1984
1984 Still Haunts Us All
ANIL DHIR
A journalist engages with history as it happens while a historian deals with it in retrospect.
As both a journalist and historian, I find it difficult to piece together the compelling face of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom more than 30 years after it happened.
How did the genocide happen when the then President was himself a Sikh?
Today, how do the guilty Congressmen get away for the murder of innocent Sikhs in much-delayed trials, even when the previous Prime Minister himself was a Sikh?
These snippets that have been pieced together do not answer these questions, rather they raise the question of why out of the 2,733 officially admitted murders, only nine cases have so far led to minor convictions of 20 people in 25 years; a conviction rate of less than 1%.
I am not a Sikh, but I know and have met many who were targeted in those massacres. As a small-town young man in Bhubaneswar (capital of Odisha, India), I too had experienced the fear factor first hand.
On the evening of Indira Gandhi’s death, I got a phone call from the owner of a filling station at Rasulgarh on the outskirts of town. My Sikh neighbor, Sardar Joginder Singh, had been holed up along with half a dozen Sikh truckers in a small room behind the pumps. A big crowd had collected at the junction of the National Highway.
I drove down in my old car, but seeing the situation there I knew it would be difficult to get him out. I returned home and took a couple of blankets and, parking my car at a distance, walked to the place. I asked Joginder uncle to make his way from among the fields that lay behind and, further away, I would be waiting.
I saw him emerge from the darkness with another burly Sikh in accompaniment. He was a driver who had parked his truck and wanted to make his way out. I bundled him with great difficulty in the trunk of the car, Joginder uncle was made to lie down on the back seat, amply covered by the blanket. We were stopped thrice on the way, but I had switched on the light inside the car, and seeing a lone driver the crowd had waved me off.
The Sikhs of Bhubaneswar were not subjected to the mayhem that was unleashed in places like Tatanagar, Rourkela, Bokaro, Chas, Indore, Bidar, Rohtas, Kanpur and other cities.
However they had to keep themselves indoors and were forced to hold a memorial march for Indira Gandhi days later. Only then were they allowed to get back to their respective businesses.
I was in Delhi a week after the massacres. I saw the actual devastation, the hundreds of burnt taxis, trucks and shops that had been owned by Sikhs. Razed gurdwaras still awaited kaar seva.
I had seen the agony of orphans, bereaved mothers and wives, injured and mauled men in the relief camps. The tragic tales they told were blood curdling.
To prevent Sikhs from taking refuge in gurdwaras, most of Delhi's 450 gurdwaras had been sacked in the early hours of the violence. Women had been raped while their terrified families pleaded for mercy, little or none of which was shown by the Congress flag-bearers.
All India Radio and Doordarshan kept on broadcasting blood-curdling slogans of 'khoon ka badla khoon se’ raised by Congress party workers ostensibly grieving over their departed leader, India Gandhi.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was then president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, had instructed party leaders in Delhi to organise relief camps and provide succour to the survivors of the pogrom. Madan Lal Khurana and Vijay Kumar Malhotra had braved the marauders to move from colony to colony, giving whatever help they could.
'The BJP is an anti-national party,' responded the Congress.
Manmohan Singh's elevation to India's prime minister was looked upon by the Sikh community as the vindication of its destiny of being born to rule.
Singh was king. The past was forgiven but not forgotten and his trademark blue turban represented a collective crown for the persecuted community. They believed that the guilty would finally be punished …
But what happened and is happening is for all to see.
The new government now should establish a truth and reconciliation commission. A special prosecutor's office with a wide range of powers and mandates should be set up and rehabilitation to the long-neglected survivors and victims should affected.
The genocide should be accepted and acknowledged in history books, memorials and museums.
Social scientists belief that what victims of suffering want is to be listened to in order to heal their wounds. Indeed, the therapeutic effect of being able to narrate one's suffering and to be able to reveal one's wounds publicly cannot be underestimated.
The jeering images of those accused of organising violence in the news media being felicitated by supporters, addressing election rallies, etc., can surely neither be read as signs of justice nor reconciliation.
At the Karkardoma court, while angry Sikhs rattled at the locked gates, Sajjan Kumar left leering, while speaking into his mobile, as he sauntered jauntily past cameras.
A victim told media persons present there, “Today feels worse than 1984!“
Remember: those who forget history are forced to repeat it.
Let’s say a silent prayer in memory of more than 7,000 Sikh men, women and children slaughtered by the Congress hoodlums three decades ago.
August 20, 2014
Conversation about this article
1: Kaala Singh (Punjab), August 20, 2014, 1:07 PM.
