R.I.P. Shri K.P.S. Gill, 1935-2017

[svenkat]

http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/kpsgill/terrorism/97PM.htm

Text of K.P.S. Gill's letter to Prime Minister I.K. Gujral on the death of Ajit Singh Sandhu
30th May, 1997
New Delhi

To,
The Hon’ble Prime Minister,
Government of India,
South Block,
New Delhi

Dear Prime Minister,

1.1 I am writing to you on my return to Delhi from the funeral of SSP A.S. Sandhu. I have maintained a silence on events in Punjab for over two years in the hope that the leadership of the nation will do justice, now that peace has returned to the state, to those brave men and women who made this peace possible.

1.2 Recent events, however, force me to speak out now; a continued silence on my part would be a betrayal of trust, an abdication of responsibility. I cannot remain silent when the memory of the men who sacrificed their lives under my command is denigrated; and when those who have survived the greatest of dangers and made immeasurable sacrifices in campaigns during a virulent proxy war are subjected to an unprecedented and unprincipled inquisition.

1.3 Men in the uniformed services are bound by a rigid discipline that imposes a code of silence on them, even when they are subjected to the greatest injustices. It is a measure of their commitment that, despite the deepest despair among the rank and file of the Punjab police, brought into dramatic focus by A.S. Sandhu’s suicide, no voice has been raised in protest.

1.4 I owe these men a debt of gratitude, as I believe this entire nation does. I therefore wish to draw your attention, and through you, the attention of the Minister for Home Affairs, the Indian Legislature and Judiciary, to urgent and distressing realities of the Punjab situation.

2.1 You have most perceptively observed, on your recent visit to the state, that the battle in Punjab was the nation’s battle, and that, consequently, the entire nation must share its costs. But what about those who were at the vanguard of this battle? Having served the national cause, are they now simply to be forgotten? Or worse, to be persecuted with impunity?

2.2 You are known to appreciate the finer nuances of Urdu poetry. Ram Prasad ‘Bismil’s’ lines can perhaps best express the sentiments of the ordinary policeman of Punjab today:

Ham bhi bach sakte the ghar pe reh kar,
Ham ko bhi maan baap ne paala tha dukh seh seh kar.

2.3 For over a decade, to wear a police uniform in the Punjab was to proclaim yourself a wilful target for preferential terrorist attack. Yet thousands of men in uniform stood as a bulwark of democracy against the unconstrained depredations of the extremists. Thousands sacrificed their lives. Thousands of others witnessed the murder of their parents, their brothers and sisters, their wives and their children.

2.4 At this time, the actions - or the failure to act - of every other branch of Government demonstrated their abject surrender before terrorism. But officers from these services are today enjoying the fruits of peace in Punjab.

2.5 This is an old story. Those who do nothing, those who risk nothing, not only ensure their survival; they equally ensure that they will return to positions of power and pelf, their "honour" intact. But the best of men, who put their lives on the line, having survived the guns of the terrorists, find themselves targets of a sustained and vicious campaign of calumny, of institutional hostility and State indifference.

2.6 The ultimate irony is that the instruments and institutions of democracy are, today, arrayed against the very people who made democracy possible in Punjab. For those who were comprehensively defeated in the battle for ‘Khalistan’, ‘public interest’ litigation has become the most convenient strategy for vendetta.

2.7 The ‘targets’ of this vendetta are being denied even the basic minimum of an impartial investigation and competent defence; even the uniform and equitable application of peacetime laws and processes. Simultaneously, they are subjected to a sustained process of ‘trial by the Press’ in which utter falsehoods are reported as truths without qualification, even though the matters that are written of are sub judice.

2.8 At the same time, the doctrine of equality before law is invoked to incarcerate police officers with the very terrorists they fought and protected the nation from. No thought is given and no provision made for their security. These officers are assaulted in jail, and no visible action is taken against their attackers. The State’s mechanism for investigation and litigation is disproportionately focused against the police even as many of the terrorist leaders who inspired and participated in some of the most heinous crimes walk free.

