NEW DELHI: Indira Gandhi cried while watching the harrowing visuals of the aftermath of Operation Blue Star in 1984, says Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, claiming that there were tears of pain and regret as well as of sorrow in the then PM's eyes at the manner which the siege at the Golden Temple had ended.
In her memoir Belonging: A Journey Of Love, Sonia Gandhi says that over 15 years, a formerly unknown Sikh preacher, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, had come to gain prominence in Punjabi politics, and leaders of two warring factions within the Punjab Congress party had allegedly promoted him, each seeking to weaken the other.
"Now he withdrew his allegiance to them and began to rally people around a series of political demands. Bhindranwale led a violent separatist movement essentially aimed to polarise the Hindu and Sikh communities.
"Pakistani intelligence agencies had infiltrated the agitation, escalating the mayhem to incite the mass flight of Hindus from Punjab, with the aim of getting the state to secede from India," she says.
She recalls that bomb blasts and the killing of innocent people had become the order of the day.
There were frequent instances of buses being hijacked, their Hindu passengers being pulled off and mercilessly gunned down, Sonia Gandhi recalls.
A rift appeared for the first time after Independence between Sikhs and Hindus, she says in the book.
"Where the two communities had lived in amity, there was now growing alienation. The most dangerous objective in promoting the hostility was the idea of creating Khalistan, separate sovereign homeland for Sikhs, purportedly to safeguard Sikhism," she says.
In 1982, Bhindranwale installed himself in Amritsar's Golden Temple, the most sacred of all Sikh shrines, she recounts.
"There he set up a 'parallel government' with his own judicial organisation for settling disputes, issuing firmans (edicts) and hit lists. He began to amass weapons, from pistols to Kalashnikovs to mortars, turning the shrine over time into an armed fortress.
"He also ordered killer squads to systematically eliminate all those who opposed his politics, whether Sikh or Hindu," she says.
As these heinous acts continued, month after month, Indira Gandhi continued to hold secret talks with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leadership in order to reach an agreement, she says, adding that the Akalis had been rendered powerless by Bhindranwale.
In January 1984, a Khalistani flag was raised above a building outside the revered shrine, she recalls.
"Then intelligence reports informed Mrs Gandhi that the declaration of Khalistan as an independent state was imminent: Bhindranwale and his cohort planned to announce it and hoist its flag on the Har Mandir Sahib, the Golden Temple, on India's Independence Day, August 15," she says.
That would have been nothing less than treason, an act of war against the Indian Union, with perilous consequences for the country, Sonia Gandhi says.
Indira Gandhi's own relationship with the Sikh community was a deep and strong one, but the problem was spiralling; she held meetings until late hours of the night, hardly ate her meals and looked disturbed for days, Sonia Gandhi recalls.
"Reluctantly, feeling she had no choice, she ordered the armed forces to act in the operation code-named Blue Star. The operation began on June 1, 1984, and on June 4, the army entered the Golden Temple complex," she says.
"It turned out to be fully fortified with heavy weaponry, much more than the security system had reported. After a bitter battle with many casualties on both sides, the armed forces regained control of the holy shrine.
"The action had resulted in considerable damage and destruction to the complex," she says.
To the Sikh community, that was nothing less than sacrilege, Sonia Gandhi adds.
"A week or so later, an intelligence official brought to Mrs. Gandhi a film with harrowing visuals of the aftermath: bodies on the ground, one of them Bhindranwale, who had been killed in the fierce battle; fortifications, underground traps from where soldiers had been shot; heavy weapons and rocket launchers still in place on turrets and fortified positions.
"As my mother-in-law watched the slow-moving record, I could see her face wet with tears -- tears of pain and regret, I think: sorrow at the manner which the siege had ended, at the large number of lives lost," Sonia Gandhi recounts.
After Operation Blue Star, the lives of the Nehru-Gandhi family were shadowed by danger to her mother-in-law, the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) president says.
"She had asked me not to allow the children to play as they normally did next door in Akbar Road, and certainly not after dusk. There were Sikh members of her security there.
"She had flatly refused to replace the Sikh guards in all her security details: Such a choice would go against everything she had stood for," Sonia Gandhi says.
To her, every citizen of India, regardless of region, caste or creed, deserved equal respect, she adds.
"She was to pay for her decisions and her principles with a fusillade of bullets fired from machine guns by the two Sikh guards posted at the wicket. One of them had been a regular companion to Rahul and Priyanka in their games in Akbar Road," Sonia Gandhi recalls.
