Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 1
JASWANT SINGH KHALRA:
A MARTYR FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
CHAPTER ONE

PART ONE: EVIDENCE OF MASS ILLEGAL
CREMATIONS

The Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP) came into
existence on 9 November 1997 with the following agenda:
(a) To develop a voluntary mechanism to collect and collate information about the
people who have disappeared from all over the state, and to ensure that the
matter of police abductions leading to illegal cremation of dead bodies proceeds
meaningfully and culminates in a just and satisfactory final order;
(b) To evolve a workable system of state accountability, and to build pressure of
public opinion to counter the bid for immunity;
(c) To lobby for India to change its domestic laws in conformity with the UN instruments
on torture, enforced disappearances, accountability, compensation to
victims of abuse of power and other related matters;
(d) To initiate a debate on vital issues of state power, its distribution, accountability
and to work for a shared perspective on these matters with groups and movements
all over India.
The CCDP and its agenda have their origin in the work done by Jaswant Singh
Khalra, the general secretary of the Akali Dal’s human rights wing. In the year
1995, Khalra worked to initiate the public interest litigation on what has come to be
known as the matter of police abductions leading to secret cremations in Punjab.
Khalra disappeared following his abduction by armed commandos of the Punjab
police on 6 September 1995.
In January 1995, Khalra released some official documents claiming that the
security agencies in Punjab had been secretly cremating thousands of bodies labeled
as unidentified. Khalra suggested that most of these cremations were of those
people picked up illegally by the Punjab police for interrogation about their links
with the separatist movement that had plagued the state from 1984 to 1994. The
evidence produced by him to substantiate these charges consisted of entries made
in the firewood purchase registers maintained at three crematoria in Amritsar district
when the police officials came with the bodies and purchased 300 kilograms of
wood required to burn a single body. Khalra went with these records to the Punjab
and Haryana High Court through a writ petition to ask for an independent investigation.
1 But the court dismissed the petition, remarking that the petitioner had no
locus standi in the matter. This was an extraordinary ground for the high court
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4 Reduced to Ashes
1 Criminal Writ Petition No. 990 of 1995.
2 S. P. Gupta Vs Union of India, 1981 Supp. SCC 87 AIR 1982 SC 149.
3 Forwarded Construction Vs Prabhat Mondal, 1986 (1) SCC 100: AIR 1986 SC 39; S. P. Gupta Vs
Union of India, Op. Ct.).
4 D. C. Wadhwa Vs. State of Bihar, AIR 1987 SC 579: 1987 (1) SCC 378; Seonandan Paswan Vs. State
of Bihar, AIR 1987 SC 877: 1987 SCC (Cri) 82: 1987 (1) SCC 288: 1987 Cri LJ 793; People’s Union
for Democratic Rights Vs. Union of India, 1982 (3) SCC 235; Mukesh Advani Vs State of MP, 1985 (3)
SCC 162: 1985 SCC (L & S) 655; State of Himachal Pradesh Vs. Parent, SCC 169: AIR 1985 SC 910;
MC Mehta Vs. Union of India, AIR 1985 (1) SCC 395; Upendra Baxi Vs State of UP, 1986 (2) SCC
146.
Article 32 (1) of the Indian Constitution says: (1) The right to move the Supreme Court by
appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights conferred by this Part is guaranteed.
(2) The Supreme Court shall have power to issue directions or orders or writs, including writs in the
nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari, whichever may be
appropriate, for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by this Part.
Article 226 (1) says: Notwithstanding anything in Article 32, every high court shall have powers,
throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction, to issue to any person or
authority, including in appropriate cases, any government, within those territories directions, orders or
writs, including writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibitions, quo warranto and
certiorari, or any of them, for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by Part III and for any other
purpose.
5 P. Gupta Vs Union of India, 1981 Supp. SCC 87 AIR 1982 SC 562.
6 Sheela Barse Vs. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1983 (SC) 378.
7 I refers to Ram Narayan Kumar
to dismiss a petition that revealed violations of fundamental human rights of so
serious a nature and at such a wide scale.
In 1981, Justice P. N. Bhagawati of the Supreme Court of India defined public
interest litigation as its strategic arm to bring justice “within the reach of the poor,
vulnerable masses and helpless victims of injustice”.2 Discussing the question of
locus standi in public interest litigation, the Supreme Court has ruled that any citizen
with sufficient knowledge and interest could claim standing in litigations undertaken
for the purpose of redressing public injury, enforcing public duty or vindicating
public interest.3 It is under this principle that the Supreme Court and the high
courts have been treating even newspaper reports, letters and telegrams received
from citizens on a diverse range of issues involving fundamental human rights as
petitions under Article 32 and 226 of the Indian Constitution, which lay down clear
obligations on the higher judiciary to protect and enforce respect for human rights.4
In a case known as the Judges’ Transfer Case, the Supreme Court had actually
turned the doctrine of locus standi on its head by ruling that the public interest
litigation required absence of personal interest.5 In Sheela Barse Vs the State of
Maharashtra, arising from a journalist’s discovery of the sorry plight of a mental
asylum inmates, the Supreme Court actually disallowed the petitioner from withdrawing
the case by ruling that as she was not the injured party, the Court had to do
a follow-up on the case till the rights of the victims had been fully restored.6 The
dismissal of Khalra’s petition by the high court, against the established principles
of public interest litigation, indicated the difficulties of applying the rationality of
law and respect for facts in the face of political prejudice and the rhetoric of national
interest that considered the issues of human rights in Punjab to be irrelevant.
Following the dismissal, I7 , along with Khalra, traveled extensively in Amritsar
to review and corroborate the evidence he had gathered. I talked to the attendants
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 5
8 Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab Vs the State of Punjab and others, Writ Petition
(Crl.) No. 447/95.
9 Para. 1 of the petition.
10 Ibid.
of the cremation grounds, the doctors who had conducted post-mortems and also
the relatives of victims who furnished the necessary evidence to establish linkages
between the disappearances and illegal cremations. The attendants of the cremation
grounds told me that the police often bought firewood for one or two bodies but
dumped many more on a single pyre. The chief medical officer (CMO) of a civil
hospital in the district confessed that the procedure of post-mortem had been simplified
to the extent that it meant no more than filling a paper announcing the cause
and the time of death, with the policemen providing the information.
The CMO also gave gruesome details of Sarabjit Singh’s post-mortem. On 30
October 1993, police officials brought the supposedly dead body of Sarabjit Singh
to the hospital for a post-mortem. A doctor at the hospital found out that the man
with a bullet injury to his head was still breathing. Thereafter, the police officers
took the injured Sarabjit Singh away, came back with his corpse, and forced a different
doctor to fill in the autopsy report. I was also able to interview many serving
and retired police officers who, on condition of anonymity, provided detailed narratives
of summary executions and illegal cremations as part of a strategy to weed
out the Sikh separatist militancy.
On the basis of these investigations, the Committee for Information and Initiative
on Punjab (CIIP) moved the Supreme Court to demand a comprehensive inquiry.
8 Drawing the attention of the Court to the problem of “disappearances” in
Punjab, the petition claimed that the Punjab police had carried out illegal cremation
of thousands of “unidentified” bodies throughout the state.9 The petition went on to
affirm that “over 3,000 families of the district of Amritsar alone have one or more
‘disappearance’ to report”. To show what might have happened to them, the petition
furnished the records of wood purchase made by the police officials at Durgiana
Mandir and Patti cremation grounds of Amritsar district. The fourth paragraph of
the petition said: “What is being talked about is the systematic and sustained policy
of murder/extra- judicial execution and disposal of bodies by the police all over the
state. These bodies were cremated as ‘unidentified’ not because their identities were
not known or not knowable or because there was no one to claim the dead, but as a
matter of deliberate policy.”
The petition then pointed out that the Punjab Police Rules, under rule 25.38 of
chapter XXV, clearly stipulated an elaborate procedure to be followed before cremating
unidentified bodies. The rules of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) also
prescribed the course of action to be followed in case of death in any unnatural
manner. The police had not followed these rules and procedures mandatory under
the law. The petition concluded its substantive part by declaring that cremations
explained only some “disappearances” since the reports about the recovery of bodies
from all of the major and minor canals, published in several newspapers, showed
that the police had been getting rid of the bodies through other ways too. The petition
demanded a comprehensive inquiry also on the ground that the families of the
people who had disappeared had the right to receive concrete information about the
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6 Reduced to Ashes
fate of their loved ones after the police illegally took them away.10
Following a preliminary hearing, the Supreme Court asked the CIIP to first
establish a real connection between the complaints of police abductions and reports
on illegal cremations. It was a difficult task since relatives of the victims did not
know what happened after the police abducted the victims and their disappearance.
However, the CIIP was able to file an affidavit of Baldev Singh that compellingly
established the connections between the abductions, disappearances and secret disposal
of bodies. The affidavit recounted the following experiences of a desperate
father after the police abducted his son from a cinema hall in Amritsar city on 19
September 1990:
Sixty-five-year-old Baldev Singh from Amritsar had retired from 9 Punjab Regiment
of the Indian Army after suffering serious injuries during the war with Pakistan
in 1965, which he fought at Poonch sector in Jammu and Kashmir. Baldev
Singh’s eldest daughter Manjit Kaur had been India’s star female weight-lifter,
earning 19 gold medals. She had also represented India in many international events,
including the Asian Games held in Beijing. His youngest son, 25-year-old Pragat
Singh, earned his livelihood by running a dairy farm. The police began to harass
him, picking him up for interrogation and torturing him in illegal custody. Unable
to put up with the harassment, Pragat Singh ran away from home but was arrested
on 19 September 1990 while he was watching a film along with his cousin Chayan
Singh at Sandhu Talkies, a cinema hall in Amritsar.
On 5 November 1992, newspapers reported Pragat Singh’s death in a supposed
armed encounter with the police near Raja Sansi, a suburb of Amritsar. Baldev
Singh spoke to an employee at the General Hospital in Amritsar where the postmortem
of the body had been conducted. The employee’s description of the body
matched Pragat Singh’s.
Baldev Singh reached Durgiyana Mandir cremation ground just as the police lit
the pyre. The head was already burning, but the rest of the body was still intact.
Although Baldev Singh was allowed to carry the ashes for the last rites, the abduction
and the illegal cremation of Pragat Singh remained officially unacknowledged.
Baldev Singh’s affidavit also said that his daughter Manjit Kaur was so traumatized
by the incident that she decided never again to represent India in any competitive
sport.
After receiving the affidavit, the Supreme Court admitted the petition and
issued notice to the Punjab government.
The Abduction of Jaswant Singh Khalra
On 6 September 1995, around 9:20 a.m., armed commandos of the Punjab police
kidnapped Jaswant Singh Khalra while he was washing his car, outside his home at
8, Kabir Park, Amritsar. Four of the abductors, who came in a blue-colored Maruti
van, were wearing Punjab police uniforms and armed with automatic weapons.
Rajiv Singh Randhawa, a local journalist and Khalra’s friend, was visiting Khalra
that morning and witnessed the abduction. The journalist identified three persons in
a police jeep behind the blue van as deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Ashok
Kumar, SHO Surinderpal Singh of the Sarhali police station and Prithipal Singh,
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 7
11 The SGPC, which controls the management and the liturgy of all of the historical Sikh shrines, is a
powerful organization elected by all Sikhs as their religious parliament.
head constable of the Manochahal police station.
Jaswant Singh Khalra had for some time been receiving direct and indirect threats
from the police officials of Amritsar district, particularly from Tarn Taran’s senior
superintendent of police (SSP) Ajit Singh Sandhu. The latter had warned that unless
Khalra ceased his involvement in the matter, he would also become an unidentified
body. Although Khalra’s friends and associates, including then president of
the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) and senior Akali leader
Gurcharan Singh Tohra, advised him to leave the scene for a while, he refused to
cower under threats and decided to continue with human rights work in his native
region.
Rajiv Singh Randhwa, the eye-witness to Jaswant Singh Khalra’s abduction,
immediately telephoned Mrs. Paramjit Kaur Khalra, who worked as a librarian at
the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, to inform her about it. On the way to
the library, which is at five minutes of walking distance from her house, she had
noticed a police vehicle parked at the end of the street by her house and had also
recognized SHO Jasvir Singh of Manochahal police station and SHO Surinderpal
Singh of Sarhali police station in Tarn Taran who were standing near the vehicle.
After receiving the telephone call, Paramjit Kaur Khalra rushed home and together
with Rajiv Singh Randhawa went to Islamabad police station to lodge a complaint
about the abduction. The police refused to register her complaint. She then went to
meet inspector-general of police (IG) D. R. Bhatti who promised to make inquiries.
When Paramjit Kaur, accompanied by several sympathizers went to him again
on September 7 morning, the IG claimed to have failed to obtain any information
about her husband’s abduction. Mrs. Khalra then went to the office of the SGPC11
within the Golden Temple complex and met with its president Gurcharan Singh
Tohra, who immediately sent a telegram addressed to Justice Kuldip Singh of the
Supreme Court.
Intervention by the Supreme Court
On 11 September 1995, Justice Kuldip Singh passed an order to admit Tohra’s
telegram as a habeas corpus petition and issued notice to the officials of the Punjab
government instructing them to either produce Jaswant Singh Khalra or account for
his whereabouts within a week.
Amritsar’s superintendent of police (SP) Sukhdev Singh Chhina filed an affidavit
claiming that Khalra was not wanted in connection with any case and that the
police had not arrested him. Other officials filed affidavits declaring that the Punjab
authorities were making all efforts to trace Khalra. They also claimed that he might
have become a victim of inter gang rivalries and a rival group of militants may have
taken him away. SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu of Tarn Taran filed a statement denying
that he had ever threatened Khalra. Meanwhile, Paramjit Kaur Khalra had also filed
a regular petition for a writ of habeas corpus, giving a detailed description of the
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8 Reduced to Ashes
12 Equivalent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the USA, the CBI is the premier investigative
agency created in 1963 under the Union home ministry. It comprises approximately 5,000 handpicked
police officials from various police cadres in the country. An offshoot of the Delhi Special Police
Establishment created by the British government during the second world war to investigate
allegations of kickbacks and corruption connected with heavy defense purchases, the CBI remained
an anti-corruption organization in its initial years. Later, it began to investigate offences relating to the
Indian Penal Code specially notified by the Central government. As the National Crime Bureau, the
CBI also coordinates with the International Criminal Police Organization [ICPO] more commonly
known as Interpol and other international police agencies. The CBI also maintains the Central Forensic
Science Laboratory, separate ballistic and polygraph divisions and the Central Fingerprints Bureau at
Calcutta.
Given its reputation for high standards of efficiency, integrity and impartiality, the Supreme Court has
been using the CBI to investigate high-profile and politically sensitive cases involving corruption in high
places. The trend started with the investigation of the Bofors deal in 1990, initiated under Prime
Minister V. P. Singh, under allegations that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his close
associates had received heavy kickbacks from the Swedish armament company. Other sensational
cases investigated by the CBI include the case of bribing members of Parliament by Prime Minister
Narasimha Rao, the St. Kitts case, Lakhubhai Pathak case also implicating Prime Minister Rao and
the Jain Hawala case that incriminated a host of important politicians across party lines in accusations
of receiving illegal funds from dubious sources.
Joginder Singh, a Sikh Indian Police Service [IPS] officer of Karnataka cadre, was the director of the
CBI when the Supreme Court referred the matter of illegal cremations to the agency. Harbans Singh,
CBI File, Roli Books International, New Delhi, 1987; Harbans Singh, The CBI File-2, Dehradun, 1989;
Joginder Singh, Without Fear or Favour: An Autobiography, Kaveri Books, New Delhi, 1998; Joginder
Singh, Inside the CBI, Chandrika Publications, New Delhi, 1999; Joginder Singh, Outside the CBI,
Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi 1999.
abduction on the basis of eye-witness accounts.
On 15 November 1995, Punjab’s advocate-general requested the Court to hand
over the investigation of Khalra’s abduction and disappearance to the Central Bureau
of Investigation (CBI) as the police inquiries were getting nowhere.12 Accordingly,
the Court directed the CBI to appoint an investigation team under a responsible
officer. The Court also took note of the allegations regarding police abductions,
disappearances and illegal cremations, made by Jaswant Singh Khalra in a
press release dated 16 January 1995. In its 15 November 1995 order instituting
these inquiries, Justice Kuldip Singh observed: “In case it is found that the facts
stated in the press note are correct – even partially – it would be a gory-tale of
human rights violations. It is horrifying to visualize that dead bodies of larger number
of persons – allegedly thousands – could be cremated by the police unceremoniously
with a label ‘unidentified’. Our faith in democracy and rule of law assures
us that nothing of the type can ever happen in this country but the allegations in the
press note – horrendous as they are – need thorough investigation. We, therefore,
direct the director, CBI to appoint a high powered team to investigate the facts
contained in the press note dated 16 January, 1995. We direct all the concerned
authorities of the State of Punjab including the DGP to render all assistance to the
CBI in the investigation… The CBI shall complete the investigation regarding the
kidnapping of Khalra within three months… So far as the second investigation is
concerned, we do not fix any time limit but direct the CBI to file interim reports…
after every three months.”
It is important to notice that the Court’s order did not set any limit to the inquiry;
territorial, numerical or by the mode of disposal of corpses. It only talked about the
gory tale of human rights violations, the horrendous allegations and the need to
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 9
investigate the facts contained in the press note. Following this order, fulfilling the
plea for a comprehensive inquiry, the CIIP’s petition 447/95 was also transferred to
the same bench of the court under Justice Kuldip Singh. Hereafter, both the petitions
were heard simultaneously.
On 22 July 1996, the CBI submitted an interim report disclosing 984 illegal
cremations at Tarn Taran from 1984 to 1994. The CBI also asked for the court
to order registration of three separate criminal cases against the police officials
with respect to three deaths under suspicious circumstances. The Court ordered
the CBI to register the cases. It also directed the investigative agency to issue a
general notice to the public at large to assist in the inquiry. The Court’s order
dated 22 July 1996 said: “Since a large number of bodies have been allegedly
disposed of by the police, it may be necessary to seek assistance from the
public at large. We direct the CBI, in the course of enquiry to issue a general
direction to the public at large that if any person/authority/government
office has any information/material which may be of any assistance to the
CBI in the enquiry in this matter, the same shall be placed before the CBI. We
direct Mr. P. S. Sandhu, DIG (border) to hand over all the relevant records to
the CBI immediately.”
On 30 July 1996, the CBI submitted its report on Khalra’s abduction and disappearance,
holding nine officers of the Punjab police under SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu
responsible. At the CBI’s request, the Court directed their prosecution on charges
of conspiracy and “kidnapping with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a
person”. The Court also directed the chief secretary of Punjab to sanction their
prosecution within three weeks of the order. The sanction order dated 19 August
1996 elucidated the CBI’s findings that established the criminal conspiracy to abduct
Jaswant Singh Khalra. The sanction order pointed out that on 24 October
1995, 48 days after his abduction, Khalra was seen in illegal detention at Kang
police station, by one Kikkar Singh who was also detained there illegally. The
sanction order mentioned that Kikkar Singh witnessed injuries on Khalra’s body,
the evidence of his custodial torture. It went on to say that Kikkar Singh helped
Khalra eat before he was taken away from the Kang police station, never to be seen
again. Kikkar Singh’s illegal detention from 14 October to 11 November 1995, as
elucidated in the governor’s sanction order, was independently corroborated by an
inquiry conducted by the chief judicial magistrate of Chandigarh, relied on by the
High Court of Punjab and Haryana to grant him monetary compensation. The evidence
on record in the governor’s order of sanction confirmed serious offences
under sections 302, 364, 346, 330, 331 and 120 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).13
However, the offenders were arrested only under section 365 of IPC which is “kidnapping
with the intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a person”, a woefully
insufficient charge in the face of evidence that proved kidnapping with the intent to
murder, illegal confinement, custodial torture and custodial murder. Subsequently,
former special police officer Kuldip Singh, who was attached to the Kang police
station told the CBI that Khalra was tortured and then shot dead in the night
of 24 October 1995. His body was dismembered and thrown in river Sutlej near
13 Governor’s Order of Sanction, No. 11/237/96-3H(I)/Spl.942, dated 19 August 1996.
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14 The Supreme Court of India, Court No. 2. Record of Proceedings, in the matter of W. P. (Crl.) 497 of
1996, Paramjit Kaur Vs. State of Punjab and Ors. Order dated 7 August 1996.
15 Paramjit Kaur & Committee for Information & Initiative on Punjab, Vs. State of Punjab, Writ Petitions
(Crl.) Nos. 497/95 and 447/95, Order dated 12 December 1996.
Hari Ke Pattan.
None of these facts, described in the sanction order and Kuldip Singh’s testimony,
were known to the court, which had presumed Khalra to be alive, when it
ordered the prosecution of the officials on 30 July 1996. On 7 August 1996, the
court also directed the Punjab government to pay one million rupees as interim
compensation to Mrs. Khalra. The court’s order said: “The fact remains that the
abductors are keeping Khalra away from his family since 6 September 1995. Kidnapping
of a person whose family is totally in dark about his whereabouts – even
about the fact whether he is alive or dead – is the worst crime against humanity.
Under such circumstances, we direct the Punjab government to pay a sum of Rs. 10
lakh as interim compensation to Mrs. Paramjit Kaur, wife of Mr. Jaswant Singh
Khalra. In case the police officers are convicted, the State of Punjab can recover the
amount from the police officers…”14
The CBI launched a prosecution against SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu and others under
section 365 of the IPC, i.e. “kidnapping with the intent to secretly and wrongfully
confine a person”, a balefully insufficient charge in the face of the evidence
proving kidnapping with the intent to murder, illegal confinement and custodial
torture. On 16 November 1996, the district and sessions court in Patiala released
SSP Sandhu on bail.
On 10 December 1996, the CBI submitted its final and fifth report on the
larger issue of police abductions and illegal disposal of the bodies. The Court
decided to keep its full contents secret, as urged by the CBI officials on the
ground that further investigations would be hampered by the publication of the
report. However, the Court’s 12 December 1996 order disclosed 2,098 illegal
cremations including 582 fully identified, 278 partially identified and 1,238
unidentified, carried out by the state agencies at three crematoria of Amritsar
district, one of Punjab’s 17 districts. Presumably, the CBI obtained these figures
by investigating the records the CIIP had furnished to substantiate its allegations.
The Supreme Court observed that “the report discloses flagrant violation
of human rights on a mass scale.” Instructing the CBI to investigate criminal
culpability and to submit a quarterly status report on its progress, the Court’s
12 December 1996 order said: “We request the National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC) through its chairman to have the matter examined in accordance
with the law and determine all the issues which are raised before the
NHRC by the learned counsel for the parties. Since the matter is going to be
examined by the NHRC at the request of this Court, any compensation awarded
shall be binding and payable.” 15
Six years have passed since the Supreme Court referred the matter to the NHRC.
However, there has been no meaningful progress even as the CCDP tried, under
considerable difficulties, to assist the NHRC in its task with its documentation work
through the CIIP based in Delhi.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 11
PART TWO: NARRATIVE HISTORY OF PUNJAB
AND HUMAN RIGHTS INSPIRATIONS
Before going into the six-year-long history of the proceedings before the National
Human Rights Commission (NHRC), we shall interrupt the narrative to ruminate
over some experiential and inspirational elements of Jaswant Singh Khalra’s life
that prompted him to sacrifice his life for the cause of justice and human rights in
Punjab. The reflection, apart from being a tribute to his memory, should help the
reader understand the historical context of the work undertaken by the Committee
for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP). The biographical references
are derived from our conversation with Khalra’s parents, his wife, friends
and associates.
Jaswant Singh Khalra was born in 1952 in Khalra village of Amritsar district,
situated on India’s border with Pakistan in a Punjab divided between the two countries
at the time of the Independence in 1947. Khalra village was a part of the larger
parish called Pathana that was divided between India and Pakistan. For the Sikhs,
the village was very important because of a shrine believed to have been constructed
by the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak. Remnants of the shrine can still be found there.
The original Sikh inhabitants of the village claim their descent from a group of
Sandhu Sikhs who, in 1714, had captured the region. They were members of the
peasant militia of Banda Singh Bahadur, converted to Sikhism by the last Sikh
guru, Guru Govind Singh, before his assassination in 1708. Banda Singh Bahadur
led a peasant uprising in Punjab in the last seven years of his life to irreversibly
destroy the facade of the Mughal empire already on a decline. An ancestor of the
Khalra family, Sardar Surat Singh, was the leader of the group. A monument that
commemorates his bravery and leadership is still exists in the village.
The Gadhr Movement
Jaswant Singh’s grandfather Harnam Singh had migrated to Shanghai before the
outbreak of the first world war in 1914. There, he became involved with a group of
Indian revolutionaries under Gurdit Singh, originally from Sarhali village in Amritsar
district and the founder of a group called Ghadr, meaning revolt, that aimed to
overthrow the British rule in India. Gurdit Singh was based in Singapore and was a
confident of Har Dayal who had escaped to the United States after making an abortive
bid to assassinate Viceroy Hardinge on 23 December 1912 in Delhi. On that
day, Delhi was witnessing a gala celebration to mark its new status as India’s Capital
city and the viceroy was riding an elephant in a commemorative parade when an
acid bomb, thrown by a bystander, exploded against his saddle, killing an Indian
attendant. Hardinge only suffered minor injuries. The assassins managed to escape.16
16 Richard J. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the
Indian Empire, 1904-1924, Frank Cass, London, 1995, pp. 80-81.
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12 Reduced to Ashes
17 Enclosures of a letter to the Secretary of State for India, No. 179, 15 Nov., 1887, “Memorandum on the
Formation of an Intelligence Department under the Government of India”, Cross Papers, IOLR Mss.
Eur. E. 243/23; extract of a letter from Colonel Henderson, Superintendent of Thugee and Dacoity to
Secretary, Foreign Department, on the supposed interest taken by the Sikhs in Dulip Singh’s
movements, June 1887, Cross Papers, IOLR Mss. Eur. E. 243/22 – quoted in Richard J. Popplewell,
ibid., pp. 22-25.
18 Quoted in J. M. Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, OUP, 1985, p. 100
19 Mss. Eur. D. 573/84, Letter dated 8 December 1908, LOR:L.
20 Note by the Home Department on Letter from the government of India, No. 91-p, dated 8 January
1910, HAD April 1910, nos. 59-62, quoted in Richard J. Popplewell, ibid, p. 110.
These revolutionary groups, that had begun to coordinate their strategies and
operations in the wake of the movement to oppose Bengal’s partition in 1905,
were now taking inspiration from the radical political ideologies and anarchist
movements in the western countries. One of their objectives was to use the racist
propaganda and anti-immigration laws in Canada and North America to convert
ordinary peasant Sikh immigrants from Punjab to join the anti-imperialist movement.
