their ancient culture. However this is not true since the ancient culture of India has been one of equality and love for all communities & nations. The caste system is about 1200 years old and is the taproot of racism (based on color) in the world societyFor instance why would Shakespeare write Othello (early 17th c AD) where a black North African man marries a white European woman if racism existed in his time?
It is commonly thought that Hinduism is the religion of the Brahmins, Kshatriyas & Vaishyas, and, the rest (apart from the religious minorities I’m sure) were animists.

Another common misconception today is that Hinduism is very ancient and that it is founded on the Vedas. For example it is commonly stated that ‘Buddhism was up against Vedic scriptures’, but, is there any evidence for this? The Vedas are written in the Grantha and Nagari scripts, and according to tradition Veda Vyasa, a Dravidian, compiled and gave written form to the Vedas. The Grantha script belongs to the southern group of scripts and Veda Vyasa being a Dravidian would certainly have used it. Since the earliest evidence for Grantha is only in the 5th c. AD, the Vedas were written rather late. What is more significant is that the Vedas have no relevance to the religion of the Hindus, namely Saivism and Vaishnavism.

The first evidence of Sanskrit is seen only in 150 AD and the neglect of Sanskrit by Asoka, if the language was in use, would be contrary to his practice since his inscriptions are even in Greek and Aramaic apart from Prakrit. In any Sanskrit literature such as the Vedas, Upanishads, Brahma Sutras or Bhagavad Gita,

Scholars define that while worship is universal, a religion requires literature, philosophy or theology. Before Christ, only two religions existed in India, Buddhism and Jainism, which were agnostic religions. The worships could be broadly classified as Dravidian worship, which is evidenced from the Indus Valley civilization, and the later Vedic worship of the Brahmin ancestors. The Vedic religion reflected in the RgVeda is mainly concerned with the propitiation of divinities associated with nature. The important were such gods as Indra, Varuna, Agni, and Surya, who later lost their significance. The Vedic worship songs existed in some oral form and were later compiled and given written form by Veda Vyasa, after the 2nd c AD since Sanskrit did not exist before that. Of all the religions and worships in India before Christ, we find that Buddhism and Jainism were the dominant religions and they were ethical agnostic religions with strong compassion for all creation, but no room for God. Also there was no caste system in India at this time and this is evidenced by Megasthenes.

During the time of the Rajputs (from 7th till about the 12th c AD) the Brahmins in cooperation with the Rajputs devised the caste system to gain and maintain control over India. The Brahmins became the religious leaders while the Rajputs were the political rulers. In the 8th c AD Adi Sankara, a south Indian Brahmin, wrote an interpretation for the earlier theistic writings. However, he twisted the earlier theistic writings and developed an atheistic philosophy called Advaita based on monism and cycle of birth. Since the Brahmins controlled the religion, they used this philosophy to destroy the theistic faith of the Hindus. Two other interpretations written by other south Indian Brahmins arose to somewhat offset the startling error of Advaita. They were Vishishtadvaita by Ramanuja (11th c AD) and Dvaita by Madhva (13th c AD). However, these were incomplete and supported the caste system. The fullness of the truth is seen only in Saiva Siddhanta where Meykandar’s Siva Gnana Botham sets the standard for the truth.
The caste system is deceptively maintained by the philosophies of monism and cycle of birth. Monism (which leads to pantheism) brings a false sense of unity and hope by the deception that no matter what path is chosen, ultimately we will all end up in the same place. However this false sense of unity is soon disturbed by the social disparity which becomes apparent, and this is where the cycle of birth is utilized. It is taught that the one enjoying the higher status is due to his/her karma in the previous birth, and if one would presently follow dharma, i.e. Manu Dharma (the law of the caste system) in this birth, then he/she could also enjoy the higher status in their next birth. Interesting!


The vicious scheme of the caste system, also called brahminism, is still in practice today and many think that it is an ancient part of our culture. However, this is not so, the Dravidian culture is one of equality and love for all communities & nations. The so-called Aryans constitute about 12% of India’s population, and the rest who are Dravidians (the so-called Sudras and Panchamas) constitute 88%. Through the caste system Brahmins have maintained Political, Economic and Religious control over the Dravidians for the last 1200 years. Slowly the political and economic controls are changing today due to the democratic process, however, the religious control is preserved unfortunately by the constitution. The RSS and its sub organizations are working hard deceptively to preserve brahminism, and the religious wing of the RSS, the VHP, has continuously distorted historical facts concerning religion and culture in India to their advantage.

a fukkin five hundred year old religion is laying claim to the punjab...hahahahheheahhaheheh....Indira is the greatest taught these so called warriors a lesson that they will never forget, she destroyed them...sikhs are like dogs give them some awards for there bravery and good work and they get all happy and shiit...woooooof......woooooof.....good doggy!!

The culture of Punjab was, therefore, definitely different from the Indo-Aryan culture or the culture of the inhabitants of the so-called India (Heritage if Sikh Culture. Society Morality Art P. S. Gill, New Academic Publishing Co., Jullundur, Punjab).
Punjab was neither a traditional Indian territorial state and monarchy, nor merely a dictatorship of one community over another (Bannerjee Evolution of the Khalsa, p. 125).

The all India National Congress met Lahore in the year 1929 and fixed complete independence as its political goal. One day prior to the meeting of the National Congress, the Sikhs had taken out a 500,000 strong procession with veteran Baba Kharak Singh leading on elephant back. It was most impressive spectacle of human congregation that put the Congress show into shame and shade. It was on this occasion that Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Motilal Nehru and Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru went to meet Baba Khark Singh at his place on the Chauburji Road and gave the Sikhs a solemn assurance that after India achieves political freedom no constitution shall be framed by the majority community unless it is freely acceptable to the Sikhs. This promise was then reduced into a formal Policy Resolution of the All India Congress Committee. Afterwards this policy resolution was repeatedly reiterated, officially and demi-officially, throughout the period upto August 1947, and it was never officially repudiated till 1950 when the present constitution was framed. The trusting Sikhs, who in their daily prayer, extoll keeping faith as the noblest of human virtues, placing complete reliance in this solemn undertaking given to them by the majority community, resisted and refused all offers and proposals made to them by the British and the other people - the Muslims, whom we now prefer to call the Muslim League - proposing to accord the Sikhs a sovereign or autonomous status in the areas constituting their ancestral homeland between the River Ghaggar and the River Chenab. In the year 1932, at the time of the second Round Table Conference, the British Government through Sardar Bahadur Shivdev Singh, then a member of the Indian Secretary of State's Council, made an informal proposal to the Sikhs that if they dissociate finally with the Congress movement, they would be given such a decisive political weightage in Punjab, as would lead to their emergin a third independent element in India and the British transfer power to inhabitants of this subcontinent. Master Tara Singh promptly rejected the tempting offer. In the month of July, 1946, the India Congress Working Committee met Calcutta, which reaffirmed the assurance already given to the Sikhs, and in Press Conference held on the 6th Jult there, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru spelt the concrete content of this solemn under-taking in the following flowery words "The brave Sikhs of the Punjab entitled to special consideration. I nothing wrong in an area and a set up in the North wherein the Sikhs can experience the glow of freedom." In these words, an autonomous state to the Sikhs, within India, was promised. In the early winter of 1946, Cabinet Mission, while at Delhi communicated to the Sikhs through the Sardar Baldev Singh that if the Sikhs determined not to part company with India, the British Parliament, in their solicitude for the Sikh people, prepared to so frame the Independence Act of India, that in respect of the Sikh Homeland, wherever these areas might eventually go, in Pakistan or India, no Constitution shall be formed such as does not have the concurrence of the Sikhs. But Sardar Baldev Singh, in consultation with the Congress leaders, summarily rejected this offer, which went even beyond assurances given by the majority community in 1929 and in 1946 by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in Calcutta. In April 1947, Mr. Jinnah, in consultation with certain most powerful leaders of the British Cabinet in London, offered to the Sikhs, first through Master Tara Singh and then through the Maharaja of Patiala, a sovereign Sikh state comprising areas lying in the west of Panipat and east of the left bank of the Ravi river on the understanding that this State then confederates with Pakistan on very advantageous terms to the Sikhs. But Master Tara Singh summarily rejected this attractive offer. The Maharaja of Patiala declined to accept it in consultation with Sardar Patel and Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. In the month of May, 1947, precisely on the 17th May, Lord Mountbatten, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Nawab Liaqat Ali Khan and Sardar Baldev Singh, flew to London on the invitation of the British Cabinet, in search of final solution of the Indian communal problem. When the Congress and the Muslim League failed to strike any mutual understanding and Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru decided to return to India, the British Cabinet leaders conveyed to Sardar Baldev Singh that if he stays behind, arrangements might be made: "So as to enable the Sikhs to have political feet of their own on which they may walk into the current of World History." Sardar Baldev Singh promtly divulged the contents of this confidential offer to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and in compliance with the latter's wishes, declined to stay back and flew back to India after giving the following brave message to the Press: "The Sikhs have no demands to make on the British except the demand that they should quit India. Whatever political rights and aspirations the Sikhs have, they shall have them satisfied through the goodwil of the Congress and the majority community." The British leaders had asked Sardar Baldev Singh to stay behind because the wanted to propose to him that if Sikhs were not ready to enter into the agreement with Muslims, then the Sikhs could be given an independent state which extended from Panipat to Nanakana Sahib with extended excess upto the seashore. The Britishers were ready to station 25,000 British troops and war equipment for ten years and provide help in the administration provided the Sikhs agreed to provide 50,000 soldiers be stationed at Singapore and other colonies to help the Britishers for the next ten years. After ten years the agreement could be reconsidered. Through this agreement the administration and defence of independent punjabi sovereign land would have been ensured and there would have been no need to enter into an agreement with either India or Pakistan for the purposes of their administration and defence. Even Muslim League had agreed this proposal because it would give then strong buffer state between Pakistan and India. It was also in the interest British empire as they would still have their feet in this sub-continent. But was unfortunate that there was no leader among the Sikhs with political vision foresight who could see the benefits such an arrangement and demand independent Homeland for the Sikhs. But after Independence, the Congress leaders forgot their promises given to Sikh people. These very Congress lead adopted every conceivable postureand shrank from no stratagem to keep Sikhs permanently under their political heel, first, by refusing to form a Punjabi speaking state in which the Sikhs might acquire political effectiveness, and second, by not giving Sikhs and Punjab a special status in the Constitution Act of India.

If you want Khalistan you first need the support of the Sikh people. Do you have this?
Go to India and speak with the Sikhs, they will tell you how much they love India.
A few Khalistan Sikhs in Canada and UK dont represesent the Sikh people as a whole.
Khalistan is not a reality and with the grace of Wahe Guru the Indian motherland will not be divided again.

khalistan zindabad
death to congress

India IS one nation.
Northern India is united culturally via the Sanskrit tongue. Is Punjabi not a Sanskrit language?
Were the rulers of cities in present day Pakistan not Hindus during the time of the Muslim invasions?
And where did Buddhism come from?
It came directly from Santana Dharm. However it was a dissident movement. It retained many of Hinduisms concepts including re-incarnation. The followers of Buddhism still display the Vedic heritage of India.
Santana Dharam is now unfortunately in a corrupted state. The caste system, evil as though it is was not always part of Hindu society. It developed over time and has nothing to with the Santana Dharam. In fact many historians have commented on this.
It is also true that the history of Santana Dharam seems to grow older the more we learn. Archeologists are now finding striking similarities between the diety represented statues in the Indus Valley Civilisation and that of present day Hindu society.
It is also true that India is not the dark and grim land that many people make it out to be. It's history shows a great land with a unique Vedic heritage, culture and arts. It excelled in the sciences and knowledge at various times in history flourished in the land. Sanskrit is descibed by many as the most scientific language in the world. Its origins are not clear, but it is the only known language in the world that attempted to accomodate all sounds into its alphabet. Gurmukhi is a version of Sanskrit isn't it?
I would say more than anyone else that the Brahmins role has been evil on Indian history.
On the other hand though, the caste system is not recognized by Indian law. In fact history has shown that the Hindus have been too soft for their own good.
The Afghan warrior, Ghauri advanced on Delhi 19 times.
On 18 occasions he was defeated by the Delhi ruler, Jaipal and forgiven. On the 19th attack Ghauri won, he conquered Delhi, arrested Jaipal and had him tortured to death.
Had the RSS existed in those times, surely Ghauri, Ghazni, Bin Qasim and others would have sent back home with their heads pushed up their asses!
But the RSS and other such Hindu movements are a recent invention. In fact they were born not because of Hindu teachings, but as a direct result from the threat from others.
Like Sikh history, Hindu history is also full of bloodhshed and betrayel. The RSS and others are a result of this bloody history.
In 1947, India was partitioned in the name of religion.
Tell me, what threat did Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel or funnily enough even Maulana Azad pose to the Muslims?
These men stood for a united and tolerant India. Nehru even wrote a book in which he called Islam a great religion which had been given a bad name by some evil people like Mahmud of Ghazni!
Gandhi did his very best to promote brotherhood and unity between Hindus and Muslims.
Yet today in Pakistan, these two men are viewed as enemies.
I saw a Pakistani recite a poem on a Pakistani channel recently in which he stated something like
"Nehru, Gandhi aur Patel haat mal tey reh geye, hum Pakistan ley kar rahey"
In fact to to this day the Pakistanis refuse to accept that Gandhi was killed because he genuinely cared for Muslims. They still see Gandhi as nothing more than they view other Hindus, Kafirs.
Now if there are police brutalities in Punjab, then I assure you that such things happen in all Indian states. The system needs to be improved.
You cannot justify any reason to divide Punjab from India. Those who boast of Punjab's central asian links fail to answer the issue of the Sanskrit based Punjabi language. Even if many Punjabis are originally from central asia, so what?
They reside in the Indian sub-continent which has a unique culture of its own. If Punjab has a Buddhist culture then it must not be forgotten where Buddhism came from.
The Mahabharat war site of Kurukshetra is in Haryana, dangerously close to "central asian" Punjab?
lol
So I think your need to review your history and understanding of India before writing huge essays.

Historical Propaganda

The 19th century neo-Brahmanist historical themes and propaganda were
designed for the purpose of inventing a new proud elitist identity and
history for Orthodox Caste Hindus (Brahmins/Banias - 7%) and for furthering
their political and imperialistic ambitions in a ONE NATION - to be
naturally ruled and dominated by the "superior" Brahmanists. However, the
dateless and placeless fantasies and mithya of neo-Brahmanism constructed
to promote these contentions do injustice to the most basic known and
verifiable facts of southasian history:

1) Southasia has historically been a multi-national/cultural/ethnic/
linguistic region, like Europe or the middle-east. There has never
been a ONE NATION or country in southasia. A few short regional
empires arose, crumbling under their own weight within a few decades
(e.g. Mauryan Empire, lasted 92 years).

