zindaa hae,

Zindaa hone per sharminda hae!

Human beings are still alive;

They are ashamed to be alive!

[Renowned cultural-political-human rights activist of Pakistan, Shahid Nadeem’s Urdu couplet on the silence of the civil society on attacks on minorities in Pakistan. He received forty lashes for writing and singing these lines by the Zia regime in Pakistan. It would be no different in present day India ruled by RSS-BJP.]

For almost all of the past three decades, on every anniversary of the horrific 1984 massacre of Sikhs in India, this author has been reminding the nation of how the Indian State and judiciary did not bother to punish the perpetrators of this horrendous mass killing of innocents of the second largest religious minority of our country. On every anniversary the author had hoped that thereafter justice would be done and he would not have to write the painful story once again as a reminder. This has not happened this year 2024 either. The saga of the criminal betrayal by the Indian Republic has no end and the author along with victims continues to cry before a deaf and dumb Indian State. Shockingly, on the 40^th anniversary of the genocide of Sikhs, the Indian State has even stopped making the claim that it continues to strive to get justice for the victims, like in the past!

What is the status of justice delivery for 2,700 Sikhs[1] massacred in Delhi? Renowned advocate H S Phoolka, who battled along with victims, puts it succinctly:

“The number of commissions and committees set up to probe the murders… is more than the number of convictions…One such commission was the G T Nanavati Commission, set up in 2005 by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government. According to its report, 587 FIRs were registered in Delhi in relation to the riots. While 241 of these have been filed as untraced, 253 ended in acquittal. Of the remaining, 40 FIRs are pending trial and one is pending investigation. Eleven FIRs have been quashed, and in 11 other FIRs, the accused have been discharged. Three cases have been withdrawn. To date, just 27 cases have ended in convictions. Of these, just 12 are convictions in murder cases.”

‘Anti-Sikh riots: Four decades on, just 12 murder cases have ended in conviction’, The Indian Express, Delhi, October 31, 2024.

https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/anti-sikh-riots-four-decades-on-just-12-murder-cases-have-ended-in-conviction-9646833/

Two kinds of justice

Whenever the country witnesses large-scale violence against the minorities and Dalits, the search for perpetrators continues endlessly and the criminals are rarely identified or punished. Major incidents of violence against minorities like Nellie massacre (1983), Sikh massacre (1984), Hashimpura custodial massacre of Muslim youth (1987), pre/post- Ayodhya mosque demolition violence against Muslims (1990-92), Gujarat carnage (2002) and Kandhmal cleansing of Christians (2008) and continuing blood-bath of Kuki Tribals (who are mostly Christians) in Manipur  are testimony to this reality.

When the victims are Dalits or minorities no such urgency is shown. In such cases the Indian State is fond of playing the commission-commission game. Enquiry Commissions after commissions would be constituted to see that the heinous crimes disappear from the public memory. The horrendous massacre of Sikhs in different parts of India in 1984 is a living testimony of this attitude of the Indian justice system with the motto in Sanskrit: ‘Yato Dharma Tato Jaya’ [Where there is righteousness and dharma, there is victory]. The higher Judiciary must explain what it means by Dharma. Does it include religions of minorities and right of Dalits also?

The scenario for anti-Dalit violence is no different. The major incidents of persecution and massacre of Dalits; 1968 Kilvenmani massacre, 1997 Melavalavu massacre, 2013 Marakkanam anti-Dalit violence, 2012 Dharmapuri anti- Dalit violence (all in Tamil Nadu), 1985 Karamchedu massacre, 1991 Tsundur massacre (all in AP), 1996 Bathani Tola Massacre, 1997 Laxmanpur Bathe massacre (all in Bihar), 1997 Ramabai killings, Mumbai, 2006 Khairlanji massacre, 2014 Javkheda Hatyakand, (all in Maharashtra), 2000 Caste persecution in (Karnataka), 5 Dalits beaten/burnt to death for skinning a dead cow 2006, 2011 killings of Dalits in Mirchpur (all in Haryana), 2015 anti-Dalit violence in Dangawas (Rajasthan) are some of the thousands of incidents of the Dalit persecution. In almost all these cases perpetrators are yet to be identified. Even if identified the prosecution rate has never exceeded 20%.

On the other hand, in the reverse, in cases where Dalit, working class and minority ‘perpetrators’ of violence are efficiently put on trial by constituting special investigation teams and punished by fast track courts. In order to meet the end of ‘justice’, ‘national security’ and ‘wish of the society’ they are hanged and jailed. The over-all reality is that whenever victims are minorities, working class and Dalits the State and judiciary go into coma.

Betrayal by governments until 2014

After giving free run to the killer gangs, the government appointed one man Marwah Commission to find out the perpetrators of the 1984 ‘riots’. As this exercise was proving inconvenient, it was asked to disband itself within short period of its existence and a sitting Supreme Court Judge Ranganath Mishra was asked to conduct inquiry into 1984 ‘riots’ who submitted his report in 1987. Shockingly, this fact finding (or fact-hiding) commission headed by Misra observed that

“riots which had a spontaneous origin later attained a channelized method at the hands of gangsters”.

The full-fledged massacre was reduced to ‘riots’ as if Sikhs equally participated in the violence. This was a brazen manipulation. The ‘apostle of justice’, Mishra, champion of the theory of spontaneity was not, naturally, able to find out from where these gangsters came! According to Jarnail Singh author of the book I Accuse: The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984 for this service to the State he was awarded a seat in the Rajya Sabha.

Over the next two decades, not less than nine commissions of inquiry were instituted. For the Indian State it became a routine to announce constitution of some new commission or some more compensation to the families of victims in order to deflect the mounting anger at the times of elections. Highlighting the anti-minority bias of such commissions, H. S. Phoolka, a renowned lawyer, commented that instead of getting convicted many of the political perpetrators get promoted to seats of power!

In the latest development Supreme Court of India on August 16, 2017 ordered the constitution of a panel comprising two of its former judges to examine the justification for closing 241 anti-Sikh riot cases probed by SIT in next 3 months; these three months are yet to be over!

Betrayal by the RSS-BJP regime

The RSS always claims to have always stood for Hindu-Sikh unity. It occasionally expresses its gratitude to Sikhism for “saving Hinduism from the Muslim aggression”. It may not be irrelevant to note here that RSS does not treat Sikhism as an independent religion, which discarded Casteism and Brahmanical hegemony, but part of Hinduism. The RSS/BJP leaders have blamed the Congress for anti-Sikh violence Modi while addressing a public rally during last parliamentary elections at Jhansi, UP (October 25, 2013) asked Congress leaders to explain who “killed thousands of Sikhs in 1984” and “has anyone been convicted for the Sikh genocide so far”. Modi during Punjab elections and 2014 general elections kept on referring to ‘qatl-e-aam’ or genocide of Sikhs.Modi after becoming PM in a message (October 31, 2014) said that anti-Sikh riots in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination were like a,

“dagger that pierced through India’s chest…Our own people were murdered, the attack was not on a particular community but on the entire nation.”

Hindutva icon, RSS whole-timer and PM Modi lamented the fact that culprits were yet to be booked and tried for this massacre. However, Modi did not tell the nation what NDA governments which ruled this country from 1998 to 2004 did to persecute the culprits. Modi also forgot to share the fact that as per the autobiography of LK Advani (page 430); it was his Party which forced Indira Gandhi to go for army action infamously named as Operation Blue Star which killed large number of Sikh pilgrims.Renowned journalist Manoj Mitta, author of the book When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and Its Aftermath straight forwardly tells that

“Despite the BJP rule, there has hardly been any will to enforce accountability for the massacres that took place under the Congress. It’s as if there is a tacit deal between the sponsors of 1984 and 2002″.

It was no over-sight that during 2024 parliamentary elections 1984 massacre was totally forgotten. This is not what outsiders or critics of the RSS have been telling. The perusal of contemporary RSS documents show that major focus was on condemning the Sikh extremism, eulogizing Indira Gandhi and welcoming the crowning of Rajiv Gandhi as new prime minister.