2.9 It appears almost as if the State is discriminating between terrorists and policemen in favour of the former.

3.1 The question repeatedly asked in this context is, ‘Were they any police excesses?’ Only a liar or a fool would deny that random excesses occurred in a campaign of the magnitude and duration of the struggle in Punjab. Wherever such excesses were detected, action was inevitably taken. The real question is whether a strategy of State Terrorism was adopted by the police; and the answer is unequivocally in the negative.

3.2 The evidence is visible everywhere in the Punjab. The victory over terrorism was not merely a military victory, it was a moral victory. Nowhere in the world has State Terrorism, irrespective of how many people it killed or tortured, ever been able to extinguish an ideology as completely as the idea of Khalistan has been extinguished in Punjab. An idea can never be destroyed by violence. Blood fuels revolution. Each police excess creates new enemies for the force and for the State it represents. Police excesses of the magnitude being alleged would have created an ever-widening base of support for terrorism. Instead, it was the support of the people in Punjab that made the decisive win over the militants a possibility. Sickened by the extremists’ acts of senseless violence, it was the people who opened the floodgates of information to the police. The victory over the venomous advocates of Khalistan was a people’s victory. That is why there is such a mood of celebration and freedom in Punjab today. Were this not so, terrorism would still be an overwhelming reality in the state.

3.3 The police strategy against terrorists gave the latter four options. The first three were conventional measures of response: the possibilities of arrest, flight, or armed engagement. The fourth option was offered in the later phases of the campaign. The terrorists were told that, if they chose surrender, they would be welcomed and embraced with warmth. At first all surrenders took place in my presence and in some cases in the presence of the then Chief Minister. But after a while the deluge became difficult to handle, and SSPs were authorised to accept surrenders. The largest number of surrenders were before SSP A.S. Sandhu. And yet, he was a "blood thirsty man"!

3.4 It must, nonetheless, be recognised that the situation that prevailed in Punjab for over a decade was a state of war - a proxy war, perhaps; "low intensity conflict" as others prefer to term it - but war, nonetheless. The Punjab Police and various central forces were engaged, not in simple law enforcement activities, but a battle to retain control over large areas of the sovereign territory of the Indian Union, against an utterly unscrupulous and heavily armed enemy who recognised no constraints.

4.1 It is for your government and for the nation’s Parliament to debate on, and define, the appropriate criteria to judge the actions of those who fought this war on behalf of the Indian State and people. What you decide will have far-reaching consequences for other theatres of current conflict. A great urgency must attach to these initiatives, if future tragedies are to be averted. A delay in addressing these issues will affect the destiny of India far more than any other single decision your government may currently be contemplating.

4.2 Low intensity wars are presently being fought by our forces in Kashmir, in Assam, in Manipur in Nagaland, and in Tripura. India, in fact, is being subjected to a systematic and sustained strategy of destabilisation from within and without, a strategy that preys on every incidence of local disaffection; it is imperative that we should define a systematic and proactive strategic response to this challenge.

4.3 The low intensity war that took place in Punjab, and those occurring in other areas of the country today reflect a pattern that can only be expected to grow in the future. Unfortunately, these are still dismissed by the national leadership as ‘non-military threats’ and an ill equipped Home Ministry is required to deal with them. The result is that the Army is repeatedly called out in these conflicts to ‘aid civil authority’. The fact is that neither the police nor the army, by virtue of their basic orientation and training, are properly equipped to handle these crises.

5.1 There is another vital issue that I would like to raise here. In a democracy, the conduct of every arm of government, every wing of the State, must be subject to review. And yet, the conduct of the judiciary throughout the years of terror in Punjab has completely escaped examination.

5.2 What is to be said of judges who failed to consider overwhelming evidence of the most heinous crimes? Who failed to administer justice according to the laws of the land for over a decade in terrorist related cases? Even in a case as fully documented as Operation Black Thunder, where the entire action was carried out in full view of the media, not a single conviction was pronounced.

6. I urge upon your government to take up these issues urgently and seriously and to take necessary steps, in combination and co-ordination with all other arms of India’s democratic polity, to ensure necessary action on the following:

6.1.1 In view of the future threat potential of low intensity wars, it is crucial that a radical reformation of internal security forces be initiated, creating the skills, knowledge, attitudes and infrastructure necessary to confront this danger, and possibly raising entirely new forces to grapple with this specific hazard.

