Amritsar Quotes

“There is no more fertile ground for revolution than the educated unemployed”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Operation Blue Star”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“The eighty-year-old scholar had openly criticised Bhindranwale for storing arms and ammunition in the Akal Takht, and had said that Bhindranwale's presence in the shrine was sacrilege. The hukmnama against Bhindranwale was never issued.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“He gave a grim meaning to this threat by killing three of his Sikh opponents in one week.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“paramilitary police officers believed the Punjab police were on Bhindranwale's”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“There had been earlier incidents of sacrilege by placing heads and other parts of the anatomy of cows in Hindu temples,”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Jagjit Singh Bawa, a Sikh property dealer, said that Bhindranwale used to extort money by threats from his own community too. Bawa once received a letter demanding 20,000 rupees. He”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Longowal and the Akali Dal Trinity must also bear their share of the blame for the failure to arrest Bhindranwale.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“So it could be that the Deputy Inspector-General of Police was not quite the innocent worshipper he appeared to be on that morning of 25th April.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Deputy Inspector-General Atwal's body, riddled with bullets, lay in the main entrance to the Sikhs' most sacred shrine for more than two hours before the District Commissioner could persuade the Temple authorities to hand it over.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Towards the end of Bhindranwale's time reports based on briefings from Indian intelligence sources started appearing in the press about a double agent called the 'Falcon' who used to cross the border into Pakistan. He was said to be liaising with a Pakistani general and then reporting back to the Indian intelligence agency RAW (Research and Analysis Wing).”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Three times in six months an agreement was reached and three times the Prime Minister backed out. Each time the interests of the Hindus of Haryana weighed more heavily with her than a settlement with the Sikhs.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Unfortunately, according to Amarinder Singh, news of the agreement leaked out to Bhajan Lai. He managed to persuade the Prime Minister that settling the water and the Chandigarh disputes without first being seen to consult his state would be disastrous. The Chief Minister of Rajasthan, the other state affected by the water dispute, also happened to be in Delhi on that”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“The former head of the Indian Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Arjun Singh, was told to prove that he was not going to demonstrate at the Games. Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Aurora, who took the surrender of the Pakistan army after the Bangladesh war, suffered the same indignity.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Internal Security Act, which gave the police virtually unlimited powers to arrest and detain without trial.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“As for alcohol, when India's fervent teetotaller Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, visited Punjab in 1978 the Akali Dal Chief Minister, Badal, announced that in Morarji's honour the Punjab government would introduce a weekly dry day (a day when liquor shops and bars are closed). Morarji Desai replied tartly, 'You need to. Punjab has the highest per capita consumption of alcohol in the country.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“The Akali Dai's decision to adopt Bhindranwale was rank political opportunism.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“Sanjay had crashed his light aircraft when he was stunt-flying over central Delhi.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“By the time of Santokh Singh's death Bhindranwale's men were known to have killed two policemen and ten civilians, attempted to murder a senior civil servant and planted a bomb in the office of a deputy inspector-general of police. There had been several other bomb explosions and attempts to derail trains, one successful. An airliner had been hijacked”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“There is therefore considerable evidence to suggest that Bhindranwale's release was ordered by the Home Minister. He certainly still enjoyed Zail Singh's patronage.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“In fact it was the burning of his sermons, not his arrest, which turned Bhindranwale against his political godfather, Zail Singh, and against Mrs Gandhi.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“The decision to release Bhindranwale was taken by the government.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

“In India all politicians, except members of the Gandhi family, have to protect their base.”
― Mark Tully, Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle