Chandigarh: Last week, Maharashtra minister Girish Mahajan raised many eyebrows with his reference to those killed during Operation Blue Star as “shaheeds” or martyrs, marking a departure from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s zero tolerance towards militancy.
The remarks were made by Mahajan at the Operation Blue Star anniversary function organised by Damdami Taksal at Mehta Chowk near Amritsar on 6 June.
Describing Operation Blue Star as a “black day”, Mahajan blamed former prime minister Indira Gandhi and the Congress party for ordering the Army action inside the Golden Temple in June 1984. But, it was his reference to those killed during the operation as “shaheeds” that drew attention.
“So many men and women were killed and became shaheeds. We cannot forget that day. It was a day when our place of worship was attacked,” Mahajan said to a gathering.
“In Delhi too, so many men women , brothers and sisters were killed…like (Afghan invader) Ahmed Shah Abdali had done when he came to India,” he said, referring to the anti Sikh riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
Damdami Taksal, a 300-year-old Sikh seminary, was once headed by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who led the violent militancy movement in Punjab from 1979 to 1984. Shifting out of the Damdami Taksal, he made the Golden Temple as the base of his activities.
Bhindranwale was killed in army action inside the precincts of the Golden Temple as part of Operation Blue Star ordered by Indira to flush him and other militants out. For the Sikhs, this was considered to be an act of sacrilege and the defiling of their holiest shrine.
The BJP has for several years criticised the Congress for Operation Blue Star and the anti-Sikh riots that followed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, has referred to the military action as an attack on the Akal Takht.
📍 अमृतसर, पंजाब
जून १९८४ मधील शीख इतिहासाच्या संघर्षमय पर्वात शहीद झालेल्या सर्व शीख वीर-वीरांगनांच्या पवित्र स्मृतींना अभिवादन करण्यासाठी आयोजित ४२ व्या शाहिदी समागम कार्यक्रमास उपस्थित राहिलो.
या पवित्र प्रसंगी शहीदांच्या अतुलनीय त्याग, शौर्य आणि बलिदानाला कृतज्ञतापूर्वक… pic.twitter.com/PeVPTNzMxM
— Girish Mahajan (@girishdmahajan) June 6, 2026
However, the BJP has generally avoided adopting the terminology used by Sikh religious institutions and Panthic organisations for those killed during the operation, particularly because its own political history in Punjab has been shaped by opposition to militancy.
Leaders and workers of the BJP as well as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were among those targeted during the insurgency years. The party’s organisational memory in Punjab is deeply shaped by the militancy years, during which RSS volunteers, BJP activists, journalists and Hindu leaders were killed.
The 1989 Moga massacre, in which 21 Sangh volunteers were killed during a morning gathering, remains one of the deadliest attacks on the organisation. The assassination of Punjab Kesari founder Lala Jagat Narain and later his son Ramesh Chander, both closely associated with the RSS, similarly became defining symbols of the conflict.
Following Operation Blue Star, the BJP, then headed by L.K.Advani, had supported Indira’s decision. In his autobiography, ‘My Country, My Life’, Advani recalled that he spearheaded a major mass agitation in May 1984 against the government’s ‘virtual surrender’ before Bhindranwale who along with his private army had made the Golden Temple, his operational headquarters.
Advani wrote that he raised the issue in parliament against the government’s abdication of responsibility. He added that it was the opposition’s pressure that led Indira to use the military to liberate the Golden Temple from its “anti-national occupants”.
Apart from what Mahajan said, the choice of venue was particularly significant. The Damdami Taksal is engaged in imparting religious education and training to Sikh youth in the purest form of Sikhism—proper reading of the texts, martial arts, and the traditions of katha (preaching).
Bhindranwale became its 14th head in 1977, and the taksal emerged as an epicentre of militancy. Even after Bhindranwale shifted his base to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the taksal remained the breeding ground for militants. During Operation Blue Star, the majority of the 219 people killed with Bhindranwale were taksal activists.
For decades since, the taksal has regularly been organising an annual ‘Shahidi Samagam’ in memory of the militants killed during the years of extremism in Punjab.
Damdami Taksal remains one of the more influential Sikh religious institutions in Punjab and continues to occupy a central place in debates surrounding the events of the 1980s.