RSS ideologue Nanaji Deshmukh’s questionable attitude on the Sikh massacre

The most important proof of such a dehumanized attitude towards the massacre of Sikhs is a document circulated by Nana Deshmukh, a prominent whole timer and ideologue of the RSS [now deceased]. This document titled as ‘Moments of Soul Searching’ was circulated by Deshmukh on November 8, 1984, may help in unmasking the whole lot of criminals involved in the massacre of innocent Sikhs who had nothing to do with the killing of Indira Gandhi. This document may also throw light on where the cadres came from, who meticulously organized the killing of Sikhs. Nana Deshmukh in this document is seen outlining the justification of the massacre of the Sikh community in 1984.

This document also reflects the degenerate and fascist attitude of the RSS towards all the minorities of India. The RSS has been arguing that they are against Muslims and Christians because they are the followers of foreign religions. Here we find them justifying the butchering of Sikhs who according to their own categorisation happened to be the followers of an indigenous religion. In this document we will hear from the horse’s mouth that the RSS like the then Congress leadership believed that the massacre of the innocent Sikhs was unavoidable.This document was published in the Hindi Weekly Pratipaksh edited by George Fernandes, who later became Defence Minister of India in the NDA regime, in its edition of November 25, 1984 titled ‘Indira Congress- RSS collusion’ with the following editorial comment:

“The author of the following document is known as an ideologue and policy formulator of the RSS. After the killing of Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi) he distributed this document among prominent politicians. It has a historical significance that is why we have decided to publish it, violating the policy of our Weekly. This document highlights the new affinities developing between the Indira Congress and the RSS. We produce here the Hindi translation of the document.”

The original pages of the Hindi Weekly Pratipaksh edited by George Fernandes, may be seen below.

Deshmukh in his document, “Moments of Soul Searching” on the massacre of the Sikh community in 1984. His defence of the carnage can be summed up as in the following:

1. The massacre of Sikhs was not the handiwork of any group or anti-social elements but the result of a genuine feeling of
2. Deshmukh did not distinguish the action of the two security personnel of Indira Gandhi, who happened to be Sikhs, from that of the whole Sikh community. According to his document the killers of Indira Gandhi were working under some kind of mandate of their
3. Sikhs themselves invited these attacks, thus advancing the Congress theory of justifying the massacre of the Sikhs.
4. He glorified Operation Blue Star and described any opposition to it as anti- national. When Sikhs were being killed in thousands he was warning the country of Sikh extremism, thus offering ideological defense of those killings.
5. Sikh community as a whole was responsible for violence in
6. Sikhs should have done nothing in self-defence but showed patience and tolerance against the killer
7. These were Sikh intellectuals and not killer mobs which were responsible for the massacre. They had turned Sikhs into a militant community, cutting them off from their Hindu roots, thus inviting attacks from the nationalist Indians. Moreover, he treated all Sikhs as part of the same gang and described attacks on them as a reaction of the nationalist
8. He described Indira Gandhi as the only leader who could keep the country united and assassination of such a great leader such killings could not be avoided.
9. Rajiv Gandhi who succeeded Mrs. Gandhi as the PM and justified the nation- wide killings of Sikhs by saying, “When a huge tree falls there are always tremors felt”, was lauded and blessed by Nana Deshmukh at the end of the
10. Shockingly, the massacre of Sikhs was being equated with the attacks on the RSS cadres after the killing of Gandhiji and we find Deshmukh advising Sikhs to suffer silently. Everybody knows that the killing of Gandhiji was inspired by the RSS and the Hindutva Ideology whereas the common innocent Sikhs had nothing to do with the murder of Indira
11. There was not a single sentence in the Deshmukh document demanding, from the then Congress Government at the Centre or the then home minister Narsimha Rao (a Congress leader dear to the RSS who later silently watched demolition of Babri masjid by Hindutva goons as prime minister of India in 1992) remedial measures for controlling the violence against the minority community. Mind it, that Deshmukh circulated this document on November 8, 1984, and from October 31 to this date Sikhs were left alone to face the killing gangs. In fact November 5-10 was the period when the maximum killings of Sikhs took place. Deshmukh was just not bothered about all
12. It is generally believed that the Congress cadres were behind this genocide. This may be true but there were other forces too which actively participated in this massacre and whose role has never been investigated. It could be one of the reasons that actual perpetrators remain unknown. Those who witnessed the genocide were stunned by the swiftness and military precision of the killer/marauding gangs (later on witnessed during the Babri mosque demolition, burning alive of Dr. Graham Steins with his two sons, 2002 pogrom of the Muslims in Gujarat and cleansing of Christians in parts of Orissa) which went on a burning spree of the innocent Sikhs. This, surely, was beyond the capacity of the thugs led by many Congress
13. It is shocking that Deshmukh presented 1984 massacre of Sikhs as an issue between Sikhs and Hindus. He wrote: “I feel proud of all those Hindu neighbours who protected lives and property of troubled Sikh brothers without caring for their lives. Such things one being heard from all over Delhi. These things have practically increased the faith in natural goodness of human behavior and particularly faith in Hindu nature.” He remained oblivious to the fact that these were not only Hindus but Muslims, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, Atheists, Communists who defended Sikhs’ lives and

RSS problematic attitude towards the Sikh massacre

The Deshmukh document did not happen in isolation. It represented the real RSS attitude towardsthe Sikh genocide of 1984. It may be relevant to know here that the RSS cadres did not come forward in defence of the Sikhs. The RSS is very fond of circulating publicity material, especially photographs of its khaki shorts-clad cadres doing social work. For the 1984 violence they have none. In fact, Deshmukh’s article also made no mention of the RSS cadres going to the rescue of Sikhs under siege. This shows the real intentions of the RSS during the genocide.

The RSS English organ, Organizer in its combined issue dated November 11 & 18, 1984 carried an editorial titled ‘Stunning Loss’ which praised Indira Gandhi in the following words:

“It will always be difficult to believe that the Indira Gandhi is no more. One had got so used to hearing her myriad voices for so long, that everything looks so blank without her. The violent manner of her death is the most shocking horror story, giving the nation the creeps…It is a case of treacherous fanatics stigmatizing the whole nation by butchering a remarkable specimen of Indian womanhood…She literally served India to the last drop of her blood according to her own lights.” The same editorial ended with the words supporting newly installed PM, Rajiv Gandhi who “deserves sympathy and consideration”. 

Organizer also carried statement of RSS Supremo; Bala Deoras titled ‘Balasaheb condemns assassination, Delhi carnage’ in a single column. He mourned and condemned the carnage but not even once referred to the fact that Sikhs were under attack. For him it was “infighting in the Hindu Samaj”. He also overlooked the fact that it was not only Delhi where Sikhs were butchered/burnt but in many other parts of India too. According to this statement “swayamsevaks have been instructed to form or help in forming Mohalla Suraksha Samitis” for restoring peace and rehabilitation of the sufferers. However, there are no documents available in the contemporary RSS archives to show how these Samitis functioned. It is a fact that RSS which is fond of displaying photographs of its cadres doing social work did not publish any visual of the activity of these Samitis.

In the same statement Deoras reacting to the assassination of Indira Gandhi stated,

“It is shocking beyond words to express  the  feelings  at the murder of PM Mrs.               Indira Gandhi by some fanatic elements. She had been carrying on almost the entire burden of the country since 1966. She was loved and respected not only in this country but all over the world. Her passing away at this critical juncture will create a void in India and also in the world.”

According to  the above mentioned Organizer, “RSS Sarkyavah, Rajender Singh issued instructions to all the branches in  the country to hold a special meeting in Shakha condemning the dastardly murder of the PM and paying  homage  to the departed             soul. He also issued instructions to cancel all public functions to be held by RSS during the period of mourning”.

Of course, the RSS archives do not contain any instructions from RSS top brass instructing the mourning of Sikh victims.

