Eyewitness account of Op Bluestar week & build-up: Abridged Ep 1198 with Shekhar Gupta

here's the 30second lesson on what Legends know never practice nunchucks in a crowded room never eat choli before a road trip always take your shirt off before you IR it don't take a call near a swimming pool and don't forget saving is not investing Legends don't just say they invest in mutual funds mutual fund Investments are subject to Market risks read old scheme related documents carefully since Punjab and the issues emanating from the Escape first of all the Crackdown and then the Escape of Amrit pal Singh have been ruling our headlines and also have been haunting our minds we decided this week that we'll take you back in these two episodes of katak letter frankly you can call them katak letter or first first person second draft you can choose that they can fall into either category we thought we'll take you back to the peak of trouble in Punjab in 1983 84 in the bindra ERA with the hope and prayer that such a tragedy should never revisit Punjab or India and you know as we had said in the first of this two-part special special cut the Clutter we had said that if you don't learn from history you are condemned to repeat it but particularly if you tend to be complacent about what was a bad unhappy tragic phase in your history history you are you are sometimes condemned to relive it within the same generation and that's what we don't want happening so let's go back to where we left off yesterday in the first part we had left you with the situation that where we painted a picture of how the golden temple was like how bal's court was like and many visits there and many conversations so most of the conversations we quoted in the first part were from 1983 some from 1984 also it was however by May of 1984 that it became evident that something catastrophic was going to happen at the golden temple Intrigue hung heavy in the air as everybody even bindra felt insecure I wrote a story headlined Temple Intrigue Temple Intrigue in the 15th May issue of India Today describing a string of cases of torture assassination of suspect suspected Rivals and renegades chopped bodies being taken out of the temple and dumped in gutters a lone woman sh dead Surendra Singh sodi who was vra's favorite Hitman while he sat sipping tea outside a tea shop near the golden temple and the woman after shooting Surendra Singh sodi screamed waving her pistol I have taken my revenge next morning two assassins shot the tea shop owner several mutilated bodies then appeared in guny bags here and there and the local police at a tough time dealing with them fishing them out of gutters one of these evidently was that of bjit K the dalit woman who had shot surender Singh sodi in Revenge because she believed he had killed her husband policemen who put together that body said they had not seen such brutal torture before I'm not describing that right now it's not necessary it was in this atmosphere of rising blood letting Revenge killings and suspicion that bendra raised the pitch and Indra they decided to strike on one of my recent visits to umer I spent some time with mam Singh whose imposing finger is Ed on my mind as one of benra wal's closest Li tenants although he claims he never carried any arms my memory tells me something else he post for pictures under a portrait of vraal Steel arrow and all and argued passionately that his son was not a separatist he only demanded autonomy for states which is the norm now now he told me number his house in fact is not far from amer's big mall he was deliberately misunderstood he said that is why because of their belief in decentralization the rack tag group of benra supporters that he leads had extended support to am admi party this conversation took place in 2014 during Parliament elections but then as the conversation went on he relaxed SJ he said was no ordinary human remember how his arms for so long they hung below his knees just like Guru gobin Singh he was no ordinary human mam Singh 3 years younger than me actually had transported me back to the Golden Temple in 1983 84 when people looked at bendra and quote unquote pointed out the quote unquote fact to you that his arms hung lower than his knees but God's Own truth they did not they did not if you believed your eyes but in the Punjab of 19 84 so many were not willing to believe what they could see with their own eyes what they could hear with their own ears and comprehend they simply believed what they wanted to believe it was a phase of Madness and so eminently worth forgetting that conversation with mam sing that I just quoted was from 2014 and while he said that he no longer had any commitment to any separatism he also argued that bindra did not want any separatism he just wanted a true true Federal structure in India he post for pictures I took pictures of him with my camera with my phone camera then a Blackberry under the portrait of bendra Val carrying his stainless steel arrow and as I was leaving his home as I was walking out of his driveway I saw his car he had a new car I think it was Hyundai a new car and I saw the number plate the number on the number plate was 1984 you know why 1984 is so important now 1984 is when Operation Blue Star took place it's also the year when later Mrs Gandhi got assassinated it's also the year when those awful horrible massacres of six took place these were not riots these were massacres mostly in Delhi but in many other parts of North India but mostly in Delhi and I covered those also as as a reporter as we go ahead now that I'm doing some storytelling on that phase Maybe over the next couple of weeks I will talk about that phase as well what happened in Delhi the assassination and the