{"id":359,"date":"2014-06-06T10:37:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T10:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/on-this-day\/6-june-1984-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-militant-sikh-religious-preacher-died\/"},"modified":"2014-06-06T10:37:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-06T10:37:00","slug":"6-june-1984-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-militant-sikh-religious-preacher-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/on-this-day\/6-june-1984-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-militant-sikh-religious-preacher-died","title":{"rendered":"6 June 1984: Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, militant Sikh religious preacher, died"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a charismatic Sikh preacher, who became a symbol of militant religious fundamentalism and anti-establishment fervour in the early 1980s \u2014\ufeff\u00a0but whose committed band of followers held him in high regard \u2014 was born a few months before India\u2019s independence. His death on 6 June 1984 during the Indian army\u2019s storming of the Golden Temple \u2014 the Sikhs\u2019 holiest shrine \u2014 marked a bloody end to a sordid episode in India\u2019s history.<\/div>\n
But the abyss which Punjab found itself in during those fateful days would only get deeper and swallow among its many victims the woman who ordered troops into the Golden Temple \u2014 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.\u00a0<\/div>\n
Bhindranwale was born in a village in Punjab\u2019s Moga district in a farmer\u2019s family on 2 June 1947, one of several siblings.\u00a0<\/div>\n
Towards the latter part of his teenage years he joined a Sikh religious school in Moga, the Damdami Taksal. When the head of the Taksal died in an accident, Bhindranwale, a favourite student, took over the reins. He later married Pritam Kaur, who was from Bilaspur. The couple had two sons. He, however, left his family to devote himself to the life of a preacher.<\/div>\n
Describing Bhindranwale, the eminent historian Ramachandhra Guha writes in his book India after Gandhi<\/em>: \u201cHis was an impressive presence: over six feet tall, slim and athletic, with probing eyes and dressed in a long blue robe. He was an effective and even inspiring preacher, with a deep knowledge of the Sikh scriptures. He claimed the Sikhs \u2018were slaves in independent India\u2019, discriminated against by the Hindus. Bhindranwale wanted the Sikhs to purify themselves and return to the fundamentals of their faith.\u201d<\/div>\n
The Punjab \u2018problem\u2019<\/strong><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/div>\n
The modern Indian state of Punjab came into being in 1966. Political Sikh groups like the Akalis were unhappy with certain aspects of the new statehood, among these the sharing of the capital Chandigarh with Haryana and control of river waters. In 1973 the Akali Dal passed what came to be known as the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, which was essentially a list of demands addressed to New Delhi. But in the following years there was not much movement on the demands. Subsequently, there was great political mobilisation in Punjab leading to the Congress\u2019 defeat at the hands of the Akali Dal in the 1977 elections.<\/div>\n
By then Bhindranwale had acquired a reputation for being an orthodox but charismatic preacher, and a dedicated following in rural pockets of the state.<\/div>\n
According to some accounts, the Congress leadership, in its wisdom, tried to divide the Akalis\u2019 Sikh base by propping up Bhindranwale \u2014 thus bringing him to the centrestage of Punjab\u2019s politics. Initially he played along, but not for long. Bhindranwale had plans of his own.\u00a0<\/div>\n
The security and law and order situation in Punjab took a turn for the worse. In 1978 following an angry speech by Bhindranwale, his supporters clashed with a procession of Nirankaris, a Sikh sect. Fifteen people were killed in the clashes. By 1980, Bhindranwale had made a part of the Golden Temple his base. He would address his followers, many of them armed, from here. Incidentally, another part of the temple was occupied by the Akali Dal leader Sant Harcharan Singh Longowal, who would reiterate the demands of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.<\/div>\n
After 1980 Punjab was rocked by assassinations of important figures \u2014 Sikhs and Hindus \u2014 known to be unfavourable to Bhindranwale\u2019s cause. The Nirankari leader Gurcharan Singh and Lala Jagat Narain, a prominent newspaper editor who had consistently written against Bhindranwale\u2019s brand of politics, were among those killed. Following Narain\u2019s murder, the authorities set out to arrest Bhindranwale but then hesitated. Finally, he was arrested, only to be released a few weeks later for lack of evidence. Some experts believe that his release from prison turned him into a hero of sorts, and from then on there was no looking back for him. An alarmed Congress realised too late in the day that Bhindranwale\u2019s demands were much more extreme than the Akalis\u2019.\u00a0<\/div>\n
1984<\/strong><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/div>\n