6.1.2 The parameters within which each agency of government must respond to such challenges should also be debated in detail by your government and by the legislature. The powers, the range of extraordinary actions permitted in these situations, and the applicable legal criteria and context of evaluation of these actions - whether these are the same as those applicable in peacetime or are to be akin to articles of war, or are to be redefined in terms of the new category of "low intensity wars" - should be clearly determined and suitably legislated.

6.1.3 Until the necessary criteria are sufficiently debated, defined and legislated, immediate steps should be taken to ensure that the pattern of humiliation through litigation and trial by the media is prevented forthwith. This trend of ‘punishment before trial’ must cease immediately.

6.1.4 Police personnel who may be facing charges should be assured a fair investigation and a fair trial. To this end, the State must create a fund to ensure that the best legal assistance, advice and representation are made available to them.

6.1.5 Police personnel under investigation or trial should be incarcerated only if there are sufficient grounds to believe they are attempting to coerce witnesses, destroy evidence, or in any other way to distort the processes of justice. In every such case due care must be taken to ensure their safety in jail so that the unforgivable incidents of the past are not repeated.

6.2 Lest any of this be misinterpreted or misrepresented as a plea for ‘immunity’, let me state explicitly that I am not asking for immunity, either for any member of the Punjab Police, or for myself. But let the investigations and trials be according to the laws of the land, and let the special circumstances that prevailed in Punjab be taken into consideration by the statutes applied. Investigations and trials should not proceed according to the processes that are being improvised from day to day to implicate the police in Punjab.

6.3 A Constitutional Commission should be set up to examine the records of judicial processes and judgments during the years of terrorism in Punjab; to identify the judicial officers who failed to discharge their Constitutional obligations, and to honour their oath to dispense justice without fear or favour; to determine their accountability; and to take suitable action to ensure that the judicial and criminal justice system does not collapse or fail ever again in the face of lawlessness.

6.4 As a corollary to the preceding point, a Commission also needs to be appointed to identify officers in all branches of Government and Administration who were guilty of wilful and gross dereliction of duty during this period, in order to ensure a system in which acts of cravenness are punished rather than, as is the present case, rewarded.

These steps demand the active involvement and participation of the judicial and legislative wings of the State. I am, therefore, taking the liberty of sending copies of this letter to the Chief Justice of India, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

Thanking you,

Sincerely yours,

K P S Gill

[Suresh S]

tx svenkat. stunning

[ShauryaT]

Posting Bharat Karnad's salute to KPS Gill. May his soul attain Moksha and many be inspired by his clarity of mission.

The last, great, Jat — KPS Gill

Such rough and ready methods brought to my mind the fearless and of fearsome countenance — Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, former DG, Punjab, who is to be cremated later today (Sunday, May 28) in Delhi. I first met the formidable KPS at the behest of Khushwant Singh in 1987 or 1988. Khushwant wondered if I’d help the Police supremo with his autobiography. I expressed my disinclination to be a shadow writer for anybody but at Khushwant’s insistence met KPS anyway at his heavily guarded Lodi Colony residence, and I am glad I did. I have yet to meet so physically imposing a man, with such a commanding disposition and so piercing a stare as would, I imagine, have turned many a Khalistani into jelly. The first thing he said taking my hand firmly for a shake was “I am MA in English Literature”. I took it to mean that the very notion that he needed assistance for crafting his memoirs was absurd. I was much relieved. It was evening and time for KPS to live up to his legend of downing a Black Label Johnny Walker bottle at a sitting. From his first peg to the last drop that was poured into his whiskey glass late into the night, he remained stone sober except for a very slight slurring of his speech in the last stretch — quite extraordinary tolerance for alcohol, with the seamless flow of his thoughts betraying little impact of the brew. It was, as far as I was concerned, the beginning of a beautiful acquaintanceship.

