1984 Lessons From History: Intrigue and Conflict in Centre Sikh Relations

The traumas of 1984 were a culmination point of Centre-Sikh conflicts that began even before India's Independence and erupted into a chain of conflicts each weaving into the next one as years passed by. They were triggered by the Congress party's repudiation of its pre-independence promises to the Sikhs, complicated by total distrust of them and made more complex by its interventionist policies. The Centre-Sikh conflicts began to consume the state by the 1980s because by then the Congress party under the leadership of Indira Gandhi had set out to destroy institutionalised politics represented by the Akali Dal through a militant leaders, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.