killings Etc but before we get there we have to tell you the story of Operation Blue Star which came in the middle the last conversation I told you had brought us to May the summer the peak summer summer of 1984 when it looked like it was inevitable that something catastrophic was going to happen at the golden temple and then came Operation Blue Star in the first first week of June 1984 now nobody can reconstruct the 72 hours of operation blue star in 3,000 words that that I had tried to do one of these installments of first person second draft you can't even detail them in 30,000 words books have been written about it and by the finest reporters notably the BBC's Mark Telly Amar Mrs Gandhi's last battle that was co-authored with Satish Jacob Mark was The Unofficial but Undisputed Ed dean of the reporter score or traveling reporter score for two generations and please do read this book for diligence and detail books have been written by the generals who led the assault I pick my dear friend left General KS or bullbull Brad who lives in Bombay now his book Operation Blue Star the true story published by UBS in 1993 for the Army side of the story told as honestly as possible for a partisan albeat and exceptionally honorable Soldier he by by the way survived an assassination attempt by knife wielding radical 6 in London while he was on a visit there in fact in the Mayfair area of London in fact just after the attack while he still had the bandages on his face and neck he featured in a walk the talk interview with me I will share a link with you both of the interview and also the text there was also a series of TV documentaries put together and anchored by my old comrade and friend Kamar Sandhu formerly executive editor of the Tribune and later also an MLA for amadm party in Punjab check it out that series of documentaries check it out for its Brilliance depth and honesty even I contributed my bit to the history of Operation Blue Star in some detail with the 27 page chapter titled Blood Sweat and Tears in the Punjab story a book published by Roi books in 1984 there is no real mystery about the operation how it started how it ended but there are other Mysteries that endured for decades and and some are still unresolved let me also talk about some of those one in fact was resolved in 2013 in the Memoir from fatigues to CS Memoirs of a paratrooper published by manohar Publications written by leant General VK tabi ner whom I first met when he commanded the eight Mountain division at zakhama in nagaland that was the counter Insurgency division in nagaland then and who later honored Me by inviting me to speak at the release of his book at India International Center in Delhi he was the deputy director general of military operations in 1984 at the headquarters and reveals in his Memoir how the code name blue star was chosen contrary to speculation over the years it had nothing to do with the way traditional or devout six dress or their color preferences Tabby as he was nicknamed General VI left General vener Tabby says he was driving home exhausted after a long day in the Ops room having planned the operation when a code name was yet to be found and the signboard of a refrigeration shop caught his eye it was selling blue star a prominent fridge air or air conditioner brand in pre-reform India remember this was 1984 let's go with it he decided we still don't know where the names of the other two related operations it came in from op Woodrose that was the name given to the sweep sweep of the rest of the state to clear it off militants and to maintain order and of an operation a little operation Operation with an operation within operation called op metal operation metal to specifically catch or eliminate jel Singh Bal and members of his inner core team so we still don't know where those names came from I wait for more Memoirs the greatest mystery of those 30 years however is how and why with such elaborate planning the Army bras miscalculated on Blue Star so badly it is tempted to say they were arrogant and underestimated the task but that would be unfair more than 70,000 troops had been called into Punjab tanks apcs and all we usually said apcs those days now we'd say ifv infantry Fighting Vehicle vijan tanks had been lined up along the final approaches to the golden temple much before the first shots were exchanged between the Army and the militants the media was cleared out even before the militants all telephone lines were cut and the state put under Not Mere curfew but martial law of kinds of A Sort for the first and hopefully the last time in our history in the sense that a curfew pass could not be issued unless the Army sort of counter signed it for all practical purposes there was therefore no underestimation of the task on anybody's part but I dare say now that there was a touching belief that the militants wouldn't fight and if they did their resolve would be broken in a couple of hours all the bundobust therefore was to stun them with a display of Firepower a strategy of shock and law decades before it was given that name in Iraq by George W bush all the generals involved KS Bulbul BR Western Army command Chief of Staff leant General RIT Singh deal Army Commander that is go CNC Krishna Swami Sundi and his chief General Arun Shar vya later assassinated by reveng seeking militants while driving his maruti 800 after retiring in Pune all of them admitted to this miscalculation subsequently to some extent there was a firm belief that bendra would not fight he would surrender or try to escape just how serious this misreading was I first learned from a senior intelligence Bureau officer who spoke to me in some horror after spending the first few hours with the Army commanders he said