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Sant Jarnail
Singh Bhindrenwale
Sant Jarnail
Singh Bhindrenwale was a (and to some extent still is )
Sikh hero of modern times. He was born in the family of
Brar-Jatt Baba Joginder Singh and Mata Nihal Kaur of
the village Rode in Faridkot District. Baba Joginder
Singh was a farmer of moderate means. Bhindrenwale was
youngest of the seven brothers. After primary education
took up farming in his village. He engaged himself in
farming until 1965 when he joined the Damdami Taksal of
Bhinder Kalan village, about 15 km north of Moga, then
headed by Sant Gurbachan Singh Khalsa. Hence the
epithet Bhindrenwale. But his association with Bhinder
village was only notional because Sant Gurbachan Singh,
though associated with Gurdwara Akhand Prakash at
Bhinder Kalan, usually took out his group of pupils on
prolonged tours. Jarnail Singh underwent a one-year
course in scriptural, theological and historical
studies, at the hands of Sant Gurbachan Singh Khalsa
partly during one of his tours but for the most part
during his stay at Gurdwara Sis Asthan Patshahi IX,
near Nabha Sahib village, 15 km south of Chandigarh
along the Chandigarh-Patiala road. In 1966, he rejoined
his Family and settled down to farming again. He was
married in 1966 to Bibi Pritam Kaur, daughter of Bhai
Sucha Singh of Bilaspur, and had two sons, Ishar Singh
and Inderjit Singh, born in 1971 and 1975 respectively.
He continued his religious studies and also kept his
close association with the Taksal, which after the
death of Sant Gurbachan Singh Khalsa, in June 1969, was
headed by Sant Kartar Singh Khalsa, who established his
headquarters at Gurdwara Gurdarshan Prakash at Mehta
Chowk, 25 km northeast of Amritsar along the road to
Sri Hargobindpur. Sant Kartar Singh khalsa was killed
in a road accident. Before his deadh on 16 August 1977,
he had mentioned the name of Sant Jarnail Singh as his
successor as the new head of Damdami Taksal. Sant
Jarnail Singh was formally, elected at the bhog
ceremony in honour of Sant Kartar Singh Khalsa at Mehta
Chowk on 25 August 1977.
He had a
meteoric rise to fame and his photographs began to be
avidly displayed on the front pages of newspapers and
journals across the continents. Trained in a Sikh
seminary to preach the holy word of the Gurus, he stood
face to face with history at several critical moments.
Bhindrenwale within his seven brief years of a total of
37, marked by a precipitous course, emerged as a man of
extraordinary grit and charisma. Soon he came to be
talked about in the far-flung academe as well as in
political forums.
Sant Jarnail
Singh exhibited remarkable enthusiasm in carrying out
his missionary responsibilities. The primary task he
addressed was the administrating of amrit (Khanda Baate
da Pahul) . He vehemintly denounced drugs, alcoholic
drinks and trimming of hair. He took special notice of
the Nirankari heresy Which was undermining the Sikh
Structure. Opposition to the Nirankaris had started
during the time of his predecessor, Sant Kartar Singh
Khalsa. Matters camee to a head on the Baisdkhi day of
1978 when Nirankaris held a convention at Amritsar. The
Damdami Taksal under Sant Jarnal Singh Bhindrenwale and
the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, another purely religious
organization, protested against government allowing the
Nirankaris to hold their convention at a time the Sikhs
were celebrating the birth anniverssary of the Khalsa.
Some of them who marched to the site of the convention
were fired upon by Nirankari guardsmen killing 13 of
them on the spot and wounding 78 others. The episode
brought Sant Bhindrenwale into the political arena. He
was more against the Akali Dal which was then leading
the government in the Punjab and was partner in the
central authority in Delhi. On 4 january 1980, two days
before the Lok Sabha poll, all the 64 Nirankari
accused, including their chief Gurbachan Singh, being
tried for the killing of Sikhs, were set at liberty, by
the sessions judge of Karnal in Haryana. This bittered
Sant Bhindranwale. The media in the Punjab took the
part of the Nirankaris on the pica of' secularism. So
did the Congress party which, on returning to power at
the Centre, dismissed the Akali government in the
Punjab, where too fresh elections were held and
Congress government installed. On 9 September 1981,
Lala Jagat Narain, a press baron of jalandhar, highly
critical of Sant Bhindrenwale, was assassinated. The
Sant too had been a strong critic of Jagat Narain. The
government suspected the Sant's hand in the murder and
issued warrants for his arrest. He was then on a
preaching tour in Haryana and was camping at Chando
Kalan village in Hissar district when a combined force
of Punjab and Haryana police raided the village to nab
him. He himself escaped to the security of his own
headquarters at Mehta Chowk, but the police fired upon
his jathd or band of disciples; their baggage was
looted, and some of the sacred texts burnt.
