Saturday, March 29, 2025
Congress MP P. Chidambaram has called Operation Blue Star a “wrong approach,” stating that former Prime Minister **Indira Gandhi paid for that mistake with her life.” Speaking at the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival 2025 on Saturday, the former Union Home and Finance Minister said that Operation Black Thunder, conducted later without deploying the army inside the Golden Temple, was the correct way to reclaim the holy shrine.
Reflecting on the controversial 1984 military action, Chidambaram said:
“Operation Blue Star, in June 1984, was a collective decision involving the army, police, intelligence, and civil services. While I have the utmost respect for the armed forces, that was the wrong way to reclaim the Golden Temple.”
He added that a few years later, Operation Black Thunder demonstrated a more appropriate method by keeping the army outside the sacred premises.
“You cannot hold Indira Gandhi alone responsible,” he said, emphasizing that the decision was not hers alone but a result of broader institutional consensus.
Chidambaram made these comments during a discussion with journalist Harinder Baweja on her book “They Will Shoot You, Madam: My Life Through Conflict.”
Operation Blue Star was a 10-day military operation carried out from June 1 to June 10, 1984, under the orders of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The objective was to remove Sikh militants led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale from the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab.
Reports at the time suggested that Bhindranwale and his followers had stockpiled a large cache of weapons inside the temple. Bhindranwale, who headed the Damdami Taksal, a radical Sikh seminary, was killed during the operation along with several of his armed supporters.
The assault sparked widespread outrage among Sikhs worldwide, as it was seen as an attack on their holiest shrine.
A few months later, on October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, at her residence in New Delhi in apparent retaliation for the operation.
Operation Blue Star remains one of the most sensitive and debated chapters in India’s post-independence history — a decision that continues to evoke pain and controversy even after four decades.