Their apparent success required the government to reorganize its intelligence
operations on a global scale, embracing India, Britain, several other countries
in Europe, North America and the Far East. Punjab had taken an early lead in
setting up a special branch in 1876 to receive and distribute secret information of
political nature. The work from Punjab was very useful and allowed the government
to monitor and curb political sedition without having to follow extensively
repressive measures, of which the authorities were generally wary.17 As early as
1881, Viceroy Ripon wrote: “I hold as strongly as any man that we must be careful
to maintain our military strength; but, whatever may have been the case in the
past, we cannot now rely upon military force alone; and policy as well as justice,
ought to prompt us to endeavour to govern more and more by means of, and in
accordance with, that growing public opinion, which is beginning to show itself
throughout the country.”18
But violent unrest assumed serious proportions after the Bengal partition and
required efficient handling. In those days, the police did not fake “encounters”;
revolutionaries were deported. Even then the question of evidence, as the following
letter from John Morley, the Secretary of State for India from 1905 to 1910, shows,
was a matter of scrutiny: “...Of course, I know that you will take all possible pains
not to seize wrong men... Your evidence which is to reach me soon, will be scanned
by me with a sharp eye.”19 In January 1910, the Bengal government asked the
viceroy for permission to deport Noni Gopal Sengupta, whom the intelligence agencies
had identified as the main terrorist, although the police had failed to catch him
in the act. The Government of India replied that it did not regard deportation “as a
proper and permissible substitute for good police administration”.20 Even to place a
suspect under police surveillance, the government had to have enough evidence to
justify the measure. In early 1909, the director of the Criminal Intelligence Department
(CID) placed a well-known nationalist leader called Gopal Krishna Deodhar
under surveillance when he went to the United Province. Deodhar was associated
with Lala Lajpat Rai, a radical leader from Punjab involved in the anti-partition
movement. When Deodhar complained, the local government sided with him on
the ground that the CID did not have sufficient evidence to justify his surveillance,
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 12 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 13
which had to be withdrawn.21 The officials felt exasperated. One senior officer
complained: “The criminal intelligence departments are frequently subjected to
attacks both from friends and foes; on the one side for their failure to detect the
central organization which is supposed to exist and, on the other, for alleged needless
and excessive attention paid to imaginary and innocent suspects and to societies
and religious organizations, which are ostensibly and professedly harmless… it
is quite impossible to keep a watch over the individuals and institutions that must be
watched, and yet avoid at all times the occurrence here and there of some vexatious
action by blundering subordinates.”22
Developments in Punjab, a strategic province because of its border with Afghanistan
and the primary recruiting ground for the Indian Army, particularly alarmed
the authorities.23 Madan Lal Dhingra, who killed William Curzon Wyllie in London,
was a young lad from Punjab. He had been recruited for the task by Shyamji
Krishnavarma, a wealthy merchant from Bombay who had come to Britain in 1897
to set up the Indian Home Rule Society. By 1909, three other prominent Indian
revolutionaries, Bipin Chandra Pal, G. S. Khaparde and Vinayak Damodhar Savarkar
were operating from London. All of them were openly advocating revolutionary
uprising. The Director CID received reports that members of the India House were
practising revolver shooting at a range near Tottenham Court Road and Dhingra
himself had been seen at a practice session on the evening of the assassination.24
The Sikhs who went to British Columbia and North America were getting involved
in more fearful initiatives. After his failed attempt to assassinate Viceroy
Hardinge, Har Dayal had escaped to North America to start a newspaper called
Ghadr from San Francisco. David Patrie, Delhi representative of the Director of
CID, called him the “presiding genius of the organization” and spent lot of time and
effort to convince the authorities to take legal action against Har Dayal for his role
in revolutionary conspiracies. The American authorities arrested him in February
1914. But Har Dayal jumped bail and fled to Switzerland. Soon, he would be
parleying with the German government for support to the revolutionary cause
in India.25
Jaswant Singh Khalra’s grandfather Harnam Singh and Gurdit Singh began to
work closely from the Far Eastern arena. In May 1914, both of them arrived at the
port of Vancouver with 376 Sikh immigrants in a passenger ship called Komagata
Maru. Immigrants were refused permission to land, and the ship was compelled to
return to Calcutta, arriving there on 27 September 1914. The British government in
India was keen to conciliate the Sikhs and proposed to send an officer to welcome
21 Notes in the Criminal Intelligence Department (CID), signed C. J. Stevenson-Moore, 22 March 1909, in
discontinuance of police surveillance over Pundit Gopal Krishna Deodhar and modification in the
procedure by which persons are placed under surveillance by orders from the director, CID, to the
local criminal investigation department without reference to the local governments. HDB: Oct. 1909,
nos. 167-8 in IOLR IOR.POS.8963; quoted in Richard J. Popplewell, ibid, p. 77.
22 Note by R. H. Craddock, 14 July 1914. HDD: July 1914 No. 34; quoted in Richard J. Popplewell, ibid,
p. 83.
23 Valentine Chirol, Indian Unrest, Macmillian, London 1910, p. 107, N. G. Barrier, The Punjab Alienation
of Land Bill of 1900, Burham, NC, 1966, p. 59.
24 Richard J. Popplewell, ibid, pp. 126-130.
25 Indian on the Pacific Coast: Proceedings of Har Dayal in the United States of America. HDB: No.
1913, nos. 62-3 in IOLR IOR. POS. 9836, in Richard J. Pollelwell, ibid, pp. 154-60.
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 13 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
14 Reduced to Ashes
them at Singapore and also to provide financial assistance to the destitute passengers.
But the first world war had disrupted the voyage. When the ship reached
Calcutta, a large group of police officers from Punjab, including David Patrie, were
already there to meet them. As a gesture of goodwill, the officers did not search the
ship in spite of the intelligence reports that there might be arms on board. The Sikh
passengers were told that they would not face punishment and would receive financial
assistance if they agreed to board a special train that would take them directly
back to Punjab.26
When the Sikhs refused and tried to leave the ship, they were forced back. The
Ingress into India Ordinance, promulgated in September 1914, allowed the authorities
to restrict the movements of anyone entering India. When the officers tried to
identify Gurdit Singh and Harnam Singh who had organized the voyage from
Singapore, many passengers got agitated and opened fire with revolvers, wounding
Petrie and several others. At this point, troops came in to force the Sikhs into the
train, but Gurdit Singh, Harnam Singh and 28 others managed to escape.27 The
incident and the subsequent intelligence operations revealed that the Ghadr organization
planned to systematically send revolutionaries into India to incite disturbances,
to carry out “violent deeds” of propaganda and to persuade Indian soldiers
to rebel mutiny. Official estimates said that between 1,000 to 3,000 immigrants
with active revolutionary connections had come into Punjab. According to Lieutenant-
Governor Michael O’Dwyer, these revolutionaries were able to impart seditious
sentiments to a large number of people in Punjab. He wrote: “I take it that
early this year there were from 6,000 to 10,000 men in the Punjab, who given the
arms, the direction and the opportunity, were ready to raise the standard of revolution.”
28
On 26 November 1914, the Ghadr revolutionaries made their first serious attempt
to provoke a mutiny in the Army. Having won over some troops from the 23rd
Cavalry, stationed at Amritsar, Ghadr revolutionaries marched to seize the magazine
at Lahore. But their plans were leaked and all of them were arrested in a Lahore
village. Another attempt at Ferozepur also failed, but a sub-inspector of police was
killed. Soldiers of those regiments that had returned from the Far East were most
susceptible to revolutionary ideas.29 But their organization had been deeply penetrated,
with close relatives of important revolutionaries themselves providing inside
information to the authorities. On 19 February 1915, the police raided the Ghadr
headquarters at Lahore and arrested 13 leaders of the organization along with their
arms, bombs, bomb-making materials, revolutionary literature, and rebel flags.30
Harnam Singh was one of them.
The government believed that the Ghadr Party had been formed in consultation
with the German officials who wanted to instigate a rebellion in India even before
26 Telegrams from Viceroy to Secretary of State, 2 Oct. 1914, CUL Hardinge Papers. Vol. 98. Richard J.
Popplewell, ibid pp. 167-8.
27 Telegram from the Viceroy to the Secretary of State, 1 Oct. 1914. CUL Hardinge papers, Vol. 88. Ker,
Political Trouble in India, Reprint, Calcutta, 1973, pp. 239-42.
28 Letter from O’Dwyer to Hardings, 8 Nov. 1915. CUL Hardinge Papers; Printed Letters and Telegrams,
Vol. 90, p. 369.
29 Ker, ibid, p. 367, Richard L. Popplewell, ibid, p. 172.
30 O’Dwyer, op. Cit., p. 202.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 15
the first world war broke out.31 The attempts to provoke a mutiny in the Army
really worried the British authorities. With only 73,500 British troops to control a
population of 303 million people, according to the census of 1911, the government
had to ensure that it did not have another mutiny like the one in 1857.32
Harnam Singh was lodged in the Campbellpur jail, now in Pakistan. He was
tried as an accused in the Lahore conspiracy case in 1915. Most of his co-accused,
including Gurdit Singh, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Bhag Singh of Bhikhiwind, were
Sikhs from Amritsar district. They were also the main leaders of the Ghadr movement.
Harnam Singh was acquitted in the Lahore conspiracy case. But the government
decided to keep him under surveillance and he was interned in his own house
in Khalra village until 1922. But he was allowed to marry. It was during this period
of Harnam Singh’s internment in Khalra village that Jaswant Singh Khalra’s father
Kartar Singh was born in 1917.
Communal Movements and Kartar Singh
Harnam Singh’s internment was revoked in 1922 and he managed to return to Shanghai
and resume his revolutionary activities. Harnam Singh never returned to India.
Sometimes, he used to send some money for his family’s financial needs.
Kartar Singh had a tough childhood. The family had only four acres of land.
The underground water was saline and the Upper Bari Doab Canal, that passed by
the outskirts of the village, did not provide irrigation to Khalra village. Kartar Singh,
his younger brother and their mother missed Harnam Singh. However, even as a
young lad, Kartar Singh knew that his father was an important leader of the freedom
struggle in India who maintained close rapport with revolutionaries in various
parts of the world engaged in anti-imperialist struggle. Kartar Singh knew that the
government would arrest his father if he returned to Punjab and it was important for
the cause of India’s freedom that he remained abroad.
But he missed him and life was hard. Without a father, he used to feel like an
orphan. His mother, too, had to work hard. She kept two buffaloes and sold their
milk to earn money. For food, Kartar Singh and his younger brother had to work the
land, besides attending school.
Kartar Singh studied up to class seven in a school at Madi Megha village, six
kilometers from Khalra. Then he joined the Arya Samaj School at Patti but Kartar
Singh did not like the atmosphere in the school, that appeared communally biased
against the Sikhs, their religion and culture.
Arya Samaj was a Hindu sect founded by Dayanand Saraswati in 1875. It had
inherited the beliefs in the greatness of ancient Sanskritic culture from the 18th and
early 19th century oriental scholarship pioneered by the English and other European
scholars in India. Dayanand Saraswati, born in a wealthy Brahmin family in Morvi
in Gujarat, believed that the religious works of popular devotional tradition ought
to be actively discouraged. He was also a strong critic of “heterodox” schools of
thought like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. His book Satyarth Prakash,
31 Richard J. Popplewell, ibid, pp. 175.
32 Richard J. Popplewell, ibid, pp. 64-65.
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16 Reduced to Ashes
33 O. P. Kejariwal, The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India’s Past: 1784-1838, Oxford
University Press, Delhi.1988; David Koff, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance, Calcutta,
1969; Sushil Kumar De, Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century: 1757-1857, 2nd edition Calcutta,
1962; Raj Kumar, “Swami Dayanand’s concept of the Indian Swaraj”, and Nazer Singh, “A note on
Swami Dayanand’s way of reformation”, Punjab History Conference (PHC), Twenty-second Session,
25-27 March 1988; J. T. F. Jordens, Dayananda Saraswati, His life and Ideas, Delhi, 1978; Ganda
Singh, “The origin of the Hindu-Sikh tension in the Punjab”, The Punjab Past and Present (PPP),
vol.XI, 1977, p. 326; Kenneth W. Jones, “The Arya Sikh relations, 1877-1905”, PPP, vol. XI-II, October
1977, p. 332.
34 G. S. Dhillon, “The Sikhs and the British”, PPP, vol. XXIV-II, October 1990, pp. 430-4; Chief Khalsa
Diwan, Rules and Regulations of the Chief Khalsa Diwan, Amritsar, 1904, p. 1; Kenneth W. Jones,
“The Arya Sikh Relations”, 1877-1905, PPP, Vol. XI-II, October 1977, p. 352.
35 Arthur Berriedale Keith, A Constitutional History of India, 1600-1935, Reprint, Low Price Publications,
Delhi 1990, p. 234; S. V. Desika Char, Constitutional History of India, 1757-1947, Oxford University
Press, Delhi 1983, pp. 425-32; Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, vol. II, 1977, p. 219.
published in 1875, attacked Guru Nanak as dhurta (rogue or charlatan). Dayanand
called the Sikh holy book mithya (false) and Sikhism a jal (snare). The successors
of Dayanand in Punjab intensified the tone of hostility against the Sikhs who had
gained the status of a distinct religious community. During his first visit to Punjab
in 1877-1878, Dayanand had used the rite of shuddhi (purification) to reclaim Christian
converts from Sikhism as Hindus. After his death in October 1883, his successors
began to direct their conversion campaigns at poor Sikhs who had originally
come from untouchable Hindu castes. A public ceremony to purify 30 such Sikhs
on 3 June 1900, sowed the seeds of tensions in the Hindu-Sikh relations that would
only deteriorate with time.33
At the Arya Samaj school, Kartar Singh could not tolerate the attitude of his
teachers that seemed anti-Sikh and he decided to change his school. He was admitted
to a Khalsa school in Sarhali where he studied for two years to pass his class X
examination in 1936. Kartar Singh wanted to continue studying. However, he could
not afford it and felt obligated to support his mother who had been working hard to
pay for his schooling. Kartar Singh had to come back to his village.
Fortunately for him, his grandfather had been a prominent leader of the Singh
Sabha Movement that had played a crucial part in reviving the monotheistic traditions
of early Sikhism and combined the work of social mobilization with scholarly
activities of collecting, editing and compiling the early Sikh literature and also in
building Sikh educational institutions. Main leaders of the movement, like Ditt Singh,
Gurmukh Singh and Kahan Singh, came from the lower strata of society and focused
attention on the corruption within the Sikh religious institutions contrary to
the strong egalitarian principles expounded by the Sikh gurus. Kartar Singh’s grandfather
was a member of the Chief Khalsa Diwan, a central organization that coordinated
the activities of various Singh Sabhas. The Chief Khalsa Diwan was also
involved with the issues of “safeguarding the political rights of the Sikhs”, which
became very important after the Government of India Act 1919 provided for the
election of Indians to the imperial and provincial legislative councils from constituencies
representing various communities and classes.34 Under the Act, Muslims
received a separate electorate as they had wanted. The Sikhs of Punjab did not
receive the same benefits although not only did the Sikh political organizations ask
for them, but the Lt. Governor of Punjab had also supported their claims.35
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 17
The Sikh claims had been ignored because, with their sense of identity remaining
segmented on sectarian lines, they did not form a uniform community like the
Muslims. The clerics in charge of their religious houses of worship, including the
Golden Temple, belonged to the Sikh order called Udasi. Although the Udasis had
maintained the Sikh institutions in the difficult period of persecution, material prosperity
since Ranjit Singh’s days had led to their moral turpitude. They treated the
temple assets as their personal property and lived in comfort and indulgence. When
they became old or died, their children took their place. To attract more worshipers
and donations, Udasi abbots had also installed in their houses of worship idols of
Hindu gods. The Sikh reformers had successfully prevailed on the managers of the
Golden Temple to remove all Hindu idols from the temple’s precincts in 1905.
However, clerics of other important shrines continued to worship such idols along
with the Sikh holy book. To appease high caste Hindu sentiments, Udasi abbots had
also prohibited untouchables from entering the Sikh houses of worship. When the
reformer Sikhs protested, they retaliated by refusing admission to them as well.
Such practices made the Sikhs seem indistinguishable from the Hindus.36
Enactment of the Anand Marriage Act in 1909 had shown that the British were
willing to recognize the Sikhs as a separate religious community. However, without
institutionalizing their religious uniqueness, the Sikhs could not hope to obtain political
safeguards comparable to what the Muslim community had already received.
This recognition triggered the turbulent Sikh agitation called the Sikh Gurudwara
Reform Movement in early 1920s. The Akali Dal was initially a voluntary forum of
the Khalsa Sikhs set up to lead this agitation. It culminated with the enactment of a
legislation called the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) Act in
July 1925. The Act recognized that an elected body of the Khalsa Sikhs alone would
qualify as the repository of genuine Sikh tradition. The legislation not only invested
the SGPC with the authority to impose liturgical standards at the Sikh shrines, but
also to control their management. The Hindus, who had lost their influence on them,
bitterly protested against the new Act. Thus, the SGPC became a sort of Sikh parliament,
and its central board, a government of the Sikhs. With considerable financial
resources and control of religious pulpits, the SGPC and the Akali Dal have since
remained the most important forums of Sikh politics.37
The formation of the SGPC and the Akali Dal coincided with constitutional developments
leading to the Government of India Act in 1935. This Act reserved 33 out
of 175 seats in the Punjab assembly for the Sikhs. Although the award did not satisfy
them, the Sikhs evidently had earned the status of a separate religious community.38
When Kartar Singh returned to his village after his matriculation in 1936, he found
36 Prem Uprety, “The Sikh disturbances of 1925”, PPP, Vol. XIV, April 1978, p. 361; Rajiv A. Kapur, Sikh
Separatism, Allen & Unwin, London, 1986, p. 118; John Maynard, “The Sikh Problem in the Punjab
1920-30”, PPP, Vol. XII, April 1977, pp. 13-23.
37 “The Sikh situation in the Punjab, 1907-1922”, PPP, Vol. XIV, October 1978, p. 433; Mohinder Singh,
“Official involvement in the Nankana Tragedy”, PHC, Seventh Session, September 29-30, 1972, p.
190; An official document prepared by the Criminal Investigation Department and signed by V. M.
Smith, Superintendent of Police, Political, on 22 February 1922, presents a detailed report on these
developments: “The Akali Dal and Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, 1921-22: A
Confidential Memorandu”, reproduced in PPP, Vol. I-II, October 1967, pp. 266-310.
38 S. V. Desika Char, Readings in the Constitutional History of India, OUP, Delhi 1983, pp. 553-4.
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 17 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
18 Reduced to Ashes
himself in a buoyant atmosphere of expectancy and hope. His grandfather raised the
idea of building a Khalsa school in Khalra village and advised him to donate a part of
his ancestral land for the purpose. A prominent nationalist leader, Attar Singh took up
the idea and built the school. Kartar Singh was appointed as the secretary of the school
committee but was working on honorary basis. Master Tara Singh, a prominent Sikh
leader of the Akali Dal, came to be associated with the school management. Master
Tara Singh helped Kartar Singh to find a job as a clerk at the SGPC headquarters
inside the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar where he worked for two years. Meanwhile,
the school at Khalra had become more organized and invited him to resume his
position on a salary of Rs. 50 a month. This was not big money but was enough to
meet basic needs. By then, Kartar Singh was already married to Mukhtiar Kaur.
Although Master Tara Singh helped Kartar Singh in getting a job with the SGPC,
Kartar Singh did not like the Akali political orientation, particularly Tara Singh’s
anti-Muslim positions. Kartar Singh aligned himself more closely with the Congress
party, became the secretary of its mandal or area committee and began working
with Narain Singh Subhashpuri, a well-known Congress leader of the area. To
Kartar Singh the atmosphere of communal tension in Punjab during that period was
an offshoot of the elective principle becoming the basis for gaining representation
in the government. Various communal leaders appealed to history to claim distinction
over one’s rivals and this was a common technique of their competitive political
strategy that had such disastrous consequences on the future of Punjab. According
to Kartar Singh, popular Hindu and Sikh leaders dwelt endlessly on the suffering
of Hindus and Sikhs under the Muslim conquest and tried to aggravate popular
resentments to consolidate their following. Muslims of Punjab also began to get
irritated with the British administration for usurping their political power and now
distributing it to the Hindus and the Sikhs to their disadvantage.
The expression of these resentments went beyond polemics to outbursts of physical
violence and soon acquired a regular pattern marked by crude techniques of
instigation. Muslims slaughtered cows, regarded by Hindus as holy, and the Hindus
retaliated by putting pork, detested by Muslims as unholy, in mosques to stir up
communal mayhem. Any other trivial provocation would serve the purpose just as
well. Governor’s situation reports from January 1939 to July 1939 show that the
slaughter of cows and swine had triggered a dozen violent incidents within this
period. British officials dealt with these problems by the book, with feelings of
amused complacency, except when they threatened to escalate into big troubles.
These outbursts of violence, known by the infamous name of communal riots, provided
the backdrop for the momentous constitutional developments that led India
to its independence attended with the bloody partition of Punjab in 1947.39
Kartar Singh felt very disturbed about these developments and blamed the political
immaturity of the Sikh leaders, particularly Tara Singh, for their inability to
see the Congress game plan in getting them to fight the Muslim leadership and for
refusing the British counsel to keep the unity of Punjab through a negotiated settlement
about their rights and privileges in the state.40 According to Kartar Singh,
Tara Singh’s personal background and his Hindu roots played an important part in
39 Governor’s Situation Reports and Punjab Fortnightly Reports, IOR:L/PJ/5/241-3; Memoir of a District
Officer in the Punjab 1938-47, A.J.V. Arthus, ICS, Mss. Eur. F. 180/63, IOR:L, London.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 19
making him susceptible to these manipulations. Tara Singh was born in 1885 in a
pious Hindu family of considerable local influence at Haryal village in Rawalpindi
district. He was christened as Nanak Chand and changed his name to Tara Singh
after his conversion to Sikhism in 1902. Tara Singh became a school teacher in
1907 and was inducted into the Gurdwara Reform Movement in 1921 by the Congress
leaders. Kartar Singh believes that Tara Singh was never able to wean himself
away from the relationship of dependence on Hindu leaders that he had developed
at the early stages of his political career. Later, Vallabhbhai Patel took him under
his tutelage and succeeded in getting him to insist on a partition of Punjab by which
the districts in which Hindus and Sikhs together formed a majority could be federated
with India. The Congress leaders promised that they would not pen down such
a Constitution of India that would be disagreeable to the Sikhs. Tara Singh agreed.41
Partition of Punjab
Mountbatten’s proposal of partition was placed before the British Cabinet for approval
in May 1947. Pethick Lawrence, the Secretary of State for India, conveyed
the official position in a letter dated 9 May 1947: “Under your proposals they [the
Sikhs] will be divided and I do not think that any subsequent adjustment of boundaries
can possibly begin to satisfy the claims they put forward...But if you are satisfied
that a Boundary Commission, with terms of reference such as will help to keep
the Sikhs quiet until the transfer of power, can be set up without provoking the
hostility of the two major communities, I shall be very ready to support your view.”
Thus, was the decision to partition Punjab taken.42
According to Kartar Singh, it was an ignoble outcome of a noble struggle. It could
not be averted as the decisions had been taken at the top level within a manipulative
process where the people could not assert their will. The Congress leaders had talked
about the unity of India, federalism, secularism and grass-roots democracy. But they
betrayed these ideals on the eve of Independence. The Sikhs were in a very strong
position in the united Punjab. Their voice counted in every sphere of life from politics,
agriculture, economy to the military affairs. No vital decision at the governmental
level could be taken without their approval. After the Partition, the Sikhs lost out
not only because of their uprooting from prosperous canal colonies in west Punjab
but also because they became politically insignificant in India. Their agitations did
not move any one. They lost their separate electorate. The policy of reservations on
the basis of caste, guaranteed by the Constitution of India, also worked against their
interests. According to Kartar Singh, both M. K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had
taken a negative view of Sikh aspirations and their politics. From the beginning, they
followed the policy of either suppressing them or misleading them. Although Kartar
Singh had been an active member of the Congress party, he did not believe that Gandhi
and Nehru would safeguard the Sikh interests.
40 Note from Governor Punjab to Viceroy, 10 April 1947, on interview with Kartar Singh, MC, Mss. Eur. F.
200/139, IOR:L, London.
41 Lord Ismay’s note to Mountbatten, dated 30 April 1947, MC, Mss. F. 200/121, IOR:L, London.
42 Private and Secret Letter from Secretary of State for India to His Excellency the Viceroy, dated 9 May
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20 Reduced to Ashes
Kartar Singh felt more aggrieved by the Partition because of the damage it did
to his village and its people. Khalra was predominantly Muslim, but there had never
been any communal enmity within the village. All Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs,
lived in harmony. There were approximately 1,500 residents in the village, out of
which 1,000 were Muslims. Only some Muslim landlords were rich. The majority
of Muslims were small peasants and artisans. The spirit of amity that bound all
communities together began to evaporate following the decision to partition Punjab.
It became obvious to all that Khalra would become a border village. No one knew
whether it would go into Pakistan or remain in India. Large-scale movement of
people from both sides had already started. The refugees from west Punjab came
with their tales of woes and violence. Killing, arson, plunder, rape were the common
strands of these stories. These stories began to vitiate the minds of the people.
Hindus and some Sikhs began to think in terms of revenge. Soon, Hindus and Sikhs
in the eastern parts of Punjab began to attack Muslims, committing the same acts of
violence and brutality that the Hindu and Sikh refugees from the west had suffered.
As the Muslim refugees from eastern Punjab, on their way to Pakistan, began to
move through Khalra, the Muslim population of the village too got agitated.
The British government deployed the largely Muslim Baloch Regiment of the
Indian Army to interfere in situations of mayhem and murder. But the Baluchi regiment
helped the Muslims and was very hostile to the Sikhs. The area under four
police stations in Patti sub-division, including Khalra, used to be administratively
under Lahore. On 14 August 1947, the Muslims of the area were under the impression,
and insisted, that the area belonged to Pakistan. The Sikhs and Hindus were
getting ready to evacuate. Many Muslims of the village, who until then had been
paragons of good neighborliness, began earmarking the properties of the Sikhs and
the Hindus they would occupy when the latter left eastwards. While some of them
began to incite violence, others even persuaded the evacuees who were pouring in
from the eastern part to stay on out of the conviction that Khalra would become a
part of Pakistan. In the end, however, the area under the four police stations remained
in India. The scales turned to the advantage of Hindus and Sikhs who now
began to get aggressive. The Indian military units arrived and soldiers of the Baluchi
regiment were sent away. Muslim residents of the village panicked and began to
flee. Many of them were killed by people who had been friendly and good neighbors
all their lives. Fortunately, the border was close by and many managed to escape.
