Customer Reviews

Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is really well written, it is my third book on the events that lead to the operation blue star. This book amazes with the details of history genesis of the issues and events in fairly objective manner. It is truely a must read...

A really in-depth and unbiased analysis of events leading to Operation Bluestar and the Operation itself. The book gives a brief history on the origin of the Sikh faith and the grievances they had, followed by the political games that led to the worsening of the situation. A very informative read! Highly recommended for those interested in learning more about the events that shaped modern India

The book is nicely written and is informative. It starts with a brief history of Sikhs, the long drawn roots of the movement, how it turned into terrorism, to the army operation and its aftermath. As pointed out in the book political leadership of the time was more to blame - Government did "too much too late". Too much because they acted too late which closed all the moderate options. Too late because a movement of small issues was allowed to grow into terrorism. The struggle for power and its wrath, once again, is well established. The dastardly act of few in power after the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi is brought out without wavering. And how the government machinery stood observer to inhuman killing of innocent people. The book carefully brings out controversial accounts, but not consistently. The book fails to paint the right picture of extent of terrorism - loots, killing of individuals, sects and groups, and attacks on government machinery with bombs and arms supplied from outside the country. Things can be argued one way or the other about the army operation. Everything is fair in love and war! The fact remains that army operation was inevitable and the Congress party, SGPC and Akali Dal were all equally responsible. While the first one created the problem, the other two supported and all the three used the propagators apart from the outside worlds, which helped in kind and cash both.

I will have to say that it is not a complete account of the movement. It fails to account for all the forces that supported the movement, financial, political and moral. Origin of Sikhs is not mentioned at all.

A religious fundamentalist seizes control of a major holy place and unleashes terror onto others for their beliefs. It sounds like 2001, but in fact it was Amritsar, India 1984 and the religious fundamentalist was a person of the Sikh faith called Bhindranwale. Bhindranwale was a Sikh fundamentalist who believed in establishing the Punjab as a Sikh state. Hindus, and other Sikhs who didn't believe as he did were murdered and assassinated. This was all in the name of religion. Mrs. Gandhi at first didn't tackle this problem and let Bhindranwale seize control of the Sikh holy place called the Golden Temple.
When terror continued to be directed from the Golden Temple, Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to seize this place. Hundreds of Sikhs were killed because of the Sant getting out of control. Gandhi was later assassinated by a Sikh as a result of her ordering the Golden Temple raid. This book is the story of this conflict.
This is an average read on a very interesting event. Few books have been written about this conflict. I think the authors treated all parties from a equal perspective, so this story is not slanted.