As a historical/political entity, Winston Churchill likened it to an
imaginary line like the equator: "India is merely a geographical
expression. It is no more a single country than the equator."
2) The fantasy of southasia as a "One Hindu Nation" under Brahmanist
rule never existed. For example, the oldest northwest region of
southasia - Punjab - was politically unified to the rest of
subcontinent less than 10% of its known 3300 years history (that
too under Buddhist and Muslim regimes) prior to annexation in 1847.
3) Major periods of the historically separate Punjab region (northwest):
a) Vedic Period of Saptha Sindhva (1500-500 BC)
b) Gandharan Buddhist (400 BC-900 AD)
Gandhara constituted the present day regions of eastern
Afghanistan and Punjab. The region formed the hub of the
silk trade routes and was economically, religiously and
culturally well connected to central asia, China, the middle
east and southasia. Scholars came from all over the known
world to study Gandharan Buddhism, philosophy, sciences, and
arts at international centers of learning and commerce situated
at Jalandhara, Moga, Taxila, Sialkot, Kabul and Balkh
(E.Punjab, W.Punjab and Afghanistan)
c)Post Buddhist (post 900 AD): Influx of Gangetic/Malabari
Brahmanism from south (Shankarcharya of Malabar) and Islam
from north. Local development of Punjabi Sufism and Sikhism
(11-18th century) which are threads of continuity with th
region's relatively egalitarian and humanistic Gandharan
spiritual and cultural traditions and heritage.
4) The term "Hindusthan" was first used by a 12th century AD Afghan
dynasty of Muhammad Ghori who dubbed his new subjects "Hindus".
Prior to this era, no one in any region of southasia had ever used
these terms to define themselves.

5) There is no mention of either of these terms in "ancient"
Brahmanical books (oldest of which do not predate the 11th century;
also the oldest "Brahmanical" temples are all post Buddhist, after
8-9th century A.D.). Ironically, two of the three core concepts of
the Poorbia Brahmanist imperialistic program of "Hindu and
Hindusthan" are borrowed from post-12th century Muslim (Afghan and
Mogul) regimes.

6) Buddhism mixed with Saka (Indo-Scythian) religious practices (e.g.
sun worship) comprised the dominant religious influence (Gandharan
Buddhism) in Punjab and the northwest for almost 1300 years prior
to 900 A.D. Buddhism was also dominant in other regions prior to
8-9th century.
7) Brahmanist propaganda contends that their despised "lower caste"
shudras and Dalits ("inferior lower castes" - 80% of "Hindus") gave
up egalitarian Buddhism for the chains of Brahmanism (Hinduism)
voluntarily during 8-10th century AD to live under a new Brahmanical
Hindu order and law system granting them nil legal, human, social,
religious rights and dignity and considered them "too polluted" to
be allowed into Brahmin temples and read Brahmanical scriptures.

Foreign travelers from China and Tibet (e.g. Huen Tsang,
Sharmasvamin) of the time and Brahmanical texts themselves contradict
the peaceful conversion of Buddhist India to Brahmanical India
assertion (e.g. the "Sankara-digvijayam" text of the 14th century
records that Suddhanvan "issued orders to put to death all the
Buddhists from Ramesvaram to the Himalayas"). Indeed, the
extirpation of Buddhism in southasia occurred through a Brahmanical
policy of systematic genocide and terror. After the Brahmanists
gained religious influence over southasian ruling groups between
8-11th century, the majority Buddhist masses were terrorized,
pillaged and raped into giving up the Buddha and Buddhism by
organized gangs and their temples, universities, institutions and
property seized. They were then ground into "Shudra" and
"untouchables" castes after being politically, religiously and
economically disempowered.
8) Even the most revered Buddhist monument (Buddh-Gaya) where Lord
Buddha departed for Nirvana is a disputed Buddhist-Brahmin site
and the Casteocracy's Supreme Court has failed to issue its verdict
after over 50 years!
9) In the northwest and north, the Brahmanists have almost never formed
the ruling class over any known period of history. The recorded
rulers over 3500 years of known history have been drawn from the
followings groups and their descendants: British, Sikhs/Jats/
Rajputs, Afghans, Moguls, Indo-Scythians (Sakas), Bactrian Greeks
and Vedics.
10)From geographical information in the RigVeda, the Vedic Period
(1500-500BC) was confined to the northwest (Saptha Sindhva:
Punjab/Sindh). The hyms tell that the Vedic peoples worshiped
non-Brahmanical Gods (Indra, Varuna, Mitra), ate cows, elected
their chiefs, and drank liqor and called the people living to the
south in the gangetic region "Dasyas"! Moreover, main Gangetic
religious texts (e.g. Puranas) like the Mahabharta and
VarnaAshramDharma of Manu "forbids Brahmins" from even going to
Punjab and depict dark Dravidian Gods like Shiva and Krishna
fighting and defeating Vedic Aryan gods like Indra. Despite the
racial complexes developed by Poorbia Brahmanists during British
rule, there is overwhelming evidence of Brahmanism (Hinduism)
being of Dravidian origin from the gangetic region (Gangasthan).
11)Since their creation in the late 19th and early 20th century,
Poorbia Brahmanist organizations (e.g. Arya Samaj, RSS) have been
actively involved in spreading anti-Punjab and anti-Sikh propaganda
to polarize, fragment, subvert and communalize Punjabi society and
to create a sense of inferiority among Punjabis by erasing,
distorting, marginalizing and degrading Punjabi history, culture
and language.
Bhiya infiltration organizations and the Indian regime have been
brainwashing Punjabis to disown their ancient Punjabi language
and cultural heritage and accept the Poorbias' "superior Aryan
language and culture" (e.g. Hindi extracted from Sanskritized
Urdu in the 19th century; Urdu developed as a Mogul court language
from modifications and mixtures of the local khari-boli dialect
spoken in the Delhi region with Persian and Arabic).

Plain facts supported by the RigVeda tell, however, that the Vedic
civilization of Saptha Sindhva was a Punjabi civilization and, by
historical logic, Punjabiyat is necessarily the most direct and
authentic living offspring of the region's ancient Vedic cultural
and linguistic roots. Moreover, the eastern gangetic heartland is
not only historically a separate region, but geographically resides
over 1500 miles to the southeast of the Saptha Sindhva country.

Amazingly, the Indus valley civilization (pre-2000 BC), the Vedic
civilization (1500-500BC) and the Gandharan Buddhist civilization
(400BC-900AD), followed by development of Punjabi Sufism and
Sikhism (12-18th century AD), all transpired on the soil of the
Punjab and yet according to Brahmanist historical dogma,
the caste-based Gangasthani Brahmanical culture, society and
history is "superior" to Punjabi culture, history and language
- a product of its civilizations and eras stretching over 3500
years of known and verifiable history!

12) Political control over the northwest subcontinent post 500 BC
(Gandharan period) was primarily in the hands of Sakas (Scythians)
and their descendents who mainly patronized Buddhism prior to 9th
century AD. Based on analysis of coins, inscriptions, archeological
finds and early Indian/Buddhist/Chinese/Greek/Persian manuscripts
dating back to 500 BC, historians and ethnographers (e.g.
Cunningham, Tod, Rapson, Ibbetson, Elliot, Ephilstone, Dahiya,
Dhillon, Banerjea, Sharma, Sinha, Shrava, Puniya etc.) have shown
that the traditional agrarian and artisan communities (e.g.
Jats/Gujars/Tarkhans/Khatris/Rajputs/Lohars/Yadavs etc.) of the
entire northwest are the descendants of Scythian tribes from central
Asia (an aggressive and expansionist old Iranian speaking culture)
who settled north-western southasia in successive waves between 5th
century B.C. to 5th century AD. Sociological and ethnological
information collected in colonial censuses shows that the
majority (+65%) of the population of the northwest ("Sakasthan"
including Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, northern Maharashtra and
western UP) is of Saka origin. Terms like "Sakasthana" appear
on ancient Saka inscriptions found as far as Mathura in western
Uttar Pradesh (formerly, United Provinces).

Major dynasties/rulers of Punjab and the northwest of Saka
origin include Porus (4th century BC), Mauryas, Azes, Azilises,
Vima Kadphises, Soter Megas, Maues, Kanishka, Rudradaman, . . .
Harshavardhan, AnangPal, JaiPal (11th century AD). The demise of
the Mogul-Rajput empire in the 17th and early 18th century was
due largely to the Saka political revival in the west and northwest
as expressed by the rise of Maratha, hindu Jat and Sikh power under the
leadership of Gokhla, Shivaji, Churuman, Suraj Mal, Banda Bahadur,
Bhagel Singh, Ranjit Singh, etc.

While the plains facts of history clearly contradict the supremacist and
hegemonic claims Brahmanists began making on southasia during the
19th century, this historical quackery and the elitist neo-Brahmanist
identity (the "superior Aryans") and chauvinistic socio-political doctrines
derived from it have been the founding ideology and the "historical
consciousness" of the new Indian Brahmanist Order.

SECRET DUMPED 25,000 SIKH CORPSES (PARKASH BADAL PROOVES TO BE A CONSPIRATOR )

Parliament Members belongings to the Shiromani Akali Dal had staged a dharna in the well of the Lok Sabha on July 25, 1996 protesting against the government's inaction on the report that as many as 1,000 bodies tagged as ‘unidentified’ by the Punjab police had been disposed off surreptitiously during 1990-95. Since then the Akali Dal Supremo Parkash Badal, who took over as the Chief Minister of Punjab in February, 1997 has done nothing in the matter and preferred to beep quiet over the incident, which at one stage was WORSE THAN A GENOCIDE in the eyes of the Shiromani Akali Dal. []

So far as no compensation of what so ever nature paid to the family members of slain Sikh youths by the Badal Government. Moved by this callous attitude of Parkash Singh Badal the spirits of these 1,000 Sikh youths appeared on the stage at this juncture and forced the BUTCHER in Ajit Sandhu - the senior superintendent of police forcing him to end his life by throwing himself before the speeding train near Pakharpur village on the outskirts of Chandigarh. The spirits of these 1,000 odd slain sikh youths proved more powerful than the Indian constitution, the government of Parkash Badal and the Punjab police.

The suicide by Ajit Sandhu, former SSP of Tarn Taran was in line with the suicides of Brutus and Cassins the killers of Julius Caesar. The glaring incidents of police high handedness and brutality during Badal regime have yet another chapter of police terrorism in Punjab after the dark days of militancy when they used to overstep their authority to create a fear psychosis among the people. The recent incidents of state terror have raised doubts over the credibility of Badal’s commitment to provide justice to the people while ensuring transparency in administration. Before taking over the reigns of Administration Badal used to say that there would be no violation of human rights under the Akali Dal government but the incidents of police high handedness and brutality being reported from various parts of the State reflects the blatant misuse of power by the Punjab Police. The complaints against the policemen are on the rise ever since the Badal government have promised protection to them in line of duty. The DGP, Puran Chand Dogra had announced on May 15, 1997 that "officers and man who acted in bona fide discharge of their duties in operations against militants will be given total support in responding to writ petitions, CBI probes and court trials. The Badal Government which took over in February 1997, has yet to order the prosecution of a single police official. It may be recalled that while the Beant Singh regime had sanctioned the prosecution of police officials in one case only, the Congress government sanctioned six cases and the government of Mrs. Bhattal in four cases. Among the cases sanctioned for prosecution of police officials also included that of Ajit Sandhu then DSP Dasuya and Sumedh Singh Saini then SSP Ludhiana. Later on, Ajit Sandhu was arrested on December 14, 1996 in a case relating to the sarpanch of Ambala Jattan village in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab. Kuljit Singh was a close relative of saheed-e-ajam Bhagat Singh who kissed the gallows to free his motherland from the clutches of British Rulers. Kuljit was arrested in 1989 and later shown to have escaped from the police custody and jumped into the river. While Punjab police is indulging in misleading propaganda of HUMAN BOMBS merely to retain unlimited power enjoyed by it during the peak days of militancy, the Human Rights Activists are preparing to people of Punjab to launch a vigorous movement to protect Human Rights and to expose police excesses. Interestingly, neither Mr Parkash Badal nor any senior Akali Dal leader is prepared to refer to the incidents of police high handedness and brutality or Human Rights violations. Why Badal & Company are silent? Do not they owe an explanation to Jaswant Singh Khalra, Human Rights Activists of the SAD (Badal) who achieved ‘martyrdom’ while collecting details and evidence regarding the cremation of about 25,000 bodies of sikh youths by the Punjab police?

RAPE IN POLICE STATION
WHO = Name of Victim : Jasbir Kaur wife of Gurmukh Singh, resident of village Atal Garh, District. Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India. Jasbir Kaur was the prime victim, who was gang-raped by the police of Punjab [Northern state of India]. Her husband, Gurmukh Singh son of Santosh Singh, resident of village Atalgarh, District. Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India, was tortured in the same police station using most inhuman tactics.

WHAT = Precise details of the Human Rights violation : Jasbir Kaur, was gang raped in Police Station Sadar, Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India while her husband Gurmukh Singh was illegally detained and tortured by third degree methods in the same Police Station.

WHEN & WHERE = Date, Day and Time & Village/town/police post: Gurmukh Singh was picked up from his house i.e. from Atal Garh, Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India On September 30, 1997 in the morning at 9.00 a.m. and made to sit in the Police Station for the entire day. No questions were asked from him. He was told that he is to be interrogated and that the concerned officers had not come. Gurmukh Singh was allowed to come back to his house during night of September 30, 1997 after he gave an undertaking that he would come back early in the morning next day i.e. October 1, 1997.

WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE = Gurmukh Singh went to the Police Station Sadar, Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India in the morning at 8.00 a.m. on October 1, 1997. He was made to sit in the police station the whole day and was not asked any questions. In the evening Senior Superintendent of Police, Hoshiarpur, Sushil Kumar-Deputy Superintendent of Police, Police Station Sadar, Hoshiarpur, Ram Parkash-Station House Officer, Police Station Sadar, Hoshiarpur, Ram Nath-Assistant Sub Inspector, Police Station Sadar, Hoshiarpur and Devinder, Head Constable[Driver], Police Station Sadar, Hoshiarpur, came to the police station and started torturing one gun man whose gun had been snatched by someone. After he had been thoroughly tortured, Gurmukh Singh was called to the room and told to remove clothes. Then his legs were torn apart and his hait pulled. He was given electric shocks on his ears and private parts. He was asked about the gun snatched from the gunman who had been tortured earlier. Gurmukh Singh too pleaded innocence before the above named office officials.

Jasbir Kaur wife of Gurmukh Singh was bought to the police station in late night on October 1, 1997. The hands of Gurmukh Singh were already tiered. His legs were also chained. Jasbir Kaur was then raped in the presence of her husband-Gurmukh Singh by Ram Parkash, Ram Nath and Devinder-all are police men. Ram Parkash was the first to rape Jasbir Kaur and then it was Devinder Kumar and Ram Nath. After being raped, she was taken to some other room.

