Seven Stages of Grief and Sikh Psyche

The Sikh community suffered a massive loss of lives, property, and loss of dignity with the events that exploded in 1984. It all started with Operation Blue Star in June, 1984 resulting in the assassination of Indira Gandhi which then led to the genocide of Sikhs in Indian capital Delhi and other Congress ruled states. The suffering did not stop here and continued in the format of fake encounters of Sikh youths in Punjab in 90s.

Grief of Sikh Nation

Kübler-Ross Model of Grief

The stages of grief and mourning are universal and are experienced by people from all walks of life, across many cultures. The Kübler-Ross model, or the five stages of grief, postulates a series of emotions experienced by people who have experienced bereavement, wherein the five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The model was later modified to seven stages as shown below.

I would like to apply the Kübler-Ross model to the Sikh nation's emotions and reactions to the Operation Blue Star in June 1984 and subsequent events.

Stage I: SHOCK

The entire Sikh nation reacted to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. They could not believe that the Indian Army could lead an attack on the holiest shrine of the Sikhs and kill citizens of its  own country. They felt that a situation which could have been resolved without a shot being fired was allowed to deteriorate to the point where the sacred sanctity of a place of worship was desecrated in the most brutal way with death and destruction. In addition to the followers of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, thousands of innocent pilgrims who had gathered to celebrate a religious festival also lost their lives in the attack.

The Akal Takht, the symbolic seat of supreme Sikh temporal authority was reduced to rubble. Gurdwara Darbar Sahib was damaged with over 300 bullets. The Sikh Reference Library with precious hand written manuscripts of the Gurus was burned to the ground. The Temple treasury Toshakhana with priceless historical artifacts of Maharaja Ranjit Singh was also burned down.

Stage II: DENIAL

Denial is the initial response to the "shock," in which mind refuses to accept the reality of the loss. The first reaction to learning about the grief is to deny the reality of the situation. “This isn’t happening, this can’t be happening,” the Sikhs thought. The government controlled media and press also pitched in by falsifying the reports of the operation. The temple complex was cleaned up of dead bodies and blood stains, and Kirtan from Harmandir Sahib was shown on national TV. These propaganda news only showed Golden Temple and hid the damage done to the Akal Takht and other historic buildings. Jathedar of Akal Takht was allegedly forced at gun point to deny any damage on national TV.

Jathedar Kirpal Singh on Doordarshan TV News

International press was thrown out of Punjab and news censored from reaching Sikhs diaspora across the globe. Most of the news accounts from Punjab were pushed to journalists by the Indian government and hence provide for the most part a one-sided view of events. A classic example of strategic misinformation can be found in an article reporting that huge quantities of heroin and drugs had been recovered within the Golden Temple Complex and that they had been used by the militants to illegally fund their operations. This story was picked up internationally based on a June 14th Press Trust of India news report from government sources. One week later the initial report was officially retracted by the government 

Stage III: ANGER

As the masking effects of denial and isolation begin to wear, the intense emotion is deflected from our vulnerable core, redirected and expressed instead as anger. The Sikh anger was aimed at Indira Gandhi who ordered the military operation on Golden temple. Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was shown visiting the temple to pray. But her poorly advised propaganda visit and clandestine method of reconstructing Akal Takht angered the community instead.

In the immediate aftermath of the operation, many Sikh soldiers in the Indian army mutinied. Mark Tully of BBC met a group of them. Although they had been imprisoned, dismissed from the army, and denied their pension, they had no regrets. One said, “we mutinied for religion. We are loyal to our country but, if we couldn’t protect our religion, then what does loyalty to the country matter?”

The anguish and rage felt by the international Sikh community was captured in many news reports about mass demonstrations and individual expressions of anger. Irrespective of their past feelings or political affiliations prior to Operation Blue Star, the vast majority were now united in calling for the creation of 'Khalistan', an independent Sikh country as they no longer wished to be part of India. Only a small minority supported the Indian government.

This anger ultimately took the life of Indira Gandhi. She was assassinated at her residence in Delhi by two of her Sikh security men - Sub Inspector Beant Singh and Satwant Singh of Indo-Tibetan Border Police. Many Sikhs felt relief with this assassination as if a debt has been paid back.

Disregarding generations bonds, rampaging mobs of Hindus, mostly Congress Party workers ans supporters, vowing revenge for the assassination of Indira Gandhi killed thousands of Sikhs In Delhi and burned scores of Sikh-owned stores and houses. Throughout New Delhi, truckloads of armed youths brandishing wooden staves and other crude weapons drove through nearly deserted streets, chanting pro-Gandhi slogans and searching for Sikhs identifiable by their turbans and unshorn hair.

This genocide was second setback to the Sikhs but their suffering did not stop here. Instead of seeking reconciliation with the Sikh community, Indira's son Rajiv Gandhi ordered the police to crush the Sikh homeland movement. Mark Tull of BBC confirmed that during this campaign the Punjab governor’s security adviser let the police know they could eliminate any suspicious Sikh, although this was never official policy.

