Amritsar ex-DC Ramesh Inder Singh pens book on Operation Bluestar

New Delhi, June 3

Thirtyeight years after Operation Bluestar, the then Amritsar Deputy Commissioner Ramesh Inder Singh has announced to release a tell-all book, “Turmoil in Punjab: Before and After Blue Star An Insider’s Story”.

Tell-all account

My conscience and many competing misrepresentation of facts floating around in the public domain, more than anything else, impelled me to write a tell-all account. — Ramesh Inder Singh, Author

The book is set in the politically turbulent period between 1978 and 1994 which saw a rift between Sikhs and Nirankaris and the operations Bluestar, Woodrose and Black Thunder I and II. Published by Harper Collins, the book will be formally released on June 20. It is narrated as an eyewitness account by Ramesh Inder Singh, who was originally a 1974-batch West Bengal cadre IAS officer. Posted as the Amritsar DC between 1984 and 1987, he was later appointed the Chief Secretary of Punjab.

“I was an eyewitness, and at times a participant, in the defining moments of Punjab’s history, from 1978 to about 1996. What I saw or did—or failed to do—needs to be told. My conscience and many competing misrepresentation of facts floating around in the public domain, more than anything else, impelled me to write a tell-all account,” says Ramesh Inder Singh.

The book details the events that ignited the strife and created the socio-political fault lines that divided Punjab in those years. It also describes terrorist violence in Punjab, the state response to the military operations, death of thousands of innocent citizens and the assassination of the then PM.