For Kartar Singh, the Partition was an unsettling experience and unforgettable
even in his old age. He was also not able to rid himself of the thought that this
should never have happened and would not have happened if the leaders at the top
level had not been so greedy and impatient for political power. His father had been
an uncompromising revolutionary against the British imperialism. But when the
freedom came, Kartar Singh wished that the transfer of power had not been so hasty
and mindless. In his opinion, India’s freedom became Punjab’s bane. The border,
the military, the wars and now the fencing of the land, cumulatively and separately,
negated his inner imagery of freedom and independence. From his perspective, it
had been just Punjabis against Punjabis all through. Every time, India and Pakistan
went to war, Kartar Singh and all others in the village had to move away with all
their belongings. Now, after the fencing of the border villages, Kartar Singh and
many others in Khalra village could not even approach their land, across the barbed,
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 20 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 21
electrified wires, without obtaining special permission from the Border Security
Force (BSF). All farmers with land along the fencing had to obtain special permission
to work on their farms, and could do so only for certain hours in the daylight.
Kartar Singh became disenchanted with the Congress party very early. He stopped
taking part in political activities and in 1961, after the government took over his
school in Khalra village, also stopped voting for the party. The last straw was the
Indian government’s decision to ask to submit all kinds of statements and documentary
evidence to establish that his father had been a freedom fighter. The demand
came when the Punjab government in 1975 chose to renew pensions to widows
of prominent freedom fighters and to honor their families by presenting them
with a brass plaque as a memento. By then Jaswant Singh Khalra was 23-years-old
and a college student. He was too proud of his grandfather and the legacy of his
revolutionary life to digest such an affront for the sake of some money and a souvenir.
Jaswant Singh advised his father not only to refuse to participate, but also to
return the pension the government had been giving his grandmother. Jaswant Singh
said that his grandfather’s freedom struggle had gone in vain and the family should
not degrade his thwarted ideals by receiving a dole from the Government of India in
his name. Kartar Singh agreed and refused to receive the honor and the pension.
Formative Years of Jaswant Singh Khalra
Jaswant Singh was born in 1952, the year when Punjab witnessed its first general
elections under the Constitution with which many Sikh leaders were very unhappy.
Jaswant Singh had three elder brothers, Rajinder Singh, Amarjit Singh and Gurdev
Singh. The first two settled in England. Gurdev Singh later migrated to Austria
where he settled down in Vienna city. Jaswant Singh also had five sisters. All of
them were married to local farmers.43
The formative years of Jaswant Singh’s life in Punjab were marked by the virulent
political conflict between the Akali Dal and the Union government over the
Akali demand for the reorganization of the state to make it linguistically homogenous.
The Akali Dal wanted division of the territory by linguistic homogeneity,
into separate Punjabi and Hindi speaking States. The Union government under
Jawaharlal Nehru’s premiership declared itself to be against the demand. The Linguistic
Provinces Commission, appointed to advise the Constituent Assembly on
the reorganization of the provinces, submitted its report in December 1948 arguing
against the proposal. As the agitation for organization of linguistically homogeneous
provinces gained momentum throughout India, the government appointed
yet another commission in December 1953 to examine the issue. Its report, submitted
in 1955, once again rejected the Sikh demand, although it agreed to such
demands from other linguistic regions. For the next decade-and-a-half, the Akali
Dal waged sporadic and, at times, intense agitations for the creation of a Punjabi
43 Statements of Paramjit Kaur, w/o Jaswant Singh Khalra, r/o 8 Kabir park under police station
Islamabad, recorded by DSP P. L. Meena of the CBI on 2 January 1996 under section 161 of the CR.
P. C, and of Kartar Singh, son of Harnam Singh, village Khalra in Amritsar recorded on 1 February
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 21 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
22 Reduced to Ashes
speaking state. The Hindu organizations in Punjab opposed the Sikh demand by
disowning Punjabi as their mother tongue and registering Hindi to be their language
instead. The idea was to give a majority to the Hindi speaking people in the
state. Nehru told the Parliament that he would not concede the Sikh demand even if
the Sikhs launched a civil war. Nehru had become the Prime Minister, as Gandhi’s
protegee, by skillfully employing his nationalistic charisma. Once in power,
he viewed himself as the last British viceroy and ruled India in the authoritarian
tradition with no patience for the politics of ‘small-loyalties’.44
Nehru died in May 1964, two years after India’s humiliating military defeat at
the hands of the Chinese. The Congress chief minister of Punjab, Pratap Singh
Kairon, who was also a staunch critic of the Sikh agitation, resigned from office a
month later when a commission of inquiry indicted him on charges of corruption.
Eight months later, Kairon fell to the bullets of an unidentified assassin when he
was traveling from Delhi to Chandigarh in his car.45
An imminent war with Pakistan in 1965 made the Central government conscious
of the fact that the Sikh soldiers were disaffected by its antagonistic relations
with the Sikh leaders. To buy their cooperation, it promised that it would soon
create a Punjabi speaking state.
At the end of the war, the government separated the Hindi speaking areas of the
province to come under a new state of Haryana. Himachal Pradesh took the hilly
regions of Punjab on the foothills of the Shivalik range. Chandigarh became a Union
territory and the joint capital for the new states of Punjab and Haryana. The State of
Punjab with an area of 50, 255 sq. kilometers, created in September 1966, had a
population of 14 million out of which 55.48 per cent were Sikhs.
Before 1947, Sikhs had formed 15 per cent of the total population of undivided
Punjab against 55 per cent of Muslims and 30 per cent of Hindus. Forced migration
of Muslims from east Punjab to Pakistan and the influx of Sikh refugees from west
Punjab changed the demographic character of the state after the Partition. They
comprised of 40 per cent of the population in the Indian Punjab. With the creation
of a Punjabi speaking state, their number rose to roughly 60 per cent. If the government
had honestly applied the criterion of linguistic homogeneity to reorganize
Punjab, the population of the new Punjab would have remained predominantly Hindu.
Many districts of Punjab like Ambala and Karnal, which went to Haryana, and the
hilly sub-division of Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur districts, which were taken over by
Himachal Pradesh, were Punjabi speaking. However, the Hindu organizations had
campaigned from 1951 onwards and had succeeded in persuading most Punjabi
speaking Hindus to register their mother tongue as Hindi. It was this mischief that
now boomeranged on them. The linguistic reorganization of the state became its
communal truncation. In the democratic game of numbers, the Sikh position in
Punjab appeared to have become viable for the first time.46 Instead of reconciling
themselves, the Hindu political groups led by the Jana Sangh, which is now known
as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), chose to agitate against the formation of the
Punjabi speaking state. Yagya Dutt Sharma, a prominent Jana Sangh leader from
44 Stanley Wolpert, Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny, Booknotes Transcript, -
page 11 of 21.
45 Ram Narayan Kumar & Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle: Origin, Evolution and Present Phase,
Chanakya Publications, Delhi, 1991, pp. 177-183.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 23
Amritsar, went on a “fast unto death” from 9 March 1966, to seek the annulment of
the decision. Public processions, picketing of government offices and protest demonstrations
organized by various groups in several cities of Punjab turned violent.
In Haryana, many Sikhs were attacked and killed. A commission of inquiry formed
by the Bar Association of India indicted the Punjab authorities for using force to
contain the Hindu agitators in the state from engaging in violence and arson. The
inquiry commission, led by three former judges of Indian high courts, also
appeared to be strongly critical of the decision to permit the Punjabi Suba. The
position did not help the Hindu-Sikh relations within the new state of Punjab.47
The Sikh public opinion too seemed dissatisfied with the kind of state the Union
government had given them. Many of their leaders complained that large tracts of
Punjabi speaking areas had gone over to Haryana and Himachal Pradesh; that
Chandigarh, that had been built as Punjab’s capital, had become a Union territory and
that the Central government had usurped its right to manage its river water irrigation.
In two consecutive elections to the state assembly, the Akali Dal romped home with a
sufficient number of seats to form coalition governments with Hindu political parties.
These coalitions proved untenable. The Hindu partners of the coalition continued
to govern as arch antagonists of the Akali Dal. The Congress party had an easy
time pulling them down by organizing defections from the Akali legislative groups.
The rank and file of the party became disillusioned. The impression gained ground
that the coalition governments formed by the Akali Dal would always exhaust themselves
against the subversive manipulations of an unfriendly Center. The formation
of governments in the state by the Akali Dal had produced only one important
outcome: Its leaders had begun betraying the objectives they had championed
for decades. The power that they wielded in the government was far from being
absolute. The mirage of power had, however, corrupted them absolutely.48
46 Ram Narayan Kumar, Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle, Delhi, 1991, pp.182-186.
Manipulation of the census by the communal groups has a long tradition in Punjab. The following are
excerpts from a report of the governor of Punjab on the census returns of 1941: “There have been
general complaints of intentional omissions and artificial inflations and I am afraid that...little reliance
can be placed on the returns actually made. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are equally to blame...The
Deputy Commissioner of Montgomery, for instance reported that among his own servants a mistake of
30 years was made in the Ayah’s age; his chauffeur, a Pashtu speaking Pathan from Kohat, was
recorded as speaking Urdu and born in Quetta; his bearer who can speak nothing but Punjabi, was
recorded as Urdu speaking and his Bengali cook was omitted altogether...” Governor’s Report, d. O.
No. 330-F.L, Dated 17 March 1941, P&J/243/IOR:L.
47 Report of the Commission of Enquiry on Alleged Police Excesses in Punjab during anti-Suba
Agitation in March 1966, Bar Association of India, 1966; Chairman of the Commission, Dr. C. B.
Agarwala, Members of the Commission, Sri Arjoo Prasad and Sri Ram Lubhaya Oberoi.
48 Ram Narayan Kumar & George Sieberer, ibid, pp. 171-193.
The Akali compulsion to form coalition governments is immanent in the demographic character of the
reorganized Punjab: Political power has to be shared by the representatives of two dominant
communities in proportion to their numerical strength. Although, the percentage of votes which the
Akali Dal secured in 1967 had significantly gone up in comparison to what it had got in the third
general elections in 1962 – 24.1 per cent in 1967 against 11.9 per cent in 1962 - it could secure only
26 seats in the state assembly whose total strength was 104. In the second legislative assembly
elections held in February 1969, although the Akali Dal improved its strength by securing 43 seats and
becoming the single largest party, it still did not have an absolute majority to form a government
without a coalition partner. The situation had not changed substantially in 1977 when the Akali Dal won
58 seats in the assembly of 117 members. David Butler, Ashok Lairi and Pranoy Roy, Living Media
India Lt, New Delhi, second edition, 1991, p. 237.
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24 Reduced to Ashes
Khalra’s Early Political Activities
Jaswant Singh Khalra grew up in this environment of political effervescence, uncertainties
and disillusionment. His family of five sisters and four brothers, including
Jaswant Singh, depended on his father’s salary. Their mother looked after four
buffaloes and sold their milk for some extra income. Even then means were limited
and the children never had pocket money. Everything was very basic; their clothes,
their food. But Kartar Singh wanted all of them to be educated. Jaswant Singh went
to the primary school at Khalra village which had been established by his father. He
was bright, very vocal and good in studies. But he also had to help his mother tend
buffalos and procure their fodder. Jaswant Singh passed his matriculation examination
in 1969, three years after the formation of the Punjabi state and then joined the
Bir Baba Buddha College at Jhabal, 30 kilometers from his village. He traveled to
his college every day in a bus since his father could not afford to pay for his hostel.
In the next few years, he became very active in the students’ politics based on
strong Left-wing ideas.
Right from the beginning, the atmosphere at home was saturated with politics.
His father, although a poor teacher was widely respected in the area and many
influential politicians including the former Vice-President of India, Krishna Kant,
thronged to him for advice. Krishna Kant’s father Lala Achint Ram, who had his
residence in village Kot Mohammed Khan in Tarn Taran sub-division of Amritsar
district, had been a close friend since his early Congress days. Jaswant Singh’s
father also hosted Vinoba Bhave when he came to Khalra village on his campaign
to promote voluntary redistribution of land from the rich to the poor. Many Leftwing
radicals known to Kartar Singh, had made a common cause with Vinoba
Bhave’s idealistic campaign which never really achieved results. The atmosphere
of intense political discussions at home and the frantic pace of political developments
in Punjab and the rest of India shaped Jaswant’s early political orientations.
By the time he joined college at Jhabal, Jaswant Singh Khalra called himself a
“scientific socialist” and became the instigator of several small agitations directed
against corruption, abuse of authority and the avarice of trading classes. Still fresh
in the college, Jaswant organized a police raid of a fertilizers and pesticides shop
subsidized by the government, whose owner sold everything in the black-market.
The action annoyed some of his father’s friends who were thriving on political
patronage. Jaswant Singh also organized several small agitations against police officials
who abused their positions of power to harass small, indigent people. Once,
he organized the picketing of Khalra police station whose SHO had molested a
woman belonging to a low caste.
In Bir Baba Budhha College at Jhabal, Jaswant became the spokesperson for the
Punjab Students Union, a Left-wing group influenced by the radical Left-thinking
as it evolved in Bengal’s Naxalbari region in early 1960s.
In 1972, Jaswant Singh led successful students strike in the whole of Punjab that
started frivolously to protest against an increase in ticket prices in private cinema
halls. Students all over Punjab resented the price rise as cinema was their main
source of their entertainment. While leading a students protest march in front of a
cinema hall in Jhabal, Jaswant was told by the cinema manager that the government
had forced the rise by increasing the entertainment tax on all cinema halls, Jaswant
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 25
converted a minor local nuisance into a powerful students’ agitation throughout the
state. More substantial issues were added to the agenda later. The agitation, spread
over the whole of Punjab, alerted the state government leading to Jaswant’s arrest
for the first time.
Jaswant graduated in 1973 and returned to his village where he opened a library
and the office of a new organization called Naujawan Bharat Sabha or Youth
Association. The Association was aligned to the Left revolutionary group led by
Nagi Reddi, who proposed a radical revision of the methods associated with the socalled
“Chinese Path” to embrace a more constitutional approach to mass-mobilization
of India’s ‘have-nots’, particularly the poorer sections of the peasantry. Nagi
Reddi, an old Left revolutionary leader from Andhra Pradesh, was a strong opponent
of the theory of ‘annihilation of the class enemy’ propounded by his Bengali
colleague Charu Mazumdar. Reddi also opposed the popular slogan that “China’s
Chairman is our Chairman” and became the harbinger of a more localized approach
to agrarian revolution in India. Nagi Reddi was attacked by more radical groups
within the Left-underground as a revisionist. In Punjab, Naggi Reddi had the following
of a section of radical communists who worked with Harbhajan Sohi who
also inspired Jaswant Singh to join the Naujavan Bharat Sabha. The high point of
Khalra’s association with this group was the organization of a 10,000 strong demonstration
at Moga in 1974. After some years of association with this group, Jaswant
joined the International Democratic Party, led by R. P. Saraf, that categorically
abjured violent methods and advocated non-violent resistance as the only permissible
approach to challenge the injustices perpetrated on the people by the established
political order. Jaswant was still groping for a clear perspective on the issues
germane to the people and politics in Punjab.
Jaswant’s father was worried about his son’s future. After graduation, Jaswant
could have tried to join the Indian Civil Service, but he was not interested. Politics
was his passion. Kartar Singh told him: “Jaswant, if you want to become a leader or
want to achieve something through politics, you will have to jettison these exotic
Communist groups and sneak into the Akali Dal or the Congress party. Only then
you can come forward.” The counsel had no impact. Jaswant wanted to follow the
path of truth and revolution. He could not compromise with the Akali or the Congress
leaders whom he viewed as opportunists and charlatans with no principles
and no commitments other than gaining political power for personal advantage. It
is only in the later years of unremitting state atrocities that Jaswant would develop
a rapport with those Akali leaders who maintained close affinity with the victim
families. Kartar Singh then tried to interest his son in starting a private business,
anything from bee-keeping to running a dairy farm. Jaswant Singh agreed but took
no initiative. Once, Kartar Singh became very angry and told Jaswant not to talk of
radical politics and struggles for justice until he became financially self-sufficient.
As a father, he had spent his scarce resources educating him. It was Jaswant’s duty
to support the family now.
This dressing down had an impact. Soon afterward, in 1974, Jaswant Singh
Khalra became the secretary for village councils in Punjab, known as panchayat
secretary. This was a government job that allowed him to closely associate with the
issues of development at the village level. The position also gave him an opportunity
to regularly interact with politically active and ambitious sections of the rural
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 25 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
26 Reduced to Ashes
community throughout Punjab. Within a few years of joining the service, Jaswant
formed a state level union of panchayat secretaries and became its first general
secretary. Even though the senior government officials did not want him to politicize
the department, Jaswant was not to be daunted and went on to launch a strike
on the issues of rampant corruption and lack of accountability within the department.
The big bosses did not take kindly to his agitative approach and began to
harass him in various ways. Sometimes, he did not receive his salary for months at
a stretch. Everyone in the family recognized that politics of struggle was Jaswant’s
way of life.
Politics in Punjab, to which Jaswant began to pay closer attention, remained as
exciting and chaotic as ever. The frustrating experience in the state government
between 1967 and 1971 motivated the radicals in the Akali Dal to take up the tortuous
issue of Center-state relations. In October 1973, the working committee of the
Akali Dal adopted a policy resolution at a conference held at Anandpur and demanded
that the Central government give autonomy to the provincial government
in all areas except defence, foreign relations, currency and communications. The
resolution described the Sikhs as a “nation” or “Qaum” and demanded structural
arrangements that would give them a dominant role in the administration of Punjab.49
Jaswant talked about the resolution and its originators scathingly. The Akalis
had contributed to the demise of a decentralized India by scuttling the May 1946
British Cabinet Mission’s terms for the transfer of power to representatives of a
united federal India. The Cabinet Mission Plan had placed only three subjects of
defense, foreign relations and currency under the control of India’s Central government,
leaving all other subjects to the jurisdiction of autonomous provincial governments.
Sixteen years later, the Akali Dal wanted to revive that framework of
federalism without admitting its past mistakes and yet claim a ‘dominant role’ for
the Sikhs within the administration of Punjab. This in Jaswant’s opinion was completely
wrong. In his opinion, the Sikhs could not sustain the battle for their religious
and political rights against the tyranny of majority in Indian democracy while
claiming ‘preeminence’ in Punjab on the basis of their domineering demography in
the state.
Jaswant challenged the Akali position by floating the proposal of a confederacy
of India and Pakistan. The proposal suggested that the two countries work jointly to
overcome their people-geography mismatch especially in their peripheral regions,
make their politics purposeful also for their religious and communal minorities. He
also proposed that the two countries move away from their hegemonic nationalism
and repressive centralization towards a framework that could accommodate the
imperatives of self-governance for religious, ethnic minorities and non-dominant
nations. Jaswant was increasingly beginning to feel that unless the downtrodden
and oppressed people from the heartland and the religious and ethnic minorities,
victimized by India in its peripheral regions forged a larger solidarity of purpose to
salvage the vision of freedom for which his grandfather Harnam Singh had dedicated
himself, there could be no end to their miseries and meaningless political strife.
49 Ghani Jafar, The Sikh Volcano, Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, Delhi, 1988, pp. 87-88, 457-460;
G. S. Dhillon, India Commits Suicide, Chandigarh, 1992, pp. 94-112.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 27
Indira Gandhi’s Emergency: Sideshows of a Democracy
In June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi proclaimed a national emergency to save
her government from tumbling in the face of a popular agitation for structural reforms,
popularly known as “Total Revolution” that Jayaprakash Narayan, a charismatic
socialist leader, had been leading for some years. For the next 21 months, she
ruled on the strength of harsh measures. These measures included arrests of political
opponents, press censorship and a ban on hostile political activities.50 When the Akali
leaders in Punjab organized public protests against the dictatorial measure, they were
detained without trial, like the agitators in other parts of India. For the first time,
Jaswant Singh admired the organizational strength of the Akali Dal that allowed it to
effectively challenge Indira Gandhi’s dictatorial regime by mobilizing thousands of
people to non-violently defy her political prohibitions and to court arrest. No other
political party in India had been able to match the Akali Dal’s performance in sustaining
the popular defiance against India’s experiment with dictatorship.
The Janata Party, an alliance of political parties at the national level, also including
the Akali Dal, routed the Congress in the elections of March 1977 to form
its government at the Centre. The Akali Dal joined the Janata alliance. It also won
the assembly elections held later that year to form its third coalition government in
the state.
For Jaswant, the Emergency represented a logical outcome of the miscalculations
of 1947. It showed that the pseudo-secular and quasi-federal scheme of the
state forced on India had run its course. He fervently hoped that the broad coalition
of democratic parties that replaced Indira Gandhi’s Emergency regime would seriously
use the restoration of democracy to pursue the agenda of decentralization of
power, development from the grass-roots and genuine respect for the fundamental
human rights for which its leaders had professed commitment. The new ruling coalition
comprised a wide spectrum of political opinion from left to right and accommodated
many regional parties, including the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK)
from Tamil Nadu, the Communist Party of India (CPI-M) from West Bengal, the
National Conference (NC) from Kashmir, and the Akali Dal from Punjab. All these
parties had been votaries of decentralization before the electoral success of 1977.
Their leaders had correctly pointed out that for the schemes of economic development
in a country as vast and varied as India to have effect, they must evolve at the
initiative of provincial leaders who possessed better knowledge of the local conditions,
greater hold on the machinery of implementation and more accountability to
the electorate than the bureaucrats and politicians in faraway Delhi. Appalling poverty
of the people across the country, 30 years after the Independence, was proof
enough that the philosophy of development behind the Five-Year Plans and the
Planning Commission had failed. That much of the national resources meant for
social reconstruction were being siphoned off into the tunnels of corruption was
common knowledge. This disgust for corruption and stagnation was used by
Jayaprakash Narayan, an old socialist colleague of Jawaharlal Nehru, to forge ties
within the Janata conglomeration.
50 The writer of this report was also interned without trial for 19 months for writing and speaking against
India’s experiment with dictatorship.
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28 Reduced to Ashes
51 Article 356 (1) of the Constitution says: “If the President, on receipt of report from the governor of a
state or otherwise, is satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the government of the state cannot
be carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution, the President may by proclamation
– [a] Assume to himself all or any of the functions of the government of the state and all or any of the
powers vested in or exercisable by the governor or any body or authority in the state other than the
legislature of the state; [b] Declare that the powers of the legislature of the state shall be exercisable
by or under the authority of Parliament; [c] Make such incidental and consequential provisions as
appear to the President to be necessary or desirable for giving effect to the objects of the
proclamation, including provisions for suspending in whole or in part the operation of any provisions of
this Constitution relating to any body or authority in the state.”
In 1951, Punjab became the first victim of this provision when the state government under chief
minister Gopi Chand Bhargava did not take strong measures to put down the Akali agitation for a
linguistic reorganization of the state. The next state to suffer the abuse was Kerala in 1959 when it was
ruled by the Communist Party under E. M. S. Namboodaripad’s chief ministership.
From 1967 to 1969, seven state governments run by parties inimical to the Congress government at
the Center were dismissed. Between 1970 and 74, 19 state governments were subverted. During
Emergency, the state government of Tamil Nadu was toppled on the ground that it did not implement
the Central directive to censure the Press and refused to detain anti-Emergency activists.
Jaswant Singh was happy to observe that the democratic change of the regime
in Delhi was beginning to inspire, in the regional circles of Indian politics, an avid
debate on the necessity to decentralize the constitutional framework of the state to
give the provincial governments more powers. Many leaders of the peripheral states
of the Union advocated major changes. They included Sheikh Abdullah of Jammu
and Kashmir, Jyoti Basu, Marxist chief minister of West Bengal; A. K. Antony,
Congress chief minister of Kerala and M. Karunanidhi of Tamil Nadu. These states,
together with Punjab, had suffered the Center’s highhandedness in three decades of
Indian federalism. In particular, they hated the prerogatives the Constitution gave
to the Union government to dismiss elected governments in provinces and to exercise
control over their finances.51 To Jaswant Singh’s dismay, the government of
Akali Dal in Punjab, with Prakash Singh Badal as the chief minister, seemed unwilling
to rake up trouble with its Hindu coalition partners to whom the very word
autonomy was an anathema. Centrist hawks, representing the Hindu heartland of
India, had arrayed themselves against advocates of decentralization who represented
India’s peripheries. They cut across party affiliations in believing that a strong Center
was coterminous with a united India. Morarji Desai, the conservative Prime
Minister of the coalitional government, announced that he would not even discuss
the proposals for a Constitutional review with their protagonists.
Incongruous Alliances:
the Akalis and Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale
This is the historical background in which Indira Gandhi’s Congress party chose
Punjab for new sinister experiments in the manipulation of collective prejudices
that would lead to the June 1984 military assault on the Golden Temple of Amritsar
and the calamitous events of the next decade: Her own assassination and the organized
carnage of the Sikhs in its wake nearly five months after the military assault,
radicalization of the Sikh unrest and the separatist violence, state terrorism on an
unprecedented scale, ‘enforced disappearances’, arbitrary executions and secret
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 29
cremations of thousands of people. The June 1984 military assault on the Golden
Temple of Amritsar and the organized violence against the Sikhs in India, particularly
in the Capital city of Delhi, following Indira Gandhi’s assassination by two of
her Sikh security guards on 31 October 1984, are so important to understand the
contexts of separatist violence and its ruthless repression in the following decade in
Punjab that we shall briefly recount them here.
The debate on the Center-state relationship in Punjab suffered a setback following
the sectarian clashes that broke out in April 1978. The clashes between the
Sikhs and Nirankaris involved contentious issues of heterodoxy and the passions
which they aroused eclipsed sober political matters. They also helped the Congress
party to isolate the Akali Dal. In the parliamentary elections held in January 1980,
Indira Gandhi managed to regain political power at the Center. Eight out of Punjab’s
11 parliamentary constituencies voted for the Congress candidates. In May 1980,
the Congress party defeated the Akali Dal in the state assembly elections and formed
a government under Darbara Singh.
In July 1982, the Akali Dal launched its popular agitation to demand the implementation
of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution adopted in 1973, which asked for a
residual transfer to the states all subjects of administration, except defense, foreign
relations, communications and currency. Already for some years, Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale, the head of an orthodox Sikh seminary, had established himself as a
charismatic religious figure with an extraordinary following in rural Punjab. With
the view to harness Bhindranwale’s popularity with the Sikh masses, the Akali
leaders persuaded him to join the agitation. Having once done that, they were unable
to back out of the professed goal in negotiations with the Central government
because Bhindranwale would not allow them to do so. Both the Akali leaders and
the Central government soon began to employ the whole range of Machiavellian
stock-in-trade to cheat, cajole, bribe and browbeat their way out of the simple and
consistent position of Bhindranwale that there would be no settlement against the
mandate of the Anandpur Resolution.52
The differences in the personalities and political potential of Bhindranwale and
the Akali leaders were not limited to their political positions and religious backgrounds.