On October 2, 1997, Jasbir Kaur was raped by Sushil Kumar, DSP late at night. All police officers used to drink in the police station. On October 3, 1997, Gurmukh Singh was taken to Criminal Investigating Agency [CIA] building, Hoshiarpur. He was brought back to Police Station Sadar, Hoshiarpur on October 4, 1997. In the evening the parents and other respectable citizen approached the police station for the release of the couple. Both Jasbir and Gurmukh, were made to sign some papers and assured that they would be released soon. However this was not done. On October 5, 1997, both Jasbir Kaur and Gurmukh Singh were dropped on the Chintpurni road out side Hoshiarpur at some remote place. Both managed to reach Hoshiarpur and contacted their lawyer, who advised them to make a complaint to Senior Superintendent of Police, Hoshiarpur. As such they lodged a complaint with SSP, Hoshiarpur. After filing complaint, Jasbir and Gurmukh went to their friends house and stayed their, since they were afraid of Police. They came to know that the police had again raided their house. Fearing for their life, both Jasbir Kaur and Gurmukh Singh [husband and wife] rushed to Chandigarh [Capital city of Punjab] and contacted their lawyer, who advised them to give telegrams to the Chief Secretary, Punjab Government, Chandigarh, Home Secretary, Punjab Government, Chandigarh and Director General of Police-Punjab, Chandigarh. As such telegrams were despatched. Telegrams were also sent to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Punjab & Haryana High Court and to the Chief Minister of Punjab. Both husband and wife are sure that they won’t get justice at the hands of local police, hence decided to file a Writ Petition in the Punjab & Haryana High Court. As such a Writ Petition No 15043 of 1997 was filed, which was heard by Justice V.K.Jhanji and Justice B.Rai on October 6, 1997. The petition demanded an enquiry into the entire episode by Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI], medical check-up of Jasbir Kaur and protection from Central Reserve Police Force [CRPF]

Politics of Violence and State Repression
It is axiomatic that when the Constitution is grossly violated, judiciary is throttled, justice is denied and large scale brutalities are committed on a particular community, there is bound to be retaliation against the perpetrators . Military action, deployment of hundreds of paramilitary companies, imported governors, administrators and police officers from other states who had an established track record of exceeding their mandate and call of duty, legislating dreaded black laws, preventing foreigners and human rights organizations like Amnesty International from entering Punjab and numerous other overt and covert actions have been devised to break the community. These are some of the ways ushering in the era of the politics of violence.
In addition to the Indian Congress Party and its government’s complete right-about-turn in respect of commitments made to the Sikhs before Independence, a grand design was also hatched to bring the Sikhs to heel. Its first ugly manifestation was when the government of Haryana headed by Bhajan Lal, in league with the Centre, used its police and hired goondas to assault, kill and humiliate the Sikhs who happened to be going to Delhi on the eve of the 1982 Asian Games. The excuse was the Akalis’ statement of a peaceful demonstration to bring to the notice of the international community the gross violations of human rights vis-a-vis the Sikhs. No one was spared irrespective of age and status including retired and serving senior civil and military officers, judges, lawyers, ex-ministers, women and children. In many cases their hair - held sacred by the Sikhs - was cut off. Forcible shearing means the worst humiliation for a baptized Sikh. Some saved themselves by hiding in the fields during the day and traveling at night to places of safety. A number of Gurdwaras in towns and villages of Haryana were desecrated. In keeping with the government’s tradition of partisan politics, no culprit was punished.
Some hard lessons were however learnt through this single episode. Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal earned a special approbation from the Indira Gandhi government. The police and the hired anti-social elements were rewarded for committing these crimes. They felt encouraged that violence against the Sikhs in the future would be a profitable pursuit. Consequently, the Sikhs outside Punjab felt insecure and unprotected.
Some other aspects of this very first pre-planned violence against the life and dignity of the Sikhs came into focus:
there was no retaliation by the Sikhs in the Punjab where they could easily have indulged in revenge killings;
in practical terms, the law of the land could be dispensed with while dealing with a minority community;
willingness of the security forces to undertake utterly unlawful missions at the behest of the ruling clique and thus subverting their discipline; and
anti-social elements can be pressed into service to do the dirty work. Operations "Bluestar" and "Woodrose" were massive acts of state terrorism. That these operations were conceived as part of the grand design has already been placed on record. Evidently, their sole purpose could be to reduce Sikhs to servility. Genocide of the Sikhs on the pretext of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in November 1984 was an even bigger exercise in state brutality. An estimated 15,000 Sikhs were mowed down in Delhi and other Congress ruled states in the country. The government’s official figure of 3,000 killed in Delhi is absurdly low that seeks to reduce the gravity of the crime.
Ever since, state repression has been systematically practiced with Punjab as its primary field of operation. It has been kept out of bounds to foreigners lest the truth about the scale of atrocities and total violation of human rights gets known to the outside world. Lately, under pressure from within and outside the country this restriction has been relaxed in some parts as a "concession" under the Punjab package which is otherwise an eye wash. But that has made little difference in the government policy and police excesses. There is no letup in the killings by the security personnel and the anti-social elements hired for the purpose. People are randomly and systematically picked up and lodged in police stations, interrogation centres (which are in fact, torture chambers) and prisons. In most cases no official report is lodged or it is delayed indefinitely which gives flexibility to the police to extort money or finish off the "culprits" in faked encounters.

Summary of Sikh Case for Justice and Promised Rights

Given below is a brief list sampling the mistreatments, denial of promises
and rights, and subjugation under genocidal repressionary policies that the
progressive and freedom-loving Sikh-Punjabi nation has had to endure from
the Brahmanist Casteocracy since 1947:
1) Betrayal of promises of political autonomy and cultural
rights under which Punjab entered Indian Union
(Nehru, 1946: " I see nothing wrong with setting up an
autonomous region in the north where the brave Sikhs
can also bask in the glow of freedom").
2) Casteocracy declared "brave Sikhs" as a "criminal tribe"
in 1947 (by Nehru, Patel) immediately after independence.
3) Under the Indian Constitution framed by Brahmanists,
Sikhs are classified as "Hindus". To get a marriage license
in "secular India", Sikhs must sign a form entitled "The
Hindu Marriage Act of 1951".
4) Denial of Punjabi linguistics rights till 1967. All
non sikh states were reorganized and given
their linguistic/cultural rights in early 1950s. Over
250,000 Sikhs demonstrated peacefully and courted arrest
in 50s and 60s to get their linguistic rights (this is
5 times the number of Indians arrested by British in the
whole "quit India movement").
5) bramhin castocracys active cooperation with Brahmanist infiltration
organizations from Bhiyasthan (like RSS/Arya Samaj) in spreading
anti-Punjab and anti-Sikh hate propaganda to i) polarize and
communalize Punjabi society along fradulent "Hindu-Sikh" lines
and ii) twist the regime's 20 year denial of Punjabi linguistic
and cultural rights (in violation of the Indian Constitution
and pre-independence promises) into a communal issue leading
to the tri-partition of East Punjab in 1967.
6) Purposely leaving out 2 majority speaking Punjabi districts
(in reference to 1961 census) out of Punjab state finally
formed in 1967 after 20 years of peaceful protest and
demonstrations.
7) Dismissal of all 5 Akali Govs democratically elected
in Punjab by bramhins prior to term completion before 1983. only to be replaced by a puppet akali party with bjp today.
bramhin castocracy has been in constant violation of political rights
of Punjabis as granted by the Indian Constitution.
8) Denial of political and economic freedom of Punjabis through
denial of all pre-independence promises on autonomy,
imposition of a centralized unitary system, and Permit and
License Raj.
9) During early 1980s, policy of hegemonic control turned to a
policy of violent control in which over 105,000 Sikhs were
massacred in Delhi, Amritsar and Punjab by the Casteocracy
(figure is from US State Department sources and quoted in
a 1993 letter of 23 US Congressmen/Senators to President Clinton).
All 105,000 were killed supposedly to catch Indira Gandhi's
"300 Sikh militants" of 1983.
10) Engineering political destabilization in Punjab so that army rule
and genocidal state terror/violence could be imposed on Sikhs.
The policy objective was to brutally crush the Sikh population
(Stalinist style) so they would settle for plain peace and life
at any cost (like obedient Shudras) and give up all demands for
implementation of 1946 promises and constitutional rights.
11) Army desecration of 40 historical Gurdwaras throughout Punjab
between 1984-87 (Operation Bluestar and Operation Woodrose)
including the holiest shrine in Sikhdom - the Golden Temple.

it is for this reason sikhs punjabis are concious of
Brahmanist hegemony, vile, treachery, terror and genocide!

Mahatma Gandhi's speech and solemn promises under which Sikhs gave up
the option to form their own country and join India (Cabinet Mission

Proposal, 1946) gives the Sikhs all the moral authority they need for independence.
He clearly states that if the Congress betrayed Sikhs, they have
all rights to seek independence and sanctions. India
is also a signatory to UN articles agreeing to respect the right of
self-determination of constituent nations.

Anonymous
I dont deny that many bad things happened back in 1984. I do think though, that much has been exaggerated by the Khalistani's.
If things really were that bad, then how is it that Sikhs are living normally in India today?
What you have described is more akin the what happened in the former Yugoslavia, and the different groups there still live seperatley and dont want to know each other.
This is not the case in India.
So I dont know what your agenda is or how accurate your sources are. But they dont seem to reflect the reality on the ground.

narain writes -
"But I doubt that the government did anything that was supposed to be anti-Sikh. What they did was put down an insurgency in a part of India. Punjab was becoming lawless, with bomb blasts everywhere and armed militants all over the place.
What happened to the Golden Temple was a tragedy. It is something which must never be repeated.
But the fact remains that the anti-Indian Sikhs in the West are whining and moaning all the time. Even on their websites where they want to show the world India's "Brahmanical" nature, they can only show 1984.
Because even they know that Punjab has healed and recovered since then.
How can they be so shameful?
Have they forgotten that Indians call Sikhs 'Sardar Ji'.
So my dear sister, India is as much your country as it is mine. Modern Indian society proves this fact.
Our enemy is Pakistan
Never forget that!! "
"Operation Bluestar" and "Ghallughara". Two different terms for the same episode - the Army action on the Golden Temple in June 1984. Two different meanings give to the same unprecedented event. "Operation Bluestar" in the Government's term, connoting a necessary military operation to flush out terrorists and recover arms from the Golden Temple, the implication being that it was an unavoidable cleansing act of purification. Where as "Ghallughara" is how the Sikhs of Punjab remember the episode, connoting aggression, massacre and religious persecution. The unmistakable allusion is to the killing in Punjab of tens of thousands of Sikhs by the Afgan raider, Ahmed Shah Abdali in 1762, after which the word "Ghallughara" was coined to become an integral part of the Punjabi folklore. The contrast between "Operation Bluestar" and "Ghallughara" as two different perceptions of the same reality is symptomatic of the wide gap between the official version and the people's recollections of what really happened at the Golden Temple when the army attacked it in June 1984. Listening to the gripping eye-witness accounts of those who were inside Golden Temple at that time, we felt the need to tell the truth, the as-yet untold story and in the process to correct the Government's version as put out by the Army, the Press, the Radio, the T.V. and the White Paper.[ RETURN TO TOP ]