I experienced at first hand the electric effect KPS’ larger-than-life persona and reputation had in official circles. Appointed in 1992 as adviser, defence expenditure, to the tenth Finance Commission, by its chairman, KC Pant, former defence minister, I had the thrill of one day receiving a call from KPS. One of the persons manning the PBX at the Finance Commission came running into my office, blurting out breathlessly that “DG, Punjab” was on the line. He was so excited and so loud the entire floor of section heads and others outside my room was on its feet and, with virtually everybody who could, scrambling to get to where ever they might get to listen in on the conversation which, to everyone’s disappointment, was short. His longtime personal security in-charge, Inspector Sharma (if I remember the name right) ascertained if I was on the phone before KPS came on line to ask in his genially gruff fashion if I was available to meet with him, etc. The mere fact of Gill calling me had my stock sky-rocketing. That day on, I was treated with tremendous deference, and basked in reflected glory. When I related this effect on people KPS chuckled. “They get impressed easily”, he said, with a smile and all the false modesty he could summon.

Later that year when I approached KPS for a chapter on his strategy to weed Khalistan Movement root and branch out of Punjab for a 1994 book of essays — ‘Future Imperilled: India’s Security in the 1990s and Beyond’ I was putting together as editor and published by Viking-Penguin, he readily agreed to, for the first time, elucidate at length the means he employed to eliminate, once and for all, the Khalistan menace, and the thinking behind his strategy. He joined many other luminaries who had agreed to contribute chapters, among them, General Khalid Arif, the de facto Pak army chief during General Zia-ul Haq’s reign, and Senator Larry Pressler (of the ‘Pressler Amendment’-fame) who revealed just how the US government was complicit in China’s nuclear missile arming of Pakistan. That book, for obvious reasons, is a collector’s item. Those who can get hold of that out-of-print book should, because it tells an astonishing story of how Punjab was pacified, and how Gill’s warnings about Bangladeshi occupation of the border districts of Assam went unheeded.

KPS detailed his strategy to me in colourful, not crude, language in our meetings, but his chapter was at once a sober articulation and a stinging rebuke of the Indian government. His trick, he wrote, was to turn the “Jat Sikh psyche” against the Khalistanis and their bedrock sympathizers in the Punjab. He said he visited villages devastated by Khalistani- Babbar Khalsa terrorists and their sidekicks, met with the families of those killed, maimed, or raped by the rampaging followers of Bhindranwale, picked out young adults from among them who had witnessed the atrocities committed against their kith and kin, or heard about the excesses, and recruited them into the Punjab Police ‘commando’ — a kickass organization shaped into a force of dreaded avengers to pay back the perpetrators of violence in their own coin.

No quarter was given. The young Jat Sikh lads recruited to the anti-Khalistan cause went about their business with a bloodymindedness that fetched decisive results quickly. The extremists on the run scooted as far away as possible, with many of them landing up in Canada (where annually they mourn their fallen and renew their growingly hollow, almost laughable, vow to obtain Khalistan from the safety of Toronto!). What KPS was most hurt by and never forgave to the last was the Indian government’s attitude after the successful pacification program. His Punjab Police subordinates, the operational leaders who spearheaded the campaign against the Khalistanis were now vilified, hauled up by the courts for human rights abuses, and meted out jail sentences, even as PM Indira Gandhi’s promise to Gill of legal protection for the Punjab Police constabulary in the fighting frontline was disowned by the State. Thankfully, the ingratitude and callousness of the government in Delhi — which is what most hurt KPS — did not stretch to KPS himself. The Z level protection, which could have been at any time, if not removed then, thinned out, exposing him to retaliation by Khalistani remnants, remained in tact. He pointed out that the counter-insurgency success in Punjab was also because while the army cordoned off areas, it was the PP commando that went in and cleaned up Khalistani-infested villages and townships.

In that same piece Gill, who incidentally was member of the Indian Police Service, Assam cadre, had warned — as he had repeatedly done the government through official channels over several decades, of the dangers, of “a greater Bangladesh” emerging “right before our eyes” as he put it to me, with a 5-10 mile deep belt all along the Assam border with Bangladesh being “colonized” by Bangladeshis streaming over to this side, securing ration cards and citizenship papers with ease with the connivance of successive Congress party government apparatchiks. This happened as the Border Security Force acted as glorified spectators. Delhi did nothing with his warnings and his alerts. So, India now is saddled with a “disaffected Muslim” problem in Assam as also in the Srinagar Valley.

