India Reaches Agreement With Sikhs : Gandhi Regime Yields to All Major Demands in Move to End Strife

The government announced today an agreement with the leading Sikh political party to end four years of bitter strife that led to the army’s attack on the Golden Temple and the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi made the announcement in Parliament after two days of negotiations with the moderate Sikh political party, the Akali Dal.

The government agreed to all the major demands of the party, which represents most of India’s 15 million Sikhs who make up 2% of the nation’s population.

There was no immediate reaction from the party’s more militant wing, the United Akali Party, but it appeared that the agreement will make it more difficult for underground elements to win sympathy for a 4-year-old terrorist campaign for an autonomous state.

Under today’s pact, the government agreed to Sikh demands that the city of Chandigarh be made the exclusive capital of Punjab, a mainly Sikh state in northwestern India, and that mainly Hindu portions of the city revert to the neighboring state of Haryana which had shared it as a capital.

Federal Tribunal

It will also promote the Sikhs’ Punjabi language, encourage all state governments to protect minorities and establish a federal tribunal to adjudicate a dispute between the two states over the use of river waters.

“I have great pleasure in announcing to the House that after some months we have taken a very concrete step forward today,” Gandhi told Parliament. “Mr. Harchand Singh Longowal (president of the Akali Dal) and I have signed a memorandum of settlement.”

Longowal told reporters, “The period of confrontation is over, and we are fully satisfied with the deal.”

The agreement ended a four-year stalemate over Sikh demands for more autonomy for Punjab, the most prosperous of India’s 22 states.

The feud had sparked demands by more radical Sikhs for a separate Sikh state to be called “Khalistan.”

Campaign of Terror

Beginning in 1981, Sikh separatists began a campaign of terror against moderate Sikhs and Hindus, assassinating hundreds of those who opposed the demand for creation of Khalistan.

In June, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the army to storm the headquarters of the extremists at the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion.

More than 600 people were killed in the attack and 2,000 Sikhs were arrested, including Longowal and other top Akali leaders.

In retaliation for the army action, two Sikh security guards shot and killed Gandhi on Oct. 31, 1984, outside her home, sparking anti-Sikh rioting that left almost 3,000 people dead.