he tried to tell them that bindra and his people would fight to the Finish but was not merely overruled but mocked in fact one of the generals pointed at some of his black dangri Commandos who were getting kitted out and briefed for for the operations and said have you seen these boots have you seen these boots Devils of mine the terrorists have to merely see them and they will surrender with their tails between their legs my IB friend a wonderful professional and a patriot retreated from the argument sort of fatally real istically he now lives in retirement close to chandigar the first assault by the Commandos ran into trouble one set of audacious generals had overlooked the fact that they weren't against some armed Rabel but a small army of faithfuls led by someone exactly like them in fact a fellow General as bright if not brighter than all of them former Major General shabek Singh had served with each one of those commanding the forces now in the Golden Temple in Blue Star he had received his Fame organizing and training the M bahini during the Bangladesh war and he was a master of gorilla Warfare he earned INF later or sort of infam later as he was accused of irregularities and dismissed a day before his retirement that was cusset he was dismissed a day before his retirement so he would be denied his retirement benefits post retirement benefits but as most human beings do he never believed he was guilty but was victimized because because of what else but his religion and As Time passed he became more and more convinced that he was victimized because of his religion and he had done nothing wrong he had found spiritual sucker and now a new soldierly cause with bindra although now in what he saw as the service of his faith not his Republic just how good was shab Singh I won't go by ha say though even that makes him sound superhuman baiting through the rubble at the akal a couple of days after the fighting we found a copy of a book a thin Memoir written by a Pakistani Brigade Meda who was taken p in Bangladesh it had been presented by an officer of the bsf's intelligence Branch T shab Singh who had quote unquote sourced the book from across the border it had a warm and respectful note to shabek Singh from his BSF fan saying how happy he was to see High Praise for the now Rebel General from the Pakistani Brigadier and what a privilege it was to present the book to him the Pakistani Brigadier had said how remarkably good shab singhh had been in training the mukti bayani since the book was being thrown in the rubble I picked it up and kept it in any case the defense of the golden temple was not so much about high strategy or even gorilla Warfare it was more like a battalion level tactical defense of a builtup complex of buildings they provided alleys parapets machine gun implements tunnels towers and lots of ancient marble walls more impregnable than modern armor most importantly it had a string of manholes so important because it was inside them that shab sing had placed his lmgs which sprayed grazing fire at assault troops while automatics position higher up reigned sweeping fire on them together they fully covered the small open courtyard maybe half the size of a football field where the attackers had to expose themselves to reach the akal takar this was his designated killing ground anybody body with the basic knowledge of infantry Warfare would tell you that and would understand what we are talking about this was his designated killing ground as it would be defined in classic infantry defense manuals specifically in this case following the principles of what acronym loving armies called fibua which is fighting in built-up areas manle lmgs were so effective because they denied the attackers the basic defensive tactics of hitting the ground and crawling because the bullets and got you in the bodies of heads instead of merely the legs a very large number of the Javan therefore were injured in the legs including young six second left justb Rana who volunteered to lead the first platoon of 10 guards he was awarded ashoke chakra the highest peacetime gallantry award and came to accept it from the president on a wheelchair if you look at the pictures of rows of beds from a military Hospital treating the injured after blue star you'd be stunned as I was to see how many of them had injuries bullet injuries in the legs shabek wasn't full hearted to think he would win his tactics was to optimize his resources snipers behind any hiding place every room along the parika circum ulation of the temple Infested by a gunman or two so any probing petrols would be cut down others sprinting up and down the staircases linking just the two floors of the building and their parapets his idea was to inflict as many casualties as possible and thereby Del lay the inevitable so that bindra supporters in The Villages had enough time to organize mobs to converge on umer and make further Army operations impossible unless indraa Gandhi was willing to inflict scores of jalala bgs in Punjab it was a sound approach that succeeded tactically the Commandos did not get very far took several casualties and also underlined the generals unthinking impatience and launching them in Black dangar on white mark as it gleamed in bright Moonlight a more conventional inventry charge by the troops of 10 guards was stopped as well as it spilled in from the main entrance this was the first time the generals were made to wonder if they had miscalculated more assault troops launched from other directions were similarly pinned down typical of the Indian Doctrine in such situations the Army carried out incremental escalation and not with the best results one infantry unit after another was thrown in but casualties only mount