1984 was a watershed year in Sikh and Indian history. It should serve as an eye-opener for every Sikh. Sikhs should know that they made the wrong choice by joining India in 1947 and put themselves at the mercy of an uncivilized and savage majority and are completely defenceless against their onslaught. Those who think that 1984 will not be repeated are living in a fool's paradise. We saw a 1984 flashback recently in Saharanpur. Of course, we will always have puppets and collaborators masquerading as Sikhs telling us otherwise but we should not get fooled anymore if we are to survive as a distinct people. Every Sikh should know about the role played by Baldev Singh and Tara Singh in 1947 and by Zail Singh, Manmohan Singh, Buta Singh and Beant Singh in 1984 and thereafter and never allow such self-serving people to stab us in the back and exploit our divisions ever again. If we are to die, let us put up a united fight and die honourable deaths and not like 1984 where we were caught like sitting ducks. As the Jews learnt their lessons after the Nazi holocaust, the Sikhs must learn their lessons after the genocide of 1984. If we don't, we alone will be responsible for our fate.
2: Rup Singh (Canada), August 20, 2014, 4:13 PM.
@ 1 - I agree with everything you said. Sikhs should never forget the past and have the foresight to take measures so we don't suffer such pogroms in the future. Also we should make our so-called leaders more accountable. Tragedy is we have lacked, and still do, leadership that is committed to the Sikh cause. I would also add that the SGPC and the Takht jathedaars during the early 80's must also share the blame because the Akal Takht and some of the Darbar Sahib complex was fortified under their watch.
3: Manbir Banwait (Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada), August 20, 2014, 9:56 PM.
I think one of the most interesting pieces of information in this article is the fact that "Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was then president of the Bharatiya Janata Party" helped the Sikhs by setting up relief camps. If this can be proven somehow, the man should be honored from the Sikh sangat for stepping forward and helping when so many did not do so.
4: Kanwarjeet Singh (USA), August 21, 2014, 7:12 AM.
Actually, sadly, 1984 does not haunt all ... it only haunts the Sikhs. Most Hindus rejoiced in the killings either by actively participating in the genocide or choosing not to be affected by all the murder and mayhem around them. Not a single Hindu or Muslim organization has come to the aid of Sikhs or has provided moral support for the same in the last 30 years. Some of the banias who provided kerosene for the burning of Sikhs are strong BJP supporters, so BJP is equally involved. Sajjan Kumar and Tytler are just the face of the real India. If 1984 haunted us all, how come for 20 years after 1984 Sikhs were still being taunted as "terrorist,' etc., in every part of India? How come not a single non-Sikh organization walks with Sikhs every November asking for justice. We will neither forget nor forgive. In fact those Indians have sown the seeds of poison and are reaping the fruits of the same - your own daughters are being raped by your sons, mothers and fathers are being killed by their own greedy children, crime is at it's highest in parts of India where the genocide took place. We do, however, thank the few Indians -- such as the author, Mr Dhir -- who had some humanity left and worked to save Sikhs.
5: K Kaur (Canada), August 21, 2014, 8:01 PM.
#3 Yes, I agree that those who helped should be honored but unfortunately neither Atal Bihari Vajpayee nor the BJP were one of them. Despite setting up camps after the fact, the BJP was fully endorsing of and behind the attack on Darbar Sahib and the other 40 gurdwaras, setting into motion the series of events that ultimately led to the open killing of Sikhs in November 1984. I suspect these camps -- even if they ever existed -- provided a PR exercise for Vajpayee in an attempt to minimize his and the BJP's role in the massacre. In the Lok Sabha on July 25, 1984 Vajpayee said: "First of all I want to congratulate those officers who freed Harmandar Sahib, sacred to all the Indians, from terrorists by sacrificing their lives and putting their precious lives in danger. The army had been given a delicate responsibility and the army should be felicitated for accomplishing their duty efficiently and bravely." (Proceedings of the Lok Sabha, July 25, 1984.)
6: Jas Kaur (New Delhi, India), August 22, 2014, 4:33 AM.
For Anil ji's bravery, we honour him and express our gratitude. However, the suggestion that either Vaypayee or the BJP did anything humane or decent over the 1984 crimes of India is not only far-fetched but also not supported by the facts of which we are now clearly aware. The BJP is quite adept at re-writing history to achieve its self-serving agenda, and has also publicly announced its current projects designed to do so. This bit of re-writing of history is equally mischievous and fraudulent. On this issue, I'd suggest Anil ji is sadly misinformed.
7: Kaala Singh (Punjab), August 22, 2014, 12:34 PM.
