LONDON – Britain sent a military officer to advise India before Indian forces stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984, leaving hundreds dead, but the advice was largely ignored and had little impact on the bloody outcome, the British government said Tuesday.
In publishing an inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the attack on the temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the tactics that India used were so different from those suggested by the British officer that London bore no responsibility for what followed.
The raid on the Golden Temple was designed to flush out separatists. Hague said Tuesday that official figures put the death toll at 575, but other reports suggested “as many as 3,000 people were killed, including pilgrims caught in the crossfire.”
Britain’s role in the episode came to light last month when internal government documents were released under rules allowing for the publication of official records after 30 years. On Tuesday, Hague rejected requests from some lawmakers for an apology for Britain’s role. He said an apology was not justified by the investigation done by Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet secretary.
“If any of us thought that any British assistance had contributed to unnecessary loss of life and to suffering in this or any other case,” Hague said in Parliament, “then we would all want to say that this was a mistake and, for the country, to make an apology. But that is not what is established by the Cabinet secretary’s report.”
Britain’s assistance was, Hague said, “purely advisory, limited and provided to the Indian government at an early stage in their planning.”
Heywood’s inquiry confirmed that a British military officer visited India, conducted reconnaissance of the temple site and advised India’s intelligence services. But the report emphasized that there were significant differences between the advice offered and the operation that took place in June 1984.
By that time, dissident forces in Amritsar, in northwestern India near the border with Pakistan, had increased, as had their fortifications.
“In particular, the element of surprise was not at the heart of the operation,” the report said. “Nor was simultaneous helicopter insertion of assault forces to dominate critical areas.”