And the liberal establishment, with the Indian media in the van, still believes in making omelettes without breaking eggs. Fortunately, the Modi government will not let the eggs hatch. But that’s small consolation to many of us who fear the spinelessness integral to the functioning of the Indian State. The trouble is here on there will be no KPS Gill to come to India’s rescue.

[Avarachan]

To understand the Khalistani menace, the best book to read is K.P.S. Gill's work, "The Knights of Falsehood." It's available free of charge online as an e-book.

http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publicati ... index.html

For ten long years, Punjab was tormented by a virulent campaign of terror; but by 1993, the terrorists had been comprehensively defeated, and peace returned to the state. This was certainly an exceptional victory, won at great costs and with great sacrifices. It was a victory I had the honour of sharing with the thousands of brave men in the Punjab police who spearheaded the battle against terrorism; with the jawans and officers of the other arms of the security forces who participated in that battle; and with hundreds of brave men and women in the Punjab countryside who eventually confronted the terrorists and helped bring their depredations to an end. The experience of the protracted and complex low intensity war that brought about this victory has in it many lessons of great strategic and political significance.

It was in the course of recollecting and recording these experiences that my attention came to be progressively focused on a single recurrent theme that eventually became the subject of this book. The virulent campaign for ‘Khalistan’ was fought in the name of religion - specifically, my religion, Sikhism. The Sikhs have been involved in warfare almost throughout their history, but no campaign has ever brought odium and disgrace upon them and upon their Faith as this despicable movement did. And yet the Faith, and a majority of the community, in whose name the most unforgivable atrocities were committed - against every explicit tenet of that very Faith - had nothing whatsoever to do with this lunatic and savage adventure. Indeed, it was this very community that most vigorously resisted, and eventually helped defeat, the scourge of terror in Punjab.

The gross abuse of the teachings of the Gurus, and the petty, malicious conspiracy for power that inspired this heretical campaign, demand exposure. This book, to my mind, was far more urgent than any analysis of tactics and strategies to counter terrorism; for it addresses a far more grave and insidious danger than any such examination would.

The various themes in this book were discussed with friends, family, and a number of eminent people; while I would like to express my gratitude to each of them here, I will not give an extended list of all who have contributed to the elaboration of my arguments. Special thanks are, however, due to my daughter Chitvan, whose help made this book possible.

_______________________

About the Book

The terror that swept Punjab through the Eighties and into the early Nineties was not created in a vacuum. The events of the early eighties were the spark that ignited the fire; but it was fuelled by the deliberate distortion of the message of Sikhism by those who had donned the mantle of Sikh leadership in this century. This leadership has seized control of the shrines, and set itself up as the final arbiter, of the Faith; contrary to the message of the Gurus, they have circumscribed the Faith in a meaningless litany of rituals and an obsession with communal identity.

This, however, was not sufficient to satisfy the powerlust of these petty men. They have used the Gurudwaras as a stepping stone to a even more lucrative destination: the State legislature. For decades a vocabulary of hate cloaked political demands in religious garb, and at every turn in the political circus the Panth was 'imperilled'. It was this venomous rhetoric that was extended into action by the terrorists who eventually captured the communal plank.

When the time came to reap the whirlwind, the 'leaders of the faith' simply abdicated responsibility. Not only did they hand over the holiest of Sikh shrines to rapists and murderers, they even justified their most heinous actions in the name of an invented mythology of the 'oppression' of the Sikhs.

The murderers and rapists are now gone. But the leaders and the institutional structure that produced the malignancy of terror now occupy centre-stage in the politics of Punjab.

Are we condemned to repeat the ruinous cycle of the past?

The print edition of The Knights of Falsehood was first published in India in 1997.

[Avarachan]

K.P.S. Gill was a hard man. Nonetheless, he saved Punjab and India itself from murderers and rapists. In this, he was a patriot and true hero.

May God have mercy on his soul and grant him eternal bliss. My condolences to his friends, family, and colleagues.

[ShauryaT]

Lots of praise but more importantly the key warnings of this warrior, as delivered by Shourie the way only he can.

[UlanBatori]

I remember the quote from the introduction of his book.

Terrorism in the Punjab did not end because "the people got tired of terrorism". Terrorism ended because we killed the terrorists.

A true hero.