Kids Corner

1984

The Pot Calling The Kettle Black:
Modi’s RSS Endorsed, Supported & Participated In 1984 Genocide

SHAMSUL ISLAM

 

 

 




EDITOR’S NOTE

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a new approach to deflecting worldwide alarm over his government’s fomenting communal tensions in India and the atmosphere of intolerance it has been fostering in order to further the Hindu fundamentalist agenda being put forward by his party, the BJP, and the RSS, of which he is a life-long member and its Elder.

Modi’s new defence of the rising intolerance under his watch is that his party should not be criticized for its role in a rash of mass murders which are creating the tensions because the Congress Party (the Opposition) itself was the author of a genocide in 1984!


Various fingers are being pointed in every direction: Modi's thesis is that each party, including the present RSS/BJP gang, is guilty of mass murders of minorities, therefore the current government‘s crimes should be above reproach and beyond criticism!
 
In coming up with this novel defence -- the pot calling the kettle black, and vice versa -- and in criticising (finally, after 31 long years!) the Congress for its anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984, Mr Modi has conveniently failed to mention that his mentor and RSS ideologue and luminary, Chandikadas Amritrao Deshmukh, also known as Nana Deshmukh, had given open support to the Congress Party for the genocide of Sikhs, lauded the massacres and offered a detailed justification of the same based on his Hindu extremist ideology.

Deshmukh circulated a document on November 9, 1984 which has been summarized by Mr Shansul Islam, as follows:


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The document helps 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. Mr. Nana Deshmukh in this document is seen outlining the justification of the massacre of the Sikh community in 1984. According to him the massacre of Sikhs was not the handiwork of any group or anti-social elements but the result of a genuine feeling of anger among Hindus of India.

This document also shows the true degenerated and fascist attitude of the RSS -- [the very same organization that Modi belongs to] -- 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.

The RSS often poses as a firm believer in Hindu-Sikh unity. But 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 justified. Deshmukh in this document 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. From his document it emerges that the killers of Indira Gandhi were working under some kind of mandate of their community. Hence attacks on Sikhs were justified.

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      It was Sikh community as a whole which 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. Interestingly, Deshmukh would not mind having militant Hindus. Moreover, he treated all Sikhs as part of the same gang and defended 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 on the killing of such a great leader such killings could not be avoided.

9      Rajiv Gandhi who succeeded Mrs. Gandhi as the Prime Minister of India 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 1948 killing of Mohandas Gandhi  and we find Deshmukh advising Sikhs to suffer silently. Everybody knows that the killing of Gandhi was inspired by the RSS and the Hindutva Ideology whereas the common innocent Sikhs had nothing to do with the murder of Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

11    There was not a single sentence in the Deshmukh document demanding, from the then Congress Government at the Centre, 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 1-10 was the period when the maximum killings of Sikhs took place. Deshmukh was just not bothered about all this.

This document was published in the Hindi Weekly ‘Pratipaksh’ and 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'.

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[Courtesy: Cross Currents. Edited for sikhchic.com]

November 3, 2015
 

Conversation about this article

1: Kanwarjeet Singh (USA), November 03, 2015, 9:12 PM.

We learn one thing. The sudden support by right wingers and the demand for an apology for 1984 from left wingers and the new crocodile tears from some Indians is nothing but a ruse. Let's not get suckered into this political game and get emotional about it. There is no empathy, just a stunt to use us. Their hope is that the Sikhs will stand against Modi, just like they did against Indira and become sacrificial lambs. Let's stand aside and watch them self destruct. Let's be politically savvy.

2: Rup Singh (Canada), November 05, 2015, 2:38 PM.

@ 1 - I totally agree, Sikhs at this critical juncture must adopt a 'us-first' mentality in India as a default survival mode. This is the only way to survive among the most hateful, intolerant and ungrateful people in the world.

3: Khushvant Singh (Pune, India), November 06, 2015, 11:13 PM.

I totally agree. But I appeal we should prepare for and react on this with patience and a cool head. It looks like the anti-Sikh communities have some master plan for another 1984.

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