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37. Pranab Mukherjee s
biography nails Badal s untruths
Jagtar Singh | January 28,
2016 |
Jagtar Singh
Chandigarh, January 28: For
years, Saint-Statesman Faqr-e-Qaum Panth Rattan
and fifth time Punjab Chief minister Parlash
Singh Badal has been in denial mode on the issue
of secret meetings of the Akali leaders with
representatives of then prime minister Indira
Gandhi in the run up to Operation Bluestar, the
abominable army attack on the Golden Temple
complex beginning June 4, 1984.
More important of these meetings were
held in 1984 and the only major political player
from the team of Indira Gandhi today alive is
now President of India Pranab Mukherjee. The
second volume of his biography ‘The Turbulent
Years’ is now out and it nails Badal on this
sensitive issue. The truth must come out.
Altogether nine secret
meetings were held beginning November 16, 1982
with the last being on May 26, 1984. Mukherjee
talks about the meeting held on April 21in the
lounge of the Chandigarh when the Akali leaders
were brought there from
jail. Those present in that meeting from
the side of the Akali Dal included, besides
Badal, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Surjit Singh
Barnala, Balwant Singh Ramoowalia and Randhir
Singh Cheema while the team of the ministers was
represented by P V Narasimha Rao and Mukherjee.
Mukherjee was
part of the team dealing with the Akalis.
He states in the biography:
“Even a few days before Operation Bluestar, an
attempt was made to find a solution by holding a
meeting with the Akali Dal leaders who were
brought from jail to the lounge of Chandigarh
airport at midnight. PV Narasimha Rao, cabinet
secretary Krishnaswamy Rao Sahib and I
represented the government at that meeting.
Unfortunately, the
talks remained unsuccessful”. This
meeting was held on April 21, 1984.
It may be mentioned that
this issue was earlier raised by former chief
minister and now state Congress
president Capt Amarinder Singh who too
was part of some of these meetings, including
the one the Akali leaders had with Rajiv Gandhi
on January 17, 1983 at 27, Safdarjung Road, New
Delhi. However, Badal has been denying these
meetings all along.
Interestingly, while this
meeting at Chandigarh airport was held on April
21, he rebutted the same within days of his
release. Talking to the journalists at Amritsar
on May 22, Badal denied any “informal” contact
at any level with the Centre. He was
specifically questioned about the meeting at
Chandigarh airport. The Akali leaders were under
detention at that time on the issue of Article
25 of the constitution that clubs Sikhs with the
Hindus and amendment to the same was one of the
Akali demands.
The last such meeting was
held on May 26 about which Tohra went on the
record.
However, it is pertinent to
first go into the insight provided by Mukherjee
into the pre-Bluestar period.
Here is his account:
“By May 1984, it became increasingly
clear that there was no alternative but military
action to flush out the terrorists within the
Golden Temple. Some believe that this course of
action could have been avoided. But the reality
that confronted the government at that time was
that Bhindranwale and his followers had occupied
and taken control of the Golden Temple,
disregarding its sanctity. While some of us were
worried about reaction of the Sikh community and
whether drastic action would be
counterproductive, leading to the flaring-up of
communal tension, a final decision to storm the
Golden Temple was taken at a meeting of the
Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs. Its
members at that time were the Prime Minister,
Home Minister PV Narasimha rao, R Venkataraman
(having taken over as Defence Minister), Energy
Minister P Shiv Shankar and I. That day, no
officials were present at the CCPA meet.
“I still vividly recall Mrs
Gandhi telling me, ‘Pranab, I know of the
consequences’. She understood the situation well
and was clear that there was no other option.
Aware that her own life was at risk, she took a
conscious decision to go ahead in the best
interest of the nation. It is easy to say that
the military action could have been avoided.
However, nobody really knows if any other option
would have worked. Intelligence officials and
the army both expressed confidence that they
would be able to neutralize the militants in the
Golden Templecomplex without much difficulty. No
one anticipated the protracted resistance”.
Interestingly, Western
Command chief Lt General K Sundarji started his
press conference on June 6 in Chandigarh by
paying tributes to the commitment and bravery of
militants saying he wished he had 1000 such
fighters.
Here is the account given
by Tohra of May 26, 1984 meeting:
The Akalis were represented by Tohra,
Badal and Barnala, and the government’s
representatives included Narsimha Rao, Mukherjee
and Shiv Shankar. The Akali leaders were air
lifted from Chandigarh and taken to a guest
house at R.K. Puram in Delhi. The formula
discussed included the transfer of Chandigarh to
Punjab within eight days, setting up of a
commission for the left-out Punjabi-speaking
areas, referring the river water dispute to the
Supreme Court and the Anandpur Sahib Resolution
to a commission. The Akali leadership proposed
that the adjudication of the river waters
dispute by the Supreme Court should be within
the framework of the established riparian
principles. The Akali leaders also pressed for
declaration of Punjabi as second language in
neighbouring Haryana and Delhi and enactment of
the All India Gurdwara Legislation. Shiv Shankar
wanted assurance on behalf of Sant Bhindranwale
of which Tohra took the responsibility. The
Akali leaders also suggested that Haryana could
be given some areas from Uttar Pradesh in case
the Centre had any apprehensions on that score.
The meeting continued for more than four hours.
It was for the first time that negotiators from
the government had not raised many objections to
the Akalis’s suggestions. The negotiators from
the government side said they would meet them
again after consulting the Prime Minister. It
was around 4.30 in the evening when they
returned and said, “Very sorry. Madam does not
agree.” Indira Gandhi had rejected the formula.
Operation Bluestar was on. Tohra shared the
contents of these meetings years
later.(Khalistan Struggle: A Non-movement, pp
167-8 ).
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