Pakistan, June 8 -- Forty-two years later, Sikh memory of Operation Blue Star has not faded. It has traveled from Amritsar to London, Toronto, California, Melbourne and every major Sikh diaspora centre. Though Indian fire damaged the Akal Takht, Sikh political consciousness rose stronger from its ruins.

Ordered by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the operation was not a routine military action but a full-scale armed assault on the spiritual and political heart of the Sikh nation. Led by Maj. Gen. Kuldip Singh Brar with tanks, artillery, and multiple battalions, it was a brutal overkill against armed Sikh separatists in the complex.

Ordered by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the operation was not a routine military action but a full...