Their differences reflected two separate but intertwined facets of the contemporary
Sikh identity.
The Akali Dal had for six decades been the political instrument of the most
influential section of the Sikh population, i.e., the Jat farmers. Their prosperity was
a fall out of the Green Revolution, in the last two decades.53 They agitated incessantly
and often successfully to make the agricultural economy more profitable.
52 Hindustan Times (HT), 16 November 1982, Akalis likely to accept new package deal; HT. 25 October
1982. Saran meets Akali leaders; HT. 13 November 1982. Bhindranwale, not for Khalistan; HT, 5
September 1983, Bhindranwale firm on Anandpur move; The Tribune, 28 February 1984, Sikhs not for
secession: Bhindranwale.
53 Although, the Green Revolution in Punjab is the culmination of the process of development in canal
irrigation, reclamation of land, settlement of canal colonies, development of new seed varieties
combined with cooperative banking and other related measures started by the British soon after the
annexation of Punjab in 1846, the term is applied for the period of agricultural progress starting from
the introduction of new varieties of seed developed at the International Centre for the Improvement of
Maize and Wheat in Mexico, headed by Dr. N. E. Borlaug in 1964-65.
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30 Reduced to Ashes
The Akali Dal, when in office, had closely identified itself with the interests of
the Jat Sikh farmers, taking bold measures to help them. The big jumps in food
production, from 1.9 million metric tons in 1965-66 to 2.45 million metric tons in
1966-67 and 5.62 million metric tons in 1971-72, had coincided with the creation
of the Punjabi Suba — the Punjabi-speaking state — and the first governments of
the Akali Dal. The productive cycle came to stagnation when the Congress took
control of the government in 1972. Continuous retardation in the agricultural output
marked the next five years. The consistent pattern of decline in food production
over these years fed speculations that the Green Revolution had run its course.
Studies of subsequent developments revealed that the stagnation was linked to the
Congress policies that kept a check on the growth of essential inputs: Credit, fertilizers,
tube-wells and tractors. The Akali Dal, taking control of the government in
March 1977, broke the stagnation by changing the policies. It gave financial aid to
those farmers whose crops had suffered due to natural calamities. It reduced the
costs of electricity for tube-wells, fertilizers and pesticides.
The State Electricity Board gave the highest priority to new connections for
electric tube-wells. The government transferred the administrative control of the
cooperative department to a development commissioner, which allowed effective
planning and application of production programs. The distribution of short-term
cooperative loans rose from Rs.770 million in 1977 to Rs. 870 million in 1978, Rs.
1.05 billion in 1979 and Rs.1.54 billion in 1980. The long-term loans by landmortgage
banks also went up. The result of liberal financing pushed up the consumption
of fertilizers. The total number of tube-wells went up from 362,000 in
1973 to 565,000 in 1980. Thus, by breaking the bottleneck in cooperative loans and
the consequent drop in the use of inputs, the Akali Dal retrieved the Green Revolution
from the plateau it had reached in 1972.
The economic progress attained during this period, however, did not satisfy the
Jat Sikh farmers and their political spokesmen. It merely whetted their appetite for
greater provincial autonomy, particularly in its fiscal ties with the Centre and for
control over Punjab’s river waters. The rapid progress of tube-well irrigation had led
to the fear that ground water resources could soon be depleted. They also wanted to
control their water resources to generate more power through hydroelectric projects.
The richer farmers wanted to invest their surplus money in manufacturing. The
Central government had for long been reluctant to industrialize Punjab, which it viewed
as a volatile border state. The urban Hindu, whom the Jat Sikhs viewed with the farmer’s
antipathy for the middleman of the town, monopolized the marginal industry.
In spite of the undercurrent of hostility that marked their relationship, the two segments
of the population were not averse to mutual accommodation and compromise. In
fact, they had become locked in mutual dependency, following the commercialization
of agriculture and its increased reliance on the urban market, also monopolized by the
Hindus. Jat Sikhs definitely resented the Hindu monopoly over trade and industry as it
blocked their capital, generated from agriculture, from entering more productive avenues.
However, with time, the Akali Dal had developed an effective strategy to compete
against Hindu urban interests, by alternating between belligerence and compromise.
The success of the strategy showed in their ability to form an alliance with the
BJP, formerly Jana Sangh, in spite of the anti-Sikh thrust of its politics.
Bhindranwale, although a Jat by birth, drew his main following from that
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 31
section of small farmers in Punjab who had become pauperized in the last two
decades of capital intensive agriculture. Furthermore, the process had driven 15 to
20 per cent of the rural population off the land. These were also his close allies.
Naturally, these sections of Bhindranwale’s followers looked at the prosperous farmers
of the Green Revolution with suspicion and resentment.
They also disliked the Hindu trader and the immigrant worker who disturbed
the place of the poor rural Sikhs in the local economy. They resented the Punjabi
Hindus because they controlled trade and industry and kept the Jat Sikhs out. Instead,
they employed the docile migrant workers who were ready to labor happily
for lesser wages. Even then they earned considerably more than the maximum wages
in their own native states. Thus, the migrant Hindu labor began displacing the poor
rural Sikhs in the local economy.
The leaders of the Green Revolution benefited by employing outsiders as extrahands
on their farms, particularly during the peak seasons of sowing and harvesting.
Their presence in Punjab nullified the local pressures that used to regulate
employment on equitable terms in both the agricultural and industrial sectors.
A developed industry could have absorbed these disgruntled groups of the Sikh
population. However, Punjab had been kept industrially backward although its phenomenal
progress in agriculture had generated all of the preconditions for rapid
industrialization. Thus the feeling gained ground that the Central government and
the Hindus of Punjab were conspiring to keep the Sikh economy from advancing
ahead of the Hindu average.
Until a few years ago, many unemployed youths from Punjab had been migrating to
the El Dorado of western countries. Those countries did not want them anymore and
were taking steps to keep them out. Traditionally, soldiering had been the main field of
employment for the Sikh youth. In addition, the profession gave them the opportunity to
keep up the martial pride of the Jat Sikh community. On the eve of the Independence,
nearly 30 per cent of the Indian Army comprised of the Sikhs. Their ratio in the Army
gradually came down. In 1974, the Union government took a policy decision by which
the martial reputation of races would not weigh against the principle of proportional
representation. Under the new policy, Punjab was to provide no more than 2.5 per cent
of recruits to the Army. The Sikhs’ share worked out to be 1.3 per cent.
The Sikhs viewed the policy as a deliberate attempt by the Central government to
weed them out of India’s fighting force. More significantly, the policy closed the main
avenue of employment available to the rural Sikh youth. Many experts have pointed out
that the unemployment of the youth in Punjab not only sustained the political turmoil
there, but also gave it a militant direction since the days of Bhindranwale.
For his followers, Bhindrawale exemplified the religious-military virtues, as a
saint-soldier or ‘sant-sipahi’. Volatile sections of the Sikh population that rallied
around him believed that Bhindranwale appeared on the scene to lead them to their
place in history, as promised by their 10th Guru: “Raj karega Khalsa (the Sovereign
shall rule)”. Their psychological disposition to take either all or nothing was
diametrically opposed to the Akali politics of compromise; it was inevitable that
they would ultimately clash. Bhindranwale also attracted a section of the Sikh intelligentsia,
particularly retired army officers, bureaucrats, teachers and journalists.
This section of educated Sikhs, with its lofty self-image, had not been able to take
its place in the rustic setting of the Akali Dal under its half-literate leaders. They
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32 Reduced to Ashes
castigated the Akalis as opportunists, and wanted to supplant them to pioneer a Sikh
nation. In this sense, the group was at one with the radical squads of Bhindranwale,
except that they rather fancied themselves in the role of intellectual mentors.
Thus, the alliance between the Akali Dal and Bhindranwale was fundamentally
incongruous. Bhindranwale personified an intransigent spirit that could not be reconciled
with the Akali politics of give and take. Besides, the Central government
had already shown a tendency to politically isolate the Akali Dal by portraying its
leaders as siding with secessionists and terrorists.54
Indira Gandhi Moves to Consolidate Power
Meanwhile, Indira Gandhi was once again losing political ground at the national
level. The results of the byelections in 12 states of southern and northern India, held
in the third week of May 1984, had gone against the Congress. It had lost all the
prestigious contests. The Congress candidate in the Malihabad constituency in Uttar
Pradesh, had lost to the fledgling party of Maneka Gandhi, the Prime Minister’s
estranged daughter-in-law. Rajiv Gandhi’s own constituency, as it happened, was
next to Malihabad. An intrepid Maneka Gandhi had announced that she would fight
her brother-in-law in the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The election results
had shown that northern India was being swept by a wave of Hindu anger over the
government’s inability to suppress the Sikh extremist movement in Punjab. The
southern peninsula, on the other hand, was under the sway of strong regional parties
inimical to the Congress. In Andhra Pradesh, traditionally a Congress stronghold
with its 42 parliamentary seats, a new regional party called the Telugu Desam
formed by a popular celluloid hero N.T. Rama Rao, had swept the polls.55
The byelection results convinced Indira Gandhi that unless she took drastic action
against the Sikh agitation, largely perceived by the Hindu population as being
covertly secessionist, she would not be able to form the next government at the
Centre. A swift military operation to strike Bhindranwale and his band of followers
dumb, as the top brass of the Army had promised, would not only establish her as a
tough leader, but also restore her popularity through a communal polarization that
54 Mark Robinson, “Farmer politics in the Punjab”, Development Policy Review, Sage Publications, London,
Volume 7, No. 3, September 1989; Manohar Singh Gill, The Development of Punjab Agriculture, 1977-
80, Asian Survey, University of California Press. Vol. XXIII, No. 7, July 1983; “The Political Economy of
Sikh Nationalism”, Holly M. Hapka, Journal Fur Entwicklungspolitik, Wien, IV, Jg., Heft 4, 1988; “The
Green Revolution and Cultural Change in a Punjab village, 1965-1978”, Murray J. Leaf, Economic
Development and Cultural Change, Volume 31, Number 2, January 1983, University of Chicago Press;
Francine Frankel, India’s Green Revolution: Economic Gains and Political Costs, Princeton University
Press, 1971; Shyamala Bhatia, “New Lions of Punjab: Emergence of Hindu middle class in 19th century
and early 20th century,” PHC, Twenty third session, 17-19 March 1989; Sainik Samachar, New Delhi,
1987, p. 15; K. S. Sidhu and Parmeet Singh, “A Historical evaluation of the problems of ex-servicemen of
Punjab”, PHC, Twenty-second session, 25-27 March 1988; Harish K. Puri, “The Akali Dal and State
autonomy: Some observations”, PHC, Fourteenth Session, 28-30 March 1980.
55 The Tribune, 23 May 1984. Poll outcome a jolt for Congress; The Tribune, 18 May 1984, Akali Dal,
Centre in dilemma; The Tribune, 17 February 1984, Rajiv’s Statement condemned; The Tribune, 30
April 1984, Punjab Situation Better: Rajiv; The Tribune, 24 April 1984, Let Army control Punjab:
Advani; The Tribune, 4 May 1984, Get tough with terrorists; The Tribune, 28 May 1984, Madhook for
army rule in Punjab; The Tribune, 4 May 1984, Get tough with terrorists; The Tribune, 6 May 1984,
Eight organizations of Hindus merge
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 33
inevitably had to follow such an action.56 Already, the leaders of Hindu political
parties had for some time been advocating the military option to end the trouble in
Punjab. The BJP and the Lok Dal of Charan Singh, former Prime Minister, had
formed a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to mobilize public opinion against the
government’s “soft-pedaling” of the Punjab situation. The legislators belonging to
the two parties in several north Indian states had been courting arrest daily to draw
public attention to the issue. Eight Hindu organizations of Punjab had merged to form
a united front called Rashtriya Hindu Suraksha Sena (National Hindu Defence Force),
and had been arming themselves to fight the Sikhs.57 The Punjab Press had become
equally vociferous in demanding strong action. On 17 April 1984, The Tribune published
an editorial on its front page saying: “The people of Punjab are not concerned
any more with means and methods. They want to be allowed to live in peace.”58
Many observers of the developments in Punjab have suggested that in the beginning
Indira Gandhi encouraged the militant groups around Bhindranwale with the
view to undermine the electoral base of the Akali Dal. It is also known that Indira
Gandhi’s reckless son Sanjay Gandhi, whom she had been grooming as her heir apparent,
tried to forge an alliance between the Congress and the Akali Dal.59 Apparently,
these moves belonged to a common strategy to divide the Sikh vote.60 Several
senior members of the Congress party from the neighboring province of Haryana
themselves said that their leaders were supporting the Sikh secessionist movement.61
During the Sikh agitation, the Prime Minister had involved independent politicians
to persuade the Akali leaders for a compromise. They included Farooq
Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Amarinder Singh, scion of
Patiala royalty and a friend of Rajiv Gandhi, and Harkishan Singh Surjeet, a CPI(M)
leader. Several times during these negotiations, the emissaries, as also the official
spokespersons for the Prime Minister, held out hopes of an impending settlement.
But nothing happened. The Prime Minister’s emissaries later said that she always
backed out of her agreements with the Sikh leaders.62
Subramaniam Swamy, then a leader of the Janata Party and a member of
56 Ram Narayan Kumar, The Sikh Unrest, Op. Ct, pp. 182-3.
57 The Tribune, 24 April 1984, Let Army control Punjab: Advani; The Tribune, 4 May 1984, Get tough with
terrorists; The Tribune, 28 May 1984, Madhook for army rule in Punjab; The Tribune, 6 May 1984,
Eight organizations of Hindus merge.
58 The Tribune, 17 April 1984, Massive Sabotage.
59 On 24 June 1980, Sanjay crashed to death while airlooping over a suburb of Delhi. Indira Gandhi then
brought her elder son, an Indian Airlines pilot, into politics. Rajiv became India’s Prime Minister after
his mother’s assassination on 31 October 1984.
60 Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi’s Last Battle, Jonathan Cape, London 1985, pp.
60-62; HT, April 3, 1980, Cong-I open to election adjustments; HT, 28 April 1980, Akalis sending
feelers to Congress-I on adjustment; HT, 4 April 1980, Darbara Singh strengthened; HT, 20 April 1980,
End to Punjab Cong-I bickering not in sight.
61 HT, 6 November 1981, Congress-I men in Punjab backing separatists.
62 HT, 11 December 1982, Deadlock at Dal meeting; Kuldeep Nayar and Khushwant Singh, The Tragedy of
Punjab, Vision Books Pvt Ltd, Delhi, 1984, p. 66; HT, 8 February 1983, Talks with Akalis on: Laskar; HT,
6 April 1984, Sitanshu Das, Time for Quick Decisions; The Tribune, 25 April 1983, Punjab solution in
sight; The Tribune, 1 November 1983, Akalis favour talks with PM; The Tribune, 22 January 1984,
Punjab issue: Centre not in mood to relent; The Tribune, 28 January 1984, Kuldeep Nayar, New Formula
on Punjab; The Tribune, 6 February 1984, New bid for Punjab settlement; The Tribune, 17 February
1984, Rajiv’s statement condemned; The Tribune, 30 April 1984, Punjab Situation Better: Rajiv; The
Tribune, 11 July 1984, Akali Centre Secret Meetings; The Tribune, 14 July 1984, Surjeet blames Centre.
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34 Reduced to Ashes
Parliament, spent three days from April 24 to 27 at the Golden Temple, a few weeks
before the Army assault, talking to the Sikh leaders, including Bhindranwale. He
published an article on 13 May 1984 issue of the Illustrated Weekly of India to say
that any attack on the Golden Temple by India’s security forces would be a great
folly. He wrote: “If the firing is heavy, and the temple or the Akal Takht – which
houses Guru Gobind Singh’s swords – are damaged, India, as a concept will be
destroyed. The wound inflicted on the Sikh heart and mind will be permanent and
there will be no end to the bloodshed, thereafter.” In the same article, Swamy asked
why the officials of various para-military and intelligence organizations surrounding
the temple complex were not arresting those criminals reportedly walking in
and out with total impunity.63
This was an important question that I later raised with the then deputy commissioner
of Amritsar, Gurdev Singh who said that he had categorically informed the
highest officials of the Punjab government that if they wanted to arrest Bhindranwale,
there would be no major difficulty in organizing it. The chief minister, the governor
of Punjab and other senior officials told him that the directive to take action against
Bhindranwale had to come from Delhi. Gurdev Singh told the governor of Punjab
that, if necessary, he would send the police into the Golden Temple to arrest the
miscreants. He also cautioned against the use of the paramilitary forces on the ground
that they would mismanage the operation from their ignorance of the temple’s topography.
At the mention of the paramilitary, the governor told him that “there was
no such plan.” Gurdev Singh learnt about the government’s decision to use the
Army to raid the temple on the evening of 3 June 1984.64
Subramaniam Swami published another article soon after the massacre inside
the Golden Temple to say that the government had been master-minding a
disinformation campaign to create legitimacy for the action. The goal of this
disinformation campaign, according to Swami, was to “make out that the Golden
Temple was the haven of criminals, a store of armory and a citadel of the nation’s
dismemberment conspiracy.”65
A cover story in Surya magazine, published soon after the Army operation,
made more sensational revelations. The story quoted “highly placed and highly
disillusioned sources in the Research and Analysis Wing,” the top-notch intelligence
organization in India, to claim that most of the arms inside the Golden Temple
had been smuggled in under the supervision of a special agency, created out of the
outfit and controlled directly by the director of the Prime Minister’s secretariat.
One week before the Army action, the Punjab police had intercepted two truck
loads of weapons and ammunition in the Batala sub-division of Gurdaspur district.
But the officer of the third agency, in-charge of Amritsar, persuaded the directorgeneral
of police (DGP) to release them and to send them along safely to the Golden
Temple.
63 The Illustrated Weekly of India, May 13, 1984, Subramaniam Swamy, “In the Theatre of Violence”,
pp. 7-11.
64 Ram Narayan Kumar, The Sikh Unrest and the Indian State, Ajanta Publications, Delhi, 1997,
pp. 180-182
65 Imprint, July 1984, “Creating a Martyr”, by Subramaniam Swami, pp. 7-8.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 35
Operation Blue Star: The Army Assault
The assault against the Golden Temple, code named Operation Blue Star, was launched
on 5 June 1984, the martyrdom day of Guru Arjun who had the foundation of the
temple laid by a Muslim divine 400-years ago and was the first of the Sikh Gurus to
die in defiance of the Mughal empire. The assault, which the Sikhs themselves call
the Ghallughara,66 was diabolically conceived not only to scathe the Sikh psyche, but
also to make the “sufficient moral effect from a military point of view not only on
those who were present, but more especially throughout the Punjab.”67 That is how
Brigadier Dyer had explained his intention when he came to Jallianwala Bagh, near
the Golden Temple, to disperse an illegal assembly 65 years ago on 13 April 1919.
Dyer had acted impulsively, on his own. Operation Blue Star was not only envisioned
and rehearsed in advance, meticulously and in total secrecy, it also aimed at obtaining
the maximum number of Sikh victims, largely devout pilgrims unconnected with the
political agitation. The facts should speak for themselves:
On 24 May 1984, the Akali Dal announced a new program to intensify the
agitation starting from June 3 by blocking the transfer of Punjab’s food grains to
other states, withholding all taxes due to the government and regular courting of
arrest by Sikh volunteers.68
On May 25, the government used the announcement to deploy 100,000 Army
troops throughout Punjab, also encircling 42 important gurudwaras in the state including
the Golden Temple of Amritsar. The government should have placed Punjab
under a curfew if it wanted to prevent innocent pilgrims from gathering at the Darbar
Sahib in Amritsar and 41 other gurudwaras throughout Punjab that the Army planned
to attack, to celebrate Guru Arjun’s martyrdom day. A team of Union ministers
deputed by Indira Gandhi met the top Akali leaders secretly on May 26, two days
after the announcement of their new program of agitation. This team at least could
have asked the Akali leaders to take steps to ward off the pilgrims in view of the
impending military operation. This was not done. On May 30, President Zail Singh,
the Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces and himself a Sikh, assured a delegation
from Punjab that the army had no intention to assault the temple. The President
himself was ignorant about the impending operation.69
Until 1 June 1984, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale held his regular public meetings
on the roof of the community kitchen inside the Golden Temple complex.
The meetings were open to all, and it should have been possible for a group of
commandos to nab him there by using minimal force. This was not done. It also
should have been easy for specially trained sharp shooters, who had positioned
themselves on the buildings around the temple, to target Bhindranwale and his armed
followers and to neutralize them. On June 1 afternoon, mixed groups of various
66 Ghallughara, meaning great massacre, is a term that was first used to describe the eighteenth century
slaughter of the Sikhs under the Afghan invader Ahmad Shah in 1761. J. S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the
Punjab, Revised Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 91, 229
67 Report of the Committee Appointed by the Government of India, Op. Ct pp. 30-31.
68 The Tribune, 24 May 1984, Noncooperation from June 3: Dal announces new plan.
69 The White Paper on Punjab, The Tribune, July 10 1984; The Tribune, July 11 1984, Akali-Centre
secret meetings; Ram Narayan Kumar, The Sikh Unrest and the Indian State, Op. Ct, pp. 177; Ram
Narayan Kumar & Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle: Op. Ct, p. 264.
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36 Reduced to Ashes
security agencies that had occupied the multi-storied buildings in the circumference
did open fire against the temple complex when Bhindranwale was holding his
audience on the roof of the kitchen building. In stead of targetting Bhindranwale,
the sharp shooters aimed at various buildings, including the main shrine of Harmandir
Sahib which sustained 34 bullet marks.70 The objective of this barrage of firing,
that lasted for seven hours, was to assess the strength, the training and the preparedness
of Bhindranwale’s resistance.
According to Devinder Singh Duggal, in-charge of the Sikh Reference Library
located inside the Golden Temple complex and an eye-witness, Bhindranwale’s
followers were under strict instructions “not to fire a single shot unless and until the
security forces or the Army entered the holy Golden Temple.”71 The action claimed
the lives of eight pilgrims, including a woman and a child, inside the temple complex
and injured 25 others. The Government of India’s document called the White
Paper on Punjab released on 10 July 1984 does not acknowledge this incident.
When the firing stopped, a group of Akali volunteers courted arrest. There was no
curfew in Amritsar that night and the next day. Thousands of pilgrims came into the
temple without restrictions. According to eye-witnesses, approximately 10,000 people
had gathered inside. There were also 1,300 Akali workers, including 200 women,
who had come to join the agitation announced by the Akali Dal. Although they had
come in without any hindrance, they could not leave without risking arrest. In the
aftermath of June 2, two Sikh students from Delhi wanted to take a train back to their
city to appear for an examination next morning. At the Amritsar railway station, they
realized that all the outgoing trains had been cancelled. But there was no declaration
of a curfew to stem the stream of pilgrims into the Golden Temple.72 Journalists were
allowed to move in and out of the temple complex, and to interview Bhindranwale,
until the evening of June 3 when suddenly the government imposed the curfew. Three
journalists who came out of the temple complex after speaking to Bhindranwale that
evening, told me that there were more than 10,000 Sikh devotees inside with no idea
of what was about to follow. One journalist counseled some village women, who
nervously questioned him about the Army deployment, to stay put until the curfew
was lifted. The journalist himself had no clue about the scale and the nature of the
Army operation underway.73 A group of human rights workers from Delhi who later
investigated the Ghallughara, concluded that the failure to warn the people was not
“forgetfulness” but “deliberate”.74
The top brass of the Army was working on a grand plan, involving the use of
heavy weapons including battle tanks and helicopters obtained from the Air Force.75
The civil administration had no chance to prepare for contingencies because it was
kept completely in the dark about the operational details. The deputy commissioner
70 Operation Blue Star: The Untold Story, A report prepared by Amiya Rao, Aubindo Ghose, Sunil
Bhattacharya, Tejinder Ahuja and N. D. Pancholi, page 5 of 24 –

71 The Operation Blue Star: The Untold Story, Op. Ct, page 4 of 24.
72 Operation Blue Star: The Untold Story, Op. Ct, page 5 of 24.
73 Ram Narayan Kumar, The Sikh Unrest and the Indian State: Op. Ct, p. 188.

74 Operation Blue Star: The Untold Story, Op. Ct, page 6 of 24.
75 The White Paper on Punjab, the text reproduced in The Tribune, July 11 1984.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 37
of Amritsar learned about the Army action officially on June 3 evening when he
attended a meeting with Major General K. S. Brar, divisional commander of the 9th
Division, at a control room set up in the city’s cantonment area. Asked by General
Brar to give his opinion on Bhindranwale’s morale, the deputy commissioner tried to
tell him that the militant Sikh preacher would not surrender easily. General Brar did
not allow the deputy commissioner to finish his point, but began to exult on his redoubtable
action plans: “…When tanks rattle, planes roar and the ground fires, even
generals tremble in their trousers…”76 Earlier, the government had ignored the deputy
commissioner’s recommendations to capture Bhindranwale through a swift police
operation. Gurdev Singh was later replaced with a more complaint civil servant.
The Army began the assault on June 4 morning by firing heavy artillery and
mortars against the temple complex, destroying the tops of two 18 century towers,
the water tank behind a large public assembly room called Teja Singh Samundri
Hall and other buildings in the circumference. Hundreds of people were killed in
the criss-cross of intense firing that continued throughout June 4. According to
Bhan Singh, then general secretary of SGPC no warning was given before the Army
started shelling the temple. The Army detained volunteers of the Red Cross who
wanted to help the injured at the Jallianwala Bagh.77
Housed in the main shrine of the temple were 50 to 60 priests, singers and other
attendants responsible for various liturgical tasks. Amrik Singh, a blind singer of
religious hymns and a few other temple employees were killed on June 5 morning,
when they stepped out of the shrine to fetch water for the group inside.78 Later that
evening, tanks belonging to the 16th Cavalry Regiment moved into the plaza in front
of the northern entrance to the Golden Temple after Bhindranwale’s fighters repulsed
several attempts made by the commandos of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment
to capture the Akal Takht. Eventually, a group of the 7th Garhwal Rifles succeeded
in establishing a position on the roof of the library building. Two companies
of the 15th Kumaon Regiment later joined the 7th Garhwal Rifles to provide reinforcement.