Mahajan’s visit has also brought renewed attention to the relationship between the Taksal chief Baba Harnam Singh Dhumma and sections of the BJP leadership. Dhumma has maintained contact with several BJP leaders over the years and has occasionally shared platforms with members from the party.
His call to Sikh voters to vote for the BJP ahead of the Maharashtra elections in 2024 had invited sharp reactions from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Sikh radical leaders. He defended his statement on the grounds that the BJP in Maharashtra was the only party that was actively taking up matters related to the Sikhs.
Dhumma took over as the head of the taksal in 2005 and has been considered close to the moderate Shiromani Akali Dal—a fact often criticised by radicals.The annual commemoration of Operation Blue Star attracts a range of Sikh religious and political leaders, but senior BJP participation has been relatively uncommon.
Late K.C.Sudarshan, the then RSS chief, visited Damdami Taksal in 2000-2001 and met Bhindranwale’s successor Baba Thakar Singh. The meeting was facilitated by senior BJP leaders A.R. Kohli and Rulda Singh, who also headed the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, an affiliate of the Sangh in Punjab. The visit was largely seen as a move to end the bitterness between radical Sikhs and RSS.
But the conflict between the RSS and Sikh radicals has continued almost unbroken. Rulda Singh was murdered in 2009 allegedly by Babbar Khalsa International militants. In 2016, Brig Jagdish Gagneja (retd), second-in-command of the Sangh in Punjab, was shot dead in Jalandhar. The next year, another RSS leader Ravinder Gosain was killed in Ludhiana.
Political observers see Mahajan’s visit as having a clear political motive that can be seen as part of BJP’s efforts to expand its political footprint following the collapse of its three-decade-old alliance with the SAD. The BJP remains a relatively minor electoral force in Punjab despite its national dominance. It faces competition not only from the Congress and the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, but also from a fragmented Akali Dal.
“The BJP warming up to the Taksal is no doubt a strategic move as it seeks to strengthen its presence in Punjab ahead of the elections scheduled early next year,” Prof Kanwalpreet Kaur of the department of political science, DAV College in Chandigarh, said, adding that the strategy fits well within its multi-pronged blueprint for Punjab.
“It has inducted Sikh leaders from other parties, highlighted Sikh contributions to the country’s history and culture, promoted commemorations linked to Sikh heritage and repeatedly targeted the Congress over the events of 1984. Mahajan’s visit appears to fit within this broader outreach effort.
“But, his statement is not fitting well with BJP’s anti-militancy nationalist credentials. The BJP’s stand has been limited to acknowledge Sikh grievances over Operation Blue Star and the anti-Sikh riots while continuing to reject militancy and separatist politics,” he explained.
Building a meaningful presence will require the party to expand beyond its traditional urban Hindu support base. The end of its alliance with the Akali Dal deprived it of a partner that traditionally mobilised large sections of the Sikh vote.
The farmers; agitation further complicated its position, particularly in rural Punjab where resentment against the party has remained strong in some areas. The BJP, in its attempt to build an independent support base among Sikhs, has as a result taken to talk about matters that have traditionally been associated with Sikh religious and Panthic organisations.
Mahajan’s visit is the latest step in that direction taken by the party to engage more directly with Sikh religious institutions. The BJP has, over the past several years, consistently attacked the Congress over Operation Blue Star and the anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
In his reply to a no-confidence motion in Parliament in August 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to Operation Blue Star as an “attack on the Akal Takht”, the highest temporal body of the Sikhs. “Is it right to get the civilians attacked by the air force in our own country? Who was ruling at that time—Indira Gandhi. The Akal Takht was attacked. It is still fresh in our memory. They had developed this habit in Mizoram. And that’s why they went on to attack the Akal Takht in my own country, and now they are preaching (to) us,” he said, referring to the 1966 air force attack on Aizawl.
In fact, the party’s political narrative in Punjab has been shaped not only by opposition to the Congress but also by its opposition to militancy. Its joining hands with the SAD, a softer secular panthic party in the aftermath of militancy, was seen as a move crafted to bring communal peace in the state.
It is against this historical backdrop that the BJP’s engagement with institutions associated with Bhindranwale’s legacy is being viewed as a significant political shift.
(Edited by Tony Rai)