Was the burning of the Sikh Reference Library and the damage to Sri Akal Takht Sahib deliberate?

The claim: The damage was the cost of fighting an entrenched force, not vandalism. On the Library, The Tribune (7 June 2003) records that the Army maintains it caught fire "during exchange of fire" with the armed men sheltering in the complex. On the Akal Takht, Brig D. V. Rao's affidavit says troops were told not to fire at Sri Harmandar Sahib and to fire only in self-defence, and that all major buildings were heavily fortified (The Tribune, 20 March 2007). Ramachandra Guha writes that every window of the Akal Takht had been boarded up, with snipers placed to fire through cracks. Brar told Shekhar Gupta (ThePrint, 2018) that heavy weapons came only "when we couldn't physically enter the Akal Takht and time was running short". P. C. Alexander's memoir, summarised by The Caravan, says Indira Gandhi "repeatedly told the general" that no damage should be done to the temple buildings, and that the Army chief, General A. S. Vaidya, assured her the operation would be completed "without any damage to the buildings within the Golden temple complex".

The sourced facts:

• The Library held about 1,500 rare manuscripts and artefacts, and The Tribune (1 June 2014) says how it was destroyed "remains unclear to this date".
• Removal before the fire. A retired CBI inspector, Ranjit Singh Nanda, said he was on a five-member team that scrutinised the Library's material at Amritsar's Youth Club while officials looked for a purported letter from Indira Gandhi to Bhindranwale, and that it was packed into 165 numbered gunnybags (The Tribune, 2003). The SGPC's account is that the Army took the material away and then set the emptied Library on fire. CBI officials denied that the material was still in the agency's possession.
• Official admissions. In May 2000 Defence Minister George Fernandes acknowledged the Army had taken historical items, said they were with the CBI, and on 17 August 2000 said the CBI had destroyed 117 items it considered "seditious" on court orders (The Tribune, 2003). In April 2004 the Union Home Ministry told the Punjab and Haryana High Court by affidavit that it holds "many articles, including books, paintings, rare documents, handwritten volumes of holy Sikh scriptures" taken from the Golden Temple during the operation (The Tribune, 27 April 2004). In May 2009 Defence Minister A. K. Antony told Parliament the Army had handed the Library material to an SGPC representative; the SGPC president said he was "misleading Parliament" (The Tribune, 22 May 2009).
• The Akal Takht. The Tribune (2014) records that repeated attempts to storm it failed, armoured carriers and then tanks went in, and that a little after 5 am on 6 June Delhi gave the green signal to use the tanks' main guns; Brar told the paper about 20 rounds were fired, and the paper says the building "had all but crumbled". Guha writes that the tanks "rained fire on the Akal Takht" through much of the day. Brar told Rediff the tanks were first brought in to light the Takht with halogen lamps.
• Afterwards. A government-sponsored kar seva under the Nihang chief Santa Singh repaired the damaged building; Sikhs razed it and raised a new one by voluntary kar seva (The Tribune, 2014).

The Panthic answer: The SGPC's position, as The Tribune reports it (7 June 2003), is that the Army deliberately put the emptied Library on fire, and that the story of everything being reduced to ashes is "a concoction and camouflage". The Sikh Research Institute says "the army deliberately set fire to the Sikh Reference Library after the attack was over", that its in-charge, Devinder Singh Duggal, verified it was intact until the evening of 6 June, and that the fire began in the early hours of 7 June. Ensaaf reports the head librarian saying the Army burned it after taking control of the building. On the Akal Takht, Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh (6 June 2024) calls the assault the third Ghallughara. In 2004 the SGPC told the High Court that the seized material is a "priceless part of Sikh history" (The Tribune, 27 April 2004).

Bhai Ajmer Singh writes in Vihveen Sadi Di Sikh Rajneeti (ch. 20) that the Army's attack of June 1984 on Sri Akal Takht Sahib was not only a military action but an attack on the Sikh value system, and that the injury was as heavy as the destruction of the earlier Ghallugharas. For him the Akal Takht is the seat from which the Panth's sovereignty is exercised, which is why it was struck. He holds that its rebuilding under army and government direction was illegitimate, because it broke the Panth's own authority over its seat, and that the damage has not been repaired.