Operation Shudeekaran

Part of the following article was taken from a page on the internet by the World Muslim-Sikh Federation, 90-A, The Broadway, Southall, Middlesex, England. The article outlines some of the atrocities of an operation called Operation Wood Rose carried out by the Indian Army in the days and months after the attack on the Harmandar Sahib in 1984.

After many on their lists escaped their dragnet the army was left with only the relatives of those who they wished to capture. The relatives mostly old men, women and children were used as bait to tempt their relatives out of hiding. The following sentences describe some of the atrocities unleased on those who stayed behind.

Apparently the Indian army, composed of soldiers from across India; Muslims, Hindus (in the majority) and Sikhs (many of whom resigned or deserted in the days after 'Operation Blue Star' had taken to heart the old practices first used against the Sikhs and the Hindus themselves by the Many Islamic invaders of India. The Indian Police also participated with many seeing the policies of the RSS and other 'Hindutva' organizations clearly involved behind the scene.

Conspiracy Theory

There is no proof or published material to validate that this operation occurred. This conspiracy theory is often used by Khalistanis to create divides amongst the Sikh Panth, in addition to turning people against India. It is not disputed that rapes occurred during the Punjab Insurgency, however, the scale and motives of the rapes are. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that any rapes occurred due to government policy or by the orders of police chiefs.

Historical Rhetoric Used by some Proponents of this Theory.

When the Moghuls and the Afganis ruled the Punjab and India they (when they weren't offering prices on the Sikhs heads) would capture Sikhs and Hindus often raping the women, figuring that the Hindu parents would prefer they die rather than raise a child born of a Musalman. The Sikh women would often kill themselves by taking an overdose of afim, or asking their Jeth to shoot them, they would even jump down wells to their death. Women would also be forced into marriages. For the girls who were lucky enough to be accepted by their parents (the Sikhs in many recorded instances rescued hundreds of Hindu women returning them safely to their families) the Hindu priests had a ritual ceremony of ``purification`` called (Shuddhikaran). For the Hindu men who were circumcised by force the Hindu priests also had an expensive ritual that was suspposed to restore them to the Hindu fold. Of course as many of the poorer men could not afford the ritual the state government sometimes covered the cost.

In the days of the Gurus

Guru Gobind Singh ji had famously said, that when all other methods of redress had been tried and exhausted with no results it was proper, as he said, "to take sword in hand". Aurangzeb was at the time trying to change India into a country devoid of any Hindus or Sikhs, into a nation of only Muslims under Sharia Laws. It was the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb who in order to assure his place in Heaven had listened to the Ulama, the educated elders of India's Islam, as they called it Hindustan, who were bent on clearing India of all competing religions. He had abandoned all of the tenets of the Prophet of Islam turning to wanton murder of men women and children. He had restored the hated jizia, the protection tax that since ancient time had protected those of other religions which had once allowed some of the greatest advances of the Middle Ages across the Muslim world.

Lies at Anandpur

Guru Gobind Singh ji had thought that the Hindu Hill chiefs of the surrounding Rajput Kingdoms would rally to his creation of the Khalsa, which was formed largely to protect not only the Sikhs but also the Hindus against the ever increasing atrocities of the Mughals. But as history has shown us, greed, ego and wealth can overcome men who can't, as we say see the forest for the trees. Rather than joining with the Sikhs in driving out the foreign invaders the Rajas saw Guru Gobind Singh ji's Khalsa as the bigger threat - to their good times, than that posed by the Mughals. After all, some of their fellow Rajputs had married their daughters with the Mughal rulers. Shah Jahan and Jahangir were born of Hindu mothers who had even been allowed to keep their shrines to their Hindu Gods inside the Mughal forts.

But Aurangzeb who had imprisoned his own father hastening his death; had his brother Dara Shikoh hunted down and killed, later proudly displaying his brother's detached head and executed Guru Tegh Bahadur was a Muslim of another sort, an enemy who it turned out could not be trusted. Under his and his Rajput allies sacred oath of free passage for the Sikhs of Anandpur, the Guru chose to leave the city of Bliss. In just a few days he lost his whole family, save his wife who Bhai Mani Singh, later to become one of Sikhi's greatest, boldest Shaheeds, was able to escort to safety.

The atrocities continued at the Sirsa, at Chamkaur and Sirhind, yet weeks later the Guru was able to offer, after strongly condemning Aurangzeb as a Godless liar in his famous Zafarnama, an offer of reconciliation. But that was never to happen, for Aurangzeb, perhaps broken by reading the Zafarnama, was soon to die as would Guru Gobind Singh ji who would die days after being wounded by agents of the Muslim who had the Guru's youngest sons killed. Also responsible for the death of the Guru's mother, who died as his prisoner after hearing of her grandsons' deaths, Wazir Khan met his death as his city was sacked by the Sikhs under the command of Banda Bhahadur.

A young Sikh Kaur living in England, a contributer here, recently spoke of some Muslim Men who pretended to be Sikhs tricking young Kaurs into a relationship. Others would get them drunk, possibly by using a rufi, and seduce them it seemed, if one is to believe what she was reporting, that some were even admiting to be in competition with each other in winning conversions by dishonesty including blackmail. The more things change the more they seem to be the same.

References

World Muslim-Sikh Federation [1]