But the Akal Takht remained impenetrable. In the night of June 6, a suicide
bomber destroyed an armored personal carrier that advanced towards the Akal Takht
in the south side of the circumference. Soon thereafter, eight Vijayanta tanks moved
in to batter the Akal Takht with their large 105mm cannons equipped with high explosive
squash-head shells. Eighty shells were fired at the most sacred of the Sikh
shrines, erected by the sixth Sikh Guru as a counterpoint to the seat of political power
in Delhi, reducing it to rubble. The golden dome of the shrine caved in by the firing
from a heavy Howell gun, mounted on an adjacent building.79
The same night, a battalion of the Kumaon Regiment invaded the hostel complex
at the eastern side where hundreds of pilgrims, the Akali leaders, including Harchand
Singh Longowal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra, and employees of the SGPC had taken
shelter. The Armed Forces took Longowal, Tohra and other senior Akali leaders into
76 Ram Narayan Kumar, Op. Ct, pp. 182-3.
77 Kuldip Nayar & Khushwant Singh, The Tragedy of Punjab, Vision Books, Delhi, 1984, pp. 94-8.
Operation Blue Star: The Untold Story, Op. Ct, pp. 5 and 7 of 24.
78 Operation Blue Star: The Untold Story, Op. Ct, page 8 of 24.
79 Kuldeep Nayar & Khushwant Singh, Op. Ct, pp. 95-100; Mark Tully & Satish Jacob,
Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi’s Last Battle, pp. 160-175; Surya India, “Politics of Bloody Revenge”,
November 1984, pp. 39-42.
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38 Reduced to Ashes
custody, but kept them in a room that served as a temporary centre of detention until
June 6 evening when they moved them to an Army camp. Soldiers ordered all others
out of the rooms into the courtyard while the shelling of the Akal Takht continued.
When a bomb exploded near the hostel, soldiers began to shoot at the group of people
huddled in the courtyard. The SGPC’s secretary Bhan Singh ran to Longowal and
Tohra, who came out to beseech the Major in-charge of the battalion to stop shooting
the innocent pilgrims. Early next morning, Bhan Singh counted “at least 70 dead
bodies” of old men, women and children. Soldiers, commanded by a Major, continued
to line up young Sikhs along the hostel’s corridor to be shot. When Bhan Singh
protested, the Major flew into a rage, tore away his turban and ordered him to either
flee the scene or join the “array of martyrs”. Bhan Singh “turned back and fled,
jumping over the bodies of the dead and injured.” Hundreds of young Sikhs, innocent
pilgrims from the villages, were killed in this manner. A woman school teacher, Ranbir
Kaur, witnessed the shooting of another group of 150 persons whose hands had been
tied behind their backs with their own turbans.
Narinderjit Singh Nanda, the public relations officer of the Golden Temple, and
his wife spent the night of June 5 in a basement under his office. At the midday of
June 6 afternoon one army officer took them to the square in front of the main
entrance gate on the northern side of the temple. They had to step over the bodies
strewn everywhere. Nanda was to be shot by a soldier when a Brigadier, recognizing
him, intervened to rescue him. A young Lieutenant then took Nanda over to the
other side of the circumference, close to the library building, and asked him to stand
against the wall and say his last prayers. Nanda was, however, destined, to live. The
Brigadier showed up again and ordered the Lieutenant to let go of him.
A singer at the Golden Temple, Harcharan Singh Ragi, his wife and their young
daughter came out of their quarters near the information office on June 6 afternoon.
They witnessed the killings of hundreds of people, including women, and would
themselves have been shot if a commander had not taken pity on their young daughter
who fell at his feet begging him to spare her parents’ lives.80
The soldiers were in a foul mood. According to the official White Paper on
Punjab, 83 army personnel had been killed and 249 wounded during the operation.
Private estimates give much higher figures of Army casualties.81 After the destruction
of the Akal Takht, they drank and smoked openly inside the Temple complex
and indiscriminately killed those they found inside. For them, every Sikh inside
was a militant. According to the White Paper, 493 militants were killed, 86 wounded
and 1,592 apprehended during the operation. These numbers add up to 2,171, and
fail to explain what happened to at least 5,000 pilgrims trapped inside when the
operation began. The eye-witnesses claim that “7,000 to 8,000 people were killed”.
Mark Tully estimated that approximately 4,000 people might have died. Chand
Joshi suggested 5,000 civilian deaths.82
80 Operation Bluestar: The Untold Story, Op. Ct, page 13 of 24.
81 Chand Joshi, Bhindranwale: Myth and Reality, S. Chand, New Delhi, 1984, p. 161; J. S. Grewal, The
Sikhs of the Punjab, Revised edition, Cambridge, 1998, p. 227.
82 Operation BlueStar: The Untold Story, Op. Ct, pp. 15 and 16 of 24; Mark Tully and Satish Jacob,
Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi’s Last Battle, Op. Ct, p. 182; Chand Joshi, Bhindranwale: Myth and Reality, Op.
Ct, p. 161; Surya India, November 1984, “Psychology of Revenge”;
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 39
Brahma Chellaney, a Associated Press correspondent, had managed to dodge
the authorities to remain in the city during the Operation Blue Star. Later, he reported
that dead bodies were taken in municipal garbage trucks round the clock and
burnt in heaps of 20 or more. One attendant at the city’s crematorium told him that
there was not “enough wood to burn the dead” individually. He also saw “an estimated
50 corpses” in a large garbage lorry. At least two masculine legs stuck out
from the back of the gray truck. A forehead with long flowing hair, apparently that
of a male Sikh hung from the left side. Chellaney also saw the “dead bodies of at
least two women and a child”. He talked to a doctor who had been forced to sign
post-mortem reports of some people killed inside the temple. The doctor corroborated
the reports that their hands had been tied before the soldiers shot them.83
The Army had isolated and stormed 41 other main gurudwaras throughout Punjab.
In the absence of a thorough investigation, it is difficult to estimate the casualties, but it
is known that the operation against many gurudwaras turned out to be a bloody affair.
The White Paper on Punjab says that “terrorists at Moga and Muktsar offered a fair
amount of resistance.”84 Tiwana Commission of Inquiry, appointed by the Akali state
government two years later to investigate complaints of torture in Army custody, said
that 257 persons were shot at during the storming of the Dukhniwaran Gurudwara at
Patiala.85 In the absence of an independent and comprehensive inquiry, the total figures
of casualties and arrests during the Army operation in Punjab can never be known. The
storming of the temples was followed by a mopping up operation in Punjab’s countryside,
code named Operation Woodrose, resulting in thousands of young Sikhs getting
apprehended. The government claims that its forces apprehended a total of 4,712 people.86
According to the White Paper on Punjab, the storming of the Golden Temple
resulted in the apprehension of 1,592 terrorists. Out of these, 379 were detained
under the National Security Act (NSA) and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities
(Prevention) Act, (TADA). Independent investigations suggest that the large majority
of 379 persons detained under these laws were innocent, ordinary persons
who had gone to the Golden Temple to take part in an important religious event.87
In September 1984, Mrs. Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya, a social worker based
in Delhi, moved a petition before the Supreme Court to raise some issues about the
people the government had detained as the “most dangerous terrorists”. The petition
demanded the Court’s intervention for the release of 22 children aged between
two and 16 years, who had been rounded up from the Golden Temple and were
being held in the Ludhiana jail. Two judges of the Supreme Court, Chinnappa Reddy
and V. Khalid, ruled that “there was no justification for detaining them as they were
pilgrims visiting the Golden Temple during Operation Blue Star.” At this order, the
22 children lodged at the Ludhiana jail were released. But the police rearrested
most of them and tortured them at various interrogation centres for information on
their relatives who had probably been killed during the Army operation.88
83 Ram Narayan Kumar & Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle: Op. Ct, pp. 265-6.
84 The White Paper on Punjab, The Tribune, July 11, 1984.
85 Ram Narayan Kumar & Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle: Op. Ct, p. 344.
86 ibid; J. S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab, Op. Ct, p. 228.
87 Operation BlueStar: The Untold Story, Op. Ct, pages 17 to 23 of 24.
88 ibid, p. 291; The Indian Express, 3 April 1985, Writ on children in Punjab jails.
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40 Reduced to Ashes
There were more children rounded up from the Golden Temple, in Punjab jails
than Kamala Devi knew. After her petition before the Supreme Court, many children
lodged in the Ludhiana jail got transferred to the high security prison in Nabha. But a
correspondent of The Indian Express found out that Jaswant Singh and Kewal Singh,
lodged in the Nabha prison under the NSA, were 11 and 15-years-old, and published
a story about them on 24 October 1984. On 27 October 1984, a Sikh religious organization
moved a criminal writ petition no. 551 of 1984 before the High Court of Punjab
and Haryana to demand their release. The petition said that the children were not
involved in any criminal case and that the government had used the NSA to cover
their detention many months after illegally arresting them on 3 June 1984. The petition
prayed that the court should quash their detention as being mala fide and also
order a thorough inquiry about the circumstances that permitted minor children unconnected
with crime to be held in high security prisons.
Justice M. M. Punchi heard the petition and disposed it with the following order:
“The petition is extremely vague and tends to ask for a fishing inquiry. Dismissed.”
M. M. Punchi was later elevated to the Supreme Court and briefly served
as India’s Chief Justice.89
As we have already observed, the attack on the Golden Temple, the destruction of
the Akal Takht and the atrocities that followed the Army operations, produced in all
sections of the Sikhs a sense of outrage that was hard to alleviate. In any case, no
attempts were made towards appeasement. The large majority of Hindu India, even if
politically hostile to Indira Gandhi, identified with and exulted in her will to overwhelmingly
humble a recalcitrant minority. The sentiment was echoed by Morarji
Desai, the former Prime Minister who had led the democratic coalition that replaced
Indira Gandhi’s Emergency regime in March 1977: “Nation would have been destroyed
if the Army had not been moved in. All the terrorists have not been finished
yet. They should be liquidated as they are maligning the image of the Sikhs and pose
a fundamental threat to the very existence of the country.”90 The statement conveys a
position of Hindu militancy that has acquired the sophisticated advocacy of many
successful people with a wistful involvement in the “glory that was Hinduism”, a
glory that has remained unfulfilled in the “calamitous millennium”.
Trinidad born writer Sir Vidyadhar S. Naipaul, who has made Britain his home,
recently said: “Dangerous or not, Hindu militancy is a corrective to the history I have
been talking about. It is a creative force and will be so.” In the same interview, Sir V.
S. Naipaul also talked about the great Indian aesthetic-architecture: “The Mughal
buildings are foreign buildings. They are a carry-over from the architecture of Isfahan.
In India they speak of the desert. They cover enormous spaces and they make me
think of everything that was flattened to enable them to come up… The Taj is so
wasteful, so decadent and in the end so cruel that it is painful to be there for very
long.”91 Sophisticated Hindus with such views on India’s history could not regret the
destruction of Amritsar’s Golden Temple which is Islamic in essential architecture
and had become the symbol of the Sikh defiance to India’s seat of authority in Delhi.
89 Ram Narayan Kumar & Georg Sieberer, Op. Ct, pp. 291-2.
90 The Tribune, 28 June 1984, Nation Saved: Desai.
91 Outlook, 15 November 1999, “Christianity didn’t damage India like Islam: Interview with V. S. Naipaul”
–
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 41
Stanley Wolpert, the author of Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny, said “When the tanks
rolled into the Golden Temple, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had really signed her
death warrant because the Sikhs have very long memories, and they felt that that kind
of invasion into the Vatican, the mecca of the Sikh faith, was intolerable.”92 This view
of the Sikh reaction to the Golden Temple’s destruction requires the capacity of an
outsider to empathize with the sentiments of a demonized minority, unavailable among
those who belonged to the Hindu political framework.
Assassination of Indira Gandhi and Delhi Pogroms
In the morning of 31 October 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was going to be
interviewed by Peter Ustinov, well known film actor, playwright and director, for a
BBC program. Indira Gandhi wore a colorful sari and discarded her bulletproof
vest to look elegant enough for the television interview. As she stepped out of her
house, two of her Sikh security guards opened fire, one with his service revolver
and the other with his sten gun. Indira Gandhi collapsed on the spot. Peter Ustinov
could not witness the assassination as he was behind the hedge in the garden. But he
recorded the sound. First, there were three revolver shots. The Indian cameraman
thought they were “firecrackers”. Again, there was a round of machine gun fire.
The ambulance arrived and took Indira Gandhi to the All India Medical Institute
(AIIMS). Seven minutes later, Ustinov’s sound system recorded another burst of
machine gun fire, and he concluded that “there had been a settling of accounts”. A
second group of bodyguards took the Sikh assassins to the guard-house and shot
them there. One of them, Beant Singh, died, but his accomplice Satwant Singh
survived to stand trial.93 The attempt to finish them off was seen as belonging to a
larger conspiracy to cover up its ramifications.94
92 Book Notes Transcript: Stanley Wolpert, - page 9 of 21.
93 Peter Ustinov, Time Yahoo Chat, -

94 Twenty days after the assassination, the government appointed a commission of inquiry headed by a
sitting judge of the Supreme Court, M. P. Thakkar, to investigate the conspiracy. The police without
waiting for the report of the commission arrested and interrogated many and brought to trial as coconspirators,
apart from Satwant Singh, two other serving Sikh officers of the Delhi police attached to the
Prime Minister’s security, Kehar Singh and Balbir Singh. The trial court sentenced all of them to death.
The high court confirmed the death sentences. Kehar Singh’s conviction was founded on his
confessional statement, exacted under interrogation, that on learning about Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination
he had remarked: “Whoever would take confrontation with the Panth would meet the same fate.” The
remark, the Supreme Court, ruled, indicated his guilty mind. Ram Jethmalani, a prominent lawyer and
now a Union minister, moved the Supreme Court to argue that to carry out the death penality imposed on
the strength of very fortuitous and circumstantial evidence, specially when neither the courts nor the
President had examined the Thakkar Commission report, would amount to judicial murder. The Court
remained unmoved. Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh were hanged on 6 January 1989. Before long, the
Indian Express published excerpts from the confidential report of the Thakkar Commission, submitted to
the government in February 1986, that had been withheld even from the Parliament through an
amendment in the Commission of Inquiry Act. The excerpts published in the Indian Express revealed that
the commission had pointed a finger of suspicion towards R. K. Dhawan, then special assistant of Mrs.
Gandhi, who was present at the scene of the crime. According to the report, Dhawan had not only got the
assassins posted to the innermost circle of the Prime Minister’s security ring, in spite of adverse
intelligence reports, he had also manipulated the timing of her appointment for the television interview to
facilitate the crime. Instead of taking action on the recommendations of the report, the government
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42 Reduced to Ashes
Indira Gandhi’s assassination sparked off organized violence against innocent
Sikhs all over north India, and it became extraordinarily vicious in Delhi. Getting
involved with a group formed immediately after the outbreak of the mayhem to
rescue and rehabilitate the victims, I became personally acquainted with the patterns
of systematically orchestrated violence that claimed 3,000 innocent Sikh lives
in the next three days. The Congress party workers had gathered in large numbers
outside the AIIMS where Indira Gandhi was rushed immediately after her security
guards had shot her. As I drove by the hospital, I noticed the explosive temper of
the crowd that was raising vicious slogans of revenge. Several Sikhs on the road
had already been assaulted. President of India Zail Singh, a Sikh, had cut short his
visit to Mauritius and had driven to the hospital straight from the airport around
2:30 p.m. The crowd stoned the President’s car and raised slogans proclaiming
Rajiv Gandhi to be their leader. The All India Radio announced Indira Gandhi’s
death at 6 p.m. Half-an-hour later, the President of India swore in Rajiv Gandhi as
the Prime Minister. Khushwant Singh, a well known Sikh writer, a member of Parliament
and a personal friend of the Nehru family, wrote: “In medieval India, deaths
of ruling monarchs were not made public till a successor had been named. The
practice was observed in October 1984.” In the next hours, many areas of Delhi
witnessed outbreak of violence. Sikh taxi and bus drivers were manhandled and
their vehicles burnt. Many shops and factories owned by the Sikhs were also attacked.
But there were not many killings that evening. That night, according to
Khushwant Singh, “politicians belonging to the ruling Congress party met to decide
how to teach the Sikhs a lesson they would never forget.”
Early next morning, hordes of people from the suburbs of Delhi were transported
to various localities in the city where the Sikh population was concentrated.
The mobilization suggested the backing of an organization with vast resources. The
criminal hordes descending on the city carried crude weapons like iron rods, knives,
clubs and combustible material, including kerosene, for arson. They were also supplied
with lists of houses and business establishments belonging to the Sikhs in
various localities. The government controlled television Doordarshan, and the All
India Radio began broadcasting provocative slogans seeking bloody vengeance,
“khoon ka badla khoon se lenge (Blood for blood!)”. Murderous gangs of 200 or
300 people led by the leaders, with policemen looking on, began to swarm into Sikh
houses, hacking the occupants to pieces, chopping off the heads of children, raping
women, tying Sikh men to tires set aflame with kerosene, burning down the houses
and shops after ransacking them. Mobs stopped buses and trains, in and out of
Delhi, pulling out Sikh passengers to be lynched to death or doused with kerosene
and burnt alive. In some areas, the Sikh families grouped together for self-defence.
The police officials then arrived to disperse them, by force when persuasion did not
work. In other areas, the police searched the houses for weapons including ceremonial
daggers, and confiscated them before the mobs came. Over the next five days,
nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed. Khushwant Singh realised “what Jews must have
adopted the diversionary ploy of charging four prominent Sikh leaders, including Simranjit Singh Mann,
of participating in the conspiracy to kill Mrs. Gandhi. The case was withdrawn following the defeat of
the Congress party in the general elections held in November 1989. – Ram Narayan Kumar & Georg
Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle: Op. Ct, pp. 294-6.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 43
felt like in Nazi Germany”. He concluded: “The killing assumed the proportion of a
genocide of the Sikh community.”95
The rehabilitation camp that I had helped set up in Shakarpur, a trans-Jamuna
locality of Delhi, housed 2,000 refugees, among them a large number of widows
and children who shared with me their nightmarish experiences. The Delhi pogrom
has been documented by several organizations. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties
and the People’s Union of Democratic Rights published a joint report, called
Who are the Guilty? The report says that “the attacks on the members of the Sikh
community in Delhi… far from being spontaneous expressions of ‘madness’ and of
‘grief and anger’ at Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination, as made out by the authorities,
were the outcome of a well organized plan marked by acts of both deliberate commission
and omission by important politicians of the Congress and by authorities in
the administration…” The report mentions the names of 16 important Congress
politicians, 13 police officers and 198 others, accused by survivors and eye-witnesses.
The report by the Citizens for Democracy, led by former High Court Justice
V. M. Tarkunde, concluded that the “carnage was orchestrated by the ruling party”.
Yet another investigative report compiled by a team of prominent citizens including
retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, S. M. Sikri, former civil servants
Badruddin Tyabji, Rajeshwar Dayal and others, came to the same conclusions.96
The government decided to close down 28 “temporary homes”, set up by an
organization called the Nagrik Ekta Manch (Citizens Unity Forum) to shelter Delhi’s
uprooted Sikhs. These “homes” had become the focal points for the documentation
of the carnage, which the government wanted to cover up. Before closing the
“homes”, the government proposed to monetarily compensate the victims with Rs.
10,000 for a death in the family, Rs. 5,000 for substantial destruction of property,
Rs. 2,000 for injury and Rs. 1,000 for insubstantial harm to property. These amounts,
at the current exchange rate of Rs. 44 to 1, are approximately $ 225, $110, $45 and
$22. These figures show the official evaluation of the worth of the lives destroyed,
their physical and psychological integrity and their hard-earned properties. No compensation
was given for the destruction of household items, consumer goods and
merchandise in business establishments and industrial assets.97
Early in January 1985, journalist Rahul Bedi of The Indian Express and Smitu
Kothari of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties moved the High Court of Delhi to
demand a judicial inquiry into the pogrom on the strength of the documentation
carried out by human rights organizations. Justice Yogeshwar Dayal dismissed the
petition after deprecating “those busybodies out for publicity, who poke their noses
95 Who are the guilty? A joint report by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights and People’s Union for
Civil Liberties, New Delhi, 1984; 31 October to 4 November 1984, Citizens’ Commission, Delhi, 1985;
Truth about Delhi Violence: A report from the Citizens for Democracy, New Delhi; The Sikhs: The
Minority Rights Group Report, No. 65, Christopher Shackle, London 1986, London; Ram Narayan
Kumar & Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle: Op. Ct, p. 1; Khushwant Singh, My Bleeding Punjab,
UBS Publishers’ Distributors Ltd., Delhi, 1992, pp. 88-96; J. S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab, Op.
Ct, p. 229; M. J. Akbar, India: The Siege Within, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1985, p. 109.
96 Who are the guilty? A joint report by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights and People’s Union
for Civil Liberties, New Delhi, 1984; 31 October to 4 November 1984, Citizens’ Commission, Delhi,
1985; Truth about Delhi Violence: A report from the Citizens for Democracy, 1984, New Delhi.
97 The Delhi Massacre: An Example of Malicious Government –
page 9 of 10.
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44 Reduced to Ashes
into all matters and waste the valuable time of the judiciary.”98
In the 18 years since the massacre occurred, seven commissions of inquiry have
been set up to investigate the Delhi carnage. The first commission of inquiry appointed
by the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1985 under Justice Ranganath Mishra
of the Supreme Court served the purpose of covering-up the role of the Congress
party leaders in organizing and executing the carnage. As a reward, the Congress
government appointed Mishra as the first chairman of the NHRC after his retirement
as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Currently, Mishra is a Congress
MP.99 The last of the commissions under retired Supreme Court judge G. T. Nanavati,
appointed by the Union government on 10 May 2000, has still not been able to
complete its work. Several credible media reports attribute the delay to the lethargic
attitude of the Union home ministry itself. A Frontline report points out that the
ministry is claiming the inability to trace several important records, required by the
commission, including the communications among the home ministry, the ministry
of defence, the Army and the Lt. Governor of Delhi, and the minutes of the meetings
held by then home minister P. V. Narashimha Rao with his officials between
31 October and 5 November 1984. The Union home ministry has also not been able
to provide copies of depositions made before the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission
by then Chief of the Army Staff, General A. S. Vaidya, Major-General A.
S. Jamwal and Major J. S. Sandhu.100 Meanwhile, several victim families have written
to the commission that they have been receiving threats accompanied by physical
violence, to withdraw their complaints.101 There are indications that the Nanavati
Commission too will fail to serve the ends of justice. The commission under Justice
R. S. Nirula, established by the chief minister of Delhi in December 1993, in its
report had called for action against 72 police officials and 21 others, including
Congress politicians. The report had pointed out that a 26,646 strong police force,
including its officers, for a city with 6.5 million people in 1984, meant that there
was one policeman for roughly 240 citizens. This was a sufficient force to stop the
carnage if the police had wanted to act.102 However, as Amnesty International complained
in a memorandum to the Government of India, none of the recommendations
of these commissions have been implemented, “nor have any of the accused
policemen and politicians been brought to justice”. Amnesty International also observed
that the Delhi administration’s director of prosecution wanted the cases against
the indicted policemen to be dropped.103 The Delhi administration argued that there
was insufficient evidence to obtain their conviction.
This issue of evidence was taken up by the additional sessions judge of Delhi, S.
N. Dhingra, who examined some of the cases pertaining to the November 1984
98 Ram Narayan Kumar & Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle: Op. Ct, p. 1.
99 The Indian Express, 3 October 2000, Manoj Mitta, “1984 riots – 10,000 affidavits filed” –

100 Frontline, Volume 18, Issue 13, June 23 –July 6, 2001, Naunidhi Kaur, “Commission of Inquiry: Justice
delayed”, —
101 The Indian Express, 25 October 2000, Anuradha Nagaraj, “Complainant’s cousin roughed up” –

102 Frontline, Volume 19, Issue 1, January 05 – 18, 2002, Naunidhi Kaur, “Commissions of Inquiry: Crime
and Connivance” –
103 AI Index: ASA 20/20/94 Memorandum to the Government of India: Arising from an Amnesty
International visit to India 5-15 January 1994,
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 45
pogrom. In a 92-page judgment, delivered on 28 August 1996, Judge Dhingra accused
the police, the administration and the government of deliberately suppressing
and destroying the evidence. The judgment categorically said that the government
“protected all those connected with the 1984 riots”, the actual murderers and their
mentors within the police and the political establishment: “The inaction of the police,
the inaction of the government and the administration in the riot cases was a
well thought out process. It was necessary to save those who were involved in the
crime. Perhaps it was considered by the rioters and the rulers alike that the massacre
was necessary to teach a lesson and those who engineered the mass murders must
be protected.” The judgment concluded: “Unless the system rewrites itself and the
investigating agencies are liberated from the clutches of the executive, there is little
possibility of faithful and honest investigation by investigating agencies against
influential and politically powerful offenders.”104
In March 1998, the Union and the state government of Delhi banned a new book
on the Delhi massacre. The book has been authored by an eyewitness, Gurucharan
Singh Babbar, who has persistently campaigned for justice. The book draws mainly
from eyewitness accounts and also accuses the judiciary of acquiescing in the process
of the cover-up. The decision to ban the book was taken after the Delhi High
Court admitted a petition from a Hindu praying for its proscription. The bench of
the high court that heard the petition approved the government’s decision to “outlaw
the book from further publication, distribution and sale.”105 That is the kind of
consensual commitment to suppress inconvenient truth that proves the veracity of
what Naipaul told an Indian magazine Outlook: “Defeated people never write their
history. The victors write the history… For people on the other side it is a period of
darkness.” Naipaul was explaining the absence of the Hindu historical chronicles
about the Muslim invasion of India. The point applies, with equal force, to the
situation of the minority communities in the peripheral states of India today.
Abortion of a Peace Accord
Jaswant Singh Khalra, although from Amritsar, had no truck with Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale. He did not agree with the manner in which Bhindranwale was
radicalizing the Sikh masses. In his opinion, they were easily provoked and often
took on formidable fights without weighing their strength and the state of preparedness.
He recognized that Bhindranwale was instrumental in channelising the Sikh
aspiration for justice and gathered young and underprivileged people around him,
unlike the Akalis who worked only with the established and prosperous elements in
the Sikh society. But he disagreed with the manner and the pace at which he precipitated
the armed confrontation between the Sikhs and the Government of India.
In his opinion, people’s struggles for substantial reforms within the established
order could not be won by the use of violence.
Jaswant was surprised when, soon after winning the elections, Rajiv Gandhi
released important Akali leaders from detention to negotiate with them a peace
104 The Hindu, 29 August 1996, 1984 riots: Strictures against Govt.
105 Rediff On The Net, March 23 1998, ‘Communal’ Sarkari qatl-e-aam banned.
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46 Reduced to Ashes
accord that he signed with Harcharan Singh Longowal, their president, on 25 July
1985.
