Indian State terrorism forced Sikh community to take out their sowrd against injustice of 1984
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Why Sikh Murder Indra Gandhi?
(2 posts)-
Pak Truth
MemberPosted 1 year ago on 19 Jan 2011 10:52 # -
State terrorism against Sikhs and arrest of Bhindranwale was the root cause:
In 1981 Akali Dal (L) president Harchand Singh Longowal, along with other Akali leaders, threatened to initiate a civil disobedience campaign if the center did not release Bhindranwale, who had been arrested on murder charges. That same year, amidst negotiations between the Congress and the Akalis, Bhindranwale regularly issued demands, which the Akalis immediately adopted as their own. Akali calls for “panthic [communal] unity” included Bhindranwale, and they formally led a morcha (protest), in which Bhindranwale was the prime mover, out of “political necessity.”
The State Responds: Sticks, Carrots, and the Challenge of Akali Legitimacy
At first, the center sought to deal with the problem of Sikh extremism not by cultivating moderate nationalists but by clamping down brutally. Its heavily militarized response culminated in Operation Bluestar, the bloody 1984 assault on the holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The assassination later that year of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards led to Congress-orchestrated riots that killed another 2,000 Sikhs. During the ensuing elections, the new Congress leader, Rajiv Gandhi, rode anti-Sikh rhetoric to the prime minister’s office. These sticks had the predictable effect of radicalizing the Sikh population.
Making and Mobilizing Moderates: Rhetorical Strategy, Political Networks, and Counterterrorism
By Arjun Chowdhury and Ronald R. Krebs
Page 386Posted 1 year ago on 19 Jan 2011 19:09 #
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