1984Massacre woundsthat

donot heal
Satyindra Singh

On October 21 1984 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was

assassinated; within the next four or five days nearly three
thousand Indians were slaughtered by fellow Indians and the
vast majority of killings were in the national capital. But whilst
Indira Gandhi's assassins have been hanged two years later the
killers of the thousands have not only not been punished but the
nation continues to honor them by making them ministers and
holders of party office with senior positions. Many are also
likely lo be given tickets for the forthcoming elections.

These killers have no remorse of any kind fortified as they are

by their leadership at the highest level—Prime Minister
Narasimha Rao was the Home Minister in 1984. In stark
contrast we need to recall the massacre at Jallianwala Baugh
on Vaisakhi Day in 1919. Unbelievably in the House of
Commons the most uncompromising of Imperialists Winston
Churchill stated: "However we may dwell upon the difficulties of
General Dyer upon the critical situation in the Punjab upon the
danger to the Europeans throughout the provinces— one
tremendous fact Stands out I mean the slaughter of nearly 400
persons. That is an episode without parallel in the modern
history of the British Empire —we have to make it absolutely
clear that this is not the British way of doing business."

Dyer was removed from his command and not long afterwards
was a broken man; only a few days before his death he turned
to his wife and said: "I long to meet my God so that I may ask
whether I did right or wrong at Amritsar!" One wonders
whether the strong man of the Delhi Congress H.K.L. Bhagal
and the others involved experience any sense of remorse or will
ever be punished.

It needs to be mentioned here that the 1984 killings (why do we

call them riots '?) were the largest since the massive obscenity
of the 1947 religious Slaughter and comparable to the
holocaust by some of our invaders centuries ago. Jawahar Lal
Nehru said in one of his letters to Mountbatten dated June 22
1947 (quoted him one of the twelve volumes of Transfer of
Power, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office) that
"Human beings have an amazing capacity to endure
misfortune. They can bear calamity after calamity, but it is very
difficult to have to bear something, which can apparently be
avoided. It is curious that when tragedy affects an individual we
feel the full force of it, but when the individual is multiplied a
thousand fold, our senses are dulled and we become
insensitive."

The nation is aware, but strangely silent, about the savagery

indulged in by her cohorts and the party in power in the wake of
the assassination. Thousands of helpless men, women and
children, who were pulled out of running trains, were butchered
by rampaging mobs. We have had any number of committees,
commissions and judges making recommendations to render
justice, handing out the severest strictures on a partisan and
criminalized police force.

Throughout the carnage, Delhi's policemen either made

themselves scarce or stood by while mobs set fire to
defenseless human beings, some even participating in the orgy
of violence. In the Lajpat Nagar area of Delhi on November 1,
when a group of concerned citizens tried to organize a peace
march in support of Hindu-Sikh amity, a police jeep blocked the
way and the police officials demanded to know if the marchers
had official permission. In Trilokpuri, scores of witnesses have
testified that policemen were seen supplying diesel oil and
petrol to arsonists. These are but a few examples of the
perversity of those in majority and in power.

Sikh educational institutions and several large and many small

houses were burnt, movable property, cash and jewellery
stolen or destroyed. Factories and business premises, together
with machinery and stock in trade, were looted, damaged or
destroyed. A disturbing feature of this is—according to the
report of the Citizens Commission headed by former Chief
Justice of India, S.M. Sikri that for the first time in the history of
mob violence in India, a systematic attack was made on places
of worship. Of about 405 gurdwaras in Delhi, some three-
quarters were damaged or destroyed.

The gurdwara in my colony was extensively damaged and much

desecrated. And on 1st November there was a murderous mob
of about two hundred goons, inspired by the ruling party, in
front of my house—many other houses of the same community
were similarly targeted—baying for our blood. My family and I
were on the rooftop and, militarily speaking, we had a tactical
advantages being on high ground. Our ammunition was pieces
of broken glass from windows and broken pitcher pieces used
in slings (catapults) hastily assembled to give ‘battle’; we also
had a toy gun to threaten the mob. However, the mob moved on
after shouting obscene slogans and exhibiting obscene
gestures. I have always been reminded of the hymn that we
used to sing in school, Sacred Heart School, Lahore, over six
decades ago—"With sling and stone he slew", the Biblical story
of David and Goliath!