The accord delineated 11 points of common consent, making the following main
concessions. It promised: (a) To transfer Chandigarh to Punjab by 26 January 86;
(b) To set up tribunals presided over by Supreme Court judges to adjudicate the
river water and territorial disputes; and (c) To refer the Akali resolution for provincial
autonomy to a commission appointed to recommend changes in the “Centrestate
relationship to bring out the true federal characteristics of our unitary Constitution”.
The accord also promised to inquire into the Delhi killings of November
1984, to withdraw the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and to restore the rule of
law and human rights in Punjab. The accord paved the way for the restoration of a
popular government in the state.
Longowal was assassinated 26 days after he signed the accord by militants who
called it an act of betrayal. However, Longowal’s moderate successor, Surjit Singh
Barnala, led the party to a thumping victory in the state assembly elections held in
September 1985 by winning 72 out of 117 seats. Although the Sikh extremists were
unhappy about the compromise with a Central government that had destroyed the
Golden Temple, Barnala stood by the terms of the accord that had promised to
“usher in an era of amity, goodwill and cooperation” between the Sikhs and the
Indian Union.106
The Central government repudiated its part of the accord in its entirety.
Chandigarh was not transferred to Punjab as promised. The commissions on the
river waters and territorial disputes were scuttled. Those guilty for the November
1984 massacre of the Sikhs remained unpunished. The examination of the Centrestates
relationship was restricted to an investigation “within the basic structure of
the Constitution”.
On 26 January 86, a large congregation of Sikhs gathered at the site of the
demolished Akal Takht to review the political developments in the state. That day,
the top headline of all newspapers announced the government’s decision to shelve
the main part of Longowal’s accord with Rajiv Gandhi: The promise to transfer
Chandigarh to Punjab before 26 January 1986.
Four days ago, the court that had been trying the case of Indira Gandhi’s assassination
handed out its judgement. All the accused were sentenced to death by hanging.
107 These news reports, read out to 30,000 participants, carried home the point
that India would not make the smallest concession to the Sikhs.108 The political
resolution adopted by the congregation said that if the assassins of Indira Gandhi
were hanged, they would become the first martyrs of Khalistan. The congregation
also appointed a five-member panel called the Panthic Committee to guide the Sikh
struggle to its goals, allegedly betrayed by the incumbent Akali government.109
106 Ram Narayan Kumar & Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle: Origin, Evolution and Present Phase, ibid,
p. 270. Longowal was assassinated on 20 August 1985, 26 days after he signed the accord with the
Indian Prime Minister.
107 The Tribune, 23 January 1986, Indira murder case: Satwant two others to die.
108 The Tribune, 26 January 1986, Punjab, Haryana decisions deferred - Mathew Panel Report: City
status unchanged.
109 The Tribune, 27 January 1986, Sarbat Khalsa dissolves SGPC: Akal Takht Chief sacked; The Tribune,
28 January 1986, New Takht chief installed.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 47
At another congregation, called Sarbat Khalsa, held on 13 April 1986, adopted
a political resolution asking the Sikhs to break the shackles of slavery to India. A
fortnight later, the Panthic Committee declared the “formation of Khalistan”, also
creating its own army called the Khalistan Commando Force that would fight for
that objective.110
The next day, the Punjab government sent troops to the Golden Temple to flush
out the separatists. But the members of the Panthic Committee had already disappeared.
111
The symbolic raid however, helped the militant cause by precipitating a split in
the Akali Dal government. An influential section of the party, with 27 members of
the state legislative assembly, broke away from the government to form a separate
group. The four most important leaders of the Akali Dal – Tohra, Badal, Sukhjinder
Singh and Amarinder Singh – left the government over this issue.112
In October 1987, the Union government dismissed the elected Akali government
in Punjab on the ground that it was unable to safeguard the Hindu interests in
the state from Sikh militant attacks.113
Jaswant Singh Khalra was very unhappy at these developments. He believed
that they could only inflict more suffering and injury on an already bleeding Punjab
and help the state deflect attention from the real issues. He was also very disturbed
about the way the state agencies were strengthening the apparatus of repression
without any reference to the rule of law.
In 1981, Jaswant Singh married Paramjit Kaur, sister of his college friend from
Faridkot district. Paramjit had a post-graduate degree in Punjabi literature and a
bachelor’s degree in library science. Soon after their marriage, Paramjit was appointed
as a librarian at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar and she took over
the responsibility of running the household on her salary. The arrangement suited
Jaswant Singh who spent his own salary on his social and political activities. Paramjit
never bothered him about household matters. He never interfered in her domestic
sphere and never asked how she spent her salary.
The situation in Punjab had been steadily deteriorating. Reports of police atrocities,
— illegal abductions, custodial torture, enforced disappearances, killings in
faked encounters and false stories of escapes from police custody, brazen abuse of
laws like TADA – were daily on the rise amidst the escalation of the Sikh separatist
violence. Jaswant Singh daily came across cases of suspected Sikh separatists and
their sympathizers who were whisked away by unidentified officials of the Indian
security agencies, appearing out of the blue, in vehicles without number plates, to
be taken to undisclosed places for interrogation and to disappear for ever. He was
also very anguished by the mindless violence perpetrated by the armed Sikh groups,
especially against innocent members of the Hindu community. To take up these
issues, Jaswant Singh formed a Daman Virodhi Front – Anti-Repression Front. To
110 The Tribune, 13 April 1986, Sarbat Khalsa Today: Plan to avert showdown; The Tribune, 14 April
1986, Severe attack on Akali Ministry: Sarbat Khalsa for new SGPC.
111 The Tribune, 1 May 1986, Security men enter temple complex: Curfew in 18 Localities; Resolve to
Launch fight to the finish; The Tribune, 2 May 1986, Police action successful: One killed in firing.
112 The Tribune, 3 May 1986, Badal Tohra leave Dal Panel: Two Punjab Ministers quit; The Tribune, 7
May 1986, Twenty seven Dal MLAs form new party: Government reduced to minority.
113 Ram Narayan Kumar & Georg Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle, ibid, p. 276.
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48 Reduced to Ashes
be able to devote all his time to the tasks of monitoring human rights and intervention,
Jaswant Singh resigned from his position as the panchayat secretary. His department,
however, never accepted his resignation. But Jaswant Singh did not report
to his office after November 1987 and devoted most of his time to following up
the cases of people who were under imminent threat of torture and elimination
following their illegal arrest. In the vast majority of cases, Jaswant Singh’s exertions
failed to yield results and those abducted by the security forces simply disappeared.
Sometimes, he managed to get people released from illegal custody. These
successes, although rare and far too few to make much difference, gave him immense
satisfaction. Jaswant Singh also openly criticized the separatist militants for
targeting innocent civilians. Once, he went on a five-day hunger strike to protest
against the killing of Hindus by unidentified armed militants in his area. Some of
his sympathizers warned him against condemning the militant groups so publicly.
But Jaswant Singh maintained that the prohibition on the taking of innocent lives
was equally binding on both state and non-state forces. He publicly announced that
unless the revolutionary groups had the discipline to strictly enforce the prohibition
on their rank and file, their cause ceased to have legitimacy.
Election Hopes
The year 1989 concluded with a dramatic change in the political situation at both
the national and state level. It promised a way out of the bloody strife in Punjab
through a negotiated settlement between the representatives of the radical political
opinion in Punjab and the leaders of the Indian government. The change followed
the general elections in December 1989 that returned the candidates belonging to
the radical wing of the Akali Dal under Simranjit Singh Mann, from 10 out of 13
constituencies in the state and also elected the Janata Dal, under V. P. Singh, to a
majority in Parliament at the national level.
Simaranjit Singh Mann, a 1967 batch Indian Police Service officer from the
Punjab cadre, belongs to a politically influential family and is related to the scion of
Patiala royalty Amarinder Singh, the current chief minister of Punjab, through his
marriage. His wife Geetinder Kaur and Amarinder’s wife are sisters. His father
Joginder Singh was a former Speaker of the Punjab legislative assembly. In 1978,
Mann was posted as an SSP of Faridkot district, which included Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale’s native village. Over the next years, Mann was known to have developed
friendly ties with Bhindranwale. The government found out about this link
and, in 1983, transferred him to the railways, as an assistant inspector-general (DIG).
The government would probably have dismissed Mann from the service if Amarinder
Singh had not intervened. During Operation Blue Star, Mann was posted as the
DIG of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at Bombay. After Operation
Blue Star, Mann wrote a strong emotional letter to President Zail Singh upbraiding
him for not resigning from his position after the Indian Army, under his supreme
command, had destroyed the Akal Takht. Mann also resigned his own position and
went underground. In November 1984, he was arrested while trying to cross the
border into Nepal, ostensibly to organize the Sikh resistance from abroad. Later, he
was also charged with conspiring to assassinate Indira Gandhi. His defiance of the
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 49
government made him very popular with the Sikhs. Mann had already been nominated
as the president of the United Akali Dal, a party launched by Bhindranwale’s
father who had been persuaded by the extremists to become the pivot of a new
political alignment.114
When the government announced parliamentary elections for the end of 1989,
Mann declared his candidacy from Tarn Taran constituency, although he was still a
prisoner. He also fielded his candidates from eight parliamentary constituencies in
Punjab. The results belied the predictions of the political pundits that the division in
the Sikh vote between the radical and moderate Akali factions would benefit the
Congress. The group under Mann swept the polls by bagging six out of 13 parliamentary
seats in Punjab. Four additional constituencies elected independent candidates
who had received his blessings. Mann himself created a record in his constituency
by polling 527, 707 out of the total of 591,883 valid votes cast.115
At the national level, the Congress lost the elections to the Janata Dal, a new
formation under V. P. Singh who had resigned his position as the finance minister
under Rajiv Gandhi to accuse the latter of gargantuan corruption in arms deals. The
manifesto of the Janata Dal had promised to end the abuse of civil liberties in Punjab,
and to solve the unrest in the state through dialogue in a democratic spirit.
Returning from prison to Punjab in his new role as a political leader, Mann
promised to strive for the fulfilment of Sikhs’ aspirations by adopting the constitutional
means. Speaking to the massive crowd that gathered to welcome him in Punjab
on 3 December 1989, Mann said: “First we would try out the constitutional ways to
get the demands of the Sikhs fulfilled… If the government fails to satisfy the Sikhs,
we shall follow a path according to our nation’s consensus.” According to the newspaper
reports, there was no trace of either bitterness or hubris in his meek voice.116
After consulting all the organisations involved in the struggle, Mann set out five
preconditions for the Central government to fulfil before they could discuss more
substantial political questions. They were:
(1) It should express repentance and seek forgiveness for the Army assault on
the Golden Temple; (2) It should adopt a condolence motion in both the Houses of
Parliament to commemorate those Sikhs who had been killed during the November
1984 riots, and take steps to punish those who had orchestrated the anti-Sikh carnage;
(3) It should release from prisons and reinstate those Sikh soldiers who had
revolted in the wake of the Operation Blue Star; (4) It should register criminal
proceedings against the officials in Punjab including governor Siddharth Shankar
Ray, his police advisor Julio Ribeiro and DGP K. P. S. Gill who excelled all in the
policy of blind repression; (5) It should repeal the black laws that violated the fundamental
rights of citizens and withdraw from Punjab the paramilitary forces occupying
the state.117
For a government that had promised justice and restoration of democracy, these
conditions should have been agreeable. But the new government, whose Prime
114 Kumar, The Sikh Unrest, ibid, pp. 241-2, 274-276; Harbans Singh, The CBI File-2, ND, 1989,
pp. 74-75
115 ibid, pp. 275-276.
116 Quoted in Kumar, The Sikh Unrest, Op. Cit. p. 287
117 Kumar, Sieberer, The Sikh Struggle, ibid, pp. 383.
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50 Reduced to Ashes
Minister staged a theatrical drive through the crowded lanes of Amritsar in an open
jeep and proclaimed that “a new era has begun”, decided not to come under pressure
by accepting their preconditions for a “dialogue”. The most bizarre of all was
the decision of the government to hold consultations with those moderate groups of
the Akalis who had been routed in the elections. These leaders, like Prakash Singh
Badal and Surjit Singh Barnala, advised the Central government not to hold elections
to the state assembly as they feared an abrupt end to their own political careers
in the new climate.118 The Janata Dal government not only decided to withhold the
assembly elections, thereby thwarting the process of democracy, but also to retain
those police officials who had earned notoriety for human rights violations. “Improving
law and order”, a euphemism for continuation of the ‘Police Raj’, remained
the guiding principle of the new government’s policy. This, combined with the
media build-up that portrayed the new Sikh team as a bunch of fanatics, destroyed
whatever chance there may have been in resolving the conflict through a rational
process of compromise.
Mann could not establish a rapport with the new government, even as the situation
in Punjab became increasingly anarchical. On 21 December 89, the security personnel
at the Parliament House refused permission to a newly elected Sikh member Dhyan
Singh Mand to enter the House along with his sword. Mand refused to take the oath of
his membership without it. Mann himself declined to enter Parliament unless the
government allowed the newly elected members to carry their swords into the House.119
Poll Boycott
The V. P. Singh government fell in November 1990, through defections engineered
by his own party’s president, Chandrashekhar. The Congress under Rajiv Gandhi
installed him as the Prime Minister by supporting his breakaway group of 54 in the
House of 542. The Congress withdrew the support in March 1991, forcing fresh
polls. Chandrashekhar had been hobnobbing with the Sikh militant organizations
with the hope of solving the problem of unrest, to show it as an achievement for his
term as the Prime Minister of India. He decided to hold simultaneous elections to
Parliament and the state assembly in Punjab, a decision that all other national parties
vociferously opposed.120
Most of the Sikh militant organizations themselves called for a boycott of the
elections. The separatist militants gunned down candidate after candidate, even as
80,000 paramilitary personnel and eventually the Army drove around in their armored
vehicles. More than 20 candidates fell to the militant bullets as the period of
campaigning drew to an end. Our cases also implicate police officials in some of the
118 The Tribune, 7 December 1989.
119 Kumar, Sieberer, ibid, p. 384; The Tribune, 4 December 1989.
120 The Tribune, 17 March 1991, Poll possible in Punjab, J&K: PM; The Tribune, 1 April 1991, PM firm on
solving Punjab problem; The Tribune, 25 March 1991, All efforts to hold poll in Punjab, J&K: PM; The
Tribune, 1 April 1991, PM firm on solving Punjab problem; The Tribune, 12 April 1991, Lok Sabha,
Assembly poll in Punjab, Assam; The Tribune, 17 March 1991, Govt keen on holding poll in Punjab;
The Tribune, 19 March 1991, RV may resist poll in Punjab; The Tribune, 21 March 1991, Punjab poll
now to destroy democracy; The Tribune , 4 April 1991, RV urged not to hold poll in Punjab.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 51
killings. Chandrashekar’s home minister, a candidate for Parliament from Ludhiana,
providentially escaped an attempt on his life. Rajiv Gandhi, visiting Chandigarh on
May 14, promised to cancel the polls in Punjab if his party got elected to Parliament
with a majority. The Congress was returned as the single largest party in Parliament,
although Rajiv Gandhi himself was killed by a woman member of Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Elam (LTTE), a Tamil separatist guerilla group in Sri Lanka. Narasimha
Rao of the Congress party became the Prime Minister and instructed the Election
Commission to cancel the polls in Punjab.121 KPS Gill, whom Chandrashekhar had
transferred to Delhi as the chief of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), returned
to Punjab once again as the director general of police.
Jaswant Singh recognized that the Centre had changed party hands three times
since the dismissal of Barnala’s government in Punjab in October 1987. However,
these changes made no difference either to the government’s political approach in
regard to the problem of unrest in Punjab nor to the basic patterns of police functioning
in the state. From the very beginning, political elements within the government
are known to have hobnobbed with one militant faction or the other. However,
there never was any attempt to initiate discussions with the extremist groups
on the basis of concrete issues that constituted the foundation of Sikh discontent.
All overtures and contacts were always essentially mercenary in nature, based on
calculations of short-term political advantages and negating the prospects of transparent
deliberations on the merits of the issues involved.
In November 1991, Punjab was brought under the Disturbed Areas Act, which
gave the security forces extensive powers to search, detain and interrogate anyone
without judicial warrants. Along with these steps, the Central government announced
that the elections to Parliament and the state assembly for Punjab would be held in
the first quarter of 1992. A meeting of all the major Akali Sikh groups held on 4
January 1992 decided to boycott the elections.122 The government reported 28 per
121 The Tribune, 21 March 1991, Bomb Found on Governor’s route; The Tribune, 3 February 1991, DGP
Mangat hurt in Blast; The Tribune, 6 March 1991, Buta Singh’s relative kidnapped; The Tribune, 20
March 1991, Militants release Bhatia’s relative; The Tribune, 29 February 1991, Mann calls for Azadi;
The Tribune, 16 April 1991, EC asked to take note of Mann’s statements; The Tribune, 4 April 1991,
RV urged not to hold poll in Punjab; The Tribune, 16 April 1991, EC asked to take note of Mann’s
statements; The Tribune, 19 April 1991, Reply to RV’S Memo: Cabinet sticks to poll decision; The
Tribune, 12 May 1991, The deal behind Punjab poll; The Tribune, 20 April 1991, Poll challenge to
Nationalists: Yash; CPM not to take part in Punjab poll; The Tribune, 25 April 1991, Fair poll in Punjab
impossible: Rajiv; The Tribune, 26 April 1991, Cong[I] to boycott poll in Punjab; The Tribune, 12 June
1991, Left to boycott Punjab poll; The Tribune, 30 April 1991, Rajiv’s reservations on Punjab poll; The
Tribune, 15 May 1991, Punjab poll won’t be fair: Rajiv; The Tribune, 5 May 1991, No direct talks with
militants: PM; The Tribune, 3 May 1991, US Report: 5000 civilians died in Punjab; The Tribune, 7
February 1992, USA praises India’s anti-militancy steps; The Tribune, 14 May 1991, Govt-Militant talks
in Amritsar stalled; The Tribune, 15 May 1991, Talks outside Punjab, militants told; The Tribune, 23
May 1991, Army curfew in several areas; How Rajiv began his fateful day; Lakhs file past Rajiv’s body;
The Tribune, 25 May 1991, Plastic belt bomb killed Rajiv Gandhi; The Tribune, 25 May 1991, No
change in poll dates: EC; The Tribune, 17 June 1991, Cong [I] heads for big win; The Tribune, 18 June
1991, Cong[I] continues victory march; The Tribune, 19 June 1991, Cong[I], Allies still short of majority;
The Tribune, 21 June 1991, Rao elected CPP[I].
122 The Tribune, 18 January 1992, Akalis to boycott poll; The Tribune, 28 December 1991, Tohra for
boycott of elections; The Tribune, 29 December 1991, Badal for debate on C’wealth issue; The
Tribune, 5 January 1992, Akali factions to boycott poll; The Tribune. January 3, 1992. Ordinance on
poll law approved; The Tribune, 20 January 1992, Campaigning cut to 14 days.
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 51 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
52 Reduced to Ashes
cent of polling. The turnout in the urban areas was between 25 and 40 per cent. In
the rural constituencies it was between 5 and 20 per cent. The results declared on 20
February, returned the Congress with a two-thirds majority in the state assembly.
Beant Singh, who had been dismissed from the Darbara Singh ministry in 1983 on
the charge of having instigated a fake encounter, formed a Congress ministry as the
new chief minister of Punjab.123
The state government projected its ‘success at the hustings’ – a predictable consequence
of the poll-boycott by the main Akali groups - as the democratic mandate
that it had received to stamp out the Sikh separatist militancy by whatever means.
Several human rights groups in Punjab, although disorganised and faction-ridden,
had been embarrassing the government by publicising police excesses. The government
under chief minister Beant Singh decided it had to silence these groups before
tackling the larger problems of militancy in Punjab’s countryside.
Silencing of Human Rights Groups
Ram Singh Biling, a reporter with the Punjabi daily newspaper Ajit and the secretary
of the Punjab Human Rights Organisation (PHRO) for his home district of
Sangrur, was picked up and unceremoniously executed soon after the Congress
government took office. Then came the turn of Ajit Singh Bains, retired judge of
the Punjab and Haryana High Court and chairman of the PHRO. His illegal arrest in
April 1992 was not acknowledged for two days. Bains was manhandled, abused
and publicly exhibited in handcuffs. Later, his arrest was formalised under TADA.
The accusation was that Bains had taken part in a secret meeting of militant leaders,
held at Anandpur on March 18, where they hatched a conspiracy to carry out “terrorist
actions”. An inquiry later ordered by the High Court of Punjab established
that Ajit Singh Bains’ name did not figure in the original first information report
about the “illegal meeting”. However, the idea of arresting Bains was not to secure
his conviction under the law, but to paralyse the PHRO, and to demoralise other
human rights groups with the example. Chief minister Beant Singh told the state
legislative assembly on April 6 that his government would not release Bains because
his organisation was engaged “in defending terrorists”.124
On 18 May 1992, Amritsar police picked up Param Satinderjit Singh, a student
of Guru Nanak Dev University, from the university campus. He was forced to identify
suspected sympathisers of the separatist cause within the university, who were
also picked up. The police brought Param Satinderjit Singh to the university campus
several times for this purpose. The university students held a demonstration to
protest against the abduction and his father went on a hunger strike. But Param
Satinderjit Singh was not released. There was no trace of him thereafter.
The Punjab government kept up the pressure on the PHRO by arresting
Malwinder Singh Malli, general secretary of the organisation, in August 1992. Malli
123 The Tribune, 18 February 1992, Army to protect voters; The Tribune, 20 February 1992, Peaceful poll,
low turnout; The Tribune, 24 February 1992, Yogendra Yadav, Lowest turnout, uneven spread; The
Tribune, 21 February 1992, Two thirds majority for the Congress; The Tribune, 25 February 1992,
Beant to form ministry today.
124 25 April 1992, Mainstream, Rule of Law in Punjab.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 53
was also the editor of “Paigam”, a vernacular journal affiliated with a Marxist-
Leninist group whose work in the field had led to several exhaustive reports on
police atrocities.
A human rights lawyer, Jagwinder Singh, was picked up from his house in
Kapurthala by a group of uniformed policemen on 25 September 1992 evening.
Although the chief minister and the chief secretary promised to intervene, Jagwinder
Singh was never seen again. Elimination of Ram Singh Biling and Jagwinder Singh,
and arrests of Ajit Singh Bains and Malwinder Singh Malli effectively paralysed
the regional human rights groups. Now the security forces could give undivided
attention to eliminate the ring-leaders of the separatist militancy.
The Sikhs of Punjab had never clearly understood the rationale of the militants’
objectives. These groups in their hay-day had generally relied on atavistic sympathies
in the peasantry to find hideouts and had received enough support to maintain
their operations. But now, with the rural Sikhs in total dismay over the new state of
affairs, militants found themselves helpless against the security forces that began to
hunt them down like fair game. Thus, within six months of assuming office, the
Beant Singh government was able to paralyse the Sikh militant movement. Main
leaders of guerrilla outfits were either killed or compelled to flee the scene. Hundreds
of them also surrendered. Thousands of others suffered torture in custody,
long periods of illegal imprisonment and myriad other forms of physical and psychological
torment.125
Early Investigations by Jaswant Singh Khalra
Following the decimation of the guerrilla groups under Beant Singh’s government
in Punjab, cleansing the countryside of militant sympathisers became the next main
task of the security forces in the state. According to the police figures, published in
1993, security forces in Punjab killed 2,119 militants in the year 1992 under the
euphemism of “encounters”. A larger number of people in the border districts, picked
up by the police for interrogation, simply “disappeared”. Reports published in the
Pioneer, an English daily published from New Delhi, on 26 and 27 March 1992
suggested that many of the “disappeared” were killed and their bodies quietly dumped
into Punjab’s irrigation canals. These newspaper reports said the government of
Rajasthan had formally complained to the Punjab’s chief secretary that the canals
were carrying large number of dead bodies into the state. The report also said that
many bodies, their hands and feet tied together, were being fished out when water
in-flow in canals was stopped for repair works.
The question of what happened to the large number of people declared
‘disappeared’ by the police in Punjab had been intriguing Jaswant Singh Khalra
who, in the meantime, had joined the human rights wing of the Akali Dal and,
together with Jaspal Singh Dhillon and Amrik Singh Muktsar, the chairman and the
125 I have extensively documented the historical context of the Sikh separatist violence and its political
and psychological aspects in my second book on Punjab. See Ram Narayan Kumar, The Sikh Unrest
and the Indian State: Politics, Personalities and Historical Retrospective, Ajanta Publication, New
Delhi, 1997.
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54 Reduced to Ashes
vice-chairman of the wing, had been trying to make the Akali Dal adopt the issues
of justice and the rule of law as serious components of its political agenda. Jaswant
Singh was the general secretary of the wing.
In the middle of 1994, the police illegally arrested Dara Singh, the director of a
cooperative bank in Amritsar district who was also a personal friend of Jaswant
Singh. Dara Singh was interrogated under torture and later killed as an unidentified
militant in a fake encounter. Jaswant Singh followed the case very closely and found
out that the police had cremated his body at Durgiana Mandir cremation ground by
labeling it as “unidentified and unclaimed”. The discovery made him investigate
and he was able to peruse the records of cremations carried out by the police officials
at Durgiana Mandir cremation ground in 1992. The records showed that in
1992 alone, the police had cremated 300 bodies by labeling them “unidentified” or
“unclaimed”. The names of 112 victims were actually recorded in the registers
maintained at the office of the registrar of births and deaths at Amritsar. The records
also showed that 41 out of these 300 had died of bullet injuries. No reasons were
noted about the cause of death of the remaining 259 persons. The records showed
post-mortem reports for only 24 bodies.
After making these discoveries about the police cremations at Durgiana Mandir
cremation ground in Amritsar, Jaswant Singh tried to find out about similar cremations
at Patti and Tarn Taran cremation grounds. In Patti, Jaswant Singh was able to
go through the wood purchase register maintained at the cremation ground in which
the identity and the address of the dead, along with the cremation date and the name
of the cremating person were mentioned. The register showed that the police officials
had burnt 538 dead bodies, after declaring them “unidentified” or “unclaimed”,
in the period from January 1991 to October 1994. Jaswant Singh discovered similar
cremations at Tarn Taran, but was unable to obtain copies of the records.
On 16 January 1995, the human rights wing of the Akali Dal held a press conference
at Chandigarh and released a press note about these discoveries. The press
release, signed by Jaswant Singh Khalra and Jaspal Singh Dhillon, mentioned that
their investigations, based on the examination of firewood puchase registers for
1991 and 1992 revealed 400 hundred illegal cremations in Patti, 700 at Tarn Taran
and about 2,000 cremations at Durgiana Mandir cremation ground in the period
from June 1984 to the end of 1994.
