The UK government considered SAS assistance for the Indian military just weeks after the 1984 Amritsar massacre, a fact omitted from an official review ordered by David Cameron in 2014, fresh evidence obtained by the Sikh Federation (UK) has revealed.
Lawyers have now written to Home Secretary Amber Rudd demanding an independent investigation into Britain’s role in one of the darkest periods in Sikh history, after new evidence was found at the UK National Archives.
Since the discovery, the Foreign Office has removed dozens of files from the National Archives about India in 1984.
In a letter, lawyers acting for the Sikh Federation (UK) say the review by Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood in February 2014 was inadequate and Parliament was misled by its inaccurate findings.
The Heywood Review claimed that the UK provided ‘limited’ military advice to India in early 1984, with an SAS officer carrying out reconnaissance of the Sri Harmandir Sahib complex (Golden Temple) months before the June 1984 massacre.
However, new evidence shows that by July 1984, the British government had received “an Indian request for military assistance in the setting up of a National Guard for internal Security duties”. The UK Foreign Office then considered “the possibility of an SAS involvement”. The rest of the correspondence is censored and the FCO has withheld a 1984 file titled ‘Indian National Security Guard’.
The secret discussion took place in the immediate aftermath of the Operation Blue Star massacre, in which thousands of Sikh pilgrims died, and while the associated Operation Woodrose crackdown primarily on Sikh men aged 15-35 in every town and village in Punjab was still under way. India’s National Security Guard (NSG) was formed in July 1984 and its official website states that “The NSG was modelled on the pattern of the SAS”.
The unit went on to lead Operations Black Thunder I and II, which consisted of further assaults on the Sri Harmandir Sahib in 1986 and 1988.
However, when the Heywood Review was published in 2014, then Foreign Secretary William Hague told Parliament that “one of the questions raised is whether there could have been British Military involvement in subsequent operation Black Thunder I and II. From everything that the Cabinet Secretary has seen having examined hundreds of files – 200 files – the answer to that is no”.
The documents were discovered by archivist Phil Miller who was assisting the Sikh Federation. Miller also found the documents in 2014 that triggered the Heywood Review.
Chair of the Sikh Federation (UK), Bhai Amrik Singh, said: “This shows that Parliament was deliberately misled by then Foreign Secretary William Hague in 2014 when he hid the fact that more SAS military assistance for India was considered weeks after the Sikh genocide in Amritsar in June 1984. The Heywood Review was inadequate and the content and conclusions presented to Parliament were inaccurate.
“Sikhs around the world will be outraged at the cover-up by Cameron, Hague and Heywood more than 30 years later. The abrupt recall of dozens of FCO files about India from 1984 will raise eyebrows and shows that the whitewash continues. The Foreign Office knows the Heywood review did not deliver the truth and are nervous with what we have found.
“The British government of today needs to now come clean and not be tarnished by the ‘deadly’ special relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi. We hope PM Theresa May will be bold and agree to give the British public and Parliament the truth of the full extent of military and other support to the Indian authorities in the 1980s that was used to target the Sikh minority.”
Darragh Mackin, Solicitor at KRW LAW LLP, said: “The discovery of this fresh evidence yet again casts the spotlight on the British government for its role in the atrocities committed against the Sikh community in Amritsar in June 1984. This recent discovery further undermines the effectiveness of the original Heywood review, and it is against this backdrop that we have asked that immediate action is taken to ensure that an effective and independent investigation is commissioned without further delay.
“We have corresponded directly with the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to ensure that urgent action is taken to first address the fact that Parliament was misled, and secondly to provide an effective and independent investigation without further delay.”
Dr Rami Ranger CBE, Chairman, The British Sikh Association, said, “The then Indian Government's decision to attack the holiest religious shrine by the Indian army was an unprecedented and appalling act of cowardice against her own citizens. One wrong led to many more. The other grave blunder was to ask a foreign country, the United Kingdom, which was responsible for the break-up of India, for advice on how to plan savagery against India's own people.
“The attack on the Golden temple led to the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, and her death followed the massacre of thousands of innocent Sikhs by sectarian mobs against a community established to defend India's unity and integrity.
“This most loyal community has been left shaken and disillusioned until now as no-one responsible for the riots against thousands of Sikhs has been brought to justice in the largest democracy in the world.
“The involvement of the British Special Air Services is yet another sinister twist in the entire catalogue of blunders by the Congress government and as a result, it must be investigated and the British public, including the Sikhs and non Sikhs, be made aware of the role played by the then British government in planning the attack on a religious shrine sacred for the Sikhs and non Sikhs alike.”