1. EYE WITNESS ACCOUNTS OF THE ARMY ACTION

Who were the eye-witnesses to the Golden Temple episode? 1. Devinder Singh Duggal - In charge of the Sikh Reference Library located inside the Golden Temple complex. Duggal is an acknowledged authority on Sikh history. He used to reside in a house adjacent to the Sikh Reference Library, was present there between May 28 and June 6, 1984 and hence (in his own words) "an eye-witness to some of the atrociities committed by the Army during its attack on the Golden Temple". About fiftyish, Duggal now lives with his lecturer-wife in Jallandhar, where we interviewd him. His eyes become moist and his voice quivered as he described the assault on the Golden Temple. 2. Bhan Singh- Secretary of the S.G.P.C., short, slim, in his mid fifties, Bhan Singh is a man of few words. He was present in the Golden Temple Complex during the Army attack and was arrested at dawn on June 6 along with Longowal and Tohra from the Guru Nanak Nivas which now houses the SGPC Office, where we met and talked to him. His account begins from June 3, 1984. 3. Giani Puran Singh - one of the priests at Harmandir Sahib. 4. Girl Student - Grand-daughter of SGPC member, she preferred to remain anonymous. Aged about 20 years, she goes to college at Amritsar. She went to the Golden Temple on May 29, 1984, with her grand-parents and an aunt, to fulfill a vow, and was there until June 6. We met her in Amritsar in the house of a widowed victim of the November 1984 Delhi violence. 5. A.I.S.S.F. Member - about 25-years old, he would not give his name, son of a police officer, he was visiting the Golden Temple in June 1984 for the Gurupurab and was there from June 1. He was arrested by the Army on June 6 but released in October. He was rearrested soon after and had been again released a little before we met him. Remarkably calm and soft spoken, he said that there were about 100 fighters with Bhindranwale inside the Temple Complex and less than 100 arms, mostly, 303 guns of the II World War. Extremely handsome, he is a member of the All India Sikh Students Federation. 6. Prithipal Singh - A young (24 years) Sevadar at the Akal Rest House, inside the Guru Ram Das Serai, Golden Temple complex, where mostly distinguished guests stayed. He was on duty throughout the period of the Army Operation. He narrated how he had a hair-breadth escape, even after being lined up before the firing squad on June 6, after he had been arrested, stripped naked and his hands had been tied behind his back with his turban. He showed us the bullet-ridden walls of the Akal Rest House, where we spoke to him. 7. Joginder Singh - and empoyee of the S.G.P.C. whom we met at the Golden Temple. 8. Surinder Singh Ragi "Patnasahib Wala" - Head Ragi (singer) at the Harmandir Sahib, we met the young man (about 35 years) outside the Information Office of the Golden Temple, He was in the Kesari (Sochre) roles of a priest. He was on duty at the Harmandir Sahib during the Army action. He is an extremely popular singer of 'Shabads' from the Gurbani and his tapes are on great demand. He spoke to us with great conviction. "The Guru taught us to resist atyachar (represssion), not to do atyachar". 9. Baldev Kaur - an Amritdhari woman in her mid-thirties, she had come to the Golden Temple on June 2, 1984 for the Gurupurab with her husband (Puran Singh who is now in Kapurthala Jail) and three children from her village Khanowal in Kapurthala district. She was so calm and fearless when she described her tribulations. She is facing severe economic hardships, cultivating only two acres of land, having no regualr source of income since her husband's arrest more that 9 months back. 10. Harchan Singh Ragi - one of the Hazuri Ragis who sings at the Harmandir Sahib, he is in his late fifties. With serene eyes and flowing white beard, he has an endearing touch. He was on duty at the Harmandir Sahib singing 'kirtans' when the Army shelled it very early morning on June 4. Born into a Hindu Brahmin family, he was orphaned at the time of partition and then adoped and brought up by Amrik Singh, the blind Head Ragi of the Golden Temple who was killed inside the Harmandir Sahib on the morning of June 5. We met him at the Information Office of the Golden Temple, and he lives just above it. Raminderpal Singh - an innocent boy - one of his sons, is detained at Jodhpur Jail as a 'terrorist'. Some of the details of the life in Amritsar at the time of the Army action, were provided to us by the relatives of a few of those who were captured from the Golden Temple after the army operation, as 'terrorists' accused of 'waging war against the State' and who are now being tried under the Special Courts (Terrorists) Act at Jodhpur Jail. It is the Jodhpur detenues who are eye-witnesses to the Army operations in Amritsar in June 1984, not the relatives we met. But some of their evidence was passed on to their relatives in the course of brief meeting in jail from time to time. We met the relatives of: (a) Kanwaljit Singh - A 20-year-old student of Khalsa College (evening) Delhi, whose father (Satnam Singh) runs a provision store at Lawrence Road, Delhi. Kanwaljit Singh visted the Temple with his friend on June 2, wanted to return to Delhi the same afernoon, but found that the last train had left Amritsar. And so he was forced to stay at the Guru Ram Das Serai inside the Golden Temple Complex. After Army action, he was arrested by the Army from the Serai and later chargesheeted with 378 others as 'terrorists' and detained under the N.S.A. We spoke to his youger brother, Inder Mohan Singh, at Delhi. (b) Jasbir Singh and Randhir Singh - Two brothers who went to Golden Temple, separtely, on June 3 to pay their respects. As Jasbir Singh was coming out after fulfilling his vow on June 3 at about 1:30 p.m. on the side of the Chowk Ghan ta Ghar, he was detained along with other youths by the C.R.P. The C.R.P. made them take off their shirts, tied their hands behind them and made them sit on the hot road outside the Information Office. Randhir Singh was staying in a room in Guru Ram Das Serai, belonging to their uncle (a member of the SGPC) from where he was arrested on June 5. Randhir was injured by bullets on his leg. We spoke to their father, Harbans Singh Ghumman, about 55 years a farmer and former MLA belonging to village Ghummankala , district Gurdaspur.
[ RETURN TO TOP ] June 1, 1984 - Pieceing together the evidence of various eye-witness and also second-hand socurces, such as Kirpal Singh, President of the Khalsa Dewan, Amritsar and S.S. Bhagowalia, advocate at Gurdaspur and Vice-president for the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (Punjab), the following picture emerges as to what happened at Golden Temple from June 1, 1984. It is really amazing how, except for some minor details, the accounts of different persons interviewed separately tally so closely with regard to the date, the time and the description of incident June 1, 1984. The AISSF Member, Duggal, the girl student, Sevadar Prithipal Singh and Baldev Kaur all said the the Golden Temple was fired at by security forces from the outside for the first time on June 1 itself, not June 5 as claimed by the White Paper. According to the AISSF member, "At 14.40 in the afternoon of June 1, suddenly the CRP without provocation started firing, aiming at the people inside the Parikarmas. There was no firing, from inside the Golden Temple. The firing by the C.R.P. was on the Harmandir Sahib and the Manjih Sahib. The firing continued till about 8 p.m." Sevadar Prithipal Singh added that the shooting which started from outside, was not preceded by any warning. Devinder Singh Duggal's account is extremely detailed and lucid. "By the end of May, it was widely known that the Army is going to attack the Golden Temple, and on that account there was tremendous tension in the entire city and its surrounding ar eas. The worst fears of the people came to the surface when on 1st June, the security forces which had beseiged the Golden Temple for months together and had made strong fortification on the multi-storey buildings all around it, suddenly started firing in side the Golden Temple. The firing sarted at 12.30 p.m. and continued for a full 7 hours. What was worse was that Harmandir Sahib was made the main target of this firing. I took shelter along with my staff behind the steel almirahs of the Library, one of the bullets pierced through three almirahs and landed on the fourth and we had a narrow escape." Duggal continues - "Not a single shot was fired from inside the complex. When I asked some of the boys as to why they did not answere the firing, they replied that they were under strict orders of the Sant not to fire a single shot unless and unti ll the security forces or the Army entered the holy Golden Temple. In the evening, when I heard in the news bulletin that there was unprovoked firing from inside the Temple, but that the security forces showed extreme restrain and did not fire a single sh ot, I was surprised at this naked lie. The very fact that as many as eight persons, includeing a woman and a child had been killed inside the Golden Temple complex and there were as many as 34 big bullet wounds on all sides of the Harmandir Sahib complete ly belied the Government's version. I asked Bhan Singh, Secretary, S.G.P.C., to do something to refute this falsehood. He said that nothing could be done because all links with the outside world had been snapped." According to the girl student, curfew was clamped soon after the firing started. She confirmed the killings - "Authorities had said none had died, but I dressed the wounds of 3 men who died later in front me in Guru Nanak Nivas." That the cur few was lifted soon after the firing stopped is indicated by the AISSF member, who said, "after the firing stopped, at about 8.30 p.m., a group of people (Jatha) courted arrest." There is no doubt then that security forces (C.R.P.) fired on the Harmander Sahib on June 1 itself and the news over the A.I.R. that there was unprovoked firing from inside was a blatant lie. However, most official versions maintain a meaningful silenc e about the happenings of June 1. For them, as for example, with the Government's White Paper, the story begins on June 2 with the Government of India deciding to call in the Army in aid of civil authority in Punjab, with the object of "checking and controlling extermist, terrorist and communal vioulence in Punjab, providing security to the people and restore normalcy." How much security the Army succeeded in providing to the people and how much normalcy, they were able to restore, is however, a nother matter. [ RETURN TO TOP ] June 2, 1984 - Duggal was relieved when "fortunately, on 2nd June a team of five reporters including Mark Tully of B.B.C. came there (Golden Temple) and were told the truth . They were taken around the Golden Temple and shown 34 big wounds caused by the bullets on all sides of the Harmandir Sahib, some of them as big as almost 3" in diameter." "The 2nd June passed off peacefully," according to Duggal, because there was no firing and no curfew, while Baldev Kaur said it was 'quiet'. A large number of Sikhs came to the Golden Temple from the surrounding areas along with their familie s as the next day, June 3, was Guru Parb or the martyrdom day of Shri Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth holy Guru of the Sikhs. The peace and quiet

he peace and quiet was only on the surface, because active preparations were afoot to break the peace. Kanwaljit Singh and his friend Manjit Singh from Delhi visited Golden Temple on the morning of June 2 and found that there there was no restriction for pilgrims to enter Amritsar or even the Temple. But the exit doors out ot Amritsar were being closed. After visiting the Temple, when Kanwaljit went at noon to the Amritsar Railway Station to catch a train for Delhi, they were told that the last train had already left and that the Flying Mail in the evening would not be leaving. In fact they were told all outgoing trains had been cancelled. So Kanwaljit and Manjit were forced to return to the Golden Temple and put up in the Guru Ram Das Serai for the n ight. Thus was Kanwaljit to miss his interveiw at Delhi with the Institute of Bank Management on June 3 morning and his examination with the State Bank of India the same afternoon. The AISSF young man said that the C.R.P., outside the Golden Temple was replaced by Army on the night of June 2. Although there was no formal curfew, and all visitors entering the Temple were allowed to come in without any ado, all those who left the G olden Temple on the night of June 2 were being taken into custody. "I did not therefore leave the Golden Temple complex", said the A.I.S.S.F. member revealing his caution [ RETURN TO TOP ] June 3, 1984 - According to the AISSF member, "Guru Parb was on June 3. About 10,000 people had come from outside including many women and 4000 of them were young people. Those who were inside were not allowd to go out after 10 p.m. on June 3. The Jathas which had come mainly from Sangrur were not allowed to court arrest." Bhan Singh confirms: "June 3 being Guru Parb, thousands of pilgrims had come. But suddenly there was a curfew, so the pilgrims and the 1300 Akali workers came to participate in the Dharam Yudh Morcha and to court arrest, could not leave. The Akali Jathas consisted of about 200 ladies, 18 children and about 1100 men and all of them along with the thousands of pilgrims were forced to stay back inside the Temple complex. Most were living in Guru Ram Das Serai, some at Teja Singh Samundri Hall." The girl student remembers, "On June 3, at 6 o'clock in the evening we came to know that Punjab had been sealed for 48 hours and that even cycles would not be allowed on the streets." Kanwaljit Singh sent a telegram home to Delhi at 8.05 p.m. on June 3 from the Golden Temple Post Office "Coming after curfew". It means that the curfew was 'reimposed' (Duggal's word) between 8.05 p.m. and 10 p.m. No one inside the Golden Temple had yet realised the sinister plan of the authoritites. Punjab had been sealed. Thousands of pilgrims and hundreds of Akali workers had been allowed to collect inside the Temple complex. They had been given no inkling or warning either of the sudden curfew or of the imminent Army attack. It was to be a Black Hole-type of tragedy, not out of forgetfulness but out of deliberate planning and design. [ RETURN TO TOP ] June 4, 1984 - Duggal's recollection are vived, almost photographic. "At abut 4 a.m. in the early hours of the morning of June 4, the regular Army attack on the temple started with a 25-pounder which fell in the ramparts of the Deori to the left o f Akal Takht Sahib with such a thunder that for a few moments I thought that the whole complex had collapsed. I along with my wife were then sitting in the verandah of my house adjacent to the Sikh Reference Library. Recovering from the initial shock, we moved into the room and took shelter in one of its corners. Therafter, every second the ferocity of firing increased and it continued unabated till the evening of the 6th June. As we were on the first floor, and our quarter was open on all sides our position was very vulnerable. The bullets hit our quarters on all sides and some of them pierced through the doors and landed inside the room. To add to our miseries the power and water supplies had been cut. Through a slit in the shutter of a window we saw a large number of dead bodies in the Parikrama of the Golden Temple. They included women and children. We could not leave our room. Coming out in the open would have exposed us to sure death." Baldev Kaur's account of how the Army attack began is similar - "Very early on June 4, while it was dark, there was cannon fire from outside the Golden Temple without any warning. Shots were fired from all sides." Bhan Singh is emphatic that no warning was given, no public announcement was made by the Army before the shelling of the Golden Temple started on June 4 - "had the army given a warning at least those pilgrims who had come for the Guru Parb could g o out and then those person who were simply here to participate in the Dharam Yudh Morcha could go out. But no warning was given to the people. The firing was started from all around the complex with vengeance, as if they were attacking on alien, enemy co untry." According to the girl student the shelling started at about 20 minutes past 4 o'clock on June 4 dawn and continued without interruption upto 2 o'clock in the afternoon of that day (June 4), and evening of June 5. Her account is extemely graphic - On June 4 at about 3:30 a.m. we were inside the Harmandir Sahib reciting our prayers. Suddenly, thew was a black-out in the whole of the Goldne Temple complex. The devotees continued to be immersed in worship. A about 20 minutes past 4 o'clock there was a very loud explosion. We felt that the whole of the Golden Temple complex was shaking. I was alone on the balcony overlooking the lake or sarovar. Suddenly something roundish fell in front of me. I was curious. So I ge ntly touched it and pushed it into the water. As it fell, there was a big noise and then the water rose and splashed into the Harmandir Sahib. I started reeling, once tilting on one side and again on the other.

Someone pulled me inside. The explosions con tinued. We then realised that the Army's attack on the Golden Temple had begun." In a flash she described her companions - "Inside the Harmandir Sahib there were about 50 to 60 persons - soem granthis (priests), ragis (singers), sevadars (employ ees), the rest of them yatris (pilgrims or visitors) like me and my family. I did not see any armed terrorist." The Army fired from all sides and did not spare any target in the Temple complex which seemed to shelter people. According to Prithipal Singh, the Sevadar on duty at Akal Rest House, deep inside the Guru Ram Das Serai, the Akal Rest House was shelled f rom the side of Gali Bagh Wali (to the left of the main entrance from the side on chowk Ghanta Ghar) at 5 a.m. on June 4. The bullet marks on the walls, the doors and windows of the side rooms of the Akal Rest House bore silent testimony to the Sevadars s tory, as we listened to him in May, 1985, almost one year after the shooting. The Harmandir Sahib was not spared by the Army on June 4, just as it had not been by the C.R.P. on June 1. According to the girl student, bulletts hissed past her and her grandmother and aunt when they crawled across the bridge on their stomachs in the ir bid to escape from Harmandir Sahib. She managed to pick up a portion of a shell which had exploded on the bridge near Harmandir Shaib - it was marked 84 mm., and it had two colours, yellow on the upper part and blue on the lower part. Baldev Kaur's account suggests that there was no immediate counter-fire from inside the Golden Temple complex. The A.I.S.S.F. member said that "there was some stray firing from inside the Golden Temple before the Army's entry into the complex" ;. The girl student provides a comparative picture of the magnitude and intensity of firing from outside the Temple and from inside. "The firing that took place from inside the Golden Temple was negligible. On June 1, there was absolutely no firing f rom inside. Wheras on June 4, the ratio what something like this - if a thousand rounds were being fired by the Army from outside, then about one or one and a half rounds were fired in reply by the armed militants from inside the Temple complex." Meanwhile, according to Duggal, "the helicopter hovered above and continued to fire from above. Some of these helicopters also guided the firing squads of the Army by making circle of light around the targets. Immediately after these circles, the cannon bell would land on the target causing havoc. We saw a large number of boys blown to pieces." According to Bhan Singh, "they (the Army) treated the inmates of the Complex as enemies and whenever there was any person wounded on account of the firing, no Red Cross people were allowed to enter, rather the Red Cross personnel had been detained beyond the Jallianwallah Bagh," - more that a kilometre away from the main entrance to the Golden Temple from the Chowk Ghanta Ghar side. In accordance with the U.N. Charter of Human Rights, the Red Cross is permitted to go in aid of the wounded rig ht inside the enemy territory, but in Amritsar in June 1984 the Red Cross was not allowed to enter the Golden Temple - a respected and hallowed part of our country- in aid of Indians under attack from the Indian army. It only means that the attack was so brutal and the battle scene so grisly, that there was much to hide from the public scrutiny, even if it be that of a neutral agency called the Red Cross. This also explains perhaps why Press Censorship had already been imposed, the last of the journalists were hounded away and the Press was not allowed inside the Golden Temple upto June 10 when they were taken on a guided tour of the Complex for the first time since the Army Operations began almost a week before. [ RETURN TO TOP ] June 5, 1984 - The firing and counter-firing continued. Harcharan Singh Ragi saw his guardian and mentor - the old completely blind Head Ragi of the Golden Temple, Amrik Singh being shot by a bullet and dying inside the Harmandir Sahib at about 6.30 a.m . on June 5. This was the respect shown by the Indian Army to the Harmandir Sahib! The White Paper issued on July 10, 1984 adopts a holier-than-thou attitude - "Specific Orders were given to troops to use minimum force, to show the utmost reverence to all holy places and to ensure that no desecration or damage was done to the Harmandir Sahib..." (Para 10) and once more "In spite of this (machine-gun fire from Harmandir Sahib on the night of June 5) the troops exercised great restrain and refrained fr om directing any fire at Harmandir Sahib." All this is propaganda. We have recorded the truth - the Harmandir Sahib was fired at by the C.R.P. on June 1 and there wer 34 bullet marks on it which were shown to Mark Tully of the B.B.C. the next day. Wh en the Army attacked the Golden Temple at dawn on June 4, the Harmandir Sahib was the target of destructive shelling and on June 5 two Ragis - one Amrik Singh, blind, 65-year-old - a singer of devotional songs and another Avtar Singh were killed by bullet s right inside the Harmandir Sahib. Perhaps the White Paper was doing an exercise in sarcasm and irony when it stated: "the troops exercised great restraint and refrained from directing any fire at Harmandir Sahib." Meanwhile, the girl student and her companions had managed to come away from the Harmandir Sahib, crawling on their stomaches across the small bridge. They were bundled into a room on the ground floor of the Akal Takht. They kept sitting there, having nothing to eat and no water to drink. To continue, in her own words, "Helicopters were encircling the Temple from above. After the helicopters completed their circle, at about 11:30 a.m. on June 5, the huge water tank inside the Temple complex was fi red at. The tank could not be broken even after the initial 10 shells hit the tank. Then one bomb hit the tank after which it burst and all the water gushed out. The fighters who had taken their positons beneath the tank were killed. "They continued the firing till the evening of June 5 and then it was about 8.30 p.m. It was completly dark when they entered accompanied by very heavy firing. The blasting was so severe that I thought that I had reached some other world. "We were 40-50 persons huddled together in the room, including women and children, even a child of six months. In the next room were the pilgrims who had come on June 3 to celebrate Guru Parb but they had been trapped." "The upper protion of the Akal Takht had been fired at by the Army and completely destroyed. Pieces of the Guru Granth Sahib were flying in the air and littering the ground. The place seemed to have been transformed into a haunted house. "Then the tank entered. It had powerful searchlights. I thought the ambulance had come to attend to the dead and injured. But it had turned out the opposite. The tanks went riding past us. From the tanks the announcement came, loud and clear: &quo t;Please come out, God's blessings are with you. We will reach you home absolutely safe and sound," There were some among us who were frantic for some water, they came out in the open. In the morning I saw the dead bodies lying on the Parikrama. This was the worst kind of treachery." The A.I.S.S.F. Members narration of the events of June 5 has a somewhat different emphasis - less personal reflection and more of detached observation. On June 5th at about 8 p.m. the Army entered the Complex through the Ghanta Ghar side under heavy co ver fire. The road was blocked. Nobody was allowed to come out of the Complex. The Army entry was not preceded by any warning of announcement asking the people to surrender. "There was some stray firing from inside the Golden Temple before the Army e ntry into the Complex. But the real resistance began only after the Army entered the Temple. The order from Bhindranwale was to use limited firearms with discretion. There were only about 100 people to fight and there were less that 100 arms consisting mo stly of 303 rifles used in the World War II, 315 guns and a few stenguns. When the army entered, the ammunition was nearly exhausted. "After mid-night, at about 1 a.m. one armoured carrier and 8 tanks came inside the complex. The tanks had powerful s earchlights and they came down the stair-case, and the Army surrounded the langar building." Even 11 months afterwards, we could still see the marks of the tanks on the Parikrama. Duggal's account is also informative. By the evening of June 5, he and his family had managed to move to the house of the Giani Sahib Singh, the head priest of Golden Temple, which is about 25 yards away from the house he had earlier taken shelter in. In Duggal's words, "The night between the 5th and 6th was terrible. The tanks and armoured carriers had entered the Golden Temple Complex.