The press release pointed out that the police had been carrying out these cremations
in violation of rule 25.38 in chapter 25 of the Punjab Police Rules 1934, under
the Police Act of 1861, that lays down a clear procedure to be followed with regard to
unidentified bodies. The rule requires that before carrying out the cremation, the investigating
officer write down a careful description of the body, giving “all marks,
peculiarities, deformities and distinctive features” and also take the finger impressions
and photographs. The rule also says that the investigating officer must also
“take all other reasonable steps to secure identification” and, when desirable, publish
the description in the criminal intelligence gazette. After completing the process, the
investigating officer should hand over the body to a willing charitable society. The
police are to burn or bury the body only if no such society should come forward.126
126 The Punjab Police Rules 1934, Chapter XXV, Rule 25.38.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 55
The press release pointed out that the police had carried out the cremations, in
violation of rule 25.38, even when the identities and the village of residence of the
dead persons were included in the police reports. It further added that the investigating
team of the Akali Dal’s human rights wing had made these discoveries after
examining the records of only three cremation grounds. These discoveries showed
the patterns followed by the Punjab police throughout the state that should be thoroughly
investigated by the CBI under the judicial scrutiny of the high court. The
investigation should also cover secret disposal of bodies by the police by other
methods, including dumping them in various rivers and canals in Punjab.
After giving several examples of persons nabbed by the police who ended up
getting cremated at Durgiana Mandir cremation ground in Amritsar district, the
press note pointed at the urgency to relieve the ongoing agony of “estimated 2,000
families from the district alone”, who did not know what happened to their abducted
loved ones, with concrete and authoritative information. In the absence of
official confirmation of their death, these families could neither perform the last
religious rites nor complete the bureaucratic formalities necessary to claim their
departmental funds, right to operate their bank accounts and even to complete transfer
of property. The press release urged the high court to intervene and make the necessary
information and the death certificates available to the families.
The press conference received wide publicity. The newspapers in Punjab and
some national dailies prominently reported the extraordinary revelations made by
the 16 January 1995 release.
Senior Officers Threaten Jaswant Singh Khalra
On 18 January 1995, DGP K. P. S. Gill addressed a press conference in Amritsar to
rebutt the allegations made by the Akali Dal human rights wing. Gill told the media
persons that “thousands of Sikh youth who had left for foreign countries under fake
names and documents were claiming to be missing persons killed by security forces
in encounters”. Gill said that the police had compiled lists of “missing persons”
and had discovered that, in most cases, these persons were “missing with the consent
of their parents and relatives and their whereabouts were known to their families”.
Some of these persons, according to Gill, “were shifting from one country to
the other by changing their names and addresses”.
Gill also told the newsmen about his knowledge that “the Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI) of Pakistan was doing its best to revive militancy in Punjab.” He said
that certain Sikh organizations were receiving funds from foreign countries meant
to be distributed as “pensions” to the militant families. He claimed that these organizations
were keeping a “a major chunk of the money” for themselves.127
Jaswant Singh immediately picked up the challenge and called a press conference
at Amritsar on 19 January itself to defy the DGP’s claims. He called the assertion
that the missing persons had actually escaped to foreign countries to be a lie
and, repeating his discoveries, offered to “put forth the evidence” to prove that the
127 The Tribune, 19 January 1995, Missing persons not killed: Gill
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 55 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
56 Reduced to Ashes
persons cremated by the police as “unidentified and unclaimed” had actually been
killed in the state custody, mostly in “fake encounters”. Jaswant Singh also challenged
Gill to an open debate on the issue so that the people of Punjab and the
international human rights community could figure out who was lying. He also
repeated the claim that “more than 2,000 got murdered and then cremated by the
Punjab police in Amritsar district alone”. Jaswant Singh told the Press that he
planned to release the data regarding these persons in a serialized way. Jaswant
Singh’s press conference received wide publicity especially in the Punjabi newspapers.
128
Soon after this significant public exchange between Jaswant Singh and K. P. S.
Gill, Ajit Singh Sandhu, then SSP of Ropar district, was transferred back to Tarn
Taran where he had been posted during the most virulent period of the conflict
between the separatist militants and the Punjab police force. Also, Jaswant Singh
began to receive threatening telephone calls at his residence. As Paramjit Kaur now
recalls, the telephone would often ring at night and when Jaswant Singh picked
them up, anonymous, abusive callers threatened to make him “disappear” if he
persisted with the matter of disappearances leading to secret cremations. When
Paramjit Kaur picked up the telephone, the callers either put the phone down or just
abused her. The frequency of these calls were not just scary, they also disturbed the
sleep of all the family members. Jaswant Singh even considered getting the telephone
disconnected. But so much of his work depended on telephone that he decided
against it. Policemen in plain clothes began to hang around the house and
sometimes came to the house to ask for Jaswant Singh’s itinerary. He was used to
such inconveniences and tried to laugh away the new level of interest the police and
intelligence officials were taking in him.
Jaswant appeared upset when in February 1995, when a Congress member of
the legislative assembly (MLA) from Patti constituency invited him to his house
and asked him not to pursue the matter of police cremations. This was a clear warning
and Jaswant Singh, unlike his normal self, looked nervous for many days. Paramjit
Kaur realized that there was something wrong and nagged him to talk to her. On 27
February 1995, Jaswant called another press conference in Amritsar to announce
that the Punjab government was “highly mistaken in thinking that by eliminating
him the matter relating to 25,000 unclaimed bodies” in Punjab “can be put to an
end”. He also disclosed that an MLA belonging to the ruling Congress party, had
personally informed him that the senior police officials were seriously irked by his
disclosures and wanted him to either stop the campaign or be prepared to become
“an unidentified dead body” himself. He told the newsmen in Amritsar that the
MLA had told him that the government, at the highest level, had given its approval
for his elimination. Jaswant Singh said that he was prepared to die for the cause of
justice and appealed to the people to “hold the police chief K. P. S. Gill and chief
minister Beant Singh” responsible, “instead of a police cat or an inspector” if something
happened to him. Jaswant specifically criticized the government’s decision to
bring Ajit Singh Sandhu back from Ropar to Tarn Taran as the SSP. He pointed out
that Sandhu was personally responsible for arbitrarily eliminating more than 1,000
128 Punjabi Tribune, 20 January 1995, H. S. Bhanwar, Khalra challenges K. P. S. Gill for open debate
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 56 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 57
persons in the police district of Tarn Taran and was facing several court cases related
to “enforced disappearance” and arbitary executions. He alleged that the government
had transferred Sandhu back into the district with the view to wipe out the
incriminating evidence against him and other senior officials. Jaswant demanded a
judicial commission to investigate the magnitude and heinousness of the SSP’s
crimes in matters already pending before the court, instead of permitting him to
intimidate or bribe the witnesses into silence.
Once again, the vernacular press gave extensive coverage to the press conference.
The Punjabi Tribune carried nearly the full text of the statement which Jaswant
Singh had issued.129
In March 1995, Jaswant went on a visit to the US, Canada and England to
publicise his findings and to meet with international human rights organizations,
MPs, Congressmen and other prominent persons in public life to request them to
put pressure on the Indian government to initiate a serious investigation into the
matter of illegal cremations carried out by the Punjab police. In July 1995, Jaswant
Singh returned to these countries for follow up meetings on the matter of illegal
cremations. In Canada, he met several important politicians, including ministers,
and also addressed a meeting at the Parliament Building.130 Colleen Beaumier, an
MP belonging to the Liberal Party, personally introduced him to the Speaker of
Canadian Parliament before he addressed a large group of parliamentarians and
others in the committee room 209 of the west block.131 These follow up meetings
generated considerable publicity about the Punjab police and its method of functioning.
Vitriolic Public Exchanges
Jaswant Singh came back to Punjab on the 26 July 1995 and immediately launched
an aggressive press campaign on the issues of illegal cremations and the terror
tactics of the Tarn Tarn police officials to get the victim families to withdraw the
petitions they had filed, under his guidance before the high court to seek redressal
and remedies. A press conference he addressed in Amritsar on July 28 received
good coverage in the vernacular press. The Punjabi daily newspaper Ajit published
a prominent front page story under the heading, “Matter relating to youth declared
missing by the police: What does police do for getting petitions withdrawn from the
high court?”132
The report focussed on the case of Balwinder Singh, head constable with the
Tarn Taran police and the nephew of a prominent Congress leader Bhagwant Singh
Jhabal, whose brother-in-law, a member of the village council of Jhabal, had been
arrested from his house on 8 March 1993. Later, he was supposedly tortured in the
middle of the village as a public demonstration of what the police would do to those
129 Punjabi Tribune, 28 February 1995.
130 Imprint: Campus Page , 4 October 1996, “Khalra remembered” –

131
132 Ajit, Jalandhar, 29 July 1995, Matter relating to youths declared missing
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 57 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
58 Reduced to Ashes
who sympathized with the militant cause. According to head constable Balwinder
Singh, who appeared at the conference, the team of police officers from Jhabal
police station, led by SHO Balbir Singh and assistant-sub-inspector Bikramjit Singh,
took his brother-in-law away in a jeep when he became unconscious from the beating
and he was never heard of again. The report further explained that in November
1994, Balwinder Singh’s father-in-law Avtar Singh filed a petition before the High
Court of Punjab and Haryana to demand an impartial inquiry. The high court admitted
the petition, marked as writ no. 853/94, and issued notice to the Punjab state
officials. SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu then called Balwinder Singh and instructed him to
either get his father-in-law to withdraw the petition or face serious consequences.
When Balwinder expressed his inability to get his father-in-law to withdraw the
petition, the SSP immediately ordered his demotion and put him on duty at a small
police post under Valtoha police station. Balwinder then applied for leave so that he
could discuss the situation with his family, but the application was rejected. His
superior officers told him that unless he obeyed the SSP’s instructions, he would
have to face serious consequences including dismissal from the police department.
Balwinder Singh was unable to cope with the pressure of these daily threats and fell
ill. Finally, he was allowed to proceed on leave and then, in July, he was allowed to
apply for an early retirment. A group of officers visited his house several times in
his absence and threatened his wife with serious consequences unless she persuaded
her father to withdraw the petition.
The newspaper report discussed several such examples of police atrocities, torture
and sexual abuse of persons who had filed petitions before the high court seeking
inquiries and action against SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu.
The press report especially highlighted Jaswant Singh’s demand that SSP Sandhu
should be transferred out of Tarn Taran to prevent him from interfering with the
judicial process so blatantly. At the press coference, he disclosed that the police
had secretly cremated 1,135 bodies at the Jain Sabha cremation ground in the district
and suggested the figure of 25,000 illegal cremations for the whole of Punjab.133
On 5 August 1995, several Punjabi newspapers prominently carried a long rebuttal
jointly issued by “senior officers of Tarn Taran police”. The joint statement
claimed that head constable Balwinder Singh, who had joined the service in 1974,
had been punished in the past for dereliction of duty and was known for using his
father’s political connections to obtain profitable and easy postings. The statement
claimed that his application for a premature retirement had been accepted and his
allegations of harassment were incorrect. The statement further said that Balwinder
Singh had, while in service, never reported the case of his missing brother-in-law to
his senior officials and that a subsequent inquiry conducted by them, in the wake of
the allegation published in newspapers, showed that he was mentally ill and often
remained away from home for long duration.
The joint statement also denied all other allegations of police intimidation of the
families and went on to claim that Jaswant Singh Khalra, “who for a long time has
been campaigning against the police” was “formally associated with the Naxalite
movement” and “maintained relations with a militant group called Khalistan Com-
133 Ibid.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 59
134 Akali Patrika, 5 August 1995, Senior Tarn Taran police officers rebut allegations
135 14 March 1996 statement of Gurcharan Singh Tohra, president Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak
Committee, given to the CBI under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), Case No. RC
14(S)/95/DLI. Recorded by Virender Singh, Inspector CBI/SCB-I.
136 07 April 1996 statements of Jaspal Singh Dhillon, son of Sri Vijay Singh, and Amrik Singh Muktsar,
son of Bahal Singh, made to K. C. Joshi, CBI/SCB/New Delhi under Section 161 of the CR. P. C. Case
No. RC-14/S/95/DLI.
137 10 September 1996 statement of Justice (Rtd.) A. S. Bains, s/o Gurbux Singh, recorded by K. C.
Joshi, CBI/SCB/New Delhi under Section 161 of the Cr. P. C in Case No. RC-14(S)/95-DLI.
138 Affidavit of Navkiran Singh s/o S. Gurmukh Singh, dated 7 October 1995; affidavit of Ranjan
Lakhanpal, dated 6 October 1995; affidavit of Rajvinder Singh Bains, dated 6 October 1995, in the
Matter of Paramjit Kaur Vs. the State of Punjab, W. P. (CRL.) No. 497 of 1995.
mando Force (KCF) under the leadership of Paramjit Singh Panjwar”. The statement
alleged that Jaswant Singh was “acting on the instructions of India’s foreign
enemies” to “destabilize the peaceful environment of Punjab” and “to demoralize
the police force.” He was, the statement claimed, “gulping money coming from
abroad and these agencies”. Rebutting the accusation that the police had abducted
thousands of persons who were untraceable, the statement claimed that “those young
boys linked to Panjwar’s group of the KCF had escaped across the border and were
living there”.134
These vitriolic public exchanges between Jaswant Singh and the senior police
officials of Tarn Taran in July and August 1995 showed that the clash was coming
to a head. Jaswant tried to maintain a veneer of composure, but realized that his
situation was getting increasingly precarious. His foreign tours had been generating
more and more queries from international human rights organizations, and several
Congressmen in the United States and MPs in Canada and Britain had begun to
press their governments to investigate the charges of mass cremations in Punjab
and to consider economic sanctions against India. Feeling beleaguered by international
queries, the Union government had begun to press the state authorities to
handle the situation and to do damage control.
In the second week of August, some officers of the Intelligence Bureau (IB)
visited Jaswant Singh and questioned him about his foreign visits. They wanted to
know the names of persons who had hosted him and had interacted with him. They
visited him a number of times in the last two weeks of August to follow up on these
inquiries. Jaswant Singh, normally impervious to intimidation, was beginning to
get nervous about this combination of open threats and insinuations by the police
officials, visits of the IB officials and the visible surveillance of his movements. He
decided to consult his friends and associates at the human rights wing and also
talked to Gurcharan Singh Tohra, president of the SGPC and a senior leader of the
Akali Dal, about the threats he had been receiving from SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu.135
Jaswant also discussed these apprehensions with Jaspal Singh Dhillon and Amrik
Singh Muktsar, chairman and vice-chairman of the human rights wing,136 former
high court Justice Ajit Singh Bains137 and at least three lawyers in Chandigarh:
Rajwinder Singh Bains, Navkiran Singh and Ranjan Lakhanpal.138 All his friends
and sympathizers vigorously advised him to move the high court to ask for bodyguards
and to leave Amritsar for some time. Jaswant Singh responded by saying
that to apply for bodyguards would be against his principles and that he would think
about leaving Amritsar after completing his research into the Februrary 1995 disappunjab_
report_chapter1.p65 59 4/27/03, 10:30 PM
60 Reduced to Ashes
pearance of Rajwinder Singh, son of Kashmir Singh and Mohinder Kaur. Rajwinder
Singh, an employee of the Punjab State Electricity Board, was a brother of Paramjit
Singh Pamma, a wanted militant belonging to the KCF. He had disappeared after
meeting the CBI officers in Delhi in February 1995 to help them with their investigation
ordered by the high court in criminal writ petition no. 290 of 1994 into the
disappearance of his mother.
Assassination of the Chief Minister
On 31 August 1995, Punjab’s chief minister Beant Singh and 17 members of his
security retinue were killed when a powerful bomb exploded near his car outside
his office in the Secretariat Building in Chandigarh. Babbar Khalsa International,
an underground militant organization committed to the goal of establishing an independent
Sikh state, claimed responsibility for the sensational killing of a chief
minister who had led a ruthless counter-insurgency campaign and enjoyed the maximum
security cover in the country. Harcharan Singh Brar, a senior Congress leader
and the minister of health in Beant Singh’s Cabinet, was sworn in as his successor.
The security forces launched a massive operation to nab the assassins and others
suspected of involvement in the terrorist conspiracy.
Jaswant Singh had a premonition that his enemies within the police establishment
would take advantage of the situation to take revenge. He disclosed his fears
to his wife who advised him to go away from Amritsar to some safe place. Both of
them mulled over the suggestion and came to the view that his leaving the town and
becoming unavailable to the authorities could make him more vulnerable to malicious
prosecution and illegal hounding. Speculations were rife that the chief minister’s
assassination was the result of a conspiracy that had its roots in the political anger
against his hideous record of human rights abuses. The Punjab police officials keen
to get even with him for his relentless campaign against their sordid deeds, especially
over the matter of mass cremations, could take advantage and try to implicate
him in a conspiracy case if he appeared to go underground. Besides, his father was
feeling unwell and Jaswant Singh had, for some days, been planning to visit him at
the native village to find out if he needed to be shifted to Amritsar city for better
medical care. So he discounted his premonitions and went to Khalra village to visit
his father.
Kartar Singh too had his own disconcerting intuitions. He had been uneasy since
his son had taken up the cause of secret cremations. He knew that the matter would
open up a Pandora’s box of forbidden questions that could cost Jaswant his life. He
became particularly anxious after a sub-inspector of the local police station who
had once been his student came to visit him in the last week of August and requested
him to ask his son to be very careful. The sub-inspector told him that his
police station had received informal instructions to pick him up. This upset Jaswant.
Informal arrest could mean abduction without a warrant or a legal basis.
Jaswant Singh went to see his father on 3 September 1995 evening. Kartar Singh
with his ominous worries told him about the conversation he had with the subinspector.
Jaswant Singh tried to alleviate his anxiety by offering to present himself
at Khalra police station to talk the matter over with the SHO. The next morning,
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 61
139 Statement of Harinder Pal Singh Siddhu, son of Gurdeet Singh, and his wife Sukh Raj Kaur recorded
by DSP K. S. Joshi of the CBI under section 161 of the Cr. P. C., on 22 February 1996. In Case RC
14(S)95 DLI.
140 Statement of Piara Singh, son of Mangel Singh, r/o of village Sohal, Tarn Taran, recorded under
section 161 of the Cr. P. C. by P. L. Meena, DSP CBI, in case RC/14(S)95/DLI.
Jaswant Singh went to Khalra police station and invited the SHO to arrest him if he
had the instructions to do so. The SHO looked very embarrassed and told him that
he had no reason to arrest him. Still, Kartar Singh remained uneasy and asked his
son why he had chosen to invite calamity on the family by taking up the issue of
secret cremations carried out by the police in Punjab. Jaswant Singh looked somber
and replied: “Does it really matter whether I die on my bed, in an accident or as a
martyr of my cause?” Kartar Singh had no answer. Jaswant Singh returned to
Amritsar on September 4 afternoon.
PART THREE: KHALRA’S ABDUCTION AND
THE CBI’S INVESTIGATION
As recounted earlier, Jaswant Singh Khalra was abducted by armed commandos of
the Punjab police in the morning of 6 September 1995, around 9:20 a.m., when he
was washing his car outside his Kabir Park house in Amritsar. Jaswant Singh was
expecting Mandip Singh, a journalist of the Indian Express, later that morning and
wanted to accompany him to Tarn Taran for getting some interviews regarding
disappearances leading to secret cremations. Rajiv Singh Randhawa, a journalist
from Ajit who was present in the house, witnessed the abduction and recognized
DSP Ashok Kumar, SHO Surinderpal Singh of Sarhali police station and Prithipal
Singh, head constable of Manochahal police station, among the abductors. Jaswant
Singh’s neighbor Harinder Pal Singh Siddhu, who left his house just before the
abduction, had also seen the armed commandos in plain clothes riding in a blue van
and other officers in police uniforms in an official jeep. His wife Sukh Raj Kaur
actually witnessed the abduction but expressed inability to recognize the perpetrators.
139
Piara Singh, a retired junior commissioned officer (JCO) of the Indian army
from Sohal village in Tarn Taran sub-division of Amritsar district, who owned a
blue-colored van driven by his son as a private taxi, later told the CBI’s investigating
officer that he was forced to send his van to Jhabal police station for undercover
activities at least twice a month. According to him, all the taxi operators were likewise
required to send their vehicles to the police station and leave the keys with the
constable on the duty outside. Piara Singh recalled that his van was requisitioned by
Jhabal police station in the first week of September.140
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62 Reduced to Ashes
141 Statement of Kikkar Singh, s/o Harbans Singh, r/o village Jaura, Patti police station, recorded by
Inspector Jagjeet Singh and Inspector P. L. Meena of the CBI under section 161 of the Cr. P. C. on 21
March 1996 and 29 May 1996 in case RC 14(S)95/S.C.B. DLI
142 The Indian Express, 5 May 1998, Satinder Bains, “I heard two shots and I ran back: Khalra had
stopped breathing.”; Statement of Kuldeep Singh, s/o Harbans Singh, SPO No. 606/TT ID Card No.
58, r/o village Bachra, post office Pandori Gola, Tarn Taran , recorded on 2 March 1998 and 20 June
1999 by a DSP, CBI in Case RC 14(S)95/S.C.B.DLI.
The Identification of the Police Officers
On 24 October 1995, 48 days after the abduction, Jaswant Singh was found illegally
detained at Kang police station by Kikkar Singh, son of Harbans Singh and a
resident of Jaura village under Patti police station who had been held separately in
connection with a criminal investigation. Kikkar Singh saw the injuries on Jaswant
Singh’s body and helped him eat some food before he was taken away. Kikkar
Singh’s own illegal detention from 14 October to 11 November 1995 was independently
corroborated by an inquiry conducted by the chief judicial magistrate of
Chandigarh on the order of the high court.141
For the next four days, Jaswant Singh was kept in a specially guarded room at
Jhabbal police station and regularly tortured under interrogation by senior police
including SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu. A special police officer (SPO) Kuldip Singh,
SPO No. 606/TT, was in charge of his custody and was given strict instructions not
to reveal anything about him to anyone, including his fellow policemen. One evening,
SHO Satnam Singh drove Jaswant Singh in a private Maruti car to SSP Ajit Singh
Sandhu’s house in Manavala village near Amritsar. SPO Kuldip Singh, SHO Satnam
Singh’s bodyguard, also traveled with him to the SSP’s house. Soon, DGP K. P. S.
Gill, along with another senior officer, arrived and they interrogated Jaswant Singh
for some time. Jaswant was driven back to Jhabal police station by SHO Satnam
Singh, accompanied by SPO Kuldip Singh, in the same car. On the way, SHO Satnam
Singh told Jaswant that he could have saved himself from all the troubles by following
K. P. S. Gill’s advice.
On 28 October 1995, in the evening around 7 p.m., DSP Jaspal Singh and his
body-guard Arvinder Pal Singh, SHO Surinder Pal Singh of Sarhali police station,
SHO Jasbir Singh of Manochahal police station and his body-guard Pritpal Singh
came to Jhabal police station and interrogated Jaswant once again. Jaswant was
shot dead while he was under interrogation. His body was carried in an unnumbered
private van and dumped in to the Harike canal around 10 p.m. All the officials
then met at the irrigation department’s guest house at Harike where SSP Ajit
Singh Sandhu also joined them for a long session of drinking and eating.142
SPO Kuldip Singh had been recruited into the police force in February 1994
after he got some important Kashmir militants arrested by offering information
about their hideouts and their cache of weapons to SHO Satnam Singh of Ropar’s
Sadar police station. The search and arrest operations were led by DGP K. P. S.
Gill, SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu, then SSP of Ropar district, and other senior officials.
Kuldip Singh was rewarded for his service and recruited into the force as an SPO.
One year later, Sandhu was transferred back to Tarn Taran after Jaswant Singh
challeged K. P. S. Gill to an open debate on the matter of police abductions leading
to secret cremations. SHO Satnam Singh, an old confidant of SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu,
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 63
143 The Indian Express, 12 July 1997, Maloy Krisna Dhar, Perforce, enemies of the people.
was also transferred back into the same area as the SHO of Jhabal police station.
SPO Kuldip Singh followed him as his body-guard.
SPO Kuldip Singh did not dare open his mouth about what had happened to
Jaswant Singh while SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu was alive.
On 24 May 1997, several national dailies prominently reported the news that
SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a moving
train. Sandhu had been imprisoned for few months on charges established by judicial
inquiries, that involved illegal abduction, torture and custodial death of Kuljit
Singh Dhat, a relative of Bhagat Singh, the famous revolutionary from the pre-
Independence era. The circumstances of his reported suicide were suspicious. He
had consumed alcohol, had driven to the railway track in his own car, and a short
note that he left behind said, “It is better to die than to live in this shame.”
Sandhu had been a trusted lieutenant of K. P. S. Gill in his ruthless war against
the Sikh secessionist militancy in the state. Accused of all these extra-judicial executions
and hasty cremations, Sandhu would have had no choice but to establish
the line of command under which he had carried out the executions in the district.
A senior IB officer, Maloy Krishna Dhar, who had been travelling clandestinely
to the Tarn Taran police district for 12 years beginning 1980, wrote the following
words in tribute to Sandhu: “In my job, I always travelled undercover, usually as a
media person. My profession had compelled me to stay aloof from the state machinery
and establish rapport with the militant leaders. I was not a part of the killing
machine. Ajit Singh Sandhu and his colleagues, some of them missionaries in uniform,
accepted their assigned jobs as frontline soldiers. They were told to shoot
first, ask questions later. They were assured by their bosses in Chandigarh and
Delhi that they would be taken care of. The unholy war had to be won… Our political
leaders, like their imperial masters, have been using the police and the administration
for coercion in the name of preserving the unity and integrity of the country…
Their adventurism has generated several killing fields in the country and the
neighborhood (remember the Indian Peace Keeping Force!). The Northeast, the
ravaged lands of Naxalbari, the Bihar plains and Andhra Pradesh bear testimony to
their misdeeds. Everywhere, they press in the services of the forces to tackle the law
and order problems arising out of their bankruptcy. The law is enforced and order is
restored, at the cost of innocent lives… Policemen were supposed to face terrorists
as part of their professional duties. Their frontal and tactical engagements were
well justified. But history bears testimony that hundreds of terrorists were not killed
in frontal engagements and thousands of innocent youths were silently liquidated
as part of ‘mass control measures’. Sandhu, who had carried out the orders of his
superiors and political masters and secured Tarn Taran, thought he was above the
law. Many brave and honest officers like him had committed themselves and made
Punjab safe at a colossal human cost. The sacrifices performed by perfidous politicians
required human blood… Policemen are asked to break the law in the name of
protecting it. In the bargain, they protect the interests of politicians and jeopardise
their own interests and of the people. We salute Ajit Singh Sandhu, a martyr to the
corrupt system, but exhort the nation to look into the concept of comprehensive
accountability, especially for the political class…”143
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64 Reduced to Ashes
144 The Pioneer, 26 May 1997, Shame on India; Enforced Disappearances, Arbitrary Executions and
Secret Cremations: Victim Testimony & India’s Human Rights Obligations – INTERIM REPORT. By
the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab, 742 Sector 8-B, Chandigarh. July 1999,
pp. 83-85.