There were more targeted assassinations, allegedly carried out by Bhindranwale\u2019s men, including that of A.S. Atwal, a Sikh police officer who was brazenly shot outside the Golden Temple in April 1983. Towards the end of that year, Bhindranwale shifted to the Akal Takht, one of the most sacred sections of the Golden Temple complex. As the situation in Punjab reached boiling point, Bhindranwale\u2019s men started piling up arms and ammunition inside the temple. Helping them in the fortification was former major general Shubeg Singh, now allied to Bhindranwale\u2019s cause. Meanwhile, in a top-secret plan known only to her inner circle, Indira Gandhi had asked the army to prepare for a possible operation to flush out Bhindranwale and his men from the Golden Temple. It was given the name of Operation Blue Star. \u00a0<\/div>\n
On 30 May 1984, Indian troops started surrounding Amritsar. The city was placed under all-night curfew. On the night of 3 June, the prime minister in an address to the nation said: \u201cThe Punjab is uppermost in all our minds. The whole country is deeply concerned. The matter has been discussed and spoken about time and again. Yet an impression has been created that it is not being dealt with.\u201d<\/div>\n
In the late afternoon of 5 June, army personnel called upon armed men inside the Golden Temple to surrender and for the civilians to come out of the premises. While more than a hundred civilians stepped out, no Bhindranwale supporter followed suit.\u00a0<\/div>\n
The troops started moving in. First, they focussed on the part of the Golden Temple where Akali leaders such as Longowal were holed up. He and others were brought out. But incessant firing by Bhindranwale\u2019s men, who were well entrenched, claimed dozens of security forces lives.<\/div>\n
The next morning the troops first tried to force their way into the compound, but were repulsed by the gunmen. Finally \u2014 in a move which continues to be extremely controversial \u2014 Indian army tanks rolled in and directly fired at the Akal Takht, the hiding place of Bhindranwale and his most ardent followers. Operation Blue Star was over by the night of 6 June. Bhindranwale\u2019s body was recovered soon after.<\/div>\n
Indira Gandhi had been hoping that the military operation would use minimum force and inflict as little damage on the temple as possible. Tragically, that was not the case. While the exact toll has been a matter of debate, estimates suggest that besides Bhindranwale and his men, more than a thousand civilians and at least 500 Indian troops died in Operation Blue Star. And the Golden Temple was severely damaged.<\/div>\n
More damagingly, the image of tanks firing on the place dearest to the Sikh community, left a gaping hole in the Sikh psyche. Punjab \u2014 and India \u2014 would pay a steep price for years to come. It was only after the mid-1990s that Punjab \u2014 ravaged by militancy and the sadly inevitable strong response by the state \u2014 slowly started coming out of its traumatic past.<\/div>\n
As for Bhindranwale, though he is remembered by large sections of popular opinion in the rest of India as everything from a fanatic to a militant and terrorist, in some parts of Punjab he is still looked upon with affection.\u00a0<\/div>\n
Looking back at his legacy, the senior journalist Chandan Mitra wrote in December 2011 in India Today<\/em> magazine: \u201cBhindranwale brought out the worst in us. He was gone by the mid-1980s, but his legacy lived long enough to damage the fabric of India\u2019s evolving nationhood. Terrorist killings don\u2019t startle us anymore. We have become sufficiently blas\u00e9 to say that unless it\u2019s in double digits, such mass murders don\u2019t merit Page 1 treatment in newspapers. Bhindranwale shook India out of its comfortable somnolence that had been merely jolted a few years earlier by the Emergency.\u201d<\/div>\n
Also on this day:<\/strong><\/div>\n
1929 \u2014 Sunil Dutt, leading Indian film actor and MP, was born\u00a0<\/div>\n
1970 \u2014 Sunil Joshi, Indian cricketer, was born\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
1973 \u2014 Nikhil Chinapa, Indian video jockey and TV presenter, was born \u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a charismatic Sikh preacher, who became a symbol of militant religious fundamentalism and anti-establishment fervour in the early 1980s \u2014\ufeff\u00a0but whose committed band of followers held him in high regard \u2014 was born a few months before India\u2019s independence. His death on 6 June 1984 during the Indian army\u2019s storming of the Golden Temple \u2014 the Sikhs\u2019… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"yoast_head":"\n6 June 1984: Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, militant Sikh religious preacher, died -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"- 6 June 1984: Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, militant Sikh religious preacher, died\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/on-this-day\/6-june-1984-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-militant-sikh-religious-preacher-died\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"6 June 1984: Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, militant Sikh religious preacher, died -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"- 6 June 1984: Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, militant Sikh religious preacher, died\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/on-this-day\/6-june-1984-jarnail-singh-bhindranwale-militant-sikh-religious-preacher-died\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"What Happened on This Day in History - 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