Memoricide – Burning down Sikh Reference Library

By Amandeep Sandhu | PANJAB |

‘They were searching for one letter, but did not find it. They put all other material in gunny sacks, then put fire to the building.’

Besides the community’s faith in the nation, one of the greatest losses during Operation Blue Star was the destruction and looting of the historical records of the community — the Sikh Reference Library. Allegedly, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was searching for a letter from Indira Gandhi to Bhindranwale. In 185 gunny sacks, the CBI took away all the rare books and manuscripts on Sikh religion, history and culture including handwritten manuscripts of the Guru Granth Sahib, Hukamnamas with signatures of Sikh Gurus and documents relating to the Indian Independence movement. After that, the army burnt down the library building.

In its white paper the government says the building was damaged in the Operation, but it has been argued in courts that the building was set on fire after the Operation had concluded. Per media reports, the following texts were taken by the army: 512 handwritten Guru Granth Sahib; 2,500 Sikh scriptures; 12,613 rare books and manuscripts; twenty to twenty-five Hukamnamas (edicts), signed by the Gurus.

If that one letter was not found, the rest of the valuable heritage could simply have been returned to the Darbar Sahib, but there begins the confusion. On the one hand the army claims they returned the material in seven phases to the SGPC and the Panjab government.

However, in 1988, the SGPC wrote to the central government asking for the return of the material taken by the CBI but received only some minor office files. On 23 May 2000, the then defence minister, George Fernandes, wrote to the SGPC secretary, acknowledging that the material was under the government’s control. He referred the matter to the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions, under whose jurisdiction the CBI falls. He later publicly mentioned that the CBI had destroyed 117 seditious documents but the rest, especially the historical ones, were with the government.

In an order on 26 April 2004, the Panjab and Haryana High Court ordered the central government, the government of Panjab and the CBI to return the ‘valuables, books, scriptures, paintings, etc. that were seized’. In February and May 2009, A.K. Antony, defence minister of India, claimed in parliament that the army no longer had any material taken from the library. In June 2019, news surfaced that a rare handwritten Guru Granth Sahib had been sold for Rs 12 crore. This led to a plethora of claims and counter-claims.

While Sukhbir Singh Badal reiterated his demand to the Union Government, there were allegations by former Delhi State Gurdwara Management Committee president Manjit Singh GK that he had documents proving that the material had been accepted by SGPC officials.

Whichever community we might be from, our histories, our documents, our ancient texts and our cultural artefacts are our roots to our origins. When the ISIS burnt down the library in Mosul and when the Taliban destroyed the Bamyan Buddhas, we knew a great wrong had happened in our civilisational history. Those events were graphic, tangible, and could be seen and believed.

However, the matter of the Sikh Reference Library has become a matter where people do not know what to believe and whom to believe — whether the loss is tangible or notional. This is how another black hole has emerged in matters pertaining to the Sikh community’s history and culture. What it means is that I do not even know if my memoricide is real or phantom. – Source: Amandeep Sandhu, Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines (Page 150-152)

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