Rocking the Ship of State

IN THE AFTERMATH of the brutal assassination of Prime Minister Indira Ghandi, a plethora of media coverage has catanulted Indian political and religious issues into the limelight of the international public. Most notably, the current rampant violence between Sikhs and Hindus throughout the country, but particularly in the Sikh-majority state of Punjab, has focused discussion on Gandhi's controversial decision to send the army into the Golden Temple in Amritsar last June to flush out the Sikh extremists there. But such debate has--at least in this country--typically lacked a deeper understanding of India's religious, political and historical traditions and has, as a result, misjudged Gandhi's actions toward the Sikhs.

Among the issues that have been most distorted is the very nature of the Sikh-Hindu rift in the realm of religious doctrine. By stressing Sikh monotheism and opposition to the caste system in contrast to Hindu polytheism and age-old caste system. Western observers have presented the two religions as inherently hostile towards each other. Yet this interpretation misstates, the true nature of the Hindu religious tradition; the non-credal, non-dogmatic nature of Hinduism allows it to be extremely pluralistic and to uphold coexistence with the Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. Moreover, to pit Sikhism and Hinduism against one another overlooks the long history of cross-religious linkages. For instance, Hindus have worshipped Sikh temples and Sikhs in Hindu temples for years and the two groups do intermarry.

By overstating the inevitability of Sikh, Hindu antagonism, then, Western observers have misrepresented the true nature of the Golden Temple controversy. The conflict was not simply one of conflicting groups, but of a radical seet of Sikhs committed to violence. The Sikhs who had been using the temple as their base were gathered under the fanatical but charismatic Bhindranwale, an extremist leader who was killed in the Golden Temple fighting. His Khomeini-like messianic appeal included public speeches glorifying violent means aimed at acquiring a separate Sikh nation. "It should be clear to all Sikhs...that we are slaves and want liberation at any cost. To achieve this end, arm yourselves and prepare for a war and wait for orders." Bhindranwale proclaimed in a public speech. In reference to two Hindu slayings. Bhindranwale was reported by the India Times to have said, "whoever performed these great feats deserves to be honored by the Akal Takht, the highest seat of the Sikhs...if their killers came to me, I would weigh them in gold."

Bhindranwale, by advocating the violent elimination of innocent Hindu civilians and of police and government officials, both Hindu and Sikh, who tried to maintain order, forged together a group of Sikh extremists composed largely of the unemployed, youths and criminals. He grasped initiative away from the collaborating Akali Dal, a political party of right-wing Sikhs. Wanted for arrest due to his directives to kill given Hindu leaders and Sikh moderates. Bhindranwale sought protection in the Golden Temple. There, he sent out directives to kill more individuals, organized military training exercises preparing the extremists for war, and converted the sacred shrine into a veritable fortress, with sophisticated weapons and supplies smuggled in from outside sources (some of these sources have allegedly been connected to India's neighbor and greatest security threat, Pakistan).

GIVEN Bhindranwale's radical calls to violence, it is seemingly the extremist Sikhs, not Gandhi, who bear the burden for the escalation of violence in the Sikh separatist movement. Moderate Sikhs had, until the Golden Temple incident, disowned Bhindranwale's extremists as fanatics and madmen, but in their united anger at the army takeover of their shrine, they came to look upon the same fanatics ar martyrs. Such a view betrays the fact that the moderate Sikhs had had no real voice prior to the Temple confrontation, due not to the doings of Gandhi and her party, but rather the extremist Sikhs themselves: It was no secret that any Sikh who spoke out publicly against Bhindranwale and his unreasonable demands would inevitably placed on his hit list. Such is the phenomenon of extremist factions within a community; the violence and antagonism are directed towards the community itself to quell dissent from within.

Thus, in the wake of rampant killings, mounting fanaticism, and reports of the alarming military build-up of the Golden Temple, Gandhi and the center can hardly be accused of intentional brutality in calling in the Indian army. Sikhs and Sikh supporters loudly condemned the army move, outraged by the government's desecration of their holiest shrine. But does this not skirt the sacriligious behavior of the Sikhs in using a place of worship revered by millions as an arsenal and sanctuary for murderers. Furthermore, the charge made by some of Western observers, the New Yorker for example, that Gandhi was guilty of choosing a military solution to a political problem underestimates the very threat Bhindranwale's forces posed to national security. If a band of armed fanatics engaged in repeated shootings of innocent civilians and could remain untouchable in say, the Holy Cross Cathedral, and the local police were unable put an end to this madness, would the U.S. federal government be wrong in sending in the National Guard?

