L.K. Advani

Lal Krishna Advani was born in Karachi on 8 November 1927. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1941 and worked as a pracharak in Rajasthan, then in the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which he led as president from 1973. He co-founded the Bharatiya Janata Party with Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 6 April 1980 and served as its president three times. He was Union Home Minister from 1998 to 2004 and Deputy Prime Minister from 2002 to 2004, and was awarded the Bharat Ratna on 9 February 2024. His Ram Rath Yatra of 1990 ran from Somnath towards Ayodhya and was stopped in Bihar, where he was arrested. He was named among the accused over the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, and a CBI special court acquitted him on 30 September 2020, finding that the demolition was not pre-planned.

Why he appears in Panjab's record. His memoir My Country, My Life (Rupa, 2008) has a chapter, "The Trauma and Triumph of Punjab" (pages 422 to 438, according to the BJP-supporting weekly Organiser), on the years before Operation Blue Star. We could not open the book, so what follows is what those quoting it say. Its readers disagree about what it admits.

• As Organiser quotes him, Advani charges Indira Gandhi's government with abdication of responsibility, a wavering policy and a lack of firm action, and writes that the Prime Minister was "ultimately forced to use the military" to clear the Golden Temple.
• Manoranjan Kalia, a BJP minister in Punjab, answering Congress critics in April 2008, quoted the book as calling Blue Star the "most painful moment in India's history" and, on page 437, saying that it and its consequences could easily have been averted (UNI report).
• Congress leaders read the chapter as an admission. Kapil Sibal said in 2009 that Advani had effectively admitted the BJP agitation forced Indira Gandhi into the operation. Charanjit Singh Channi said in September 2024 that Advani wrote of BJP pressure for "strong action", and in October 2025 that Advani wrote that he had announced support to Indira Gandhi on Operation Blue Star. Gurjant Singh, writing for Baaz News, likewise says the memoir credits the BJP's agitation as a major influence on her decision.
• Parkash Singh Badal, then Punjab's Chief Minister and the BJP's ally, said in April 2008 that Advani had never demanded action on the Golden Temple in 1984. BJP spokesman R. P. Singh has said the operation was completely avoidable.

Remembered for: building the BJP into a national party and the Ayodhya campaign, and, in Sikh memory, for the dispute over what he wrote about June 1984.