RSS against former PM Manoham Singh’s apology for the 1984 massacre

That the RSS continues to downplay 1984 Sikh massacre is alsoe clear by the perusal of charter of demands submitted to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in last July. The senior RSS  ideologue, Dina Nath Batra on behalf of RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas submitted five pages containing list of items to be removed from school text-books. Batra demanded that any reference to violence against minorities in the text-books should be removed which included references to a simple apology tendered by the former PM Manmohan Singh over 1984 violence.

It is to be noted that in an apology in Parliament on August 12, 2005, Manmohan Singh, the then PM of India stated:

“I have no hesitation in apologising to the Sikh community. I apologise not only to the Sikh community, but to the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our Constitution.”

So the search for finding the perpetrators of Sikh massacre of 1984 continues endlessly. The present RSS/BJP rulers who claim to be co-religionists of Sikhs prove no different from Congress. The only hope is that those Indians who have stakes in continuation of democratic-secular Indian polity will come forward to force the Indian State to identify and punish the killers. Scholars who have been involved in the study of religious violence are unanimous in the conclusion that if 1984 massacre was not allowed to happen, there would not have been 1992-93 (violence against Muslims in pre/post Babri mosque demolition period), 2002 (massacre of Muslims in Gujarat), Kandhmal 2008 (cleansing of Christians) and many other massacre of the minorities of India. Allowing the 1984 massacre the Indian State, let it be known to all the majoritarian fascist organizations that in such criminal happening the former would remain silent! 

Nana Deshmukh awarded ‘Bharat Ratna’

As if it was not enough injustice to the martyrs and survivors of the 1984 massacre, on the eve of the last Republic Day (January 25, 2019) RSS/BJP rulers of India, bestowed the highest national award, the Bharat Ratna (gem of India) on Nanaji Deshmukh. PM Modi praising Deshmukh said, “He [Nana Deshmukh] personifies humility, compassion, and service to the downtrodden. He is a Bharat Ratna in the truest sense”.If anybody wants to understand the exact meaning of the proverb ‘to rub salt into the wound’ this Bharat Ratna to Deshmukh is the fittest example!

This photograph is of a street theatre performance titled ‘Sadharan Log (common people) by Nishant Natya Manch against massacre of Sikhs in 1984. It was performed at more than two thousand places. The author is also doing a role.

Link of a 2023 interview of the author on the same tragedy:

https://www.academia.edu/107044638/Victims_Will_Never_Forget_The_Violence_Shamsul_Islam_On_1984_Massacre_of_Sikh

Link for the full English text of the RSS ideologue Nana Deshmukh’s document: https://www.academia.edu/4890979/RSS_IDEOLOGUE_ NANA_DESHMUKH_J USTIFIED_MASSACRE_OF_SIKHS_IN_1984_From_RSS_archives_

[1] This is the official figure, according to the civil rights organisations around 3,000 were killed!

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

The post Fortieth anniversary of the forgotten mass 1984 killing of Sikhs, rapist and killers yet to be identified and punished appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“Inssan abhee tak zinda hae, zinda hone per sharminda hae!”

(Translation: Human beings are still alive; they are ashamed to be alive!) Shahid Nadeem’s Urdu couplet on the silence of the civil society against communal violence. He received forty lashes for writing and singing these lines by the Zia regime in Pakistan.

For almost last four decades, on every anniversary of the horrific 1984 massacre of Sikhs in India, this author has been reminding the nation how the Indian State and judiciary did not bother to punish the perpetrators of this horrendous mass killing of the innocents of the second largest religious minority of our country. On every anniversary the author hoped that now justice would be done and he would not have to write the painful story once again as a reminder. It has not happened in year 2020 also; the saga of the criminal betrayal by the Indian Republic has no end and author like the victims continues to cry before a deaf and dumb Indian State.

However, the shameless Indian State with the 37^th anniversary approaching made noises as if it was working for getting justice to the victims, like in the past! The National Minority Commission was kind enough to issue notices on October 30, 2021 to Delhi, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh “to file reports with the Commission detailing the victims, compensation paid so far and arrests and action taken against the accused in these cases.”

Earlier, in January 2021, the UP government told the nation that a “Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the Yogi Adityanath government to probe cases related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Kanpur has claimed to have collected evidence of murder and arson from a house in the district’s Naubasta area where two people were killed and set ablaze [in 1984]”.

It took Indian State only 37 years to achieve these two goals in search for the killers of 1984.

Two kinds of justice

Whenever the country witnesses the large-scale violence against the minorities and Dalits, the search for perpetrators continues endlessly and the criminals are never punished. Major incidents of violence against minorities like Nellie massacre (1983), Sikh massacre (1984), Hashimpura custodial massacre of Muslim youth (1987), pre/post- Ayodhya mosque demolition violence against Muslims (1990-92), Gujarat carnage (2002) and Kandhmal cleansing of Christians (2008) are testimony to this reality. But when the victims are Dalits or minorities no such urgency is shown. In such cases Indian State is fond of playing commission-commission. Commissions after commissions would be constituted to see that the heinous crimes disappear from the public memory. The horrendous massacre of Sikhs in different parts of India in 1984 is a living testimony of this criminal attitude of the Indian justice system.

The status of anti-Dalit violence is no different. The major incidents of persecution and massacre of Dalits:

1968 Kilvenmani massacre, 1997 Melavalavu massacre, 2013 Marakkanam anti-Dalit violence, 2012 Dharmapuri anti- Dalit violence (all in Tamil Nadu);

1985 Karamchedu massacre, 1991 Tsundur massacre (all in AP), 1996 Bathani Tola Massacre, 1997 Laxmanpur Bathe massacre (all in Bihar);

1997 Ramabai killings, Mumbai, 2006 Khairlanji massacre, 2014 Javkheda Hatyakand, (all in Maharashtra);

2000 Caste persecution in (Karnataka);

5 Dalits beaten/burnt to death for skinning a dead cow 2006, 2011 killings of Dalits in Mirchpur (all in Haryana),

2015 anti-Dalit violence in Dangawas (Rajasthan)

These are some of the thousands of incidents of the Dalit persecution. In almost all these cases perpetrators are yet to be identified. Even if identified the prosecution rate never exceeded 20%.

On the other hand, the Dalit, working class and minority ‘perpetrators’ of violence are efficiently put on trial by constituting special investigation teams and punished by fast-track courts. In order to meet the end of ‘justice’, ‘national security’ and ‘wish of the society’ they are hanged and jailed. The latest case is from Assam where a court at Jorhat on October 20, 2020 sentenced one person to death and 24 others to life imprisonment for lynching a doctor in a tea estate on August 31, 2019. Dr. Deben Dutta of the Teok Tea Estate Hospital in Jorhat, was beaten to death by workers. They were angry about Dutta’s absence from duty at the hospital where Somra Majhi, a 33-year-old plantation worker of the estate, was admitted in critical condition. By the time the doctor returned around 3.30 pm, Majhi had died. Angry workers then beat Dutta up and locked him in a room where he died. The perpetrators were found and convicted in 14 months’ record time. It is nobody’s case that workers had any right to kill a person whatever would have been the provocation and instigation. But the issue is that when victims are minorities, working class and Dalits the State and judiciary go into coma.

Betrayal by governments till 2014

After giving free run to the killer gangs the government appointed one man Marwah Commission to find out the perpetrators of the 1984 ‘riots’. As this exercise was proving inconvenient, it was asked to disband itself within short period of its existence and a sitting Supreme Court Judge Ranga Nath Mishra was asked to conduct inquiry into 1984 ‘riots’ who submitted his report in 1987. Shockingly, this fact finding (or fact-hiding) commission headed by Misra observed that

“Riots which had a spontaneous origin later attained a channelized method at the hands of gangsters.”

The massacre was reduced to ‘riots’ as if Sikhs equally fought against the others. It was a brazen lie. The ‘apostle of justice’, Mishra, champion of the theory of spontaneity was not, naturally, able to find out from where these gangsters came! According to Jarnail Singh author of the book I Accuse: The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984 for this service to the State he was awarded a berth in Rajya Sabha.

