ISLAMABAD: In the first week of June 1984, the Indian Army launched Operation Blue Star, storming the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikh faith, where thousands of innocent Sikhs, including women and children, were gunned down during a sacred religious observance.
Eyewitnesses and independent observers report that over 5,000 Sikhs were killed in Amritsar alone, many shot at point-blank range. Tanks, artillery, and mortar fire devastated the Harmandir Sahib complex. The Akal Takht, Sikhism’s highest seat of spiritual and temporal authority, was reduced to rubble.
The military operation was launched on June 4, 1984, coinciding with the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, when thousands of pilgrims had gathered. The Sikh Reference Library, which housed priceless religious manuscripts, was deliberately destroyed. The Indian government, instead of engaging in dialogue, responded to legitimate Sikh demands with unprecedented military violence.
The man at the center of the Indian state’s narrative, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was not a terrorist but a leader demanding justice, autonomy, and constitutional rights for Sikhs. His movement addressed decades of political and religious discrimination. The Indian state met this ideological resistance not with conversation but with bullets.
The operation triggered a historic rebellion within the Indian Army itself, as over 2,600 Sikh soldiers mutinied across military cantonments in protest. Branded as traitors, many were court-martialed or killed. But to their community, they were heroes who chose conscience over command.
The aftermath of Operation Blue Star spiraled into further tragedy. Following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in October 1984, state-backed pogroms erupted across India. In just three days, more than 3,000 Sikhs were slaughtered in Delhi alone. Police stood idle as Hindu mobs, often aided by political leaders, committed mass rapes, arson, and murders with impunity.
Despite multiple commissions—including the Misra and Nanavati Commissions—few perpetrators faced justice. Notorious figures like Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar roamed free for decades, while victims’ voices were silenced and excluded from Indian history textbooks.
The events of 1984 deeply scarred the Sikh psyche. Thousands fled India, seeking refuge in Canada, the UK, and the US—not for opportunity, but for survival. The demand for Khalistan, often misrepresented as extremism, emerged as a response to betrayal, bloodshed, and systemic injustice.
Sikhs worldwide continue to seek justice through Khalistan referendums, not out of hate but out of desperation for dignity, safety, and remembrance. Meanwhile, India’s repression has crossed borders, with the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, the mysterious death of Avtar Singh Khanda in the UK, and a foiled assassination plot targeting Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the US. These acts mark a dangerous extension of India’s domestic violence onto international soil.
Operation Blue Star was not merely a military miscalculation. It was a deliberate message from a Hindu-majoritarian state: minorities who resist will be met with force, not fairness. The blood spilled on the marble floors of the Golden Temple cries out—not for revenge, but for truth, justice, and global recognition of the Sikh genocide.