The firing was such, that its ferocity cannot be described. In the early hours of June 6th, we learnt that the holy Akal Takht had been completely demolished in the firing. As devoted Sikhs, we were extremely shocked. Tears flowed through the eyes of everybody there. All through the night we heard the heart rending cries of the dying persons." Giani Puran Singh, a priest at the Harmandir Sahib also an eye-witness remembers - "At 7.30 p.m. on 5th I went to Sri Akal Takht where I met Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale with who I had a long satisfying talk while shots were ringing outside. Gyani Mohan Singh, whose duty was to conduct REHRAS (Evening Prayer) had not been able to reach Harmandir Sahib, due to the shooting. I then came down from the Akal Takht and joined some "Singhs" in a morcha and enquired of them whether Gyani Mohan Singh had passed that way. As per the tradition the 'Regras' at Akal Takht starts 5 minutes later than at the Harmandir Sahib, but that day Path at the Akali Takht had already started. Upon this I rushed towards Harmandir Sahib amidst gunfire, stopping for a breather at the Darshani Deori.
On reaching I started the recitation. Meanwhile, Gyani Mohan Singh also reached the place. We were about 22 people in the Harmandir Sahib, some devotees and others the employees of the Gurudwara. By the time the path was over the firing outside became more intense. 'Sukhasan' of Guru Granth Sahib was done and then taken upstairs. At 10.00 p.m. the tanks started entering the complex and a barrage of shooting from without became more intense as heavy armour began to be used. At this stage an armoured carrior entered and stood beside the Sarovar. The lights on the carrier, when switched on, bathed the whole complex in bright light. We were viewing all this perched in the main dome of Harmandir Sahib and thought that prob ably the fire brigade had come to get water for extinguishing fires raging throughout the city. But we were proved wrong when this vehicle came down to the Parikrama and stared firing. From both sides the tanks started closing in, from clock tower to the Brahm Buta the tanks set fire to all rooms while desperate people collected water from the Sarovar to extinguish the fires.
Loud cries and wails of both women and children rent the air. A vigorous battle ensued and the Darshani Deoris of Clock Tower and A tta Mandi along with the Serais (rest houses) was in Army control by 10 o'clock, the next day (June 6). The 40-50 youth who had been holding the forces fought bravely till either they were killed or the ammuniton was exhausted. From about 10 in the night till 4.30 the next mornign we were on the roof of Darbar Sahib." [ RETURN TO TOP ]

2. OFFICIAL VERSION - FACT OR FICTION?


These accounts of what happended at the Golden Temple on June 5 are in marked contrast to the white paper or the army's common charge sheet to the 379 alleged 'terrorists' captured from Golden Temple now detained under N.S.A. at Jodhpur. According to the White Paper: " All Commanders were instructed to continuously use the public address systems for a number of hours at every suspected hidout of terrorists to give themselves up in order to prevent bloodshed and damage to holy plac es before the use of force for their apprehension." Was this actually done? Our eye-witness accounts prove that it was not. Regarding Golden Temple, the White Paper is also specific, "During the afternoon and evening of June 5 1984 repeated appe als were made to the terrorists over the public address system to lay down their arms and surrender and to others inside the Temple to come out, to prevent avoidable bloodshed and damage to structures in theTemple Complex. In response to this appeal 129 m en, women and children came out and they were handed over to the civil authorities." Is it possible to believe this version? We have seen how the Army started shelling the Golden Temple without any warning or public announcement from the early hours of June 4. They continued this firing throughout June 4 and 6. The militants also fired in reply but they were no match, either in terms of numbers of men or in amounts of ammuntion. How could the Army make 'repeated appeals' during the afternoon and even ing of June 5 when intense fighting was going on and how could 120 person come out during this raging battle? The Army's version, as revealed by its chargesheet to the 379 alleged 'terrorists' detained at Jodhpur Jail, is even more incredible. On June 5, when they were supposed to have been deputed for duty outside the Golden Temple, the Army had the informati on that "the extremists/terrorists led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had collected men, arms, ammunitions and explosives within the Golden Temple and had also made other preparations to wage war against the Government of India with the intention to e xtablish a State independent of the Government of India to be known as Khalistan". Or in other words, Khalistan was to be established at the Golden Temple and if the A.I.S.S.F. member is to be believed, by about 100 fighters equipped mostly with 303 decrepit guns of the II World War, a few 315 rifles and some stenguns. S. S. Bhagowalia an advocate at Gurdaspur and Vice President of the Associtation for Democratic Rights (A.F.D.R. Punjab) investigated and found that Bhindranwale's supporters numbered no more that 140-150. It is strange that the White Paper has nothing to say about the Khalistan flag - a country without a flag! But the White Paper says that Khalistan was to be established at the Golden Temple. According to the Army's chargsheet and als o the White Paper, in response to the Army's repeated appeals to the Terrorists to lay down their arms and surrender, they opened intensive firing from inside the Complex. "They were shouting anti-national slogans." This was a battle not a demon stration. How could 'terrorists' engage in shouting anti-national slogans at a time when they were allegedly using automatic and semi-automatic weapons, grenades, explosives, etc? Even if they did shout these slogans how could the slogans be heard over th e din and noise of rattling stenguns and automatic rifles? The White Paper also describes how the library was allegedly gutted on the night between June 5 and 6 - "Troops were able to enter the area around the Sarovar through the northern deori and the Southern library building. Terrorists were in control of the Library building and fired from there. At this stage, the library caught fire - the Army fire brigade was rushed but their attempts were failed by the machine-gun fire from the terrorists." A perfect brief for the Army! But according to Duggal who was in incharge of the Sikh Reference Library and who cared for it, the Library was intact when he last saw it on June 6, evening while leaving the Temple Complex. However, he was in for a terrible shock when he was brought back to the Temple complex by the Army on June 14. Let us listen to Duggal's tale of sorrow as well as courage: "On 14th June 1984 I was arrested by the Army and taken inside the Golden Temple, where I was shocked to see that the Sikh Reference Libra ry had been burnt. The entire Golden Temple Complex presented a very, very painful look. It bore at least 3 lakhs of bullet marks. The Akal Takht was in shambles. Guru Nanak Nivas, Teja Singh Samundri Hall, Guru Ram Das Serai and the langar buildings had been burnt. When I left the Complex on 6th all those buildings were in good shape in spite of the Army Attack, Taken to the Library's ruins, I was asked by the Army Col. to take charge of the Library. I asked him as to were is the Library. He said that I had no option but to sign a typed receipt to the effect that I have taken over the charge of the Library. I refused to oblige him saying that I would not tell such a big lie." The White Paper is very emphatic the "Troops were particularly instructed not to wear any leather items in holy places and to treat all apprehended person with dignity and consideration." What was the reality? The reality was this:- [ RETURN TO TOP ] June 6, 1984 - " At 2 a.m. on June 6", says Prithipal Singh, Sevadar, at the Akal Rest House, "the Army people came to the Rest House. They tore off all my clothes, stripped me naked, my kirpan was snatched, my head gear (patta) was untie d to tie up my hands behind my back. They caught me by my hair and took me along with five others - who were all pilgrims - to the ruins of the water tank, there we were told, "don't move or you'll be shot." They kept hitting us with the rifle b utts. Then a Major came and ordered a soldier, shoot them, then shouted at us, "You must be Bhindranwale's Chelas? You want Khalistan? I said "I am here to do my duty. I have nothing to do with all this." "Six of us were in a line faci ng the Major, when a Pahari soldier started shooting from one end, killing four of us (with 3 bullets each). As my turn was coming, suddenly a Sikh Officer turned up and ordered, "Stop Shooting". Thus I was saved. The Sikh Officer was told, &quo t;these people have ammunitions". At that he ordered them to lock us in a room. Two of us were locked up in a room in Guru Ram Das Serai, but we did not talk nor did I ask the other man's name. On 7th June the door was opened at about 8 or 9 in the m orning. We had gone without water. The floor was covered in blood. I was allowed to leave." This was then the 'dignity and consideration' which the White Paper had claimed was shown to those apprehended by the Army. Bhan Singh picks up the thread of the story at about 4 a.m. on June 6. "I was arrested along with Sant Longowal and Jathedar Gurcharan Singh Tohra early morning on the 6th. We were encircled by the Army people, throughout the day from 4 a.m. till 5 p.m. when Sant Longowal and Jathedar Tohra were taken to the Army Camp, but I along with many others was kept inside the compound of Guru Ram Das Serai. We were taken away to the Army Camp at about 9.30 p.m." Even on this point of arrest of Longowal and Tohra, the White Paper has a totally different version - "At 1.00 a.m. on June 6, Sant Harchand Singh Longowal and Shri G.S. Tohra surrendered near Guru Nanak Niwas with about 350 people. The terrorist opened fire at them and also lobbed hand grenades to prevent surrender. As a result, 70 people were kille d including 30 women and children." Even Longowal is on record that he and Tohra were arrested at 5 a.m. from Guru Nanak Niwas (where the S.G.P.C. Office is now located) and kept there in Army custody the whole day. Neither he nor Bhan Singh talk abo ut surrendering to the Army nor do they refer to the killing of 70 people including 30 women and children, by terrorists at the time of their surrender. Should we believe Bhan Singh (and Longowal) or would we blindly accept the White Paper's Version? On the morning of June 6, as the girl student opened the door of their small room and "came out to fetch water, what did I see but piles of dead bodies, all stacked one over the other. At first I instinctively felt that I wouldn't manage to go out . All I could see was a ceaseless mount of dead bodies. It seemed that all the persons who werre staying in the Parikrama, not one of them had survived...

The Army said later that they did not go inside the Golden Temple wearing boots. But I have seen som e of the dead bodies of the Army men in uniform - they were wearing boots and belts." The White Paper is contradicted once more. The girl student's narration continues. It is an amazing and astonishing account of how she accidentally met Bhai Amrik Singh, Prsident of the A.I.S.S.F. and Bhindranwale's close associate. She had not met him before but once he told her his name, she recognised him at once because his pictures had come out in the papers. How Amrik Singh gave her some water in a bucket which she gave to her relatives and acquaintances, but she could not bring herself to drinking it because it was red, mixed with blood. How Bhai Amrik Singh sent her a message urging her to leave the Temple Complex at once with her group in order to escape being dishonoured or being shot dead as 'terrorists' by the Army personnel, and also to survive to tell the true story of what happen ed inside the Golden Temple to the world outside. She recounts in breathtaking detail how she picked up the courage to first come out of the Complex and then bring out her relatives and acquaintances.