Next two decades, not less than nine commissions of inquiry were instituted. For the Indian State it became a routine to announce constitution of some new commission or some more compensation to the families of victims in order to deflect the mounting anger at the times of elections. Highlighting the anti-minority bias of such commissions, H. S. Phoolka, a renowned lawyer, commented that instead of getting convicted many of the political perpetrators get promoted as rulers.

In the latest development Supreme Court of India on August 16, 2017 ordered the constitution of a panel comprising two of its former judges to examine the justification for closing 241 anti-Sikh riot cases probed by SIT in next 3 months. This was November 2018 (15 months since the order was passed) and these three months were yet to be over!

Betrayal by the present RSS/BJP rulers

RSS claims to have always stood for Hindu-Sikh unity. It occasionally expresses its gratitude to Sikhism for saving Hinduism from the Muslim aggression. It may not be irrelevant to note here that RSS does not treat Sikhism as independent religion, which discarded Casteism and Brahmanical hegemony, but part of Hinduism. The RSS/BJP leaders blamed Congress for anti-Sikh violence Modi while addressing a public rally during last parliamentary elections at Jhansi, UP (October 25, 2013) asked Congress leaders to explain who “killed thousands of Sikhs in 1984” and “has anyone been convicted for the Sikh genocide so far”. Modi during Punjab elections and 2014 general elections kept on referring to ‘qatl-e-aam’ or genocide of Sikhs.

Modi after becoming PM in a message (October 31, 2014) said that anti-Sikh riots in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination were like a,

“Dagger that pierced through India’s chest…Our own people were murdered, the attack was not on a particular community but on the entire nation.”

Hindutva icon, RSS whole-timer and PM Modi lamented the fact that culprits were yet to be booked and tried for this massacre. However, Modi did not tell the nation what NDA governments which ruled this country from 1998 to 2004 did to persecute the culprits. Modi also forgot to share the fact that as per the autobiography of LK Advani (page 430); it was his Party which forced Indira Gandhi to go for army action infamously named as Operation Blue Star which killed large number of Sikh pilgrims.

Renowned journalist Manoj Mitta, author of the book When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and Its Aftermath straight forwardly tells that

“Despite the BJP rule, there has hardly been any will to enforce accountability for the massacres that took place under the Congress. It’s as if there is a tacit deal between the sponsors of 1984 and 2002”.

It was no over-sight that 2019 parliamentary elections 1984 massacre was totally forgotten. This is not what outsiders or critics of the RSS have been telling. The perusal of the contemporary RSS documents show that major focus was on condemning the Sikh extremism, eulogizing Indira Gandhi and welcoming the crowning of Rajiv Gandhi as new prime minister.

RSS ideologue Nana Deshmukh’s dehumanized attitude towards Sikh massacre

The most important proof of such a dehumanized attitude towards the massacre of Sikhs is a document circulated by Nana Deshmukh, a prominent whole timer and ideologue of the RSS [now deceased]. This document titled as ‘MOMENTS OF SOUL SEARCHING’ was circulated by Deshmukh on November 8, 1984, may help in unmasking the whole lot of criminals involved in the massacre of innocent Sikhs who had nothing to do with the killing of Indira Gandhi. This document may also throw light on where the cadres came from, who meticulously organized the killing of Sikhs. Nana Deshmukh in this document is seen outlining the justification of the massacre of the Sikh community in 1984.

This document also shows the true degenerated and fascist attitude of the RSS towards all the minorities of India. The RSS has been arguing that they are against Muslims and Christians because they are the followers of foreign religions. Here we find them justifying the butchering of Sikhs who according to their own categorization happened to be the followers of an indigenous religion. In this document we will hear from the horse’s mouth that the RSS like the then Congress leadership believed that the massacre of the innocent Sikhs was unavoidable.

This document was published in the Hindi Weekly Pratipaksh edited by George Fernandes, who later became Defence Minister of India in the NDA regime, in its edition of November 25, 1984 titled ‘Indira Congress- RSS collusion’ with the following editorial comment:

“The author of the following document is known as an ideologue and policy formulator of the RSS. After the killing of Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi) he distributed this document among prominent politicians. It has a historical significance that is why we have decided to publish it, violating policy of our Weekly. This document highlights the new affinities developing between the Indira Congress and the RSS. We produce here the Hindi translation of the document.”

The original pages of the Hindi Weekly Pratipaksh edited by George Fernandes reproduced.

Deshmukh in his document ‘MOMENTS OF SOUL SEARCHING’ is seen outlining the justification of the massacre of the Sikh community in 1984. His defence of the carnage can be summed up as in the following:

1. The massacre of Sikhs was not the handiwork of any group or anti-social elements but the result of a genuine feeling of anger.
2. Deshmukh did not distinguish the action of the two security personnel of Indira Gandhi, who happened to be Sikhs, from that of the whole Sikh community. According to his document the killers of Indira Gandhi were working under some kind of mandate of their community.
3. Sikhs themselves invited these attacks, thus advancing the Congress theory of justifying the massacre of the Sikhs.
4. He glorified the Operation Blue Star and described any opposition to it as anti- national. When Sikhs were being killed in thousands he was warning the country of Sikh extremism, thus offering ideological defense of those killings.
5. Sikh community as a whole was responsible for violence in Punjab.
6. Sikhs should have done nothing in self-defence but showed patience and tolerance against the killer mobs.
7. These were Sikh intellectuals and not killer mobs which were responsible for the massacre. They had turned Sikhs into a militant community, cutting them off from their Hindu roots, thus inviting attacks from the nationalist Indians. Moreover, he treated all Sikhs as part of the same gang and described attacks on them as a reaction of the nationalist Hindus.
8. He described Indira Gandhi as the only leader who could keep the country united and assassination of such a great leader such killings could not be avoided.
9. Rajiv Gandhi who succeeded Mrs. Gandhi as the PM and justified the nation- wide killings of Sikhs by saying, “When a huge tree falls there are always tremors felt”, was lauded and blessed by Nana Deshmukh at the end of the document.
10. Shockingly, the massacre of Sikhs was being equated with the attacks on the RSS cadres after the killing of Gandhiji and we find Deshmukh advising Sikhs to suffer silently. Everybody knows that the killing of Gandhiji was inspired by the RSS and the Hindutva Ideology whereas the common innocent Sikhs had nothing to do with the murder of Indira Gandhi.
11. There was not a single sentence in the Deshmukh document demanding, from the then Congress Government at the Centre or the then home minister Narsimha Rao (a Congress leader dear to the RSS who later silently watched demolition of Babri masjid by Hindutva goons as PM of India in 1992) remedial measures for controlling the violence against the minority community. Mind it, that Deshmukh circulated this document on November 8, 1984, and from October 31 to this date Sikhs were left alone to face the killing gangs. In fact, November 5-10 was the period when the maximum killings of Sikhs took place. Deshmukh was just not bothered about all this.
12. It is generally believed that the Congress cadres were behind this genocide. This may be true but there were other forces too which actively participated in this massacre and whose role has never been investigated. It could be one of the reasons that actual perpetrators remain unknown. Those who witnessed the genocide were stunned by the swiftness and military precision of the killer/marauding gangs (later on witnessed during the Babri mosque demolition, burning alive of Dr. Graham Steins with his two sons, 2002 pogrom of the Muslims in Gujarat and cleansing of Christians in parts of Orissa) which went on a burning spree of the innocent Sikhs. This, surely, was beyond the capacity of the thugs led by many Congress leaders.
13. It is shocking that Deshmukh presented 1984 massacre of Sikhs as an issue between Sikhs and Hindus. He wrote: “I feel proud of all those Hindu neighbours who protected lives and property of troubled Sikh brothers without caring for their lives. Such things one being heard from all over Delhi. These things have practically increased the faith in natural goodness of human behavior and particularly faith in Hindu nature.” He remained oblivious to the fact that these were not only Hindus but Muslims, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, Atheists, Communists who defended Sikhs’ lives and properties.

