THE REPUBLICimmigration agitation. ‘Jobs for the boys’ would be in danger if the
Assamese were to become a minority in their own state. Talks conducted
by the Government of India with such student leaders concentrated on
fixing an historical date to distinguish bona fide citizens from undesirable
aliens, and few were fooled by the discussion’s lack of realism. In the midst
of all this Indira Gandhi went ahead with holding elections in Assam.
Boycotted by the majority of the voters, the poll thus resulted in the victory
of a Congress government which was duly installed.
In the Panjab Indira Gandhi faced her worst dilemma. She had actually
started her career as prime minister in 1966 with a concession to the Sikhs,
whose campaign for a Sikh state under the guise of a Panjabi linguistic
state had been resisted by her predecessors. Separating the Hindi-speaking
areas of the southern Panjab and creating the new state of Haryana, Indira
Gandhi had satisfied the quest for a Panjabi state although she had not
conceded a Sikh state, as the Sikhs made up only about 60 per cent of the
population of the new Panjab. This delicate balance made party politics in
the Panjab an extremely tense and unpredictable affair. The Akali Dal, a
Sikh party, oscillated between a radical and a moderate stance. If it wanted
to attract the entire Sikh vote in order to get a majority, it had to follow a
radical sectarian line; if it looked for non-sectarian alliances, it had to be
moderate in this respect. Under the Janata regime the Akali Dal had
enjoyed such a non-sectarian honeymoon and had followed a very
moderate course. After Indira Gandhi’s comeback the Akali Dal was
thrown out of office and a Congress government installed.
On top of this the Congress leadership tried to sow sectarian communal
discord in Sikh ranks by building up a young fanatic, Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale, who soon outgrew the control of his mentors. He collected a
following of young Sikh terrorists whom he directed from his headquarters in
Amritsar, where he lived in the guesthouse of the famous Golden Temple. In
October 1983 ‘President’s Rule’ was established in the Panjab, superseding
the state’s beleaguered Congress government. Even under ‘President’s Rule’
nothing was done to curb Bhindranwale’s activities—in fact, in December
1983 he was able to shift his abode from the guesthouse to the Akal Takht,
the priestly headquarters controlling the access to the Golden Temple. Under
his direction this building was made into a veritable fortress and when the
Indian army was ordered to storm the Golden Temple in June 1984, it
walked right into the trap which Bhindranwale had prepared for it. A retired
Sikh general was in charge of the defence of the Golden Temple and an active
Sikh general led the attack. Bhindranwale died and was promptly praised as
a martyr. Indira Gandhi survived this fateful event by only a few months. She
was shot by her Sikh bodyguard on 31 October 1984.
The immediate consequence of her assassination was a pogrom directed
against the Sikhs of Delhi and other North Indian cities. It appeared to be
a spontaneous reaction, but it was obviously masterminded by politicians