To quote her own words - "So I decided to try to find the way out. There was a man lying dead. I had to place my foot on him. My foot touched sometimes somebody's had, sometimes somebody's body. I had to move in this fashion. There is a staircase next to the Nishan Saheb (outside teh Akal Takht) and next to it there was an iron gate, which had got twisted because of the shelling. I pulled the gate and came out, there was nobody. The place was deserted. The doors of the houses were shut and locked from outside. I was in a haze. For I saw the locks and yet I kept shouting for shelter. Then I came to my senses, realizing that the inhabitants had locked their houses and gone away. Then I broke the mud patch in the wall of a house and entered it. One o f the doors of this house opened out into the Golden Temple. I went back to the temple through this door. I found a wounded man who relayed my message to my grandmother through other wounded persons, that I had managed to come outside, she should also com e out. By then the room in the Akal Takht building, where I had taken shelter with my grandmother was already in flames. The 20-25 people in that room came out with much difficulty and reached the place where I was. The house had been sprayed with shells and bullets and there were gaping holes in the walls. We found a water tank in that house which had escaped destruction, unlike the water tank in the Golden Temple complex. First we all drank water from that tank. We met an injured man who had also taken shelter in that house. He asked us to go with him to his house. We accompanied him. He made us change all our blood-soaked clothes; some we washed clean." The narrations of Bhan Singh, Harcharan Singh Ragis, Giani Puran Singh and the girl student tear apart the White Paper that the Army had been instructed 'to treat all apprehended persons with dignity and consideration', and also that 'no women and chil dren were killed in the action by the troops.' Bhan Singh remembers- "On the 6th morning when hundreds of people were killed or wounded, everywhere there were cries of those people who were wounded and injured but there was no provisions for their dressings and there were no Red Cross people w ithin the complex... Many young people aged between 18 and 22 years were killed and so were some ladies. A lady carrying a child of only a few months saw her husband lying before her. The child was also killed on account of the firing. It was a very touch ing scene when she placed the dead body of the child alongside her husband's body. Many people were crying for drinking water, but they were not provided any. Some had to take water out of the drains where dead bodies were lying and the water was red with blood. The way the injured were quenching their thirst was an aweful sight which could not be tolerated. The Army people were there, moving about mercilessly without showing any sign of sympathy with those injured or wounded. Those who were under arrest were not provided any facility of water or food or any other thing of that sort. The clothes of those who were arrested were removed and they were only left with shorts-their turbans, shirts, etc. were all removed and heaped together. Such a brute treatme nt was given to them, as if they were aliens and not the citizens of the coutry to which the forces belonged." Harcharan Singh Ragi similarly recounts- "My quarters are on the first floor above the information office and it was unsafe, with the firing going on endlessly, to stay there. Four members of the family of Narinder Pal Singh, the Information Offic er who also lived on the same floor as us and we five took shelter in the basement of the Information office building. On the 6th of June, between 12 noon and 5 p.m., the Army announced that people should come out. This was the first announcement given si nce the Army operations began. All of us in the basement volunteered arrest and the Information Officer and myself showed our identity cards as employees of the S.G.P.C. As we were coming out, we saw that hundreds of people were being shot down as they ca me out. We saw many women being shot dead by the commanders. I also would have been, but for my little girl, Jaswinder Pal Kaur (Anju), rushing to the Army Commander and begging to save her father's life." And now let us listen to the girl student once more- "On June 6 at o'clock in the evening, they announced a relaxation in the curfew for one hour. Meanwhile, we went through some devious lanes and managed to take shelter in a house which was some distance form the Golden Temple. The Army people announced that everyone should come out. So we came out." "There were about 27-28 persons with us, 5 of them ladies, some elderly men, the rest young boys. The Army made all of us stand in queue. There were 13 boys out of which three I clained to be my brothers. I did not know them from before. I merely wanted to save them. I don't know why, perhaps because they thought the 3 boys were part of our family but the Army released these three boys. They went away. Out of the remainging male youths, they picked out four and took off their turbans with which th ey tied their hands behind their backs. Then the Army men beat these 4 Sikh boys with the butts of their rifles till they fell on the ground and started bleeding. They kept telling the boys all along, "you are terrorists. You were coming from inside. You were taking part in the action. You will be shot." These boys were shot dead right in front of me. They looked completely innocent. Neither they seemed to know how to use a rifle, nor they seemed to know the meaning of 'terrorism'. They were sho t before my eyes. Their age was between 18 and 20 years. I did not know who they were - circumstances had brought us together by chance. Whenever I recollect that scene, I seem to lose my bearings. "Then they (the Army people) surrounded me and started questioning me. I told my granmother not to speak a word to them as they were speaking only with bullets. I asked them whether they had come to protect us or to finish us. I said my grandfathe r was a colonel in the Army... The Army man... in charge then asked his colleagues to leave me and my family members. He told me to go away quickly. And so we were saved." Giani Puran Singh narrates- "At 4:30 a.m. on June 6, Guru Granth Sahib was brought down. PRAKASH done and the Hukumnama taken, the kirtan of Asa-di-vaar started. This kirtan was not done by the appointed Ragi Jatha (Hymn singers) but by members of Bhai Randhir Singh Jatha, one member of which Avtar Singh of Parowal was later martyred inside the Darbar Sahib. The official Jatha of Bhai Amrik Singh had been martyred at the Darshani Deori the previous day. Bhai Avtar Singh was hit by a bullet which t ore through the southern door, one of which is still embedded in the Guru Granth Sahib which is there since Maharaja Ranjit Singh's time. Time passed and at 4:00p.m. on June 6, some poisonous gas was spread and the Akal Takht captured, if not for this gas the forces could not have been able to gain the Akal Takht. At 4:30 the commandant, Brar spoke from a speaker on the Sourhtern Deori that all living people should surrender. All those who had come face to face with the forces had been eliminated. We (I a nd Gyani Mohan Singh) asked all the 22 within the Darbar Sahib to surrender and told the commanding officer that two priests had stayed behind and if need be, he could send his men for them. He did not agree with them and called aloud on the speaker that we should come out with raised hands. We decided against this because if we were shot on the way it would merely be a waste. We were in teh Darbar Sahib till 7:30 when two soldiers and a sewadar were sent to fech us. While on our way out I stopped to pour a handful of water in the mouth of the wounded member of the Jatha, who asked us to send for help. I promised to do so provided I remainded alive. Gen. Brar, meanwhile announced over the loudspeaker that nobody should fire upon us. The moment I stepped o ut of the Darshani Deori, I saw the Akal Takht ruined and the rubble was spread all around. Hundreds of corpses were lying scattered. We were wished by Gen Brar who told that he too was a Sikh. He then enquired as to what did we propose to do. We told him that we wanted to go to the urinal and then be allowed to go to our residences. He allowed us to go to the urinal and then we were questioned of the whereabouts of Santji and were told that he would not be harmed. We told them that they knew better as th ey were in command. We were questioned, whether any machine-gunnists were operating from Darbar Sahib to which we siad that they were welcome to inspect the premises themselves. Five persons accompaied us to the Hari Mandir, one Sikh officer and 3-4 other s. When we started the Sikh officer insisted that we lead because if firing started from within, we would face them, moreover we would be shot if someone shot from within. When we reached the Harimadir, a search was carried out by them, picking and search ing below very carpet but no sign of firing was traced. Meanwhile the wounded member left behind had passed away. His body was placed in a white sheet, brought out and placed along with various others lying outside." According to the A.I.S.S.F. member, "on 6th June at 5:30 p.m. we surrendered before the Army. 199 surrendered before us. We were made to lie down on the hot road, interrogated, made to move on our knees, hit with rifle butts and kicked with boots on private parts and head. Our hands were tied behind our backs and no water was given to us. We were asked 'how many people were inside? and 'where are the arms and ammunition?' At about 7 p.m., we were made to sit in the parakrama- near the Army tanks. There was firing from the side of the Akal Takht and many were injured." This is yet another convincinbg evidence of the dignity and consideration shown by the Indian Army to those captured, after the action was over. [ RETURN TO TOP ] June 7, 1984 - Giani Puran Singh's account throws light on how and when Bhindranwale was killed: "Time passed away and at 7:30 a.m. on 7th we were taken out of the complex and informed that the bodies of Santji, Gen Subeg Singh, Bhai Amrik Singh, h ad all been found. When asked as to where were the bodies found, the reply was that Santji's body was recovered from between the 2 Nishan Sahibs while Amrik Singh and Shubeg Singh's bodies had been found behind the Nishan Sahibs.

The news carried by the m edia said that Santji's body had been recovered from the basement in Akal Takht. We were not shown these bodies but were led to our residences by the military. The head priests who also came there were informed that the bodies of Santji and others had bee n found. In fact, if the bodies had been found, we would have been called for identification but instead we were threatened to be shot lest we tried to go near the rooms where they had been kept. Moreover, if found, the body would have been embalmed taken to Delhi and kept for some time before finally dispersing it. The White Paper's version of the events is distorted and not convincing. For example: "By the morning of June 6, the troops had effectively engaged all gun positions at the Akal Takht and were able to enter the Akal Takht. Room-to-room engagement commenced till it was cleared by 12:30 p.m. on the afternoon of June 6, except for resistance continuing from the ground floor and basements... On the afternoon of June 6, 200 terrorists surrende red including 22 from Harmandir Sahib." Giani Puran Singhy who was one of the 22 has clearly said that the 22 persons who had surrendered from inside Harmandir Sahib were 'some devotees and others the employees of the Gurdwara'. Thus there were no ar med terrorists inside the Harmandir Sahib- 50-60 persons-cited by the girl student and the same figures-of 22 persons-given by all other eye-witesses and also the White Paper. The fact that the girl student accompanied by 27-28 persons left the Harmandir Dahib on the afternoon of June 4 amidst the firing and took shelter in the Akal Takht explains the descrepency in figures. The White Paper also claims that "On 8th June 1984, the terrorists hacked to death an unarmed army doctor who had entered a basement of the Akal Takht to treat some casualties." Giani Puran Singh's account gives an accurate description of thi s incident: "There were 4 Singhs in the basement of the BUNGA JASSA SINGH RAMGARHIA who were giving a tough fight to the forces. They had also pulled down 3 personnel of the army who had ventured close-one of them was a so called doctor. They were sw iftly put to death., The authorities wanted these people to surrender but they wanted some mutually responsible person to mediate. I was then asked to mediate but first of all I asked the army offices of a guarantee that none would be shot only arrested a nd later law would take its own course. They were not ready for this and wished me to talk to the Brigadier who too was noncommittal. They then asked me to inquire if the three army personnel were alive. The reply received was that no live personnel was t here in the base-At this the Brigadier asked me to leave and that they would themselves deal with them. These men in the basement fought the whole day, that night and also the next day when Giani Zail Singh came to visit the ruins of Akal Takht. Some thou ght that they had also aimed for Giani but it was not so. These people did not know that Giani was coming. If they knew before hand, they would definitely put a bullet through the 'tyrant' but they were totally cut out from the outside world. A colonel of the commandos attempted to flush out these men in the basement with a gun and light arrangement but as soon as he entered the basement, a burst of LMG wounded him and it was later learnt that he had succumbed to the injuries in the hospital. 2 cannons we re employed to fire at the Bunga, gaping holes were formed on the Parikrama end but the men within were safe. I saw from the roof of Harmandir Sahib that two grenadiers, had been put on the grenade shooter and a continuous barrage of grenades was being po ured but they still survived. Burnt red chilly bags, chilly powder and smoke granades were thrown in; one of them came out to be greeted with a hail of bullets while the others finally were silenced on the 10th." Similarly the White Paper's account of the amount of arms recovered seem to be patently exaggerated. We may not accept the A.I.S.S.F. members version that there were less than 100 arms, mostly obsolete .303 guns from the II World War and some stenguns, on the ground that it may be a partisan account. At the same time it is not possible to belive the White Paper's version - "A large quantity of weapons,

ammuniton and explosives was recovered, including automatic and anti-tank weapons. A small facto ry for the manfacture of hand grenades and sten-guns was also found within the precincts of the Golden Temple." If this modern arms factory had been discovered inside the Golden Temple before the Army Operations began there would have been no room fo r doubt or controversy. But making such a claim after the Army operation was over. Only there was the Army to testify. In contrast, our eye-witness have repeatedly pointed out that the terrorists had a small number of men and limited arms which had to be used sparingly. Would the resistance have collapsed so abruptly, if there were hundreds of terrorist manning a modern arms factory, as claimed by the White Paper. The White Paper's figures of the number of people killed or injured at the Golden Temple during the Army operations, seem to reflect gross under-estimation and understatement. The White Paper's figures of the casualties on account of the Operation Blue star alone are: 1. Own troops killed 83
2. Own troops wounded 249
3. Civilians/terrorist killed 493
4. Terrorists and other injured 86
5. Civilians/terrorists apprehended 592 Our eye-witness accounts point out two unmistakable facts: (a) There were thousands, perhaps ten thousand people, consisting of pilgrims, S.G.P.C. employees, Akali volunteers came to court arrest, and terrorists present inside the Golden Temple complex when the Army started firing at the Golden Temple from all sides on the dawn of June 4. (b) The battle lasted nearly 56 to 60 hours from 4 a.m. on June 4 to about 4 p.m. on June 6. The firing was almost incessant and continuous and, despite the White Paper's several claims, had no constraints. It was a most fierce battle.
Therefore, not hundreds but thousands could well have died during the operations, and thousands maimed or injured. The girl student had seen stacks and stacks of dead bodies piled up all over the parikrama very early on the morning of June 6. Joginder Singh estimates that at least 1500 dead bodies were lying on the parikrama. Bhan Singh saw hundreds of people dying before him on June 6. Harcharan Singh Ragi saw hundreds of people including women and children, being shot down by Army commandos, as they came out to surrender on the afternoon of June 6 outside the Golden Temple on the Ghanta Ghar side. We may hesitate to accept exact figures such as A.F.D.R. Vice President S. S. Bahagawalia'a estimate of 2009 killed including about 400 Hindu Bhaiyyas or t he AISSF members estimate "that 7 to 8 thousand people were killed" or Surinder Singh Ragi's confident assertions that 'during the Army operation at least 7000 people were killed on the parikrama and another 1000 dead bodies were recovered from various rooms." These are all impressions. There is no reliable estimate because the Press was not allowed. Nevertheless the clear conclusion emerges that hundreds and hundreds of people were killed during the Army Action on Golden Temple in June 1984 most brutally. It was indeed a mass massacre mostly of innocents. The post-mortem reports (see Annexures 7 & amp; 8) speak of the Army's brutatlities in very clear terms- (i) Most of the dead bodies had their hands tied behind their backs implying that they had not died during the action, but like Sevadar Prithipal Singh's temporary companions lined up before th e firing squad, all of them must have been shot after being captured and (ii) At the time of the post-mortem, the bodies were in a putrid and highly decomposed state--they had been brought for post-mortem after 72 hours implying a totally callous attitude towared the injured and the dead. Even after June 6, many died due to negligence, while under the detention of the Army and many others were killed in Army camps. According to the AISSF member: "On the evening of 7th June 1984 I was brought to the Army Camp and locked in the Arms Rooms with 28 persons. It had no ventilation and there was no water. 14 died of suffocation including Sujan Singh, a member of the SGPC." According to a former MLA, Harbans Singh Ghumman, 37 Sikh youths were killed on one of the Army camps at Amritsa r between June 16 and June 18, 1984. He had been personally concerned about this incident at that time as he had learnt that this youngest son, Randhir Singh, was also being detatined in one of the military camps at Amritsar. [ RETURN TO TOP ] 3. JODHPUR DETENUES- WERE THEY WAGING WAR?


One of the purposes of "Operation Bluestar" according to the White Paper, was to flush out the terrorists from the Golden Temple complex. Hundreds of people who were arrested from the Golden Temple after the army action and detained by the Ar my were charged as terrorists". 379 of the alleged 'most dangerous terrorsits' were forced to sign a common confessional statement and thereafter served a common charge sheet that they were all Bhindranwale's closest associates and comrades-in-arms e ngaged in 'waging war against the State'. They were, therefore, detained under the NSA and are now being tried at Jodhpur under the Terrorist-Affected Areas (Special Courts) Act of 1984. As we were curious regarding the extent of danger these hardcore 'te rrorists' posed to the State 'with the intention to establish a State independent from the Government of India to be known as Khalistan", we visited the homes of some of the Jodhpur detenues and met their families or relatives. The evidence collected established beyond doubt that none of the Jodhpur detenues we succeeded in profiling are 'terrorists' but rather all of them are completely innocent, ordinary persons, whose only crime was that they had all gone to or were coming from the Golden Temple-a s devotes or pilgrims visiting the golden Temple for the Guru Parb on June 3, 1984 or farmers gone to the Temple to deliver village donation of grain to the S.G.P.C. or students gone to pay obeisance at their holiest religious shrine, the Harmandir Sahib before their examinations or interviews. The following are the case studies of the Jodhpur detenues: 1. RAMINDERPAL SINGH (Pet name: Happy), aged 20 years, son of Harcharan Singh Ragi, whom we have met already. When Harcharan Singh Ragi and Information Officer Narinder Pal Singh's families came out of the basement on the 6th of June, they were all arr ested from outside the Golden Temple and taken to the Army Camp. In the words of Harcharan Singh Ragi- "I was release on June 18. My wife and daughter were released on June 22, but not the boys. Again, on July 13, my eldest son was released but not R aminderpal, my second son. He was taken to Amritsar Jail from where he took his frist year examination between August 8 and 22. Then he was shifted to Nabha Jail on August 31, 1984. On March 10, 1985, he was taken to Jodhpur Jail, from where he is taking the second year examinations now. There was no charge-sheet against any of us. But Raminderpal was falsely imlplicated as having been arrested from inside the Golden Temple and charged 'with waging war againt the State.' He was put under the Amended NSA, which disregards the recommendations of the Advisory Board.... My son has been charged with "waging war against the State". But he is one of the gentlest and known for his courteous behaviour. He used to play hockey at the district level when he was at school. He is fond of reading, can play the harmonium and he is a good singer. Often he used to accompany me in the golden Temple during our Kirtan sessions. He was a serious student and in December 1983 when there was a strike at Khalsa College, he left it in disgust and studied at home. What he earned doing overtime singing kirtans in Harmandir Sahib, he spent it for lessons in mathematics. His closest friends are Hindus. An ideal boy, so innocent, today he is in Jodhpur Jail accused as an 'extr emist'. With great sadness, his wife said, "One who spent his life in struggle, how could he bring up his children as 'extremists'? 2.KANWALJIT SINGH - We have met Kanwaljit before we left his story at the point when he sent telegram home on the night of June 3, 1984. Operation Blue Star started thereafter. Kanwaljit was arrested by the army from the Serai and was taken to an Army Camp where he was tortured and interrogated. "Why did your come to Golden Temple? Where have you come from? Did you have arms? Did you come to fight?' Meanwhile, Kanwaljit and Manjit's families in Delhi had no knowledge about their whereabouts, Kanwaljit's mother visited Amritsar in the late June 198 to inquire about her son. His father and brother did not go as it was feared that any male Sikh who w ould go to Amritsar to inquire would be arrested. At Amritsar, Kanwaljits's mother saw a list of those killed, injured, and arrested during Operation Bluestar with the S.G.P.C. In the list of those who had died, there were only 3 or 4 names, that of Bhind ranwale, Amrik Singh and so on. The mother saw Kanwaljit and Manjit's names in the list of those arrested. She was told that Kanwaljit was being detained in an Army Camp. She went to the said Army Camp in July with her sister. She was not allowed to meet her son. She went twice more in July to the Army Camp but was not permitted to see or meet her son.

