AMRITSAR, June 7: ``Wisdom lies in forgetting it all,'' says Surinder Nath, a Hindu cafe owner at Dharam Singh market, referring to Operation Blue Star, the storming of the Golden Temple here in the first week of June 1984. ``The Sikh psyche never forgets an injury,'' says Gurbachan Singh Parwanaa, a Sikh clerk working in the local Guru Teg Bahadur College.

It's this difference between Hindus and Sikhs in the way they look at Operation Blue Star that has caused many an anxious moment in the Akali-BJP alliance that rules this state. And it's this anxiety that was evident today at the end of the ``ghallughara (massacre) week'' at the Akal Takht in the Golden Temple complex.

In fact, the press secretary to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had camped here yesterday. His objective: prevail upon Akal Takht jathedar Ranjit Singh to tone down his protest so that the BJP isn't embarrassed.

On the face of it, today's ceremony was a mellow affair: the jathedar decided against his customary speech; after the ardas (prayer), siropas were not presented to the family members of the 1984 `martyrs.'

But women devotees got emotional when the siropa was presented -- for the first time -- to the sword unsheathed. It was a symbolic gesture of homage, said the jathedar, since many of the `martyrs' were unidentified. Next year, he said, he would appeal to all Punjabis to observe the week because all Punjabis had suffered. ``Operation Blue Star was avoidable and other means could have been used to tackle the situation,'' he said.

Several Sikhs here felt that although the protest was veiled, it was strong enough. Said an SGPC member, ``The siropa to the sword has shown that weapons are the most sacred to the Sikhs and the supremacy of the sword was established.'' A paragraph about Operation Blue Star and homage to the `martyrs' were also seen to be loaded with meaning.

There were many faces here today that showed the scars of June 1984. For example, Rajinder Kaur whose husband Daljit Singh was 26 when he went to the temple as a volunteer on June 3, 1984, and never returned.

She had then been married for just a year and her son was born in July. Today, she's remarried, to Daljit's younger brother, and works as a clerk in the improvement trust office. Her son is 13 and knows nothing. ``I will have to tell him one day,'' says the mother. ``We live on but I can never forget the sorrow.''

The Sikh museum in the Golden Temple preserves the memories of death and destruction. There is a list of 644 identified `martyrs' of the Operation. Besides, there are portraits of Gen Shubegh Singh and Bhai Amrik Singh, close associates of terrorist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

On display in the museum, is a painting of the damaged Akal Takht building and the caption is telling: ``Under the calculated move of the Prime Minister of India, military troops stormed the Golden Temple. Thousands of Sikhs were massacred. Sri Akal Takht suffered the worst...The Sikhs, however, had their vengeance soon''.

The vengeance refers to Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984. Portraits of the assasins Beant Singh, Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, displayed at the museum bring sad sighs from visitors.

An eight-year-old schoolboy Guriqbal Singh stands before the damaged Akal Takht building reading aloud ``Aakal Takht fell down...'' When asked about it, he smiles for he knows nothing. His father blushes in apology: ``He is young and doesn't know anything yet.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.