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| Still festering: The prayer hall of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha gurdwara in Southall, London |
At the Sri Guru Singh Sabha gurdwara in Southall, the stream of visitors trickles in steadily: young men in dark bomber jackets, elderly Sikh gentlemen with flowing beards and walking sticks and ladies in salwaar kameezes. At this London gurdwara — the biggest outside India — the worshippers have managed to nearly fill the car park, though it’s mid-morning on a working day.
Once, young children would wear “Never forget 1984” T-shirts. But there is no evidence of that this week, even though the temperature has been raised by the attack on Lt Gen. (retired) K.S. Brar a few metres from Oxford Street on Sunday night, bringing back all the memories of Operation Bluestar — the 1984 army raid on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Brar had led the army action.
Is the movement for Khalistan — which saw Punjab burning two decades ago — rising from its ashes? Brar told the press that his four attackers had tried to slit his throat with a kirpan and that it was a clear assassination attempt. The Metropolitan Police have said they are keeping an open mind as to the motive.
With the arrest of 15 people, including four from the West Midlands area, speculation in intelligence circles is that Khalistani groups in areas such as Birmingham and Wolverhampton are moving up a gear from slogan shouting and activism to direct action. There are also reports that the pro-Khalistan group Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) is linked to the attack on Brar and that information about heightened activity by BKI and other pro-Khalistan groups have been sent to the UK, Germany, Canada and US intelligence since last June.
Senior Indian government officials have said there is enough intelligence to show that attacks by pro-Khalistan separatists are planned and co-ordinated by militant groups based in Canada and Germany, with funds and encouragement from those in Britain.
Twenty-eight years after Operation Bluestar, thousands of miles away from Punjab, even among a generation not born in 1984, the wounds are still festering. There is not much sympathy for Brar among older Sikhs who saw the attack on the Golden Temple as a strike against their religion. “He was attacked because he had done something wrong,” says a Sikh worshipper unhesitatingly.
Kamaljeet Gill, 56, who has been worshipping at the gurdwara for six years, is more philosophical. “I personally feel that everyone is accountable to themselves for their actions. I believe in peace and harmony and feel that there should be no killings. My husband is from Amritsar. He was very affected by Operation Bluestar and used to tell me about it, and I could see his pain.”
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At the Havelock Road gurdwara, an imposing three-storey structure, the mood is cautious. In the 1980s the Sikh shrines of Southall were controlled by militants and were the hub of radical Sikh activity. Sweets were distributed and fireworks set off famously outside the gurdwaras, while cries of “Khalistan Zindabad” filled the air, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi months after Operation Bluestar.
Even now, few have forgotten the attack on the holiest of Sikh shrines. Speaker after speaker wheeled round to the studios of the Sikh Channel speak angrily about the hurt. On the BBC Asian Network, presenter Nihal invites callers to give their views on the attack. For two hours the calls keep coming in. “General Brar is a terrorist and a murderer,” says caller Taj. Of the few who condemn the attack, one comes on air using a false name, saying that he is scared of persecution.
The fear of making a public comment seemed to be all-pervasive. Navdeep Singh, who hosts the high-profile Sikh Awards in UK, inviting eminent Sikhs such as cricketer Harbhajan Singh from India as special guests, says he never comments on 1984. “It is a very sensitive issue. Emotions run high and people can get upset either way. So we have a policy with the Sikh Directory and the Sikh Awards that we are neutral. We do not comment on 1984.”
Yet the times have changed since Sikh militancy in Britain flourished in the early 1980s, principally led by four organisations: The Council of Khalistan, International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), Babbar Khalsa (BK) and Dal Khalsa. The Council of Khalistan was elected in Southall at a strong meeting of over 5,000 Sikhs after Operation Bluestar, and Jagjit Singh Chohan was elected its president.
The Indian government raised strong objections when Chohan was invited to the BBC studio after the 1984 assassination of Indira Gandhi, and went on air celebrating it as a victory for Khalistan. Declaring himself the president of the Khalistan government-in-exile, Chohan became a familiar figure standing outside Indian House every year protesting on Republic Day and during any high-profile visits.
By 1985, the ISYF had 21 branches in the UK with over 16,000 members. All moderate Sikh voices were quashed. Two moderate Sikhs were killed — Tarsem Singh Toor in January 1986 and Darshan Das Vasdev in Southall in November 1987.
In 1992 Britain and India signed an extradition treaty. A long-drawn court battle ensued over Sikh activist Karamjit Singh Chahal who was detained under the National Security Act, with India requesting his extradition from the UK. Chahal was eventually released after appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.
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In 1997, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting at Edinburgh, Sikh activists joined with Kashmiri separatists to protest against the then Indian Prime Minister, I.K. Gujral. Diplomatic relations between India and Britain nosedived. The celebrations of 50 years of India’s Independence were marred by protests by Sikhs in London, Leicester and Birmingham. Over the next few years, as militancy ebbed in Punjab, the tide was to turn in the UK as well.
In 2001, the ISYF and BK were banned under the Terrorism Act. In June 2001, Jagjit Singh Chohan quietly returned to Punjab, apparently running out of steam. Over a decade later, the attack on Brar has put the spotlight back on Sikh militancy in the UK.
The ISYF is said to have re-invented itself as the Sikh Federation (UK) in 2003, retaining many of the original members of the ISYF executive committee. It focuses today on human rights issues for Sikhs, has strong parliamentary backers and was responsible for creating an All Party Parliamentary Group for UK Sikhs in 2005.
Closure, possibly, will come with justice. “Nobody has yet been punished for the 1984 riots,” said G.S. Virk, editor of the Punjabi paper Des Pardes. “The Sikh community is still saddened by this. We cannot tolerate an attack on our Holy shrine and on us. We have defended Harmandar Sahib from the 18th century from the Mughals and will continue to do so. It is the history of the Sikhs.”
Virk, who has been editing the popular newspaper published from Southall for 46 years, says he is convinced that the attackers of Gen. Brar were taking revenge. “There is no extremism in Southall, but people want their revenge on those who were responsible for Operation Bluestar,” he says. “That is how it is.”
