2014 marks the 30th anniversary of June 1984 attack on Darbar Sahib by Indian Army. Sikh Siyasat held a series of talkshows to mark the 30th anniversary of the Ghallughara June 1984.
Sikh historian S. Ajmer Singh, in a talk with Parmjeet Singh, discussed that why the Sikhs were internally divided after the army attack of June 1984, despite sharing common pain? Why the (so-called) “educated” section of Sikhs was unable to understand nature of events of June 1984 as per Sikh tradition. Why such sections were not able to develop any view-point independent of the view-point propagated by the Indian State.
During the talk S. Ajmer Singh clarified that there was another section among the Sikhs who responded to the army attack in light of Sikh tradition. He said that those Sikhs who had learnt Sikhi as per Sikh tradition (and not from the Indian State owned/ controlled “education” institutions) took no time to understand true nature of the events and evoked the Sikh symbolism to identify these events. (e.g. the attack was called “Ghallughara” and Indira Gandhi was equated with Massa Ranghar).