Indian Army

The Indian Army is the land force of the Republic of India and the largest part of its armed forces. It descends from the British Indian Army, formed on 1 April 1895, and took its present form on 26 January 1950. Army Day, 15 January, marks K. M. Cariappa becoming its first Indian chief in 1949.

Its part in this history: June 1984

In June 1984 the Army attacked Sri Harmandir Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib in Operation Blue Star. Lieutenant General K. Sundarji, head of Western Command, planned it and Major General Kuldip Singh Brar commanded it, with General A. S. Vaidya as Chief of the Army Staff. According to Lt Gen V. K. Nayar, the code name was chosen from a roadside sign advertising a refrigerator brand. The Tribune names two linked actions: Operation Metal, against Bhindranwale's inner circle, and Operation Woodrose, the sweeps across Punjab that followed. Armoured personnel carriers and Vijayanta tanks were used inside the complex, and the Akal Takht was badly damaged.

The toll is disputed. The Tribune says the Army lost 83 officers and jawans. The government's White Paper, as Wikipedia reports it, gave 83 soldiers killed, 249 wounded and 493 civilians killed. Khushwant Singh said the White Paper had "grossly underestimated" the lives lost, and the Christian Science Monitor in 1984 reported that up to 1,000 lives may have been lost across Punjab, with the Army cremating nearly 500 bodies at the Golden Temple. Independent and Sikh estimates are far higher.

The Army says the Sikh Reference Library caught fire in an exchange of fire. The SGPC says the Army took the rare material out and then set fire to the empty library.

Hundreds of Sikh soldiers at Sriganganagar in Rajasthan and at the Sikh Regimental Centre at Ramgarh, now in Jharkhand, mutinied and marched towards Amritsar. Other units stopped them in firefights in which scores died, and over 2,600 were arrested, many later court-martialled. The Ministry of Defence at first denied that there had been a mutiny. General Vaidya was shot dead by two Sikhs in Pune in 1986.

Key moments

• June 1984: Operation Blue Star at Sri Harmandir Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib.
• Summer 1984: Operation Woodrose and the mutinies at Ramgarh and Sriganganagar.
• 1986: General Vaidya killed at Pune.

How the Panth remembers it

On 6 June 2024 Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh called the attack "the third Ghallughara for the Sikh community" and praised the soldiers who left their barracks in protest, whom he called the Dharmi Faujis. SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami said the government should apologise in Parliament.