Stage IV: BARGAINING

The normal reaction to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability is often a need to regain control. The Sikh leadership were released after being imprisoned for years and government began reconciliation effort with them at multiple angles. Sikh middlemen belonging to Congress party negotiated and brought Sikh leadership to table. Akali leader Sant Harchand Singh Longowal signed an agreement with the new Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The grieving Sikh nation saw it as a "Sell-out" and Sant Longowal was assassinated by a Sikh militant in Punjab. The Indian government never implemented the accord.

Stage V: DEPRESSION

After bargaining, attention moves squarely into the present. Empty feelings present themselves, and grief enters on a deeper level, deeper than we ever imagined. The Sikh nation felt as if this depressive stage will last forever. It all started with, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who was sworn in as prime minister after his mother's death, justifying the genocide of Sikhs with these words: "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes".

Successive Indian governments’ failure to prosecute those most responsible for killings and other abuses during the 1984 anti-Sikh violence highlights India’s weak efforts to combat communal violence. Many victims, witnesses, and perpetrators have since died, making hopes for justice and accountability more remote with every passing year. Many legal cases collapsed after powerful suspects allegedly threatened or intimidated witnesses. In other cases, poor investigation and tampering of evidence by the police led to acquittals of the accused.

In his deposition to the Nanavati Commission in 2001, famous writer Khushwant Singh called it a pogrom. “I felt like a refugee in my country. In fact, I felt like a Jew in Nazi Germany,” Singh told the commission.

During Rajiv Gandhi regime, the Sikh militancy grew as the result of anti-Sikh and oppressive policies of the government. Rajiv responded by governing Punjab directly from Delhi using military advisers. Oppressive tactics included draconian laws that empowered the security services to search and detain Sikhs without warrant, harassment, torture, and extra-judicial killings in fake encounters.

The Sikh nation was under an oppressive pressure and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Congress party returned to power in Punjab with less than 10% of votes as Sikhs boycotted the elections.  This  was seen as mandate to kill and eliminate. Following Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the 1984 Sikh Genocide, police were empowered to detain suspects for any reason, ostensibly as suspected terrorists. Police were accused of killing unarmed suspects in staged shootouts and burning thousands of dead bodies to cover up the murders. Sikh youths of ages 15-35 were picked up in rural Punjab by security forces, detained without record, tortured, and ultimately killed in fake encounters. 

It looked like the dark nights are never going to end ...

Stage VI: TESTING

Jaswant Singh Khalra was a human rights activist who discovered files from the municipal corporation of the city of Amritsar which contained the names, age, address of those who had been killed and later burned by the Police. Further research revealed other cases in 3 other districts in Punjab, increasing the list by thousands. Khalra published his report in Canada along with Canadian parliamentarians.

In 1995, the Punjab police abducted, tortured, and murdered human rights defender Jaswant Singh Khalra for his work in uncovering thousands of disappearances, extrajudicial deaths, and secret cremations of Sikhs perpetrated by the Punjab police. His body was never found ...

But Khalra had accomplished his mission by that time. The world became aware of the oppressive policies of the Indian government and Sikh Genocide was highlighted in mainstream media. The subsequent elections in India brought Hindu right wing party in to power in Delhi and Punjab came under Sikh political party Akali Dal an ally of BJP. Draconian laws were repealed and people of Punjab finally at peace, 

Stage VII: ACCEPTANCE

Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. Even as 1984 largely fades from public memory as a signifier of mass deaths, rapes, and the state's lack of will to protect its ‘minority' citizens, The Sikhs are refusing to forget, accept, and move on.

More than a quarter century on, not much remains of ‘1984' — shorthand for one of the largest pogroms in India's postcolonial history when thousands of Sikhs were massacred in retribution for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination — in the public memory. The voices of victims and eyewitnesses one often heard in courtrooms have almost retired in exhaustion. The names of state-appointed serial commissions to establish the facts on ground have by now joined footnotes of history in a long line of ineffective judicial commissions of similar nature. And more remarkably, the miscarriage of justice through long-winded judicial processes where eyewitnesses routinely turn hostile due to threats, incentives, pressures exerted by fixers, or because of plain weariness has ceased evoking any mass outrage. In any case, the victims are supposed to have ‘got over' the event and ‘moved on,' precisely as enterprising and forward-looking communities are expected to do.

"Without giving justice, how could one ask for forgiveness? Sikhs can never forget 1984," 

References

1. http://www.sikhmuseum.com/bluestar/chronology.html
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/10881115/Operation-Blue-Star-How-an-Indian-army-raid-on-the-Golden-Temple-ended-in-disaster.html
3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/11/02/angry-indian-mobs-hunt-down-sikhs/8843ec07-a2d2-4331-861c-b0b196e47b62/?utm_term=.a7ca5c883b17
4. https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/29/india-no-justice-1984-anti-sikh-bloodshed
5. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/25-years-on-Indiarsquos-Sikh-riot-victims-wait-for-justice/article16889217.ece
6. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27585500
7. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/i-killed-more-than-80-people-in-fake-encounters-says-a-repentant-punjab-cop/article4885921.ece
8. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17448720600779869?src=recsys&journalCode=rsfo20
9. https://hrdag.org/content/india/ensaaf-summary-visual.pdf
10. http://www.discoversikhism.com/sikh_library/english/dead_silence_the_legacy_of_human_rights_abuses_in_punjab.html
11. http://www.ensaaf.org/programs/legal/khalra/
12.