Deshmukh document did not happen in isolation. It represented the real RSS attitude towards Sikh genocide
of 1984. It may be relevant to know here that the RSS cadres did not come forward in defence of the Sikhs. The RSS is very fond of circulating publicity material, especially photographs of its khaki shorts-clad cadres doing social work. For the 1984 violence they have none. In fact, Deshmukh’s article also made no mention of the RSS cadres going to the rescue of Sikhs under siege. This shows the real intentions of the RSS during the genocide.

The RSS English organ, Organizer in its combined issue dated November 11 & 18, 1984 carried an editorial titled ‘Stunning Loss’ which praised Indira Gandhi in the following words:

“It will always be difficult to believe that the Indira Gandhi is no more. One had got so used to hearing her myriad voices for so long, that everything looks so blank without her. The violent manner of her death is the most shocking horror story, giving the nation the creeps…It is a case of treacherous fanatics stigmatizing the whole nation by butchering a remarkable specimen of Indian womanhood…She literally served India to the last drop of her blood according to her own lights.” The same editorial ended with the words supporting newly installed PM, Rajiv Gandhi who “deserves sympathy and consideration”.

Organizer also carried statement of RSS Supremo; Bala Deoras titled ‘Balasaheb condemns assassination, Delhi carnage’ in a single column. He mourned and condemned the carnage but not even once referred to the fact that Sikhs were under attack. For him it was “infighting in the Hindu Samaj”. He also overlooked the fact that it was not only Delhi where Sikhs were butchered/burnt but in many other parts of India too. According to this statement “swayamsevaks have been instructed to form or help in forming Mohalla Suraksha Samitis” for restoring peace and rehabilitation of the sufferers. However, there are no documents available in the contemporary RSS archives to show how these Samitis functioned. It is a fact that RSS which is fond of displaying photographs of its cadres doing social work did not publish any visual of the activity of these Samitis.

In the same statement Deoras reacting to the assassination of Indira Gandhi stated,

“It is shocking beyond words to express the feelings at the murder of PM          Mrs. Indira Gandhi by some fanatic elements. She had been carrying on almost the entire burden of the country since 1966. She was loved and respected not only in this country but all over the world. Her passing away at this critical juncture will create a void in India and also in the world.”

According to the above-mentioned Organizer article,

“RSS Sarkyavah, Rajender Singh issued instructions to all the branches in the country to hold a special meeting in Shakha condemning the dastardly murder of the PM and paying homage to the departed soul. He also  issued instructions to cancel all public functions to be held by RSS during the period of mourning.”

Of course, RSS archives do not contain any instructions from RSS top brass ordering to mourn the Sikh martyrs.
RSS against former PM Manmohan Singh’s apology for 1984 massacre

The RSS continues to downplay 1984 Sikh massacre will be clear by the perusal of charter of demands submitted to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in last July. The senior RSS ideologue, Dina Nath Batra on behalf of RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas submitted five pages containing list of items to be removed from school text-books. Batra demanded that any reference to violence against minorities in the text-books should be removed which included references to a simple apology tendered by the former PM Manmohan Singh over 1984 violence. It is to be noted that in an apology in Parliament on August 12, 2005, Manmohan Singh, the then PM of India stated:

“I have no hesitation in apologizing to the Sikh community. I apologize not only to the Sikh community, but to the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our Constitution.”

So, the search for finding the perpetrators of Sikh massacre of 1984 continues endlessly. The present RSS/BJP rulers who claim to be co-religionists of Sikhs prove no different from Congress. The only hope is that those Indians who have stakes in continuation of democratic-secular Indian polity will come forward to force the Indian State to identify and punish the killers. The scholars who have been involved in the study of religious violence are unanimous in the conclusion that if 1984 massacre was not allowed to happen, there would not have been 1992- 93 (violence against Muslims in pre/post Babri mosque demolition period), 2002 (massacre of Muslims in Gujarat), Kandhmal 2008 (cleansing of Christians) and many other massacre of the minorities of India. Allowing the 1984 massacre the Indian State, let it be known to all the majoritarian fascist organizations that in such criminal happening the former would remain silent!

Nana Deshmukh awarded ‘Bharat Ratna’

As if it was not enough injustice to the martyrs and survivors of the 1984 massacre, on the eve of the last Republic Day (January 25, 2019) RSS/BJP rulers of India, bestowed the highest national award BHARAT RATN (gem of India) on Nanaji Deshmukh. PM Modi praising Deshmukh said, “He [Nana Deshmukh] personifies humility, compassion, and service to the downtrodden. He is a Bharat Ratna in the truest sense”.

If anybody wants to understand the exact meaning of the proverb ‘to rub salt into the wound’ this Bharat Ratna to Deshmukh is the fittest example!

Must read the full English text of the RSS ideologue Nana Deshmukh’s document, link: https://www.academia.edu/4890979/RSS_IDEOLOGUE_ NANA_DESHMUKH_J USTIFIED_MASSACRE_OF_SIKHS_IN_1984_From_R
SS_archives_

*Views expressed are the author’s own.

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1984 was a year that saw two major catastrophes in India, the world’s so-called largest democracy; first being a brutal massacre of one single community and another one the biggest industrial disaster of its time, thus turning George Orwell’s imaginative year of totalitarianism into reality.

In the first week of November, 1984 thousands of Sikhs were slaughtered across India after the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. This was followed by a gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in December of the same year that left many dead. Not only these incidents were preventable, but the government remained allegedly complicit in both cases.

37 years later, two journalists who have been trying to make the Indian establishment answerable for these calamities have died due to Covid-19 complications.

While Jarnail Singh passed away on May 14, Rajkumar Keswani died exactly a week later on May 21, 2021.

Singh had burst into the limelight for throwing a shoe at India’s then home minister, P. Chidambaram during a press conference in 2009. He had protested before one of India’s most powerful politicians of that time, after he refused to answer repeated questions about attempts to shield those involved in the Sikh massacre of 1984. 

Singh worked for the Dainik Bhaskar daily paper at the time of the incident. Interestingly, Kewani until recently worked with the same publication.

Keswani was a whistle-blower who had much before the gas leak in Bhopal, had forewarned about the accident through his writings. Unlike Singh, who later joined politics after being sacked from his job, Keswani continued to work as a journalist. Whereas, Singh was only 48, Kewsani died at the age of 71.

That the Indian government was responsible for both tragedies which had shaped the future of these two men is well documented.  

In New Delhi alone, close to 3,000 Sikhs were murdered by the mobs led by the slain leader’s Congress party. The mass murders were carried out with the help of police.

Gandhi’s bodyguards were seeking revenge for the army invasion on the Golden Temple Complex, the holiest Sikh shrine, in June of that year.

The ill-conceived military operation was ordered to deal with a handful of armed militants inside the place of worship. The invasion left many pilgrims dead and important historical buildings were heavily damaged.

Chidambaram, a minister in the Congress-led government, expressed his satisfaction in 2009 over the “clean chit” given to party leaders involved in the massacre.

Keswani has been writing consistently about the gas leak that killed more than 3,000 people in Bhopal. His articles on safety lapses at the Union Carbide plant were first published in 1982 for a different newspaper, two years before the tragedy and the last one warning about potential disaster was written in June for another publication, six months before the deadly gas leaked out during the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984.

The Congress government back then had compromised with public safety in spite of warnings about the plant being located near residential areas. Much as in the case of Sikh massacre, it helped the top company officials involved to go unpunished. 

The victims of both episodes have been fighting for justice and closure. This is despite the fact that an attempt was made to cover up the Bhopal case by falsely blaming it on the Sikhs in a highly polarised environment.  

The untimely deaths of Singh and Keswani under these difficult times when bigotry and corporate control has grown under a right-wing Hindu nationalist regime in India is a huge loss to not only journalism, but the humanity at large.

*Views expressed are the author’s own. 

More by Gurpreet Singh:

Sikh priest’s suicide exposes double speak of the ruling BJP and its apologists   

Canada will always be there to defend the right of peaceful protest: Justin Trudeau 

If Modi really cares about Nanak’s teachings, he must treat farmers with respect 

The post Covid-19 claims Jarnail Singh and Rajkumar Keswani appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Modi paying tribute to Nanaji Deshmukh

In more than last three decades, on every anniversary of the 1984 massacre of Sikhs, this author has been reminding the nation how Indian State and judiciary did not bother to punish the perpetrators of this horrendous mass killing of the innocents of the second largest religious minority of our country.