There are those who argue that Ganhi's motivation for the raid was political--that forceful action against the Sikhs would win her Hindu support in the upcoming election. Yet a direct raid was really the only option available to Gandhi given that secret tunnels underneath the temple complex would have made it impossible to successfully blockade the extremists.

A more valid criticism of Gandhi's treatment of the Sikhs would focus on her policies towards the Akali party when she regained power in 1980. During the two years following the 1977 election that voted Gandhi out of power, a coalition of the Sikh Akali party and the Hindu Janasangh party ruled the state of Punjab. When Gandhi and her Congress Party returned to rule the country, she made no effort to win over the ousted Akali politicians and incorporate them into the new government in Punjab. This left the Akalis to join forces with Bhindranwale, to become submerged in his extremist callings and to remain idly by while their allies were engaged in massive terrorist campaigns.

Since 1980, nevertheless, the center had participated in negotiations with the Akali party and had in fact conceded to many of the Sikh demands that did not affect the status of the other Indian states. These include the constitutional recognition of Sikhism as a distinct religion different from Hinduism and the arrangement for broadcast rights from the Golden Temple on the All India Radio. The contentious issues, however, have been the very demands of religious, political, economic and territorial nature that involve other states and therefore dismiss the feasibility of simple bilateral bargaining between the Sikhs and the central government. Rights over the Punjab river waters, the transfer of the city of Chandigarh (which had been given to Haryana in 1966) to Punjab, and political autonomy for Punjab except for the central government's retainment of control over foreign affairs, defense, currency and communications--all these demands constitute extreme difficulties for a central government that must maintain its neutrality with regard to rights and interests of all the Indian states and strive for the continuation of India as a cohesive, united whole. The failure of negotiations to solve the most important issues should not be so readily attributed to the obstinacy or lack of long-term political analysis on the part of Gandhi, but rather to the inherent, almost insurmountable nature of the issues themselves.

NOT SURPRISINGLY, the solution to these complex problems must lie beyond the Indian government alone--it must, to a great extent, rest in the hands of the Sikhs themselves. Sikh extremism has obviously continued without Bhindranwale, and the leading politicians of the Akali party are now in jail for their compliance with Bhindranwale. The moderate voice of the Sikhs must take the initiative in representing the whole of the Sikh community as the immediate bloody aftermath of Gandhi's death begins to be replaced by more normal conditions.

The notion of a "Khalistan," a separate Sikh state, remains an unworkable goal; the Sikhs--who represent only 2 percent of the Indian population--could never survive as an independent nation. Too many economic, territorial and population factors run against the murmurs of creating a separate state. Only 40 percent of the Sikhs live in Punjab; the rest are scattered around other parts of the country. To implement the establishment of a separate and solely Sikh nation would only result in massive and traumatizing migrations of non-Sikhs out of Punjab (almost half of the present population there) and of Sikhs now living in other areas into Punjab. The memory of the 1947 partition that resulted in widespread and far-reaching problems of migration between Hindu and Muslim areas should be a strong enough case against partition arrangements.

Contrary to extremist sentiment, most Sikhs realize the importance of their economic and cultural linkages with the rest of the nation. The most vocal and tenacious of Sikhs who are clamoring for separatism are actually those not in India at all; these are Sikh expatriates, living mainly in the U.S., Canada, and Britain, who are far removed from the crippling consequences of actual partition.

As young Sikh men start to rid themselves of the traditionally visible traits of their culture--uncut hair wrapped in turbans, unshaven beards, etc.--some of the older, more conservative Sikhs have expressed alarm at the threat to Sikh identity. It is this impulse that lends support to Sikh separatists, no matter how extreme. But the moderates must lead the way into coming to terms with a changing society. The Sikh community must define for themselves what constitutes being a Sikh in the here and now and not in some romanticized and dangerous notion of seventeeth-century Sikh soldier-saints.