Mrs. Gandhi risks her future in an attack on Sikh extremists
The elegant marble-floored courtyard of the gilded Golden Temple in Amritsar was strewn with bodies and blood. The once serene and peaceful 72-acre temple complex, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion, stood scarred and bruised after 36 hours of fierce fighting between militant Sikhs and Indian government troops. In sweltering heat and the dust of the battle's aftermath, black crows and vultures perched on the temple's balustrades in search of grisly carrion. For the first time in the 400-year history of the Golden Temple, the 24-hour prayer vigil had ceased.
The most fanatical leader of Sikh extremists, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, 37, who had provoked the violence, lay among the dead. Just weeks before, he had vowed to defend to the death his supporters' demands for increased religious and political autonomy. "Let them come," he had said. "We will give them battle. If die we must, then we will take many of them with us."
In ordering her troops to storm the temple, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi took her biggest political gamble since she declared a national emergency in 1975. Last week's decision could add to the turmoil of a nation already torn by violence. Some Indian commentators voiced fears for the future of the world's largest democracy. "What happened inside the Golden Temple is a turning point in India's modern history," said the eminent Sikh Historian Khushwant Singh. But Mrs. Gandhi apparently felt she had no choice but to attack. Bhindranwale and his followers had stockpiled guns, rifles, antitank missiles, rocket launchers, hand grenades and mortars inside the temple, in grim contrast to the shrine's jewel-like chambers and cupolas. The defenders' stiff resistance ended in slaughter: 259 Sikhs and 59 soldiers killed, an additional 90 Sikhs and 110 soldiers wounded. Unofficial figures placed the dead at more than a thousand.
At week's end the violence had not yet subsided, and the Indian army extended its 24-hour curfew in most of the northwestern state of Punjab. Several hundred Bhindranwale loyalists who had managed to escape the siege of the temple continued to wage hit-and-run attacks against troops in Amritsar. They also looted shops, set fires and killed civilians. An additional 100 Sikh extremists surfaced in Rajasthan, a state near the Pakistani border, where they called upon Sikh members of the army to rebel. Some of them did defect, while other Sikhs apparently donned army uniforms in an attempt to infiltrate and disrupt the front-line troops that shield India against potential attacks from its bitter enemy, Pakistan. The rebellion was swiftly quashed.
Agitation by both moderate and extremist Sikh factions over the past two years had brought violence in Punjab to alarming levels. In the past months alone, more than 300 people had died in Sikh-inspired violence. At the same time, tensions from last month's rioting among Hindus and Muslims in Bombay had built to such a degree that politicians began questioning Mrs. Gandhi's control over the country. There was speculation that further instability could cause her governing Congress (I) Party to suffer a serious setback in the national elections scheduled to be held by next January.