On every anniversary the author hoped that now justice would be done and he would not have to write the painful story once again as a reminder. It has not happened in last one year also; the saga of the criminal betrayal by the Indian Republic has no end and author continues to cry before a deaf and dumb Indian State.
 

Betrayal by governments till 2014

After giving free run to the killer gangs the government appointed one man Marwah Commission to find out the perpetrators of the 1984 ‘riots’. As this exercise was proving inconvenient, it was asked to disband itself within short period of its existence and a sitting Supreme Court Judge Ranga Nath Mishra was asked to conduct inquiry into 1984 ‘riots’ who submitted his report in 1987.

Shockingly, this fact finding (or fact-hiding) commission headed by Misra observed that “riots which had a spontaneous origin later attained a channelized method at the hands of gangsters”.

The massacre was reduced to ‘riots’ as if Sikhs equally fought against the others. It was a brazen lie. The ‘apostle of justice’, Mishra, champion of the theory of spontaneity was not, naturally, able to find out from where these gangsters came! According to Jarnail Singh, author of the book “I Accuse: The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984”, for this service to the state he was awarded a berth in Rajya Sabha.

Next two decades, not less than nine commissions of inquiry were instituted. For the Indian state it became a routine to announce constitution of some new commission or some more compensation to the families of victims in order to deflect the mounting anger at the times of elections. Highlighting the anti-minority bias of such commissions, HS Phoolka, a renowned lawyer, commented that instead of getting convicted many of the political perpetrators get promoted as rulers.

In the latest development, the Supreme Court of India on August 16, 2017 ordered the constitution of a panel comprising two of its former judges to examine the justification for closing 241 anti-Sikh riot cases probed by SIT in next 3 months. It is November 2018 (15 months since the order was passed) and these three months are yet to be over!

RSS/BJP claims 

RSS claims to have always stood for Hindu-Sikh unity. It occasionally expresses its gratitude to Sikhism for saving Hinduism from the Muslim aggression. It may not be irrelevant to note here that RSS does not treat Sikhism as independent religion, which discarded casteism and Brahmanical hegemony, but part of Hinduism. 

George Fernandes’ “Pratipaksh’

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The BJP backers who continue to pretend as well wishers of the Sikhs had actually meekly supported both the army attack on the Golden Temple Complex and the anti-Sikh massacre in 1984. The late Nanaji Deshmukh, the towering RSS leader, had justified these events and instead blamed the Sikh leaders or these bloody episodes. Early this year, the BJP government gave the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award to Deshmukh posthumously. 

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New Delhi: Sajjan Kumar, a former Congress leader convicted five members of a family in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case surrendered in a Delhi court today after his plea for an extension of time to start his sentence was rejected by the HC.
 
He surrendered before Metropolitan Magistrate Aditi Garg who directed that Kumar be lodged in Mandoli jail in northeast Delhi.
 
The court rejected Sajjan Kumar’s petition to be lodged in the high-security Tihar jail, but allowed his plea for security and directed the police to take him to the prison in a separate vehicle. On December 17, the Delhi High Court reversed Kumar’s acquittal.
 
He had asked the Delhi high court to let him spend 30 more days with his family. In a 15-point request to put off his jail term by a month, Kumar has spoken about how the high court’s verdict finding him guilty had stunned him and needed time to prep for the jail sentence.
 
The case in which Sajjan Kumar was convicted and sentenced is related to the killing of five Sikhs in Raj Nagar part I area in Palam Colony in South West Delhi on November 1-2, 1984, and the burning down of a gurdwara in Raj Nagar part II. The riots broke out after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.
 
Two other 1984 anti-Sikh riots convicts, Kishan Khokhar and Mahender Yadav, surrendered today to serve a 10-year jail term.
 
In its judgment, the high court had noted that over 2,700 Sikhs were killed in the national capital during the 1984 riots which were indeed a “carnage of unbelievable proportions”.
 
It also said the riots were a “crime against humanity” perpetrated by those who enjoyed “political patronage” and aided by an “indifferent” law enforcement agency.
 
The HC had further said there has been a familiar pattern of mass killings since Partition, like in Mumbai in 1993, Gujarat in 2002 and Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh in 2013, and the “common” feature of each was the “targeting of minorities” with the attacks being “spearheaded by the dominant political actors, facilitated by law enforcement agencies”.
 
Sajjan Kumar, 73, is a former Lok Sabha MP. He represented the Outer Delhi constituency thrice.
 
The order that comes close at the heels of the Congress’s resounding electoral victory in three key states in the assembly elections, is a sobering reminder that nobody, no matter how politically powerful, is above the law. During this 1984 genocide, over 3000 people from the Sikh community were killed by rampaging mobs in wake of the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards. Eyewitnesses placed several top Congress leaders at the scene of different killings and Sajjan Kumar is only the first major leader to be convicted.
 
The Court not only noted that the “criminals have enjoyed political patronage,” but also that there was “abject police failure.” A former Congress Councillor, Balwan Khokhar, retired naval officer Captain Bhagmal and three others were held guilty in the Raj Nagar case but a trial court had acquitted Sajjan Kumar, the report said.
 
Read Also:
Justice delayed but not denied: Sajjan Kumar gets life term in 1984 riots case 
 

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It may be considered as an unpopular opinion but there’s no cause for celebration over Sajjan Kumar’s conviction in the anti-Sikh riots where scores of Sikh’s were murdered in cold blood.
 
Former Member of Parliament, belonging to the opposition and so-called secular Congress Party, Sajjan Kumar was convicted by Delhi High Court on December 17 for his complicity in the anti-Sikh massacre.
 
Thousands of Sikhs were murdered during the first week of November 1984 all over India following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards who were enraged by the military invasion on the holiest shrine of the Sikhs in June that year.
 
Gandhi had ordered an army operation to flush out a handful of militants who had fortified the Golden Temple Complex in Amritsar. This came after a peaceful agitation of moderate Sikh leadership in Punjab, for state autonomy and several concessions for Sikh minority, turned violent.
 
A spike in the killings of Hindus and the critics of extremism culminated into an ill-conceived army attack that left many devotees dead and historic buildings inside the complex destroyed. This had outraged the Sikhs who felt that the action was preventable as alternative means, such as peaceful negotiations could have been used to deal with the situation. As a result of this controversial operation, two of her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, killed Gandhi in cold blood.
 
The activists belonging to Gandhi’s Congress party were seen leading the mobs that killed Sikhs in a systematic manner with the help of police to avenge the murder of their leader. Kumar was one of those high-profile leaders who was seen instigating the mobs in New Delhi where close to 3,000 Sikhs were murdered. 
 
34 years later, the Delhi High Court pronounced him guilty of conspiracy in murders and creating enmity between the Hindus and the Sikhs. He was given a life sentence for these crimes. He was earlier acquitted by the lower court. Not only the Delhi High Court overturned that verdict, but it also affirmed its belief in the witnesses who stuck to their testimonies with courage and conviction. Among them were Jagdish Kaur – who lost her husband and a son, besides three cousins, and Nirpreet Kaur who lost her father.
 
Nevertheless, justice has hardly been served if we consider the quantum of punishment, the time it took to bring this closure and the inter-generational damage this catastrophe has caused.
 
First of all, what Kumar and his colleagues did was no less than an act of terrorism. Though the Sikh extremists were dealt with firmly when the army was used to attack the Golden Temple Complex, the police machinery openly sided with the goons who went after the Sikhs. The army wasn’t pressed into service immediately when the Sikhs needed it the most.
 
The Delhi High Court Judgement has proved beyond doubt that the police have been protecting Kumar all these years by failing to register a case against him and even going to the extent of tampering with the evidence. The details in the judgment suggest that the police either remained indifferent to the violence by refusing to protect the victims, or they shamelessly participated in the massacre. Contrast this against the extrajudicial murders of Sikh extremists by the police in the name of national security right under the patronage of the state. It is well documented how the police and security forces wiped out Sikh militancy in Punjab by using excessive force and killing the alleged extremists in staged shootouts.  
 
