Margaret Thatcher gave her Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi Britains full support in the immediate aftermath of the 1984 Golden Temple raid, according to private correspondence seen by the Guardian. The letter will cause further debate about Britains role in the raid among the worldwide Sikh community and senior MPs across the political spectrum after it was disclosed on Monday that the Indian government had made an apparent request for advice from the SAS in the months leading up to the raid. The Indian government says about 400 people were killed when Gandhi sent troops into the temple complex in June 1984 in the six-day Operation Blue Star. Sikh groups, which have called for an inquiry into the British role in one of the darkest episodes in Sikh history, put the death toll in the thousands, including many pilgrims. A few months after the letter was sent, Gandhi was gunned down by her own Sikh bodyguards in a claimed act of revenge. This triggered communal violence which led to the deaths of thousands of Sikhs across India. Other documents in the file make clear Whitehalls interest in lucrative arms sales to India at this time. A secret Foreign Office briefing dated 22 June 1984, which was sent to Downing Street, stressed that British commercial interests in India were very substantial. It is a large and growing market for both commercial and defence sales. British exports in 1983 exceeded £800m and since 1975 India has bought British defence equipment worth over £1.25bn, the document claims. Labours former deputy chairman Tom Watson suggested the British might have played a part in the assault on the temple in exchange for the Indians agreeing to purchase a fleet of helicopters in a £65m deal. Watson said to Cameron: On your Amritsar inquiry, instead of ordering the civil servants to investigate, why dont you just ask lords Geoffrey Howe and Leon Brittan what they agreed with Margaret Thatcher, and whether it had anything to do with the Westland Helicopter deal at the time? theguardian/world/2014/jan/15/margaret-thatcher-golden-temple-raid-support-letter
Posted on: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 00:51:56 +0000