While the facts are well-known in Sikh circles, for the record, Vajpayee had publicaly promised the Sikh community that if the BJP comes to power he will bring all culprits of 1984 Sikh genocide to justice but did nothing when he did come to power. He appointed the Nanavati Commission to probe the anti-Sikh violence of November 1984. Nanavati was also given the responsibility to probe the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat. I wonder how a single individual could do justice to the probe of two massacres of this magnitude, separated by a lengthy passage of time. Nanavati did what he was told to do by his political masters: he exonerated the the chief architects of both massacres; their henchmen to be exonerated by India's corrupt courts where cases would be dragged endlessly and the victims and witnesses would would get exhausted or die of old age, or were intimidated into withdrawing their affidavits and therefore have little hope of pursuing these expensive legal cases. Sikhs and other minorities should know that there is a tacit agreement between the Congress and BJP that nobody will be touched for the Sikh genocide by the Congress, or for the Muslim genocide by the BJP. Those who expect justice are living in a fool's paradise. Sikhs being a community with no honest leaders and intellectual think-tanks are easily misled as they were in 1947 and several times thereafter. As I have said in my earlier posts, we must have independent institutions dedicated to protecting Sikh interests and manned by educated and committed individuals and not like the buffoons we have today or we had in 1947. The fundamental question here is, why should we be at the mercy of a Vajpayee or a Modi to provide us justice, why can't we be the masters of our own destiny?
8: Rup Singh (Canada), August 22, 2014, 1:03 PM.
It's not only the BJP the Indians should be worried about but also it's fanatical allies. L.K. Advani says in his book that he gave Indra Gandhi his full support for the 1984 attack on the Darbar Sahib. Some even say he was actually adamant in egging on the decision to attack. One doesn't has to go that far back to realize that the BJP is anti-Sikh; as just one example, look at how they are treating Sikh farmers today in Modi's own Gujarat.
9: Kaala Singh (Punjab), August 22, 2014, 1:39 PM.
Further to my post above, as there is a large section of Sikhs and others today who are not aware of the facts: Having seen the shenanigans of the Indian state and its selective justice system, Sikhs as a distinct people and a small minority will never know a sense of security if we don't have the capability to extract a price from those who inflict such pain on us. Those who think that the brave men who took on the oppressors from 1986 to 1996 and made the ultimate sacrifice were "terrorists" should think twice. They are the reason why we continue to live.
10: Manbir Banwait (Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada), August 22, 2014, 3:07 PM.
I believe the events of the Indian Army's invasion of the Darbar Sahib in June and the genocide of Sikhs in November 1984 should be looked at separately. The invasion of the Darbar Sahib was solely to further Indira Gandhi's political agenda and the targeting of innocent civilians by Congress goondas and Hindu zealots six months later are two distinctly separate events.
11: N Singh (Canada), August 22, 2014, 4:41 PM.
#10 - The invasion of Darbar Sahib let to the execution of Indira Gandhi. This opportunity was then exploited to initiate the anti-Sikh pogrom. I am not sure how one event in history can be isolated from other. History and human life in general are a continuum of evolution. One step leads to another. I have never heard of an argument such as yours in any intellectual or academic cycle. Is it another Hindutva concept concocted up from the Vedas much like the theory that the atom bomb was created in ancient Bharat?
12: Kaala Singh (Punjab), August 22, 2014, 7:51 PM.
@#10: November 1984 would have happened even if Indira Gandhi had not been executed. The Congress had been preparing for this much earlier. A massacre of this scale all over India needs a lot of planning and resources and mobilization of the criminal minds who did the actual killings. How can one explain that the killings started within a couple of hours after the death and in three days that followed so much killing was done that it will put the Nazis to shame. The world's largest "secular democracy" has a lot of skeletons in its closet who are waiting to come out and new facts are emerging every day.
13: Gurinder Singh (Stockton, California, U.S.A.), August 22, 2014, 8:17 PM.
Kala singh ji: We are to blame ourselves for not being masters of our destiny as we have dishonest and corrupt leaders. Badal was always claiming he wanted a SIT to prosecute the perpetrators. When Arvind kejriwal formed one, he denounced it. How can we trust such rascals?
14: Kaala Singh (Punjab), August 22, 2014, 11:11 PM.
Gurinder Singh ji: We need to understand the politics of Punjab to answer your question. Badal is doing what his masters in the BJP are telling him to do. BJP controls the 40% Hindu vote of Punjab. Badal's main support base is the rural farmers whose vote share is 25% who are mostly uneducated and will vote for anyone who doles out freebies like free water and electricity, but have enough money to buy expensive drugs and alcohol. All Badal cares about is his votebank and his political masters without whom he cannot rule. True change will come only when the large votebank of farmers becomes educated and aware of their real interests and emerge as a united political force.