Secondly, Kumar has been convicted after 34 years, whereas the assassins of Gandhi were convicted within five years. While Beant Singh was shot to death immediately after the murder of Gandhi, Satwant Singh was hanged alongside the conspirator Kehar Singh in 1989. That the entire Sikh community was punished is a different story.
 
Notably, Kehar Singh wasn’t directly involved in the assassination. He was the uncle of Beant Singh. It is believed that he had provoked Beant Singh to murder her, even though the evidence against him wasn’t conclusive. Yet, he was hanged to death for conspiracy. This was despite the fact that his guilt wasn’t sufficiently proven.
 
The question, therefore, arises that if Kehar Singh could be hanged for conspiracy, why Kumar did not receive the death sentence. This is not to suggest that I support the death sentence. But I do want to question the double standards. How could someone accused of conspiring in the murder of one political leader get a death sentence; while someone who masterminded the mass murders got life imprisonment? 

In fact, Human Rights Lawyer H.S. Phoolka who has been spearheading the campaign for justice all these years does not support his execution. Phoolka was in the forefront of the judicial fight against Kumar. Some other Sikh activists, such as Canada-based author and co-founder of World Sikh Organization Gian Singh Sandhu have also rejected the demand for hanging Kumar. Sandhu insists that there was no capital punishment in the Sikh empire led by Ranjit Singh, so why should Kumar be hanged?
 
Thirdly, for all these years the victims’ families have been forced to live in penury and many orphaned kids took to drugs or petty crime. The women who were raped during the violence hardly got any justice. The social trauma had resulted in broken homes, domestic violence and substance abuse. No court of law can ever compensate for this loss.
 
Lastly, the massacre fuelled more political violence. Some of those who survived were forced to join militant ranks. Nirpreet Kaur herself joined an extremist group that wanted to establish a separate Sikh state. She once told me during a radio interview that she wanted to avenge the death of her father and that prompted her to join a militant organization. During her incarceration in Tihar Jail, she came under the influence of a senior jail police officer Kiran Bedi – who tried to reform prisoners through a more humanistic approach. This had changed the course of her life and once she was out, Kaur established an NGO to help the victims’ families.

The ugly events of 1984 had alienated the Sikhs from the national mainstream and had galvanized the movement for a separate Sikh homeland. Overseas, the Air India Flight 182 was bombed mid-air in June 1985. 329 people had died in the blast. The crime was blamed on Sikh separatists based in Canada. Some of those charged, but later acquitted, were deeply hurt by the developments of 1984. The delay in justice to the victims of 1984 has further widened this gulf as the movement for a separate Sikh state refuses to die in Canada.  
 
Kumar, his party and the Indian state, in general, need to take moral responsibility for the damage caused by the Sikh militants. You cannot squarely blame them for violence and extremism when you yourself have created an atmosphere for hatred and animosity. If that is not enough, the people abroad who ask for justice for 1984 are quickly labelled as separatists or extremists, whereas the Indian officials are themselves to be blamed for breeding violence by killing their own citizens in the streets of the national capital and elsewhere. 
 
On top of that, the 1984 episode laid the foundation for the 2002 anti-Muslim massacre. Kumar’s party, that wants to run against the presently ruling right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 general elections on the plank of secularism, have to acknowledge that it was they who introduced an era of impunity to Indian politics by engineering the Sikh massacre.
 
Scores of Muslims were murdered across the state of Gujarat in 2002 following the burning of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims. Over 50 passengers had died in the incident that was blamed on Muslim fundamentalists by the BJP. The current Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat back then. A similar method was applied to target the Muslims all over the state, just like it was used against Sikhs in 1984. Many believe that had justice been done in 1984, 2002 riots wouldn’t have happened. The legitimacy given to the anti-Sikh massacre because of the involvement of the state gave BJP an excuse to organize a similar pogrom.
 
Today, under the BJP government, the attacks on almost all religious minorities have grown. Like it or not, the process of turning India into a majoritarian state had begun in 1984. No amount of justice through courts can ever fix that.    
 
Those who continue to trust the Indian system and its judiciary and often give the rationale that the wheels of justice are slow, need to ask themselves why only for minorities? Kumar’s conviction is just another reminder that minorities in the world’s so-called largest democracy have never been treated with respect.
 

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As the Delhi High Court sentences Congress leader Sajjan Kumar to life imprisonment, Abhisar Sharma narrates what 1984 meant for him personally and how it brings back memories of one of the darkest periods of Independent India. 1984 was a chapter that was revisited later again and again as Indians refused to learn from one of the most shameful events in Indian history. In this episode of ‘Bol Ke Lab Azad Hain Tere’, Abhisar asks – is this a one time victory, or will there be justice for the victims of 1992 and 2002 as well, thereby restoring the faith of the common man in the wheels of justice?

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

The post 1984: A Dark Chapter in Indian History appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: Indian Express
 
Sajjan Kumar, 73, was convicted for playing a role in the murder of five family members residing in Raj Nagar in Delhi. He has been asked to surrender by December 31 and cannot leave the city. The court found him guilty of offences of murder, promoting enmity between groups and defiling public property.

“It is important to assure the victims that despite the challenges truth will prevail,” the High Court said, referring to the courage of Jagdish Kaur, a survivor of the horrific carnage who had fought for action against Sajjan Kumar and others. “The aftershock of those atrocities is still being felt,” said the court.

The order that comes close at the heals of the Congress’s resounding electoral victory in three key states in the assembly elections, is a sobering reminder that nobody, no matter how politically powerful, is above the law. During this 1984 genocide over 3000 people from the Sikh community were killed by rampaging mobs in wake of the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her body guards. Eye witnesses placed several top Congress leaders at the scene of different killings and Sajjan Kumar is only the first major leader to be convicted.

The Court not only noted that the “criminals have enjoyed political patronage,” but also that there was “abject police failure.” A former Congress Councillor, Balwan Khokhar, retired naval officer Captain Bhagmal and three others were held guilty in the Raj Nagar case but a trial court had acquitted Sajjan Kumar, the report said.

The entire judgement may be read here:

The convicts had challenged the 2013 trial court verdict and their sentence. The CBI had also filed an appeal against Sajjan Kumar’s acquittal, alleging that the mobs were engaged in “a planned communal riot” and “religious cleansing”. Nirpreet Kaur, who saw her father being burnt alive by the mobs, reportedly wept as she thanked the law for justice after 34 years.

A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel had concluded hearing arguments on the appeals filed by the CBI, riots victims and the convicts, against the trial court’s verdict on October 29 and reserved the judgment. This was the same bench that pronounced its judgement on the Hashimpura Custodial Killings where 16 PAC personnel were declared guilty of targeted murder.

A Division Bench comprising Justices S Muralidhar and IS Mehta heard the case. “In the summer of 1947, during partition, several people were massacred. 37 years later Delhi was the witness of a similar tragedy. The accused enjoyed political patronage and escaped trial,” the court judgment read.

The high court further observed, “It was an extraordinary case where it was going to be impossible to proceed against Sajjan Kumar in the normal scheme of things as there appeared to be ongoing large-scale efforts to suppress cases against him by not even recording them.”

Brief Background of the Case

The Ranganath Misra Commission, Kusum Mittal Committee, the Justice Jain Aggarwal Committee, the Nanavati Commission Report and court judgments have all pointed to the unholy nexus between the Delhi Police and the rioting mobs of 1984, during the carnage and in the investigation of cases.

While considering the evidence against Sajjan Kumar, the Nanavati Report specifically states that, “There is ample material to show that no proper investigation was done by the police even in those cases…There is also material to show that police did not note down the names of some of the assailants who were influential persons. One witness has specifically stated that he had named Shri Sajjan Kumar as one of the assailants yet his name was not noted in his statement by the police.” (pg. 161 Nanavati Report). The Nanavati Commission recommended to the Government to examine those cases where the witnesses have accused Shri Sajjan Kumar specifically and yet no chargesheets were filed against him and these cases were terminated as untraced…” by the Delhi Police.

