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1984

Grandma Wolf To Investigate The Red Riding Hood Riot:
30 Years Later, India Appoints 21st Inquiry Into 1984 Pogroms

T. SHER SINGH

 

 

 




The Government of India announced this week that it was setting up yet another inquiry -- this one is titled with an Indianism: Special Investigation Unit (“SIT“) -- the 21st one, I think in 30 years, into what it calls the 1984 ‘riots‘.

Riots?

Are you serious?

Was Ravan’s kidnapping and defilement of Sita a riot?

Was The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre a riot?

Was Mohandas Gandhi’s murder by an RSS Hindu fanatic a riot?

Was Indira Gandhi’s public execution by India’s elite security unit a riot?

Was Rajiv Gandhi’s final reckoning by a group of Tamil patriots a riot?

Describing the subject of this latest inquiry into the 1984 pogroms from the very outset as 'riots' is like starting the trial of the notorious mass-murderer, Charles Manson, by labelling his murder spree a 'riot', and using that designation as a term of reference throughout.

Thus, the SIT is, ab initio, an eyewash. No ifs, no buts.

From thereon, it gets worse. It’s a cynical attempt by the Modi government to pre-empt real action by the newly elected AAP government in Delhi. The argument by the Hindutva crowd will be that the ‘field is occupied’, that you cannot have two levels of government doing the same thing.

And then, it’ll do nothing. It’s called SIT, not for nothing. It involves sitting on one’s hands.

To ensure that indeed nothing is done by this move, they have named three RSS supporters to constitute the SIT panel.

And, as everything the BJP does, you scratch the surface, and you only uncover filth underneath.

Let’s dig.

The team is to be chaired by Pramod Asthana, an Indian Police Officer (IPS) who is currently serving as a bureaucrat under the Orwellian title of “Director, Research & Correctional Division, the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D).”

An IPS officer. Isn’t that the cadre which has been openly indicted as the most corrupt of all bureaucracies on the subcontinent? In recent times, I’ve known of only one honest IPS officer: I knew him because he and his young family had snuck out under cover of darkness one night to flee the country and lay low in Montreal, Canada, because he had refused to murder a prisoner at the behest of his superiors and was now in fear for his own life and that of his family.

So, Mr Asthana, IPS, is going to chair the 1984 SIT.

And, to make sure he doesn’t go rogue by doing anything right, the second member of the panel is Shri Kumar Gynash.

Guess what? He too is an IPS officer and, wonder of wonders, Asthana and Gynash are old buddies: they graduated together in the same IPS batch in 1986.

As I said earlier, this too gets worse.

Gynash is Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, New Delhi.

Delhi Police?

Wasn’t this the same police force which actually aided in the pogroms in 1984? And now, a member of the same force is going to investigate them and pass judgement on them? If you know as much about police culture as I do, you’ll know that a policemen’s chance of doing this job honestly and with integrity is the same as a snowball’s chance in hell.

And remember, two of the three SIT panelists are police officers. Not just police officers, but INDIAN police officers!

It’s like appointing Grandma Wolf to investigate the complaint filed by Red Riding Hood. 

And the third amigo?

Rakesh Kapoor, also an RSS enthusiast, is a retired District and Session Judge.

Forgive me if that doesn’t warm the cockles of my heart, but you see, I happen to know that India’s judiciary is almost as corrupt as its police establishment. It is common knowledge that India’s judges can be bought with a song … and sometimes a little bit more.

Again, it is also no secret that many of the judges -- all of them senior and purportedly with ’good’ reputations -- involved in past 1984 inquiries were generously rewarded with promotions and plum appointments after they had obediently white-washed the role of their masters in the 1984 massacres.

So, what will this Rakesh Kapoor, a middle level, retired judge do with a police officer sitting on either side, breathing down his neck?
 
Add to all of the above, there’s the all-important query -- Who’s actually appointing this SITting trio?

A government which is headed by a Prime Minister who is himself a mass-murderer? And by a political party whose president is a mass-murderer?

You’d have to be wilfully blind to think that this step by the Modi government has any sincerity or significance or meaning, other than being the latest cynical shenanigan from a morally bankrupt land.

I wouldn’t waste a minute or a khotta paisa (fake penny) on this latest badmashi (mischief).


February 14, 2015 
 

Conversation about this article

1: Vikramjit Singh (New Delhi, India), February 14, 2015, 10:02 AM.

You did warn us that things would be getting far worse before they even begin to get better. Well, they are ... getting worse, that is. Since you're right on the first half, I hope and pray you're right on the second half of your prognosis too.

2: Kaala Singh (Punjab), February 14, 2015, 10:57 AM.

The SIT is just an eyewash and the Sikhs and the world community at large should not get fooled. India is trying to kill several birds with one stone. Here's how. 1 India is clamouring to get a permanent seat in the UN Security council and the world is thinking that, does a country incapable of providing security to its own people right in its capital city who are massacred in their thousands, deserve a permanent seat in the security council? India is a signatory to the international treaty for prevention of Genocide, but it is known all over the world as a perpetrator of genocide. This is a way to obfuscate reality. 2 India is trying hard to attract capital and technology from the civilized world and is trying to portray a secular, liberal and civilized face to the outside world. The image of a fanatical and genocidal country goes against this endeavour. (Remember, Einstein wouldn't have come to America and given them the nuclear bomb if America wasn't a liberal democracy). 3 It is again trying to fool the alienated Sikh community into believing that the new regime is sympathetic towards the Sikhs and will serve justice, since Sikhs have started making inroads into revealing the reality to the whole world and are building an international case for self-determination on the basis of the 1984 Genocide.

