Punjab before and after Blue Star Operation-A book by then Amritsar DC to be released on June 20
Babushahi Bureau
Chandigarh, June 4, 2022; Rameshinder Singh, then Deputy Commissioner Amritsar has announced the release of his book titled "Turmoil in Punjab...Before and After Blue Star Operation' releasing on June 20.
The book is set in the politically turbulent period in Punjab from 1978 to 1996 triggered by the rift between Sikhs and Nirankaris, and fuelled by the operations Blue Star, Woodrose, and Black Thunder I and II.
Narrated as an eyewitness account by Ramesh Inder Singh, then the district magistrate of Amritsar, and later the chief secretary of Punjab, this book affords an insider’s view of the events that ignited the strife and created the socio-political fault lines that divided Punjab in those years.
It also describes the terrorist violence in Punjab, the state response to the military operations, the death of thousands of innocent citizens, the shocking assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and the subsequent lynching of close to 3,000 Sikhs in the national capital of Delhi, which set in motion a devastating ethnonational movement in Punjab. Based on extensive research and first-hand accounts of those who lived through those volcanic years, Turmoil in Punjab: Before and After Blue Star is an eye-opening narrative of the genesis of the Punjab conflict, the rise of radicalism and the Khalistanis, and the elimination of militancy from the state.
"I was an eyewitness and at times a participant, in the defining moments of Punjab’s history, from 1978 to 1996. What I saw or did—or failed to do—needed to be told. My conscience and the many competing misrepresentation of facts floating around in the public domain, more than anything else, impelled me to write a tell-all account of what transpired over the troubled decade and a half, including during Operation Blue Star, Operation Woodrose, Operation Black Thunder I and Operation Rakshak, the role played by various political forces, the foreign powers, the media, the diaspora and the way militancy was handled by government agencies, leading to the end of the ethno-national conflict in Punjab.Many previously unanswered questions have been addressed in this book. Punjab militancy did not arise overnight. It is best explained in the historical context, as an evolutionary process. Part 2 of the book, subtitled 'Historical Perspective’, is a deeply researched account of inter-community relationships from pre Independence days, how these evolved, and how the subsequent polarization triggered the emergence of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and the turmoil in Punjab," said Ramesh Inder Singh.