The Punjab of India and Pakistan

Eastern parts of Gurdaspur district in the northern point of the province adjoining Kashmir were given to India, with a small Muslim majority of 60% partitioned along the Ravi river leaving only Shakargarh sub-division on the Pakistani side, thus making the eastern half majority Muslims part of India.Gurdaspur and Firozpur,both Muslim regions, were handed over to India. The state of Jammu and Kashmir had a land link with these parts, which according to some, might have influenced the taking over of Kashmir by India. During the partition, over 1 million people were killed indiscriminately and with medieval brutality. Women were raped and murdered, children massacred and the elderly brutalized.

Sikhs demanded a Punjabi speaking East Punjab with autonomous control. Led by Master Tara Singh, Sikhs wanted to obtain a political voice in their state. In 1965, a fierce war broke out between India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir. To deflect Pakistani pressure on Kashmir, India opened a new front in Punjab directly threatening Lahore, however their advance was stopped and they took heavy losses. Owing to the extreme proximity of Pakistan's most important city to the border, the Pakistani army concentrated its forces and strengths to the maximum in this thin stretch of land.

In 1966, owing to the tremendous bravery shown by thousands of Sikh officers and soldiers in the Indian Army, and the growing Sikh unrest, the Government divided the Punjab into a Sikh-majority state of the same name, and Hindu-majority Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Today Sikhs form about 60% of the population in Punjab.

In the 1960s, the Green Revolution swept India. Punjab's agricultural production trebled, and so did the prosperity of its people. For such a small state to be called the bread-basket for a country of more than a billion people, is like a goldfish being classified a leviathan. Industrialization swept the state and the state remains the ones of the economic leaders of the entire country. Punjabi culture also predominates the national art, media, music and film industries. Punjabis, especially Sikhs, form a major part of the Indian Armed Forces.

In the early 1980s, a small group of Sikh fundamentalists started a movement to demand the completion of the Anandpur Sahib resolution. Led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a young priest, small bands of militants began attacking policemen, military sites and government and army officials. In the Holy Harimandir Sahib in Amritsar, Bhindranwale broadcast and published his calls for the movement. Bhindranwale was supported by Sikhs from all over the Punjab and Northern India, as well as Sikhs outside India. A vast majority of Sikhs in the Punjab and outside it supported the call for independence.

The Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had tried to use and manipulate Bhindranwale, authorized an Army take-over of the Harimandir Sahib area. In Operation Bluestar, executed in 1984, thousands of Indian soldiers raided the Temple to flush out 200 sikh militants holed up in it. During the action, major damage was inflicted to the temple complex. The militants were killed or arrested, but the Operation cost the lives of 700 soldiers and thousands of innocent civilians, many of whom were known to be innocent worshipers by the Indian army.
The bloody and unpopular operation invited major criticism of the Gandhi government. The Gandhi government was the only country in modern times that had attacked a faith's most holiest of shrines. Outrage now broke lose in the mainstream of Sikh society. Outraged young Sikhs spread disorder around the Punjab and in Delhi. In October 1984, just two months after Bluestar, Indira Gandhi's own two Sikh bodyguards assassinated her in revenge for the attack on the Holy Harimandir Sahib in Amritsar. The Indian Army commander was similarly assassinated.

Bloodthirsty mobs took to the streets of Delhi following Gandhi's murder. For the first time in history, Hindus and Sikhs were involved in a feud against each other. More than 3000 Sikhs were brutally murdered by mobs.

The Government acted quickly, imposing martial law in the disturbed areas. Over the next three years, tough police action destroyed the insurgency, and fresh political overtures in the early 1990s did much to calm the state. Although some political suspicion still remains, Sikhs and Hindus have healed their common wounds and bridged the divides. The Sikh fundamentalists have either been driven out of the country or reduced to the margins of politics. However, little was done by the Indian government to redress the thousands of Sikhs killed and many more who lost their homes in the 1984 mob violence. Many of the politicians, police as well as Indian MPs are known to the government for helping anti-Sikh mobs kill innocent people, yet they have never been prosecuted or questioned.

The 1990s brought much prosperity to Indian Punjab. In 2004, Dr. Manmohan Singh became the country's first Sikh Prime Minister.

The Wagah border post, is the chief crossing point between India and Pakistan. The Samjhauta (Understanding) Express runs between Atari, in Indian Punjab, to Lahore in Pakistan, as does the Delhi-Lahore bus. The Government of Pakistan allows small numbers of Sikhs to visit religious sites in Pakistani Punjab. The Indian Government allowed 3,000 Pakistani Sikhs to cross over recently, at the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Khalsa in 1999.