CHANDIGARH: Former Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader, P Chidambaram, said that Operation Blue Star, the June 1984 Army action at the Golden Temple in Amritsar to evict militants, was 'the wrong way' and that then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi 'paid with her life for that mistake'.
BJP and Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) hit back at the Congress, saying she did it for 'political reasons'.
Chidambram's comments were made while he was moderating a discussion on ‘They Will Shoot You, Madam’, a book by journalist Harinder Baweja, at the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival at Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh.
He said, "No disrespect to any service officers present here, but that was the wrong way to retrieve the Golden Temple. Three to four years later, we demonstrated the right way to retrieve the Golden Temple by keeping the army out.
"There was a way to retrieve and capture all the militants. The Blue Star was the wrong way. Gandhi paid with her life for that mistake, but that mistake was a cumulative decision of the army, the police, the intelligence and the civil service. We can't blame it on only Gandhi.’’
Later during the discussion, Chidambram said, "My visits to Punjab have led me to believe that the cry for Khalistan or separation has practically died down. The real problem is the economic situation. Most illegal migrants are from Punjab.’’
Reacting to this, R P Singh, National Spokesperson of BJP said, "As a nationalist, I strongly believe that Operation Blue Star was completely avoidable, as rightly mentioned by former Home Minister P. Chidambaram."
He said that a more strategic approach like Operation Black Thunder, where electricity and water supply to the Golden Temple were cut off and militants were compelled to surrender, could have achieved the objective.
He said the tragic loss of innocent devotees' lives could have been avoided that way and the sanctity of the Goldren Temple and the Akal Takhat wouldn't have been desecrated.
"Indira Gandhi, for political reasons, chose the path of confrontation for electoral gain, seeking to ignite nationalist fervour before the 1984 parliamentary elections by portraying the most patriotic community of India, the Sikhs, as anti-national.
"In doing so, she got trapped in her own political web and ultimately paid for it with her life. But the real tragedy was borne by my community — over 3,000 Sikhs were brutally massacred in Delhi and more than 30,000 killed across Punjab, victims of a calculated political design that tore apart the social fabric of the nation. History must record the truth: Operation Blue Star was not a national necessity — it was a political misadventure,’’ he added.
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) member Gurcharan Singh Grewal said that there are two aspects of the statement made by Chidambaram. Firstly, he tried to speak the truth, and secondly, he tried to make a political statement, he added.
"We welcome it, he spoke the truth. But, he still spoke a lie saying that it was not the then PM Indira Gandhi who made this decision alone. It was a pre-planned move by Gandhi then, to keep her politically alive because she had lost her political relevance by imposing emergency," he said.
Grewal said that the PM takes feedback from all agencies. "She also spoke to the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and also to Russia, and after that took the step to attack the Golden Temple. This is all in the public domain."