3: Jeet Kaur (India), February 14, 2015, 12:26 PM.

URGENT: The information in this article is important but not available to or easily accessible by our community in India. Not many are aware of this site. I urge Sikhs around the world to take this article, and others like this one, cut and paste them in their emails, and send them to their contacts, asking them to forward them to their own connections, and so on. It is crucial that we utilize an information-dispersing tree in this manner if we are to counter the extensive propaganda that is being flooded in India and confusing the people into believing lies and half-truths. Thanks. Chardi Kalaa ...

4: Kaala Singh (Punjab), February 14, 2015, 12:44 PM.

This article is very thought-provoking and raises many questions. Commenting in his usual, callous manner about the 1984 Anti-Sikh Genocide, Rajiv Gandhi had said: "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes." However, the earth didn't shake much, did it, when a bigger tree fell and Mohandas Gandhi was killed by an RSS nutcase? And how about when a really, really big tree fell on Rajiv Gandhi himself, aided by his own co-religionists? He was blown up into smithereens, but the earth didn't even budge! Life has a way of sorting things out ...

5: Kaala Singh (Punjab), February 14, 2015, 2:04 PM.

Setting up a sham SIT and putting a few people behind bars will be no closure of this issue. The issue is much bigger than this, the fact of the matter is that India used the killing of Indira Gandhi as an excuse to carry out a genocide. India has failed in its constitutional obligations towards the Sikhs and has no right to rule over us. Can India give us a guarantee that Sikhs will not be subjected to such violence again if it wants to retain us as part of the Indian union? India will have to choose between the Sikhs and the perpetrators of this Genocide, it can't have both. Sikhs should do now what they didn't in 1947, negotiate a comprehensive agreement with the Indian state authenticated by the UN and other world powers with documented terms and conditions under which there will be protection of our rights and guarantee of our security ... failing which we will have the right to go our own way.

6: Kaala Singh (Punjab), February 14, 2015, 4:02 PM.

Regardless of what India may or may not do, Sikhs should be clear in their minds that we are different and our destiny is different. Sikhs need to have an internal debate and decide once and for all, do we want to be at the mercy of lowly thugs like Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi or do we want to be the masters of our own destiny? India has no dearth of such thugs who will misuse the power vested in them whenever an opportunity arises for personal gain, and weaker sections will become human sacrifices in their immoral lust for power and pelf.

7: Jeevan Singh (Los Angeles, California, USA), February 14, 2015, 7:34 PM.

The police refused to lay any charges against the obvious culprits for 30 long years. Now, under the aegis of a right-wing extremist Hindu governing party, they're going to investigate the allegations? Indians are indeed the stupidest people on the planet to think this latest ruse of theirs fools or appeases anyone.

8: G C Singh (USA), February 15, 2015, 12:47 PM.

This so-called SIT is the the latest in the long series of Nazi-like Hindu stunts where the accused appoints his own investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury simply to protect the guilty, delay justice and obfuscate the truth. While tens of thousands of innocent Sikhs were picked up under draconian laws and killed in fake encounters, the well known and well identified Hindu mass murderers who committed the horrendous genocide of the Sikhs in broad day light are being protected by endless inquiry commissions for the last 30 years while enjoying official patronage and 'Z' security!

9: Kaala Singh (Punjab), February 15, 2015, 4:32 PM.

Who are they trying to fool by this gimmick? We will not be fooled again and will remember 1984 for all times to come. The 1984 Genocide of Sikhs is the darkest and most shameful chapter in the miserable history of the subcontinent for thousands of years and they want to erase it from memory? They go about the world telling everyone how tolerant, peaceful and and democratic they are and beg for investments (Remember, this is how they lured Sikhs into joining India), but the moment someone mentions 1984 you can see them blushing, this is the real reason for the sham SIT.

10: Kaala Singh (Punjab), February 16, 2015, 1:05 AM.

If we look around the world, countries of India's size and resources are successful countries and are net exporters of capital and technology. Just look at neighbouring China. Both India and China became independent around the same time and were on par in every respect but India was better placed to advance due to its superior infrastructure and education system, thanks to the efficient system the British had put in place to subjugate and plunder the land. Look at where China is now with a GDP of more than 10 trillion dollars, challenging the supremacy of the Western world. It is the result of evil actions of the Indian state such as the 1984 Sikh Genocide and persecution of minorities, that they have not been able to progress, are as miserable as ever and still have to go around the world with a begging bowl. To give but one example, the decade of Sikh resistance in Punjab which extracted a huge cost from the Indian State, was a direct consequence of the 1984 Sikh Genocide. There are many more examples but this example will suffice in this context. Some unbiased Indian think tanks have even called the 1980s as the "lost decade" in which India made no progress. Instead, it regressed. India cannot progress and give its people a life of dignity if it continues on this destructive path. This is what Obama courageously pointed out during his recent visit. It is in India's own interest to take some meaningful action instead of setting up sham SITs. If India thinks that it can wipe out its minorities as a senior Indian leader Balram Jakhar once threatened Sikhs, they are living in a world of illusions. They will have to deal with the Sikhs and other minorities on an equal-footing and honour their rights and freedoms. Sikhs may have suffered painful blows but are still alive and kicking all over the world. Billions of dollars worth of arms imports not withstanding, India does not have the capability to wipe out its minorities.

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30 Years Later, India Appoints 21st Inquiry Into 1984 Pogroms "









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