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Sikh separatist triggers

State reorganization issue

Nehru’s betrayal of Partition-era promises to Sikhs regarding “a territorial area within the nation to develop its own life and culture (…) with a great deal of autonomy for its constituent units.” (October 1945; reiterated in July 1946). Sikhs had lost a great deal and felt a need to culturally consolidate within India.
Operation Blue Star was not the first time the Golden Temple Complex was assaulted post-Independence. In 1955, protesters gathered there demanding a Punjabi-language State were assaulted by the police.
The linguistic reorganisation of States was completed by 1956, but Punjab was dragged through religious identity-politics and re-partitioned in 1966.
The Anandpur Sahib Resolution of 1973 formalised a charter of Sikh demands. National in scope there isn’t a shadow of “separatism” in it.

Blue star

But the most immediate trigger for Indira was the fact that Sikhs had been the most well-mobilised protesters against her Emergency rule of 1975-77. She targeted the RSS, too, for the same reason.

Post blue star

But her actions immediately after the operation continued, calculated aggression. Lt Gen KS Brar mentions Indira’s letter of appreciation for the operation. More importantly, while remaining in occupation of the temple complex, she challenged the Akali Dal’s hold over the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and its power to elect head priests. Like the British in earlier times, she sought to insert herself into the organisation of Sikhism. The subsequent burning of the Sikh Reference Library and confiscation of its historic artefacts, many still unaccounted for, indicate that Indira’s target was not Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, but the backbone of the Sikh tradition itself, holding nothing sacred.
State media ran propaganda about implacable Sikh separatism. The pogrom of Sikhs on Rajiv Gandhi’s watch followed, fuelling an insurgency that shook the foundations of the State. In parallel, decades of economic mismanagement had come to a head, pushing India to the brink of becoming a failed state — a precipice that the Narasimha Rao administration held at bay. From then on, challenges to the hold of the Nehru-Gandhi coterie on India grew stronger.