In Delhi, the RSS launched Ekta Abhiyan in the same year as an outreach to non-Sikh Hindus to counter the deep psychological divide the Congress was creating. Various programmes were launched, including seminar and cultural events, highlighting the sacrifices and contributions of Sikh gurus to nation-building and protection of Dharma.

Traumatic 1984

The year proved to be the most testing and traumatic in the history of India and for the Sikhs. An emboldened Bhindranwale had taken over Sri Harmandir Sahib. Indira Gandhi who had nurtured him and turned mostly a blind eye to Khalistani terrorists periodically massacring Punjabis both non-Sikh Hindus and Hindus, now decided to send the army into Harmandir Sahib or the Golden Temple. Operation Blue Star became a humiliating trauma to the Sikhs an eternal wound.

The year 1984 also saw parallel activities by the RSS.

In 1984, the Punjab Kalyan Forum organised a conference Punjab Today. General J S Aruora, the liberator of Bangladesh, openly declared in the conference that Khalistan was futile fantasy. Dr Mann Singh, another prominent Sikh and a retired principal of Amritsar medical college, denounced the separation between Sikhs and Hindus and stated categorically that the Sikhs were a part of the Hindu community and their duty was to protect India.

These initiatives posed a challenge to the core Khalistan-separatist ideology and terrorists and the divisive manoeuvring of Nehruvian dynast politics. The RSS also launched Punjab Peedit Sahayata Samiti which worked in terrorism-hit rural Punjab.

It distributed relief measures to the families of terror victims. They helped them with their livelihoods and sponsored the education of the children of the affected families. In the cities of Amritsar, Ferozepur, Batala etc, swayamsevaks donated 109 bottles of blood to 300 people wounded by Pakistan-sponsored Khalistan terrorists. They also provided the hospitals taking care of terror victims Rs 70,000 worth life-saving medicines.

All these steps naturally made RSS the target.

After Operation Blue Star, the RSS got involved in a series of activities to alleviate the pain experienced by the nation on account of the action on the Golden Temple.

Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal of the RSS while expressing its deep anguish at the sad course of events making the Army action inevitable in Punjab to flush out the terrorists from the Golden Temple Complex identified with clinical precision, "the low-level political rivalry indulged in by the ruling Congress (l) and the Akali Dal and factional fighting within both the parties" for the spiralling down of the situation into murderous events.

Expressing great distress to all our countrymen, more so to the devout Sikhs the RSS exhorted all our countrymen in general and Swayamsevaks in particular to come forward to restore the pristine glory of our Darbar Sahib through all possible means including Kar Seva''.

That year, for the sanghs Guru Puja programmes in most places, the prominent Sikhs even if they had differences with the RSS were invited. Kushwant Singh, the wel- known RSS baiter, was invited to preside over the Guru Puja at Chennai, where Singh to his credit declared that none could doubt the patriotic fervour of the RSS . In Delhi, the veteran Sikh scholar Padma Sri Dr Attar Singh presided over the Guru Puja of the RSS. He said:

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Punjab Of The 1980s: Nehruvian Laboratory Versus Healing Hindutva - Swarajya