Over the next four days more than 3000 Sikhs died at the hands
of these mobs in Delhi. Most died gruesome death—burnt alive
or hacked to pieces. The carnage spread lo neighboring states
as well. In Uttar Pradesh, more than a thousand Sikhs were
reported killed in cities such as Kanpur, Lucknow and
Ghaziabad. In Haryana, the death toll exceeded a hundred. In
Bihar, the toll rose to 300. Many Sikhs were also slaughtered by
well-armed mobs in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal
Pradesh and Maharashtra. The Congress party ruled in most of
these states.

V.N. Narayanan, in his volume, Tryst faith Terror (page 24), also
records:

October 31 to November 3, completed the cycle of tragedy and

trauma of 1984. The Indian nation was at its worst in displaying
anti-Sikh barbarity and at its best in expressing shock and
outrage at the savagery. The Sikhs of Delhi would never forget
the farmer and could never stop savoring the latter. It would
have brought home an important lesson. It was the Government
and the ruling party that let loose the barbarians, but ordinary
people were trying to protect the innocent targets ..."

There are a few lines in William Dalrymple's volume, City in

Djinns— A Year in Delhi, which warrants mention here. He says:
"When the outside world first discovered the Trilokpuri
massacres, long after the rioters had disappeared; it was Block
32 that dominated the headlines. Dogs were found fighting over
piles of purple human entrails. Charred and roasted bodies lay
in great heaps in the gullies: kerosene fumes still hung heavy in
the air. Piles of hair, cut from the Sikhs before they were
burned alive lay on the verandah: hacked-off limbs clogged the
gutters."

A social function a couple of months ago, attended by retired

judges, retired senior bureaucrats, vice-chancellors and
several authors and intellectuals, commenced with a ten-
minute kirtan by eight young girls and one boy in their pre-
teens. The children's parents had been slain in Trilokpuri by
'inspired' mobs. Some of these children must have been
toddlers in 1984 and unaware of the happenings fourteen years
ago. They rendered two shabads on this occasion with a stoic
but fearless expression. The first was from Guru Gobind
Singh's Epilogue to Chandi Chariter: translated into English it
runs thus:

"Grant me this boon O God, from Thy greatness.

May I never refrain from righteous acts.

May I fight without fear all foes in life's battle.

With confident courage claiming victory !
May my highest ambition be singing Thy praises.
And Thy glory be grained in my mind !
When this moral life reaches its limits,
May I die fighting with limitless courage !

The English translation of the second shabad, which brought

many tears, was as follows:

"This world is a transitory place.

Some of our compatriots have already gone,
and some day the rest of us will also have to go.
This world is calmly a temporary abode."

As someone there remarked after these children had left, this

shahad was fraught with humility and fatalism.

And lastly, when a wound is not healed—when basic justice is

denied —it festers and when pestering is not taken care of,
gangrene sets in, and then surgery becomes the only remedy.
Let us learn from history, for history is a cruel stepmother and
when it strikes it stops at nothing ! As media reports have
revealed. past memories still haunt the victims of the 1984
massacre— and efforts to bring the guilty to hook face
stumbling blocks.
The Delhi High Court, fourteen years after the offence was
Committed, has upheld the death sentence on Kishori Lal on
16th October, 1998; he was given the sentence two years ago
by a lower Court. But there is another court of appeal and we
would be in the next millennium before the final 'outcome'.
Kishori Lal, a butcher by profession, scythed down his
terrorized victims with unhurried venom. For him it was
apparently just another day at the office. Only, this time his
victims were not of the porcine kind !

The treatment given to criminals is the index of morality of a

society. A society, which shows leniency to criminals—in this
context a very designed leniency—becomes a slave of
criminals.