The tragedy of his death is that
while extremist Sikhs called him “Indira Gandhi’s Brahmin General”, and still
insist they only sought just revenge for Operation Blue Star, they could not be
more wrong in their characterization.
He was vigorously secular, in line with the Army he served; religion to him was purely a private affair. He became COAS not by the grace of India’s Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, but by virtue of seniority combined with merit. He was completely apolitical, again, in line with a core belief of the Indian military.
Some have asked, why did he not
refuse to carry out Mrs. Gandji’s orders, or at least to remonstrate with her?
To ask this question is to
misunderstand the nature of the Punjab separatist movement and General Vaidya’s
concept of duty.
First, the terrorists
represented just a micro-fraction of the Sikh population with a smattering of
followers gained through intimidation. They claimed to represent the grievances
of the Sikhs, but instead capitalized on those legitimate grievances for
personal power, purchased by murder, extortion, and rape. Their seizure of the
Golden Temple violated any concept of criminal law, no matter how narrowly one
chooses to define it. Operation Blue Star was not an action against the noble
religion of the Sikhs; it was pure and simple a “support to the civil power”
move intended to capture criminals and to return the Golden Temple to its true
“owners”, the millions of Sikhs and Hindus that worshipped there. The seizure
made no more sense than would the seizure of the Vatican by terrorists acting
in the “name” of a minor Catholic faction.
As such, General Vaidya could no
more question his orders than he could question any order given to him to support
the civil power. The orders were given to him by a legitimately elected
democratic government, and bore the ultimate stamp of legitimacy: the universal
wish of the Indian nation that this cancer on its body-politic be excised. For
him to refuse to carry out his orders would have been treason to the nation,
and resigning would have gone against his every concept of duty. He had
absolutely no moral reasons to except himself from doing his duty.
But why did he not at least
speak up against his orders, at least in private?
Well, it is not publicly known
what he may have said or not said. Nonetheless, those who knew him well would
probably say he did not question.
The reason for that is so
absurdly simple that one wonders why the question of dissent even arises.
The Indian constitution provides
no means to a supreme commander to question his orders. General Vaidya swore
his oath to the President and the Republic of India, not to Mrs. Gandhi, who he
would have avoided like the plague on the ceremonial occasions he was forced to
be in the same place with her.
He could have spoken privately
to the President as an individual. The question arises as to why he should. He
was given a routine order to aid the civil power against criminals. What
sensible person questions this?
Under Indian law, and indeed
under any law, places of worship are not immune to the law of the land. Years
later, terrorists seized control of an Indian temple. The Special Forces troops
that recaptured it were not reviled as having violated the sanctity of the
temple; they were rightly honored as brave men. The terrorists at the Golden
Temple had no mandate from their co-religionists to seize the Temple, and in
any case, the laws of the State come before the laws of anyone else.
Bloody-minded fanatics who were
directed by persons lacking the intelligence to realize the moral wrong of
their actions killed General Vaidya. The capture and execution of his killers
provided no solace to anyone who knew him.