The Government first informed Kanwaljit's family on September 15, that he had been transferred to the Nabha Jail. They could have an interview with him twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In Nabha Jail, Kanwaljit and many others were made to sign a common confessional statement and served a common charge-sheet alleging that he and his companion, were armed terrorists, that they were followers of Bhindranwale and that they had gathered to wage war against the Indian State in order to establish a se parate State of Khalistan by violent means. They were then transferred to Jodhpur Special Court. He has been put under NSA, detained for 2 years. Whereas in Nabha Jail, all relatives were permitted to visit, at Jodhpur only parents were allowed to visit once a week. Kanwaljit was brought to Delhi on April 11, 1985 to take his examinations to reappear for B. Com. (Hons.) II year. The parents were allowed to meet him at Tihar Jail only after a lot of harassment and objections. Kanwaljit is a man of few words. He does not mix much and has few friends, Manjit being the closest. Kanwaljit used to go to the NDMC Stadium at New Delhi every morning for swimming. On returning he used to play carrom and chess with Manjit and read ch ess books. Chess is his first love and he was winning awards in chess competitions. In 1982-83, he came second in the Khalsa College (Evening) Class tournament. In 1983-84, he again came second in the Inter-class Chess Tournament. He received a magnetic c hess set as a prize from Raja Bhalinder Singh, who was President of the Indian Committee of the Asiad Games, 1982. He used to participate in various chess tournaments in Delhi and rarely missed prize chess matches between well known chess masters. There is a photograph of Kanwaljit receiveing a prize from Raja Bhalinder Singh. He looks simple, innocent and so straight-forward and honest. He is not an Amritdhari. Lately, he was very keen to find a job and that is why he was to attend an interview with the National Institue of Bank Management at Delhi on the morning of June 3, 1984 and again take an examination in the afternoon for the State Bank of India Regional Recruitment Group. He has also applied to the Railway Service Commission to take the written examinations for recruitment to non-technical popular categories such as signallers, ticket collectors, train/office clerks, etc. He was to appear for this examination on 26 February 1984 but it was postponed. It was to be held again on September 9, but this time Kanwaljit was under detention. Kanwaljit enjoys a very good reputation. Mr. Shyam Lal Garg, Member of the Delhi Metropolitan Council from Tri Nagar and Mr. Sahib Singh Verma, Member of the Municipal Corporation from Lawrence Road, West Delhi, have both certified that Kanwaljit was p ersonally known to them and that he was just a student and never participated in any party or political activity. 3. BHUPINDER SINGH, aged 22 years, s/o Jiwan Singh r/o Vill. Rayya Tehsil Baba Bakala, P.S. Beas, Distt, Amritsar - Interview with the father, Jiwan Singh: "I came here during partition from Sargodah, Distt. Multan, which is now in Pakistan, I have 3 sons and 2 daughters. I have a business of paints, steel trunks and agricultural implements. I have no agriculture land. I am the Pradhan of Akali Dal ( Longowal) unit in village Rayya. My youngest son Bhupinder used to manufacture steel almirahs. He had taken part in the Rasta Roko movement, putting up posters, etc. but was not arrested then. But during the Constitution agitation of 1983 he was arrested and mercilessly beaten but he was released due to the intervention of Bhai Amrik Singh of the AISSF. That was his first contact with AISSF. And is was only after his brother, Tejender Singh's arrest in a false case for which he was jailed and the case went on for 7 months, that Bhupin der started visiting Darbar Sahib. After his brother's arrest, because of the harassment of the police, he was careful and often he used to sleep out. Finally, he himself was arrested at Kathiwali Bazar on June 6, 1984 after he had escaped from Golden Temple on June 3. He was taken to an Army Interrogation center from where he was taken to Nabha Jail. The army subjected him to inhuman torture. When h e was in Nabha Jail, he was taken to Ladha Kothi in Sangrur for 18 days. When I saw him, I could see that he had been terribly tortured but he wouldn't tell us. There I learnt from him that he had taken Amrit and was doing Path daily, which he said gave h im strength. In all Bhupinder has been implicated in 8 cases, each of which is false: (i) Today he is Jodhpur jail because he is supposed to have been arrested from the Golden Temple for 'waging war against the State'. But the police know that he was picked up from Kathiwali Bazaar outside Amritsar. (ii) The Nirankari murder case of village Khabbe Rajputana near P.S. Mehta of 1979-80, when Bhupinder was just a school boy. It is obvious that this case has been planted on him retrospectively. (iii) Another Nirankari murder case of village Ghanupur Kaleke, P.S. Chaherta, near Metha Chowk of 1980. (iv) Mannawale Railway Station, Flying Mail Murder Case of Sub-Inspector in 1982. (v) Encounter of an 'extremist' group with the Railway Protection Force at Rayya Railway Station. (vi) Nirankari Bomb case of Rayya - Bhupinder was at thome at 4-5 p.m. when the bomb exploded. Bhupinder's name was not there in the initial list of suspects but was added later. (vii) Sadhuram Bomb Case - which occurred at 10 p.m. when Bhupinder was actually at home. (viii) Dhyyanpur Bridge Expolsion case in which Bhupinder's name was added to the list of the three accused. At this point, Jiwan Singh brought out the photograph of his son Bhupinder.
AN AMAZINGLY GENTLE AND INNOCEN FACE FOR SUCH A SUPPOSEDLY HARDENED CRIMINAL. Bhupinder's mother has given up eating certain dishes which the boy was fond of. Very gently, she told us that the food the boys get in jail is so bad. Jiwan Singh continued, and went on to narrate the harassments that he and his family have undergone: "After the Operation Bluestar, the CRP visited my house 3 times in 24 hours and raided it but found nothing. They abused my wife and daughters and daughter-in-law. After a couple of days, the Punjab Police came and took me and my eldest son Gurvinder Pal to Jandiala, P.S. and released us after a couple of days. Another couple of days, the Punjab Police came again and took away two of my sons Gurvinder Pal and Tej inder for interrogation and detaind them at Rayya P.S. for 20 days. But we were not to have peace. A couple of days after Gurvinder and Tejinder's removal, came the army, who took me, my son-in-law and the son of my brother-in-law to the Army camp at Sathiala College, Baba Bakala. We were made to sit in the hot sun. We were terrorised and then released." The old man said with the great bitterness, "We are gulams (slaves). Whenever they made signs, we are taken." 4. Kashmir Singh s/o Gajjan Singh, r/o Vill & P.O. Baba Bakala, P.S. Beas, Distt. Amritsar, aged 50 years - Interview with Smt. Jasbir Kaur, 45 years, wife of Kashmir Singh. "My husband went to Darbar Sahib for the Guru Purb. He did not return for about a month, when I learnt from a policman who came to tell me that he had been arrested and was in Nabha Jail. I went to see him on 20.7.84 and heard that he had been pic ked up from Bazaar Kathian on June 6." (Obviously, he too like Bhupinder Singh of Rayya who was arrest from outside the State' a middle aged small farmer hardly owning one and half acres of land and four small children to feed and not belonging to an y political organisation.

He was too dangerous to move about freely and knew so much that he had to be repeatedly tortured at Ladha Kothi. "He was taken twice to Ladha Kothi and tortured for 12 days each time by the well known methods." "I met him again on October 31. Since then I have not been able to see him since I am too poor to afford it." 5. RAM SINGH, s/o Late Makhan Singh, r/o Vill & P.O. Baba Bakala, aged 30 years - His uncle Sulakhan Singh (who looks after the family) was interviewed: "Ram Singh is the only son of widow. He has only 1/9 acre of land, belongs to a poor peasant family. He has studied only upto class 8 and was employed in a small capacity in the Government depot. He is a bachelor. He had gone to Darbar Sahib for the Guru Purb. He was arrested from Golden Temple charged, with 'waging war', taken to Amritsar and Nabha Jails and is now in Jodhpur jail. There was never any case against him. He was extremely well-behaved. He is total ly innocent. The police have been coming and repeatedly interrogating his mother and uncle. 6. GULZAR SINGH s/o Late Arjun Singh, r/o Vill & P.O. Baba Bakala, aged 33 years - Interviewed his uncle Rattan Singh, a granthi. They have a joint family. Gulzar is married and has a little girl, aged one and a half years. He is a preacher and does the Akhand Path in the Gurudwara. He went to Golden Temple for Guru Purb and was arrested from there and chrged with 'waging war aga inst the State'. Gulzar is a simple person. He studied in a orphanage in Amritsar. 7. MANJIT SINGH s/o Bawa Singh 8. RANDIR SINGH s/o Mangal Singh 9. RANDIR SINGH s/o Bahadur Singh r/o village Dehriwal, Kiran, P.S. Kalanpur, Distt. Gurudaspur. These 3 young boys took the village donation of grain to Darbar Sahib for the Guru Purb but were arrested and charged with 'waging war against the State' and are now proclaimed as terrorists and lodged in Jodhpur Jail. 10. BAKSHSISH SINGH, s/o Hon. Cap t. Ram Singh, r/o Vill. Butala, P.S. Dhilwan, Distt Kapurthala, aged 43 years. Interview with Bakshish Singh's sister, Smt. Hardev Kaur, a widow with two children. "My brother Bakshish Singh was a manager of Punjab & Sind Bank branch at Guru Ramdas Serai, Golden Temple, Amritsar. He was receiveing a salary of Rs. 3000 per month. He was a devout Sikh, had taken Amrit and used to preach in the villages and exhort people to take Amrit. He was very generous and used to help people. Our mother is 65-year-old and father is ill and now in Patiala Hospital. We have no land. On June 7, 1982 my brother had organised a religous meeting at the village, but he did not speak. Early the next day he was arrested for the first time in his life, on a false report that he was propagating Khalistan. He was detained at P.S. Dhilwan an d then sent to Interrogation Center, Amritsar for one week, where he was severly beaten. Later he was taken to Kapurthala jail and was released only afer 1 year between June 1983 and May 1984 when Bakshish rejoined his work at the Punjab and Sind Bank, Am ritsar. On June 1, 1984 Bakshish had gone to the Golden Temple with his wife for her treatment for tumour and they were in Guru Ram Das Serai, from were both were arrested on June 6. His wife was taken to Jallandhar jail, kept therre for 22 days and then taken to Hospital and operated upon. Bakshish Singh was first taken to Amritsar Jail and after two months in Nabha Jail and after 7 months there, and mercilessley tortured at Ladha Kothi were he was kept for 15-20 days, ant then he was shifted to Jodhpur Jail on January 11, 1985. We have not met him since then. The family is so impoverished that Bakshish's two sons could not continue their studies. The elder son (Iqbal) along with his mother are in Patiala Rajindra Hospital suffering from mental depression. The Bank had not paid Bakshish Singh anything and ha s shown him as absent. We have about 5 to 6 acres of land for the entire joint family. We are being constantly harassed. Earlier the Army used to come and interrogate us and now the polcie visit us every other day." We have here documented for the first time eye-witness accounts of what really happened when the Indian Army attacked the Golden Temple complex in the first week of June 1984. It is one of the most gory and tragic chapters in the entire history of mode rn India. The brutalities, the killings, the desecration and destruction of their most sacred place, has left a most bitter memory and feeling of deep resentment in the mind of every Sikh.

. SOME RETROSPECTIONS

At the end of it all, two questions are asked by the Sikhs of Punjab. Was the Army action necessary and unavoidable? Secondly, if unavoidable, could it not have taken a different form, avoiding all the destruction and the blood shed and the brutalities ? Kirpal Singh, President of Khalsa Dewan, Amritsar, told us - "If the government had been sincere in its efforts in solving the Punjab problem, it would have solved it long ago even before the Blue Star Operation, and there would have been no cause for the Akalis and others to orgainise Morchas of the thousands of the peopl, from time to time, and the extremists would have been isolated and it would have become known as to who were the extremists, what kind of men they were, and what they had been doing. The Government could have negotiated with them. If the Government could talk with Laldenga of Mizos and extremists of the Nagaland, who had been fighting with our military for the last 31 years, then what was the difficulty in talking to the extemi sts of Punjab and asking them what they wanted, what they were fighting and why they were collecting arms?" Similarly, S.S. Bhagowalia who is the Vice-President of the Association fro Protection of Democratic Rights (Punjab) was extememly forthright, "when the government in 1948 could control and capture Hyderbad from the Nizam who wanted to secede from independent India without any violence and killing of the common people, why this Government could not capture Bhindranwale with tact, without any damage to the Golden Temple? This has created tension and anger amongst the minds fo the people". Surinder Singh Ragi gave another example - "The Indian Army had captued 93,000 soldiers of Pakistan army in Bangladesh in 1971 without bloodshed. Was bloodshed the absolutely necessary at the Golden Temple to flush out a hundred or so terrorists?" Hazara Singh Vadale, and employee of the SGPC, echoed a common sentiment. "The way the government of Independent country attacked the Golden Temple reminded us of the medieval time when our religion was attacked and we are persecuted. Thousands of women, children, pilgrims, had gathered here on June 3 for Gurupurab. They had no connection with politics, why they shot down?" Kirpal Singh elaborating on the excesses committed said: "At the time of Blue Star Act, it could be known how many died of those who were fighting with the military but the fact is that due to Guru Purb Day hundereds of pilgrims had come and were staying in the premises of the Darbar Sahib. There were children and women among them. These pilgrims were unarmed and the military attacked them and killed them. Thereafter the military did not allow their dead bodies to be cremated by the relative nor h anded over the same to them. Their dead bodies were insulted. No effort was made to record their names and addresses. Now it has created a lot of problem. For example, if any deceased has any insurance or bank balance or any land dispute, his heirs require death certificate but in absence of any record of it, they did not get any compensation. Even in the history of military wars, the people are allowed to take the dead bodies from each others territories by showing white flags. When General Dyer killed people in Jallianwall Bagh, he also allowed the dead bodies to be taken by the relatives." Shiv Singh Khushpuri, 65 years, a member of the S.G.P.C. from Gurdaspur district, said, "It was the duty of the State to identify the bodies of those who died in Operation Blue Star. Afer the Jallinwala Bagh massacre, the British Government identi fied those killed, handed over their bodies to the next kin and paid Rs. 2000 as compensation for every person killed in the incident. Whereas in Blue Star Operation, the present governemnt of an apparently independent country have not only not identified those killed or missing, rather they are harassing and persecuting the families and friends of those who are reportedly missing." S.S. Bhagowailia throws light on the efforts of the Government to suppress information. "The doctors who conducted the post-mortem of the victims of the army action at Golden Temple were simply terrorised. If there were 20 bullets in a body, they were forced to record only two bullet wounds, under the threat of being shot." This only indicates the extent of massacre that took place and the ferocity with which the Army undertook the operation. The common feeling in Punjab is that it was indeed not an Operation against Bhindranwale and other so called terrorists according to the Government, it was an attack on the Sikhs "to teach them a lesson" so that they would never again raise their head or voice of protest.

Narain

Autonomy in all matters, too much corruption exists
within India, & MONEY is the issue of the DAY.

At present all the SIKH leadership have been installed
by the CENTRAL government as YES men.

Our ASPIRATIONs are being squandered, as we are never
given the opportunity .

SIKHs have always given there UTMOST for INDIA, &
will continue to do so, until we can initiate a new dialogue on matters of AUTONOMY.

We are a peaceful people who have been tortured many
times throughout our History, as the main 2 parties
fail to recognise us, or simply wish to destroy us.

History has told SIKHs never to sit in peace, if we
are never allowed to steer our own boat, I do not
wish to break INDIA up in anyway, but we must have
more powers over our STATE etc etc.

SIKHs have been tossed about in recent years for being
nice, & it ain't got us nowhere, Punjab needs to unite
in matters of ECONOMICs, or we'll be exploited for
ever.

CoolJat
Such things as autonomy are gained through negotiations, not via kalashnikovs.
If the Kashmiris want autonomy then all they have to do is negotiate with the Indian government.
The problem in Kashmir is the Hurriyet Conference.
This does not even really represent the Kashmiri people. So who are we supposed to negotiate with?
In Punjab, if there is a strong voice for autonomy then it should come out and talk to Delhi.
But I still fail to see the practicality of Sikh autonomy in Punjab, 40% of the people of Punjab are Hindu. What would be the purpose of autonomy anyway?
AND Punjab does not have to sell raw materials to other states. All thats needed are factories in Punjab where products can be manufactured.
and I AM SURE that there is no Indian law forbidding this!!

Narain

I think INDIA, & beleivers of HINDUISM are being rather selfish in not giving KASHMIRI's & SIKHs
autonomy over there STATEs & affairs.

It is rather SAD that we are being OPPRESSED, by
the CENTRAL government that see's us nothing more
than a HINDRANCE.

EVERYMAN was promised FREEDOM under the NEHRU admin,
We don't feel FREE, & i bet KASMIRI's feel the same
way.

We sell all our RAW materials to other INDIAN states
while they manufacture GOODS & sell them back to us,
something the BRITISH were doing with INDIA at that
time, & if i remember rightly, a fair few HINDUs saw
nothing wrong with these sort of MATHS, how ironic.

What are you reaping in SUBJECTING these people under
your RULE, you will REAP the same as AMERICA, because
I tell you these GUYs will never give up.

NOW give these PENDUs there LAND back, & keep your nose outta ther peoples affairs, you expect us to love
you for it or something, stop this DISTORTION.

Punjabi is widely spoken in Himachal Pradesh I agree.
But the Pahari tongue is the majority one. And Pahari is a dialect of Hindi. If you do any research you will realise this.
The Pakistanis care nothing for Punjabi. I can guarantee you that in Pakistani Punjab, Punjabi is looked down upon by educated Pakis.
Even when they right Punjabi, they write it in a Persian script. Because they think Gurmukhi is too Hindu/Sikh!
They NEVER encourage Punjabi brotherhood. If you ever watch Paki tv you will see that we mean nothing to them. In fact they make it clear that they seperated from us because their religion is BETTER than ours.
I think you had better learn the truth about the enemies before you defend them.
I have watched recent propaganda from Pakistan where they say that Sikhs are oppressed in India. One recent Pakistani film even goes to the extent of inventing lies to make Pakis believe Sikhs love Pakistan and hate India.
This is the ugliness that live across the border.
The Indo-Pakistan border does not just divide two countries. It divides two ideologies. It divides beauty from ugliness. It divides civilisation from madness.

Narain,

First off, Pahari is much more closely related to Punjabi than it is to Hindi. Anyways, for your information Punjab extends culturally fromt the Deserts of Sind to the outskirts of Delhi. You won't agree but if you read your history books you will realize this.

You say you are too young to talk about 1984. Fine. I accept that, but then why talk about Pakistan as our enemy. Pakistan was created in 1947, much earlier than your birth. Pakistan is not OUR enemy. Pakistan is the Indian politicians enemy. On both sides politicians are doing so much to promote hatred between two people. What is 55 years when you are comparing a culture that extends back thousands of years? The three earliest works in Punjabi are by three great men. The oldest written documented punjabi is from Guru Gorakh Nath (Pre-13th century). Then comes Hazrat Baba Farid Ud Din Masood Ganj E Shakar (13 century), then comes Guru Nanak (15th century). A hindu, muslim, and sikh. Interesting huh? Think about it. Three men, three different eras, three different religions. One message. One language.

~khak

hi narain.
toon fas gia hain

Haryanvi and Pahari are not languages. They are dialects of Hindi. Therefore both Haryana and Himachal fall into the Hindi belt. Punjabi though, is an independent language with its own script.

5/6 districts of Northern Haryana are punjabi-speaking areas,Haryana's language is Haryanvi.Himachal Pradesh language is Pahari.

Punjabi Kuri
Lets get a few things straight. The people of HP and Haryana are Hindi speakers. They are not Punjabis.
Now, the Hindus in Punjab are in fact Punjabi speakers. If you watch Hindi movies, you may know that a massive chunk of the stars hail from Punjab. These are mainly Hindus, and they all have a stong sense of Punjabi identity.
The same goes for Hindus in Punjab, they get along perfectly well with the Sikhs.
There are Sikhs in the Indian government, running parts of the economy, in the military etc.
I am only 22, so Im not speaking about 1984, or earlier times. Your call yourself Punjabi Kuri, so I take it your young too. Since 1984 there has been a healing process in Punjab. I mean think about it, if the Sikhs were against India why would they be so active in daily Indian life?
When it comes to Pakistan, they are often more vocal against our enemy than the Hindus are!
I dont have to apologize to anyone for anything. I know that what the Indian government did was not right.
But I doubt that the government did anything that was supposed to be anti-Sikh. What they did was put down an insurgency in a part of India. Punjab was becoming lawless, with bomb blasts everywhere and armed militants all over the place.
What happened to the Golden Temple was a tragedy. It is something which must never be repeated.
But the fact remains that the anti-Indian Sikhs in the West are whining and moaning all the time. Even on their websites where they want to show the world India's "Brahmanical" nature, they can only show 1984.
Because even they know that Punjab has healed and recovered since then.
How can they be so shameful?
Have they forgotten that Indians call Sikhs 'Sardar Ji'.
So my dear sister, India is as much your country as it is mine. Modern Indian society proves this fact.
Our enemy is Pakistan
Never forget that!!

Narian,
you said "Being a Punjabi Hindu myself, I could never accept my ancestral homeland being taken away."
Firstly, a piece of your ancestral homeland was taken away when West Punjab fell into pakistan.
Secondly, when Haryanan's and HP's chose Hindi as their mother tongue further dividing Punjab...
and finally you say "I don't want my ancestral land taken away from me". Your ancestral land is gone. With the victory of Hindi over Punjabi in Haryana and parts of HP, Punjab was ripped to pieces. And these so called Hindi's, who scoff at Punjabi and consider it a language of the uneducated, and illiterate...

I recently visited india and was so appalled when I went to haryana and they had signs in hindi and Urdu, but not even one sign in Punjabi...

and you wander why Sikhs have greviences???

Where were you my dear dear Punjabi brother when all this happened? Where was your voice when Dehlite Sikhs were massacred by mobs which outnumbered them?
Distrubuting sweets to your fellow so called Punjabi bretheren???
If you care you would raise your voice... try to understand the Sikhs and their greviances. Instead, what do ppl like you do?? Complain that we do not love mother India etc.
What would you do if your people were slaughtered in the most inhumane ways and never given justice???

If you want to make a difference, then try to understand the others point of view. In order to heal justice must be provided.

They say that if a dog barks, it should be ignored.
If it becomes crazy, then it should be shot. This is best for the people and for the dog itself.
Right now you are barking, just like a little puppy.
Whats the matter?
You want your bone?
Well you see, the problem is that the bone that you want is called Khalistan. And I can't give that to you.
Sorry.
Now be a nice dog and be quiet.
And if you try to bite, well then i will have to put you down.
That goes for the little doggies out there, I have plenty of bones for you. But, none called Khalistan.
But....wait a minute..
What do we have here?
Well Well...would you believe it?
I have found a bone after all, its called...
now theres a lot of dust on it....wait a minute..
aah thats better..
..its called...Pakistan.
..want it..
..GO FETCH!

Dilip
Do not sell out the Khalsa to the Indians!
The Sikhs will soon have an independent Khalistan with the grace of Wahe Guru.
Everyone knows that the whole of India rests on the shoulders of the Sikhs. Once we have independece, the Brahministic elite will see our true strength.
Narain!
We dont care if you are Punjabi!
You are Hindu and that makes you an Indian. Name me a single Hindu who would support Khalistan?
The majority of people in Punjab are Sikhs and we want independence.
The Sikhs are a nation and our supreme loyalty lies to the Khalsa, not to Delhi.
The Indian government has very cleverly set up puppet leaders in Punjab, who spend all their time arguing among themselves. Such leaders keep attemp to keep the Sikh nations attention diverted from the ultimate aim of Khalistan.
1947, was the year of the great betrayel.
Most of our land was taken by the Pakis. While we ended up in East Punjab, in a country where we became a weak minority.
We shall not tolerate this.
It is not long before the people of Punjab realise they are being taken for a ride. They are already beginning to see the truth behind Badal and other local leaders.
India is very eager to go to war with Pakistan, because it knows that Punjab will be most affected area. Our people will die.
If there is a war, I would urge my fellow Sikhs to rise up against India and use it as an opportunity to gain independence.
India's war against Pakistan has nothing to do with the Sikhs and Khalistan. We have no reason to side with India.
Instead we should let the world know that the Sikhs are neutral in this conflict. In fact it would make better sense to side with Pakistan. How can an occupied people fight on the side if their occupiers?
India is an evil and brutal occupier.
India is our enemy.
India Murdabad
Raj Karey Ga Khalsa

Narain
There is a fundamental difference between the way a Sikh sees this issue and how the average Hindu would.
To you 1984 represents a victory, it represents a sense of national pride. After all, the Indian government succesfuly stopped one of its states from splitting away from the Union.
You mentioned breifly that Sikhs were attacked by mobs. Perhaps as a Hindu you cannot imagine the terror that the Sikh people faced at that time. In Punjab, the army and police was committing the worst atrocities against the Sikhs imaginable. People were detained and tortured. Others simply went missing.
Nothing, not even our holy sites were safe from the barbarism. While further south in Delhi and Haryana, the Sikhs faced fanatical Hindu mobs. The police stood back and did nothing as countless Sikhs were burnt alive on the streets.
You say that you are a Punjabi Hindu. Well my fellow Punjabi, when it comes to religious tensions even a common race and language are not enough to stop them.
Punjabi Hindus did nothing to help the Sikhs. Indeed many of the soldiers and police involved in the operation against Sikhs were Hindu Punjabis.
In 1947, the Sikhs showed where their loyalties lay when they chose to be part of India. Millions of Sikhs left their ancestral homes and rich farmland in Pakistan.
In return they expected Nehru to keep his promise of giving the Sikhs a level of autonomy. But forget autonomy, today Punjab enjoys less freedom than any other Indian state!
It is controlled directly by Delhi.
Your statements are very provocative and show no concern with how to address such a sensitive issue.
Being a Sikh, how can I or other members of the Sikh faith ever forget what happened?
History shows that the Sikhs have always stood for justice and fought against oppression. In the days of the Mughals, we even helped Hindus who were victims of Mughal oppression.
We led an army that drove the oppressive and cruel Pathans out of Punjab, and freed its people from Ludhiana to Sargodha and beyond.
Even now, after all that has happened we are willing to move on. The Sikhs are present in every major sector of Indian life. Some of us are economists while others guard the border.
India is starting to re-think its 1984 adventure. I have spoken to a great deal of people in India who have expressed sorrow of what happened.
Sikhs have moved on, but we cannot be expected to put up with people who regard 1984 as some kind of victory.
As a Sikh and as an Indian, I urge my nation and its people to change its policies. Today we have another issue which is Jammu and Kashmir. How long will we keep the Kashmiri people using force?
Can anyone here deny that our forces are presently involved in gross human rights abuses in Kashmir?
Kashmir shows that the politicians have not learnt anything from the Punjab experience.
Today Punjab is peaceful because it has given a chance to be. Kashmir deserves that chance as well.
If after all efforts Kashmir does not have peace, then it tells us that Kashmiris simply do not want to be part of India.
Blaming Pakistan and the ISI is very easy. But where do we draw the line between Pakistani sponsored terrorism and human rights abuses committed by Indians?
As for Punjab, our state must be given the freedom it deserves. If we are to stay in the Indian Union, then we demand that our rights are respected. Punjab must be equal to all other Indian states.

The truth is that the Khalistan was the brain child of Pakistani military dictator General Zia, in the early 1980s.
He was able to exploit some of the tensions Sikhs had with Delhi, and use them to furthur divide India.
Everyone knows that 1984 was a very ugly year for India, an in particualar Punjab.
Everyone knows that Sikhs were attacked and killed by mobs. But it is also worth remembering that such attacks were carried out by a minority. Just like attacks are carried out on lower caste Hindus by a radical few. (Despite the fact that the caste system has nothing to do with the original teachings of Hinduism).
But a lot has happened since 1984 and India has moved on. A few bitter and twisted Sikhs living the west are bent on keeping the Khalistan issue alive. While, Sikhs in India are more interested in the future and are LOYAL Indians.
It also important for Khalistan supporters to remember that 40% of the population of Punjab is Hindu. Even if ALL Sikhs did support Khalistan, it would be an impossible dream with such a huge Hindu minority.
Being a Punjabi Hindu myself, I could never accept my ancestral homeland being taken away.
But the reality is even more dark for Khalistan supporters because the movement enjoys poor support from the Sikh people themselves.