UK Tribunal to Hold Hearing on Classified Operation Blue Star Files

A UK tribunal is set to hold a three-day hearing from March 6 on a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for classified UK Cabinet Office files that have information on the country’s involvement in Indian Army’s Operation Blue Star in 1984, PTI reported.

The hearing, which is to open in London, will determine if the UK’s Information Commissioner was right in upholding the Cabinet Office’s decision to keep the files away from public in August 2015. The Cabinet Office had declined to release the files citing national security and safeguarding international relations with India as the reason. An appeal over the decision was lodged in September 2016, and was set to be heard in April 2017. It got delayed and will now be heard on March 6.

KRW law is representing freelance journalist Phil Miller, who has been investigating the role of Margaret Thatcher-led United Kingdom’s role in the Indian Army operation on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

“The FOI request should be granted because there is overwhelming public interest in understanding the extent of UK involvement in the tragic events of 1984. Disclosing documents from three decades ago will not harm diplomatic relations – politicians in the UK and India have embraced right to information laws and recognize the importance of public access to national archives,” Miller, who authored Sacrificing Sikhs: The need for an investigation report, told the agency. His report was presented at an event in House of Commons by the British Sikh group, UK Federation of Sikhs (UK), in November 2017.

The UK government in  January 2014 declassified material to public which showed that the British military had played an advisory role in Operation Blue Star. The declassification happened as a result of the government’s 30-year rule, according to which documents created 30 years ago will be released to the public. The then prime minister of the country, David Cameron, ordered a review into this material, which gave rise to public calls that more documents on the subject be declassified. After the review, the UK Parliament released a statement saying that the impact of the Special Air Service advice to Indian Army was “limited” and “given months in advance, after which Indian Army’s plan changed drastically.”

However, Miller, says that many documents from the incident are still classified and only “full transparency” would reveal the exact nature of United Kingdom’s involvement in the operation that was intended to flush out Sikh militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar.  This operation, which hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community, started a chain of tragic events in India: the assassination of then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards five months after the operation, followed by the anti-Sikh riots across the country as a response to her death, which reportedly led to deaths of over 3,000 people.

“A public inquiry would allow us to understand how much Margaret Thatcher’s decision to send a military adviser to Amritsar in 1984 was motivated by trade and arms deals worth billions of pounds. It would also establish whether the UK military advice was really a one off or whether in fact it continued throughout the period, even after the tragic events of June 1984,” he said.

The Labour Party, sitting in the Opposition in the House of Commons, has backed British Sikh groups for an independent public inquiry into the role of the UK government in the Indira Gandhi-led Indian government’s operation in 1984. The party has included it as an election pledge in their manifesto as well.

“There has been a massive cover-up and Parliament and the public have been disturbingly misled. An independent public inquiry to get to the truth is the only way forward,” Bhai Amrik Singh, chair of the Sikh Federation (UK), was quoted as saying by PTI. This is backed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group  on British Sikhs, which is chaired by Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill.

The tribunal will hear evidence given by senior civil servants from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in addition to arguments presented to determine whether the documents can be declassified.