then an approach was tried through an APC armored personal carrier but again sort of half-heartedly in a wield old Scot not infant fighting vehicle in a wheel old Scot see the picture of your screens rather than a track Russian BMP with better armor and Firepower that Scot was knocked out by a militant rpg7 rocket launcher over there was much recrimination on this later as to why why such a half-hearted thing was done did Intelligence War the Army of the presence of such a weapon that RPG was available with militants or were the generals being too arrogant or maybe incompetent in not anticipating this that night as I sat on a high Terrace that did not have a view of the Battleground but help you understand the story with flashes fires and explosions I recorded the night's noises on a tiny tape recorder as as also some of the police and army Wireless conversations on a radio with FM band FM radio by the way had not arrived in India yet but if you had radio then with FM band you could sometimes pick up police and occasionally even Army communication Security Forces then in fact were using some of the same frequencies on which we now listen to music these conversations got more frantic as the night ended there were nearly 3,000 infantry TR troops spinned down in the temple on the on on White marble hundreds of wounded more than a 100 bodies this time of the year early June the Sun comes out really early and every soldiers still alive all the thousands of them would be target practice for snipers as the sun came out and that's what worried the worried the generals as often happens in such situations the battlefield the terrain was the best Force multiplier for the defender the defender could hide and fire whereas the attackers had to expose themselves this level of casualties was unacceptable so further escalation became inevitable so the general said subsequently for greater detail I would again shamelessly refer you to My Blood Sweat and Tears chapter in the Punjab story I will share a faximile of the book's jacket I believe that the book has been republished and you can find a copy in the markets but even it's almost 40 years later I can see nothing less regrettably than a story of incredible military courage and yet I say with humility incompetence incompetence courage and incompetence no Soldier flinched even when faced with an impossible task and the generals who had misread and miscalculated played on incrementally until the dawn threatened an artillery not heavy but artillery nevertheless was called out along with via tanks that blazed with their main guns and the brutal destruction of the akal takat building was now launched if bendra wouldn't flee or Surrender or come out in a suicidal charge he would be inomed there now now what were the generals thinking the thought was if bindra wouldn't flee or Surrender or come out in his suicidal charge he would be inomed in the AAL takat now they were ventas to the left of the Holy sover firing from just a couple of hundred yards and how it SS on top of facing buildings firing in direct mode this was the equivalent of a sledgehammer where a psychological or at worst surgical strike had been anticipated there was never any any doubt who would win but the cost in lives sentiment political consequences hurt among a population through generations and a legacy of anger and bitterness had not been imagined but the Army generals were not the only ones who had miscalculated bendra to had made similar arrogantly delusional blunders he had boasted that the six in the Army wouldn't fight him two of the three generals involved BR and Dal were six BR told in his walk the talk conversation with me shortly after the attack on him in London that I mentioned a little bit earlier that he addressed his troops just before the assault and he said everybody particularly six if they had any hesitation had the option to opt out nobody did left and jasbir Singh Rana in fact volunteered to go in first he's the one we mentioned a little bit earlier who got the asoke chakra if the general showed an underestimation of the militants fever and tactical Dash bindra and sadly shabek Singh too showed similar lack of appreciation of the AOS of their own country's Army many militants and civilians died but the Army suffered Gravely too and brutally so responding to my earlier writings on the subject I once received a touching email from K ramkumar then the HR head of ICI Bank mentioning that his cousin was part of the Thumes of the helpless Madras regiment I think it was the 26th Battalion of Madras regiment that suffered severely in the assaults 26 Madras it was and I had the privilege of being taken under their wing even while the wounded were being tended to they suffered heavy casualties and when one of the assault sections managed to enter theal takat the 26 Madras assault sections the jcu leading it was overpowered blinded and flung from the top of the building to the marble Courtyard But the cruelest saddest and most unnecessary loss of life was that of Battalion doctor captain rampal more than 24 hours after the fighting was over he was walking around looking for the wounded from any side to T to when a group of snipers hiding in one of the basements dragged him in demanded that none else than the head priest of the temple be sent down to negotiate with them and when that was undone the doctor was tortured to death his body dismembered the officers of the Battalion 26 Madras led by LEF colel paniker took me to their mess one evening and fed me a meal of sber C rise from their lunger which was such a blessing after a week of dry rations and told more stories one of these stories was of leftenant ram prakash Ria of je in harana the baby of the Battalion just a leftenant his English was rather basic but like any self-respecting haranvi he would speak in no other language so everybody called him by a mockingly anglicized name Robert Prince Ria leftenant Robert Prince RP Ria fell to a snip sniper bullet on the afternoon of 6th June as he climbed down a rope ladder from the white parikrma parapet where several of his comrades lay flat to escape snipers in the 46° sun exposed to full sunlight for all of the day they were dying of thirst and heat stroke and young Robert Prince a baby officer volunteer to go down to bring water a sniper in the temple shot him in the neck raria died 3 days later it was while talking about his sacrifice at the ler at 26 Madras tactical headquarters as it was that night in June of 1984 that I got my finest lesson ever in leadership and it's a line I have often used since in my speech in my writing what is the line there is a moral Dimension to leadership if there were so many soldiers lying flat on the parapet many of them were experienced soldiers why did the youngest and that to an officer have to expose himself to bring water by he just tell one of the wants to do it because said Colonel paniker and I quote him there is a moral Dimension to leadership if the officer is not in front why would the troops follow him to whatever consequences thank you Le Colonel paniker wherever you are you gave me a lesson no life coach or famous General ever could there were so many other Mysteries and mythologies what happened on the first night of fighting for example in the sar from where several aali leaders were rescued and many bants escaped while a sudden flurry of grenades and the confusion that followed led to the death of a very large number of people maybe a couple of hundreds in crossfire many of them innocent pilgrims it was later said that the army unit there from n Kuma regiment ninth Battalion of Kuma regiment had lined up the six and shot them randomly that was the allegation frankly I tried every Source possible but could never confirm this but that there were many deaths most of them unnecessaries undeniable many sick survivors including priests back the deliberate Massacre story but my sources in the Army always insist that this was just murderous confusion it was a melee where lots of people had automatic weapons and it was a melee they claimed that was caused by a militants some of whom hid in the pilgrims' room in the Sarai and cut down the soldiers who tried to clear them the commies responded by presuming every room to be terrorist occupied and fired also resulting in a lot of innocent deaths I'm still not willing to buy the deliberate Massacre story though many survivors have repeated it in so many decades of covering the Army's operations I found Indian soldiers to be mostly honorable and the officers if anything caring and cautious to the extent of being soft in such situations I wasn't in the sise that night but everybody knows that the Common's company Commander Major HK palta was I cannot say who killed whom on that that incredibly violent night a tragic night or why but all the lives lost were Indian and among the lives lost all Indian was also major palas his family I later found lived in NOA if anything the Fiasco had dis arise that night concluded very sadly the story of those 72 incredibly tragic bloody and violent hours I will conclude this episode with a postcript I have many nightmares from those three horrible days involving the bodies of fellow Indians civilian siik Hindu any faith Soldier uniformed not uniformed one is of a truck parked at the kotwali on the morning of 7 June when curfew had been relaxed for a couple of hours an awful stench Rose from the truck and what looked like blood mixed with viscous bodily fluids strip from its leaky frame I joined the several policemen who grabbed its rear wall and raised themselves to take a look and what lay inside the truck there were scores literally scores of bodies and nobody could say who was a combatant and who was a devot but so many dead fellow Indians rotting under the June Sun a DSP we all knew well lost his composure Punjab police tsp and started screaming abuses both at the at the Army and bendra for causing so much death and he kept on saying but terrorism that this will not end terrorism to the right right of the truck under the same Sun sat about 50 suspected militants with their limbs tied while soldiers kept watch over them behind an lmg on a tripod and an officer a sick interrogated them in public there was nothing physical about it just an angry volley of basic questions possibly it was sites like this that spread stories of six being lined up and shot by firing squads the second was a string of three army trucks weaving its way through the narrow Old City Lane near what is called bruta aara now that area has been gentrified it's changed greatly area called bruta aara connecting the temple complex once again I raised myself to the back of one of the trucks and found three rows of stretchers on either side with bodies of soldiers the one on top stretcher to the right a boy from gwal regiment no more than 90 or 20 possibly still had beads of perspiration on his nose he must have just died both nightmares involved my dead fellow countrymen none of them will go away anytime soon I hope you're finding these episodes and this method of historyteller informative and useful encouraged by your responses I might give you a couple more episodes of other aspects of what happened in that tumultous year 1984 in India's history maybe in a week from now [Music] [Applause] [Music]

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Id: cFS_kM71Hvs

Length: 31min 26sec (1886 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2024