Placing bullet-hit Bir of Guru Granth Sahib in Golden Temple during Operation Bluestar is unforgettable traumatic experience

 

My Traumatic moment of  taking care of injured Bir of Guru Granth Sahib in Golden Temple during Operation Bluestar

 

Jagtar Singh

 

Ground Zero

 

“The historic Bir of Guru Granth Sahib (holy scriptures bestowed upon the high status of the Guru) on the first floor was partially covered in a white bloodstained sheet. Putting the Bir in order was a traumatic experience, which continued to haunt me for many years despite my Leftist background”.

 

(At the time when the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee chief Bibi Jagir Kaur has announced the decision to display injured Bir of Guru Granth Sahib hit by bullets during Operation Bluestar, here is my first-hand account of the trauma I experienced. I was the only journalist to go to first floor of Darbar Sahib from the party air-lifted by army from Chandigarh on June 15, 1984.)

 

 

 

Under Army Occupation

 

The morning of June 15, 1984, felt hotter than usual. The even hotter Indian Air Force twin engine Dakota of the World War II vintage with aluminum bucket seats added to the gloomy, apprehensive and tense atmosphere. Soon, it took off for the war zone with about a dozen journalists, the first group from Chandigarh. The war zone was none other than the Darbar Sahib complex, the holiest of the holy shrines of the Sikhs, in Amritsar. The sizzling temperature inside the non-pressurised aircraft came down after it gained some height.

 

As the aircraft landed in the Air Force area of Amritsar’s Raja Sansi Airport, it was ‘greeted’ by armoured combat vehicles of the Army, guns pointing towards it as an enemy plane had intruded. The Air Force was expecting the district administration to arrange transportation for taking journalists to the scene of action. However, it turned out to be a long wait for the Punjab Roadways bus to arrive. The temperature hovered above 40 degrees Celsius and the Air Force officials tried to make the scribes comfortable in the small briefing room  within the limited resources available with them. One of the two women journalists almost fainted. The rickety bus arrived only two hours later. Initially, it appeared a lack of coordination. However, the delay was part of some design as the journalists were not to be taken around the entire shrine complex, as we came to know later.

 

The bus headed for the command headquarters. We entered the operations room where a large map of the ‘battlefield’ that was Darbar Sahib complex was displayed on the wall. After briefing by the commander of the operation Major General Kuldip Singh Brar, the press party proceeded towards the war zone.

 

From the main entrance towards the Ghanta Ghar (Clock Tower demolished years ago) side, the shrine complex which had been subjected to very heavy firing reminded of the ravages of World War II. The big clock above this entrance had stopped ticking, somewhere around the time the action had begun on early in the morning on June 4. And there it hung, frozen in time. Inside, the stink of the fetid human flesh was palpable. The silence was deafening.

 

On the historic, intricately carved silver doors of the Darshani Deodi leading to the sanctum sanctorum, a notice had been pasted: UNDER ARMY OCCUPATION, rightly proclaimed in capital letters.

The Army authorities went an extra mile to explain how the damage to the central shrine had been averted. But what about the irreparable damage inflicted upon the collective Sikh psyche? It was not for the first time that the complex had been attacked. It had been ruined earlier also. The Sikhs haven’t yet forgotten the invasion by Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali, who wrecked Punjab during his eighth incursion on India in 1762. He had blown up this centre of inspiration for Sikhs with explosives and had filled the sarovar, the holy tank around the shrine, with earth and animal bones. But, those were foreign invaders from the Central Asian region.  Here, the forces of occupation were our very own people. Haversacks of the soldiers lay piled up in the two staircases leading to the first floor of Darbar Sahib.

 

The historic Bir of Guru Granth Sahib (holy scriptures bestowed upon the high status of the Guru) on the first floor was partially covered in a white bloodstained sheet. Putting the Bir in order was a traumatic experience, which continued to haunt me for many years despite my Leftist background.

 

(From my book Khalistan Struggle: A Non-movement, Aakar, 2011)