Centre in wait and watch on Punjab, mindful of Indira Gandhi’s 1980 ‘mistake’
Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, February 25
The BJP led Centre is adopting a cautious, wait and watch policy on the unfolding situation in Punjab with the powers that be acutely conscious of the “mistake late prime minister Indira Gandhi made by dismissing the Akali Dal government in the state in February 1980”.
Gandhi, who returned to power after three years of the Janata Party government, on February 18, 1980, resorted to the dismissal of assemblies in nine states ruled by the opposition parties.
These states included Punjab which was witnessing a massive upheaval amid a consistent rise of radical religious preacher Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale.
By then the tensions were already raging in the aftermath of the Sikh-Nirankari clash ofApril 1978 in Amritsarand the subsequent January 1980 acquittal of Nirankari sect chief Baba Gurbachan Singh and 60 others who had been prosecuted for 13 Sikh killings in the 1978 clash.
In April 1980, Gurbachan Singh was killed at his Delhi residence. Though Bhinderawale was named in the probe, nothing came out of it.
The dismissal of the Punjab government in February 1980 followed by the June 1980 installation of Congress chief minister Darbara Singh triggered a series of events that plunged the border state deeper into crisis.
Things came to such a pass that in October 1983, then PM Indira Gandhi had to impose President’s Rule in Punjab, a historical milestone from where Punjab was to go further downhill on the road to religious strife.
The road took a tragic turn with the June 1, 1984 entry of the Army into the Golden Temple in a bid to purge the holiest Sikh shrine of militants, including Bhindranwale, who was finally eliminated.
However, former PM Indira Gandhi’s decision to order Operation Bluestar continues to be debated long after her.
“Punjab history is replete with lessons. We are waiting and watching. Maintaining law and order is essentially the responsibility of the state government,” an official source said today, even as the sudden entry of Amritpal Singh Khalsa onto Punjab’s landscape remained shrouded in mystery with central intelligence agencies actively profiling the 30 year old Dubai returned.