145 Enforced Disappearances, Arbitrary Executions and Secret Cremations: Victim Testimony & India’s
Human Rights Obligations – INTERIM REPORT, Op. Cit. pp. 83-85.
Campaign against Human Rights Groups
There should have been an inquiry into his reported suicide. But K. P. S. Gill, now
retired, seized the opportunity to launch his campaign against “an utterly compromised
human rights lobby”. He called a press conference on the 24 May 1997, a
day after Sandhu was found dead, “not to express grief”, but to discuss the larger
political and policy issues that arose from Sandhu’s suicide. And he discussed them
passionately, poetically and in terms of high drama. The newspapers across the
country carried the full text of his statement that inveighed the nation for ingratitude
towards its “heroes” like Sandhu who had saved India from the brink of disintegration.
It castigated the people for permitting the human rights activitists “who
will work with any cause that serves their personal ends, whether criminal, political
or secessionist” to thrive on Indian soil. The statement chided the state for not “educating
itself on how to tackle individuals and groups trying to destroy it”, and went
on to urge the Parliament to bring about the necessary legal amendments that would
protect other courageous officers of Punjab from the kind of humiliation that apparently
drove Sandhu to suicide. The statement said that the bud of Khalistan had
been nipped through the achievements of officers like Sandhu, which prevented the
loss of Kashmir and the eventual balkanization of India.144
The campaign, launched by Gill avalanched into a crusade. Responsible political
leaders began to accuse the NHRC of being prejudiced against the police. There
were warnings of police revolt and threats to bring down the government in Punjab
if the Akali Dal, which was leading a coalition government in the state along with
the BJP, did not unambiguously declare its support for the police. The leader of the
BJP’s parliamentary group in the Rajya Sahba – Upper House of Parliament —, and
currently India’s finance minister Jaswant Singh wrote: “Sandhu was not just left to
fend for himself, the state abandoned him and – to my mind, much worse – his
incarceration and humiliation were used to deflect attention.” Tavleen Singh, a senior
journalist, explained in her column: “Murderers of Sandhu are the ‘human
rights wallahs’. They have been unable to see that it was war in Tarn Taran. In
fighting it if Sandhu broke a few rules, there was no other way.” In his subsequent
letter to the Prime Minister, also published in its entirety, K. P. S. Gill asked for a
legislation that defines “appropriate criteria to judge the actions of those who fought
this war on behalf of the Indian state”. “Until the necessary criteria is sufficiently
debated, defined and legislated, immediate steps should be taken to ensure that the
pattern of humiliation through litigation and trial by the media is prevented forthwith.”
He repeated the insinuation that “for those who were comprehensively defeated
in the battle for Khalistan, public interest litigation has become the most
convenient strategy for vendetta”.145
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 65
Witnesses Face Police Pressure
While Indian policy makers and their implementing agencies got busy debating
these hefty issues, their minions like SPO Kuldip Singh who had witnessed the
dumping of Jaswant Singh’s body into the Harike canal and had kept quiet for
nearly 29 months had apparently been forgotten. After Sandhu’s death, Kuldip Singh
became worried about getting a permanent position in the police department that
had been promised to him by his mentor. In August 1997, he sent an application to
P. C. Dogra, the new Punjab DGP, requesting him to fulfill the promise made to
him by SSP Sandhu and K. P. S. Gill when he was recruited as an SPO in February
1994. He sent a second application and then a third application by fax when he did
not receive any response from the DGP’s office. In the last week of September
1997, Kuldip Singh was called by Narender Bhargave, SP (operations) of Ropar
district who gave him a patient hearing and asked him to make yet another application
in his own handwriting. Kuldip Singh did not hear from him again.
Soon thereafter, Kuldip Singh heard Paramjit Kaur Khalra and former head constable
Balwinder Singh, who had become a human rights activist, speak at a public
meeting. He met Balwinder Singh Jhabal again privately and told him all that he
knew of Jaswant Singh’s killing and the disposal of his body. Balwinder Singh got
in touch with the officers of the CBI involved with the case who invited him to
Delhi to make a formal statement under section 161 of the CrPC. Kuldip Singh
ignored the advice given to him by his parents and close relatives not to bring
himself and the family members to danger by deposing against the police in such an
important case. He offered his first formal statement to the CBI on 2 March 1998
and a suplementary follow-up statement on 20 June 1998. The CBI officers in Delhi,
who recorded the statement, wrote to the DGP Punjab asking him to provide “sufficient
security of CRPF personnel” to Kuldip Singh and his family.
After making the first statement to the CBI officials at Delhi, Kuldip Singh
stayed with some of his relatives in Amritsar till March 22 and then went to the
house of former head constable Balwinder Singh who advised him to ask for police
protection. Balwinder Singh accompanied Kuldip Singh to Jhabal police station
and made a formal application to SHO Shamsher Singh asking for his protection.
The SHO deputed two armed constables to accompany Kuldip Singh to his village
and to be his body-guards till further instructions. The same evening, around 6
p.m., SHO Satnam Singh, his former boss who had been transferred to Shekhwan
police station in Batala sub-division of Gurdaspur district, and DSP Jaspal Singh
came to his house in village Bachra. Both of them talked to him very warmly: “You
are our younger brother. We have implicated Kikkar Singh (a prisoner who dared to
become a witness) in so many cases. The CBI could not save him. The CBI officers
have since apologized to K. P. S. Gill for their investigations because of the pressure
from the Central government. They will not be able to save you if you choose
to speak against us. We will do everything you want if you choose to stay on our
side.”
After this conversation, SHO Satnam Singh and DSP Jaspal Singh took him to
the office of Hardip Singh Dhillon, SSP Jalandhar where Kuldip was given Rs.
50,000/- and asked to lodge a complaint against Paramjit Kaur Khalra and her associates
saying that they offered him a bribe to become a witness in the case. When
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66 Reduced to Ashes
146 Statement of Kuldeep Singh, s/o Harbans Singh, SPO No. 606/TT ID Card No. 58, r/o village Bachra,
post office Pandori Gola, Tarn Taran , recorded on 20 June 1999 by a DSP, CBI in Case RC 14(S)95/
S.C.B.DLI under section 161 of Cr. P. C.
147 Amnesty International, A Mockery of Justice: The Case concerning the “disappearance” of human
rights defender Jaswant Singh Khalra severely undermined, AI Index: ASA 20/07/1998 –

149 Amnesty International, Criminalization of Adivasi Rights Activities, AI-Index: ASA 20/014/2000, —

Kuldip Singh protested, these officers warned him of serious consequences and
forced him to write the complaint. The next day, these officers accompanied him to
a court in Tarn Taran and made him move the application.146
On 18 April 1998, several newspapers in Punjab reported the registration of a
case against Paramjit Kaur Khalra and others under sections 8, 9 and 12 of the
Prevention of Corruption Act. On 24 April 1998, Punjabi daily newspaper Ajit did
a lead story about Mrs. Khalra’s attempt to bribe Kuldip Singh on the basis of the
complaint filed by him. Meanwhile, SPO Kuldip Singh’s parents called a press
conference at Jalandhar on 21 April 1998 to declare that Mrs. Khalra and her associates
had never visited their house and the story about their attempt to bribe Kuldip
Singh to become a witness was completely false. The CCDP in Punjab was able to
obtain an appointment with the chief minister of Punjab to ask for an investigation
into the matter. Amnesty International too released a detailed report titled “A mockery
of justice: The case concerning the ‘disappearance’ of human rights defender Jaswant
Singh Khalra severely undermined,” that received wide publicity.147 Soon the government
quashed the charges framed against Paramjit Kaur.
The Amnesty International’s report pointed out that following the submission
of the CBI’s report to the Supreme Court in July 1996, the Court had ordered the
Punjab government to transfer all the accused police officers away from the districts
of Amritsar and Tarn Taran. However, at least four officers accused in the
case were still working in Tarn Taran police district and others were openly tampering
with the evidence.
Kikkar Singh, the witness to the illegal detention and custodial torture of Jaswant
Singh, had since been implicated in five criminal cases. In four of the cases, the
high court granted him bail but the police officials managed to keep him in judicial
custody in the fifth case.148
Rajiv Singh, who witnessed Jaswant Singh’s abduction from his house, and his
friend Sarabjit Singh were separately detained by the Amritsar police in July 1998
on charges of “forming an organization supporting a separate state of Khalistan,
called “Tigers of the Sikh Land”. The Punjab Human Rights Commission investigated
the arrest and the charges brought against Rajiv Singh and determined that
the police had falsely implicated them. The commission recommended legal action
against the police officials responsible for “registering a deliberately concocted criminal
case”. It sent its recommendation to the Punjab government but received no
response.149 Rajiv Singh was again arrested outside the Golden Temple on 5 September
2000 when he was attempting to present a memorandum on the human
rights situation in Punjab to the UK home secretary, Jack Straw, who was visiting
the site. The police charged him this time with robbery and possession of illegal
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 67
150 Amnesty International, “Arrest of Witness Points to Continuing Police Harassment”, 7 September
2000, AI Index ASA 20/049/2000 —
151 Amnesty International, A Mockery of Justice, Op. Cit.
152 The Tribune, 22 March 2002, Jupinderjit Singh, DGP for amnesty to ‘tainted’ cops.
153 The Sunday Times on the Web, 15 June 1997, Vijaya Pushkarna, “Making Zeroes out of Heroes:
Police challenge the ugly side of human rights”, —
154 In his autobiographical book, Without Fear or Favour, published by Kaveri Books, New Delhi in 1998,
Joginder Singh reminisces about this period in the following words: “When I joined, J. F. Ribeiro was the
DG. After some time, Gill took over. Ribeiro and Gill were following the bullet-for-bullet policy. I had been
trained in the tradition of strictly observing the laws. But sticking to the rules does not solve the problems
always. Sometimes, when the system collapses you have to invent your own rules for the game. When
the system breaks down, you have to break new grounds… But I personally did not agree with the bulletfor-
bullet policy. I did not agree to any killing unless it was a fair fight…” (pp. 292-295).
arms. The case was totally baseless and aimed to discredit him as a witness in the
Khalra case.150
The accused police officers have also been intimidating the lawyers representing
Paramjit Kaur, threatening them in front of the magistrate and by telling them,
“We can ensure that you don’t come after today.” The lawyers have also received
regular threatening calls and have had the tyres of their cars slashed outside the
court.151
CBI Caves in to Police Impunity
More significantly, the CBI itself seems to have caved in to the pressure of the
police campaign for impunity, that has received vocal support from both the Congress
chief minister of Punjab, Amarinder Singh, and the BJP’s Union home minister,
Lal Krishna Advani.152 This is evident from the manner in which the CBI has, in
the wake of this campaign, handled the investigation of Jaswant Singh’s disappearance
as well as the larger mandate it received from the Supreme Court to identify
the secret cremations and to determine the issues of culpability. The change of
attitude seems to be the result of the position taken by the Punjab police officials
that the director of the CBI, who initiated these investigations, was himself the
inspector-general of the CRPF in Punjab from 1988 to 1990 and “every act of ours
was in his knowledge and had his blessings, directions and orders.”153 This was a
reference to Joginder Singh, the CBI director from 1995 to 1997, who was chosen
as the inspector-general of the CRPF in Punjab “to fight terrorists”.154
A glaring example of the CBI’s change of attitude has been its decision not to
follow up on the information given by SPO Kuldip Singh, who had taken great
personal risk in becoming a prosecution witness and the desperate attempts it made
to discredit his reliability.
When Paramjit Kaur’s lawyers Rajwinder Singh Bains and Brijinder Singh Sodhi
moved the trial court in Patiala on 12 August 1998 for directions to the CBI to beefup
its charge sheet against the accused, its lawyers took nine months to formally
declare that the prosecuting agency needed more time to complete its investigations
following Kuldip Singh’s testimony received in March 1998. The CBI continued
these investigations until the last week of November 1999 and then filed an application
before the special magistrate’s court in Patiala on 22 November 1999 claiming
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68 Reduced to Ashes
155 The CBI’s application before the Special Magistrate, Patiala in the matter of RC 14/S/95-SCB-1/ New
Delhi, Regarding Report U/S 173 (VIII) CRPC, dated 22 November 1999.
that Kuldip Singh’s statement “remained unsubstantiated in material particulars”
and that “his statement does not inspire confidence as it was admittedly made twoand-
a-half years after the alleged occurance…”.155 The application moved by the
CBI cited the following grounds to justify its conclusion, and we must briefly review
them to appreciate their inherent and instrumental significance for the proceedings
of this case.
[1] Kuldip Singh had chosen to depose before the CBI belatedly after the
Punjab police failed to confirm him as a permanent constable as had been promised
to him by SSP Sandhu. Further, Kuldip Singh himself said that he could not have
spoken out as long as Sandhu was alive.
n Clearly, the two-and-a-half years long silence of SPO Kuldip Singh has to do
with his fear of Sandhu and his team of officers. This was a justified fear that
diminished after the Supreme Court censured their lawless actions and ordered
investigations. Sandhu’s death further discounted the fear. Kuldip Singh may
also have wanted the security of tenure promised to him at the time of his recruitment.
For two-and-a-half years, he may have been actuated by the primacy
of self-interest rather than general welfare of human rights, truth and justice.
But these issues of character can have no relevance to the primary end of the
legal process to obtain correct application of rules of substantive law to facts
that have been proven to an agreed standard of truth and probability. The pursuit
of truth, within a legal framework, cannot be sabotaged by raising the issues
of character in a primary witness belonging to a situation bereft of incentives for
good behavior. Besides, the character evidence to impeach witnesses is normally
a part of the cross-examination process available to defendants and it is
extraordinary that the prosecution should drop its key witness whose testimony
resolves the mystery of the crime on such grounds.
[2] The CBI’s investigation disclosed that the Maruti car, with the registration
plate number PB-2-J245, in which SHO Satnam Singh reportedly drove Jaswant
Singh Khalra for his interrogation to SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu’s house at Manawala
village, was still registered in the name of Dr. R. S. Pannu. The CBI investigated
Dr. Pannu’s claim that he had disposed of the car through Surinder Singh Sodhi,
owner of New Auto Home in Amritsar, who sold it to SHO Satnam Singh. However,
the CBI could not find anything on the record to show that the car had been
transferred to Satnam Singh’s name.
n The attempt to raise doubts on the reliability of SPO Kuldip’s statement that
SHO Satnam Singh brought Jaswant Singh for his interrogation by SSP Ajit
Singh Sandhu and K. P. S. Gill to Manawala village on the ground that the car
was formally registered in the name of Dr. R. S. Pannu is blatently malicious.
The CBI actually possessed evidence to establish that the car had actually been
bought by SHO Satnam Singh. The owner of New Auto Home in Amritsar,
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 69
156 Statesment of Surnder Singh, s/o Paramjit Singh Sodhi, New Auto Home, Court Road, near Sainik
Rest House, Amritsar, recordd by a DSP CBI under Section 161 of the Cr. P. C., on 22 April 1998.
157 Statement of Sampuran Singh Ghumman, s/o Dhyan Singh, Senior Clerk, District Transport Officer,
Amitsar, r/o 7313, Gali No. 4, Model Town, Amritsar, recorded by a CBI DSP under section 161 of the
Cr. P. C on 23 March 1998.
Surinder Singh Sodhi, who deals in second-hand cars, testified to the CBI officials
that he had arranged its sale to SHO Satnam Singh and had received Rs.
1,80,000 by a cheque numbered WH-0209542. He also showed SHO Satnam
Singh’s signatures on the receipt for the payment made by him on 14 April
1995. Sodhi also revealed that it was SHO Satnam’s responsibility to get the
registration of the car transferred under his name.156 The SHO had deliberately
chosen to keep the car in Dr. Pannu’s name and this was confirmed by the
statement of Sampuran Singh Ghumman, a senior clerk at the district transport
office in Amritsar. The CBI officers recorded Sampuran Singh’s statement that
he had renewed the registration of the car on 28 April 1995 in Dr. Pannu’s name
at the request of a person who came with the necessary papers and also paid the
road tax. This person had told him that the car was in the possession of SHO
Satnam Singh and Sampuran Singh had noted down this information on the first
page of the registration book.157
[3] The CBI claimed to have examined several persons to verify SPO Kuldip
Singh’s statement that SHO Satnam Singh and other police officials had dumped
Jaswant Singh’s body in Harike Canal on 28 October 1995. According to the CBI,
the persons examined owned and worked at small eating joints close to the canal
and they failed to corroborate SPO Kuldip Singh’s statement.
n It is certainly ridiculous to expect that the police officials would collect these
owners and workers of roadside eateries while getting rid of the body at an
isolated side of the canal. The collection of these statements and the attempt to
discredit SPO Kuldip Singh’s statement on their basis becomes positively malicious
in the light of the testimony of Surjit Singh, a worker in the irrigation
department of the Rajasthan Feeder Canal, that the CBI officials chose not to
follow up. In his testimony, recorded by the CBI officials on 23 April 1998,
Surjit Singh disclosed that he had regularly seen bodies floating in the canal but
had not intercepted them in the absence of specific orders from his superiors.
Surjit Singh also disclosed that there were big fish and crocodiles in the canal
that ate up bodies within three to four hours of their getting dumped. Their
bones would get carried away to Rajasthan. More significantly, Surjit Singh
disclosed that once in 1992, he inadvertantly became a witness to the dumping
of 19 bodies in the canal. The bodies had been brought for their disposal in the
canal by a group of officers under SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu. It was late in the
evening and Surjit Singh was returning home after his day’s work on an isolated
side of the canal. The SSP stopped him and slapped him across his face without
any provocation before ordering his subordinates to blindfold him while the
officials got rid of the bodies. Sandhu had threatened to shoot him and throw his
body in the canal if he made any noise or told to any one about the incident.
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70 Reduced to Ashes
158 Statement of Surjit Singh, s/o Jaswinder Singh, village Thotha Bhagna, Amritsar, recorded by a CBI
DSP under section 161 of the Cr. P. C on 23 April 1998.
159 Statements of Gurnam Singh and Purshottam Singh, sons of Joginder Singh, r/o Sarai Amanat Khan
in Amritsar district recorded by DSP Nitin Duggal of the CBI under section 161 of the Cr. P. C. on 17
September 1999.
Surjit Singh was blindfolded and made to stand there for nearly one-and-a-half
hours and then asked to leave.158
[4] The house keeper of the guest house at Harike Canal, where all the officials
led by Sandhu had gathered to eat and drink after getting rid of Jaswant Singh’s
body on 28 October 1995 evening, told the CBI officials that Sandhu had not registered
himself as a guest on any day in October 1995. Also, K. P. S. Gill categorically
denied ever having visited Sandhu’s house during the relevant period.
n It is no one’s case that SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu had registered himself as a visitor
at the canal guest house. He was not likely to consciously leave evidence of his
presence at the guest house on that day. Also, K. P. S. Gill’s denial of having
interrogated Jaswant Singh at the SSP’s house has no meaning, given his extraordinarily
consistent record of lies and denials. The CBI’s record of investigation
does not show anything done to independently probe the allegation.
[5] SPO Kuldip Singh had disclosed that head constables Balwinder Singh
Ghoda and Arvinder Singh had loaded Jaswant Singh’s body into of an unumbered
van and had gone with DSP Jaspal Singh, SHO Surinder Pal Singh of Sarhali police
station, SHO Jasbir Singh of Manochahal police station and SHO Satnam Singh of
Jhabal police station to dump it in Harike canal. The CBI was unable to trace any
head constable with the name of Arvinder Singh who had been posted in Tarn
Taran police district during the relevant period. The CBI officials also discovered
that Balwinder Singh Ghoda, head constable C-II No. 3362/TT, had been absenting
himself since June 1999 and his whereabouts since then remain unknown. His brothers
Gurnam Singh and Purshottam Singh said that they had no knowledge about
Balwinder Singh’s absence from duty and had not seen him after June 1999.159
n It is not clear how these facts discredit the veracity of SPO Kuldip Singh’s statements.
The desertion of duty by head constable Balwinder Singh Ghoda and his
mysterious disappearance since June 1999 can only reinforce suspicions against
him.
[6] Finally to reinforce the point about SPO Kuldip Singh’s lack of credibility
as a witness, the CBI mentioned the 17 April 1998 complaint registered by him
against Paramjit Kaur Khalra alleging that she had paid him Rs. 50,000/- to falsely
depose against the police officials.
n We have already examined the circumstances in which the incident occured.
Following the investigations that established Kuldip Singh’s abduction by SHO
Satnam Singh and others, the case against Paramjit Kaur was hastily withdrawn.
Kuldip Singh and his family members had themselves revealed how he had
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Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights 71
160 Order dated 25 July 1998 by the court of K. S. Garewal, sessions judge, Patiala
161 SBS-TV, Australia, 3 April 2002 , “India – Who Killed the Sikhs” –

been forced to lodge the false complaint and, if anything, the episode establishes
the desparate lengths to which the accused police officers can go to tamper
and forge evidence, while availing the benefit of bail, to corrupt the judicial
process.
The trial in the case has for long been in slow, grinding progress. In spite of the
reluctance shown by the prosecution to upgrade the charges against the accused
under sections 364 [kidnapping with the intent to muder] and 302 [murder] of the
IPC, the sessions court at Patiala under K. S. Garewal, on 25 July 1998 decided that
“circumstantial evidence is strong enough to presume that Jaswant Singh Khalra
was done to death and his dead body disposed of…”. But the court chose to invoke
IPC section 302 only against DSP Jaspal Singh, SHO Rashpal Singh of Kang police
station and ASI Amarjit Singh of Jhabal police station and to try DSP Ashok Kumar,
SHOs Surinder Pal Singh, Satnam Singh, Jasbir Singh and head constable Prithipal
Singh under section 364 of the IPC.160 The points about the arbitrariness of these
decisions pale into insignificance when sited against the prosecution’s evident lack
of will and intention to uncover the real depth of the crime and to punish the guilty.
The legal process, by corollary, has become a long, inexorable punishment for the
seekers of justice.
Elusive Goals of Justice and Truth
Paramjit Kaur, Jaswant Singh’s widow, told Geoff Parish of the SBS television in
March 2002: “In court we have to fight and there is so much of harassment. Seven
years have passed and we haven’t gained anything as yet. This won’t finish in our
lifetime.”161 Jaswant Singh’s father Kartar Singh was born when his father, a revolutionary
committed to the goal of India’s freedom from the colonial yoke, was
interned in Punjab from 1915 to 1922. Born in 1917, Kartar Singh is today 85. As
a school teacher at Khalra village who never compromised with the dignity of his
father’s ideals of freedom, Kartar Singh has been a witness to the passage of an
Independent India into its political adulthood. He told one of the authors of this
report in the course of a long discussion held at his village home on 27 March 2000:
“The government did not have the ability and the system to cope with the unrest and
the armed struggle in a legitimate way. The government officials, the police, the
judiciary, the political class were all corrupt, disinterested in their duties, ignorant
of the rules and out of touch with the people. The government did not have a hold
on any section of the society. The government had to react and suppress this movement.
But there were no principles and institutional ways to guide its actions. In that
situation, abuses and atrocities became inevitable. The security forces were given
blanket powers to stamp out the agitation by whatever means. The police did not
have the ability, the training or the aptitude to identify and nab real offenders. So,
their actions became indiscriminate. When the militancy increased, they began to
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72 Reduced to Ashes
162 Ram Narayan-Kumar’s interview with Kartar Singh at Khalra village on 27 March 2000.
163 ibid
164 ibid
165 Ganda Singh, PPP, Vol. IX-II, October 1975, “Banda Singh Bahadur: His achievements and the place
of his execution”; Early Annals of the English in Bengal, Edited by C. R. Willams, Letters of Edward
Stephenson and John Surman to the Governor of Fort Williams in Bengal.
catch and kill the family members and friends of those who were involved. This
way, they tried to create pressure on the relatives to stop those who were
involved…”162
Kartar Singh compared the working of the police in India before and after 1947
in the following words: “The British were here to rule us. They did that under some
rules and norms. After Independence, political power has gradually become bereft
of all rules and norms. In the British period, custodial killings, victimization of
family members of political or revolutionary suspects, false prosecution, etc., were
unheard of. Now what purpose did the abduction and disappearance of Jaswant
Singh serve? It was a purely malacious and unreasonable action and all the institutions
of the state, by participating in the cover-up, have become personifications of
the same maliciousness and unreasonableness.”163
But Kartar Singh does not despair. He says: “My son followed the path of truth
and bold opposition to injustice. He was proud of his ancestral history of martyrdom
for justice and freedom. In spite of my personal grief at his loss, I know that if
there is to be any hope for Punjab and for India there has to be a resurgence of that
spirit of freedom and the courage of conviction which my son embodied. I have
faith. In spite of the rotten state of affairs today, there will be a new phase of struggle
to realize the ideals of freedom which our leaders have betrayed. I hope Jaswant’s
sacrifice would contribute to initiating that process.”164
Jaswant Singh Khalra died a death he may have foreseen; perhaps courted. The
lingering memory of the legend of Surat Singh’s defiant martyrdom in the family
against the Mughals after Banda Singh Bahadur had been captured and executed in
Delhi in 1715, may even have played a part in making Jaswant Singh so bold and
reckless against the Punjab police. But there is a difference between his own sacrifice
and the sacrifices of his ancestors in 1715: There is more “probable knowledge”
about what happened to them in 1715 than we have about what happened to
Jaswant Singh in 1995. In 1715, two agents of the British East India Company in
Delhi, John Surman and Edward Stephenson, had witnessed and recorded the heroism
of Banda Singh Bahadur and his associates who accepted death by spurning the
offers of pardon in exchange for apostasy.165 We can read about it and feel inspired.
Jaswant Singh’s death is an obfuscated event even for those who knew him personally.
There is no verifiable record of others like him, thousands of them, who were
consigned to flames in illegal cremations, that Jaswant Singh tried to expose. The
difference has implications for the role of memory and meaning in inspiring “knowledgeable”
initiatives in which Kartar Singh, Jaswant’s father, endows hope.
‘Probability of knowledge’, through empirical observation, cognitive recovery
and documentation, shows what we ‘care’ for and how we mean to influence the
shaping of realities.
This report, we hope, integrates these ideals of knowledge and endeavor.
punjab_report_chapter1.p65 72 4/27/03, 10:30 PM

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