The Sant
offered himself for arrest on 20 September 1981. This
was followed by, a spate of violence. The Sant was
released after the Central Home Minister, Giani Zail
Singh, declared in the Parliament on 14 October 1981
that there was no evidence against him to show his hand
in Jagat Narain's murder. The Sant had seen through the
Congress conspiracy loaded against the Sikhs. His
arrest and Subsequent release raised the Sant's stature
among the Sikh community who, especially the youth,
judging hitu against the moderate Akali leadership,
flocked under his banner in ever increasing numbers.
The Sant became increasingly outspoken. The governnient
took notice of the change in Bhindrenwale's stance and
proceeded to take action against him. An attempt Was
made to arrest him while he was on a visit to Bombay
was staying in the Singh Sabha Gurdwara at Dadar on 20
April 1982, but Sant Bhindrenwale was again able to
reach safely in the Gurdwara at Mehta Chowk. On 19 July
1982 the police arrested Bhai Amrik Singh son of the
late Sant Kartar Singh Khalsa and president of the All
India Sikh Students Federation. Another senior member
of thc Damdami Taksal, Bhai Thind Singh, was arrested
on the following day. Sant Bhindrenwale felt highly
provoked. Feeling that sanctuary at Mehta Chowk was not
safe enough, he moved to the Guru Nanak Nivas rest
house in the Darbar Sahib complex in Amritsar on 20
july and called for a Panthic convention on 25 july at
which he announced thc launching of a morcha (campaign)
For thc release of his men. Meanwhile., the Shiromai
Akali Dal had been conducting a morcha since April 1982
against the digging of Satluj-Yamuna Link (S.Y.L.)
canal which would divert part of Punjab's river waters
to Haryana. The agitation inspite of immense support
from the Sikh peasantry was not bearing any tangible
fruit because the site (Kapori village on the
Haryana-Punjab border where the Indian Prime minister
had inaugurated the digging of the canal on 6 April
1982 was in a remote corner away from the Dal's
headquarters. The Dal now decided to transfer the
agitation, now designated Dharam Yuddh or religious
war, to Amritsar from 4 August 1982. Sant jarnail Singh
merged his own morcha with it, and thus became in a way
the joint dictator of the entire Panth though he still
swore loyalty to the former dictator of the Akali
morcha, Sant Harchand Singh Longowal.
A further
provocation to the Sikhs came from the behaviour of the
Haryana government and police during the Asian Games
held at Delhi in November 1982. Sikhs travelling from
Punjab to Delhi or back were indiscriminately stopped,
searched and humiliated. Violence in the Punjab was on
the increase. It was becoming more and more clear that
the government would seek a military Solution of the
situation in Punjab rather than a political one. Sant
Bhindranwale exhorted the people to be prepared for a
showdown. On 15 December 1983, he with his men entered
the Akal Takht and With the help of a former major
general of the Indian Army, Shahbeg Singh, prepared a
network of defensive fortifications inside the complex
collecting in the meanwhile a large stock of arms,
ammunition and rations anticipating the possibility of
a prolonged siege. The government on its part made
elaborate plans for all army action while pretending
all along its readiness for negotiations and denying
any intention of sending armed forces inside the Darbar
Sahib complex. The Punjab was placed Under the
President's rule on 6 October 1983. A ordinance
declaring parts of the state a disturbed area was
promulgated, and the police was given power to search,
arrest or even shoot whom they will with immunity from
legal action. Six additional divisions of the army
including especially trained para commandos were
inducted into Punjab by the end of May 1984. On 1 June,
while the Sikhs had started preparations in the Golden
Temple for the observation of the martyrdom anniversary
of Guru Arjan, which fell on the 3rd of June, strict
curfew was clamped on Amritsar and surrounding
districts. The actual assault of the army's operation
nicknamed Blue Star took place on the night of 5-6 June
1984. A pitched battle ensued in which the army also
used tanks and artillery. On the 7 Of June the dead
body of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was located in
the basement of the Akal Takht.
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