People’s Union for Civil Liberties and People’s Union for Democratic Rights (‘Who are the Guilty’, PUCL-PUDR report, November 1984), named senior Congress leaders on the basis of allegations made by victims who had taken refuge in relief camps. However, no action against the perpetrators was forthcoming. The report listed HKL Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and Lalit Maken among the Congress leaders active in inciting mobs against the Sikh community. The media had named only one, Dharam Das Shastri, a former MP.

HKL Bhagat, who was named by several eyewitnesses as leading mobs, was chosen as the Congress party’s candidate from East Delhi, the worst affected area. Of the whopping 76.97 per cent of votes polled, Bhagat cornered a staggering 59.8 per cent (3,86,150 votes as opposed to the BJP’s 73,970). The majority of constituents chose to back a man identified as leading a murderous mob. Was this democratic sanction for carnage?

Similarly, Jagdish Tytler, chosen by the Congress party to contest elections from Sadar in Delhi, won with a whopping 62 per cent of the total 71.83 per cent of votes polled. His opponent, Madan Lal Khurana, won the remaining 35.78 per cent. Lalit Maken, another accused, fielded by the party from South Delhi, received 61.07 per cent of the 64.68 per cent of votes polled, capturing 2,15,898 votes.

Amidst the euphoria of the electoral victory that followed the massacre, these men were also elevated to more powerful positions in government. HKL Bhagat, previously a minister of state, was elevated to cabinet rank and Jagdish Tytler was made minister of state for the first time. Lalit Maken, formerly a councillor, had already been rewarded with a ticket for the polls in which he had won.

The Jain-Banerjee Committee (one of three committees set up on the recommendation of the Misra Commission and which investigated omission in registration of cases) actually instructed the Delhi police in October 1987 to register a case of murder against Sajjan Kumar, who was a Congress MP from the Outer Delhi constituency in 1984, on the basis of an affidavit filed by a riot widow, Anwar Kaur. However, no action was taken until the cover-up was exposed by journalist Manoj Mitta in The Times of India. (An individual named Brahmanand Gupta, who was also named in the affidavit, obtained a stay order against the Jain-Banerjee Committee from the Delhi high court and the court allowed the matter to languish for two years, furthering injustice to the victims.)

The CBI finally registered a case against Sajjan Kumar only in 1990 and completed its investigations two years later. Apart from charging Sajjan Kumar with murder, the CBI also charged him with hate speech, invoking Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. This required central government sanction before prosecution, which was obtained from the Narasimha Rao government only in June 1994.

Through the findings of the Nanavati Commission, many eminent persons have for the first time been able to put on record how, during the massacre of 1984, the then union home minister, PV Narasimha Rao, and the then lieutenant governor of Delhi, PG Gavai, failed to take constitutionally binding and firm measures when urged to call in the army. Several depositions before the Nanavati Commission also provided fresh evidence against Congress leaders HKL Bhagat and Sajjan Kumar, reiterating their role in the violence. Analysis of the evidence before the commission also brought to light an important pattern/strategy followed by the police authorities during that period, which was to first disarm Sikhs and then arrest them. The Kusum Lata Mittal report, which revealed police complicity at the highest level, was also revealed for the first time through documents placed before the Nanavati Commission.

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Thousands of Sikhs were murdered across India during the first week of November 1984 following the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. The innocent Sikhs were systematically targeted by mobs led by Gandhi’s ruling Congress party in connivance with the police.

Years have passed, but there has been no justice to the victims’ families. Barring a few convictions of foot soldiers involved in the mayhem, no senior politician complicit in the crime has been brought to book. Successive non-Congress governments, including the current one led by the right wing Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), also failed to bring closure. In fact, attacks on religious minorities have grown under the BJP rule. It is believed that BJP supporters also joined the murderous gangs that let loose a reign of terror on Sikhs in 1984, to help Congress win the election riding on a wave of sympathy by polarizing the Hindu majority in the aftermath of Gandhi’s murder. 

In the absence of justice and the Indian establishment’s continued denial of any wrongdoing in the world’s so called largest democracy, Canada and other western democracies need to step in.

This becomes even more necessary after the recent appointment of Kamal Nath as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh (MP) state in India.

Nath was seen leading the mobs outside a historic gurdwara in New Delhi, the national capital of India. Though he was never charged, the witnesses believe he was responsible for the violence that led to at least two murders near the gurdwara. Nath denies this and claims having tried to distract the crowd. 

Under his leadership, the Congress won the assembly election in MP after defeating the BJP. The liberal democrats who see Congress as a secular alterative to the BJP continue to overlook its baggage of 1984 and have shown scant interest in the outrage over Nath’s appointment.

Despite worldwide protests by Sikhs against his appointment as Chief Minister, the Congress party went ahead with its controversial decision, which establishes that the party doesn’t care about the Sikhs who make up merely two per cent of the Indian population. Canadian Sikhs too have been petitioning against his impending appointment. Notably, when Nath was visiting Canada in 2010 as union minister he was greeted by angry Sikh protesters. The New Democrat Leader at the time, Jack Layton, had boycotted his events.   
   
Canada, which has a significant number of Sikh MPs and ministers in the federal government, should learn something from the legacy of a towering leader like Layton and seriously think of recognizing the 1984 violence as genocide.  

That’s the least the Canadian government can do to exert pressure on India for justice. After all, there has been a campaign going on for this in our country. Several MPs have unsuccessfully tried to achieve this target by presenting a genocide petition in the house, while Ontario legislature has already passed a motion calling 1984 massacre genocide.

Not surprisingly, these symbolic, but important actions drew angry response from the Indian government, which won’t ever acknowledge something that ruptures its reputation internationally. Recognizing it as such in future will elicit similar response. Even the BJP government isn’t going to accept this in spite of the fact that the crime was committed by the Congress. The reason is simple. The BJP too has many skeletons in its closet, as it had engineered a similar massacre against Muslims in Gujarat back in 2002. The current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat when the violence broke out against Muslims. While Modi was never charged, the survivors believe he was involved in the massacre. Once 1984 is recognized as genocide, the 2002 episode cannot be left out of the list of genocides all over the world, and the BJP will never want this to happen.   

Canada shouldn’t just worry about its trade relations with India. It must pay attention to its obligation to human rights or simply stop claiming to be a global champion of social justice.

Keeping in view that the Indian establishment refuses to serve justice to the victims of 1984 and has repeatedly shown its unwillingness to listen to any amount of criticism from both inside and outside the country, foreign intervention is the only hope. Often those seeking justice are branded as “anti-nationals” or Sikh separatists to silence the activists who have been raising this issue for years. The Congress conveniently labels them as supporters of BJP and its Sikh allies.  The critics of such efforts won’t acknowledge that all of them aren’t from the Sikh community alone. There are some humanists, including those who denounce Sikh separatists, but have been campaigning for justice for 1984.

Rather than demonizing those fighting for justice and fairness, it’s the Indian state in general and Congress in particular that need to be exposed. For the record, an Indian court recently described the 1984 violence as genocide, while the Congress leaders have often compared BJP with Nazis. If that is all acceptable to the Indian mainstream then why Canada is scared of using the “G” word?

Whether the definition of genocide is applicable on the 1984 Sikh massacre remains debatable and not everyone is on the same page. But the fact remains that it was an act of state sponsored terrorism against a minority community and those who committed it must be held accountable.

Canada must rise to the occasion and tell Indian government in clear terms: either give justice to the Sikhs or recognize the massacre as genocide, to send a strong message to the establishment that allowed the killings of its citizens with impunity and refuses to give justice.  That’s the only language a repressive and unresponsive regime understands. By remaining neutral, Canada is clearly siding with the oppressors. The BJP today is just taking advantage of that by normalizing violence against minorities. Thanks to the deafening silence of countries like Canada, the Indian state goes on to persecute minorities and the oppressed communities unchallenged. Canada has to make a beginning somewhere to break this silence. If not now, then when? 
 

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