1984 – India’s Guilty Secret

Title: 1984 – India’s Guilty Secret

Author: Pav Singh

Publisher: Rupa Publications, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9788129149282

Pages: 268

 

The 1980s was a difficult period in the history of the Indian state of Punjab. A few extremist elements among Sikh religious teachers flocked together to advocate secession from India and create a new theocratic state of Khalistan. Pakistan bankrolled the Khalistan movement in India and elsewhere in the West. Attacks against symbols of state power and targeted killings of minority Hindus became a daily routine in Punjab. The militant activities were coordinated by hardcore fighters who found safe haven in the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine. Compelled to deal a crippling blow to terrorism, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the troops to enter the temple and flush out militants. The ringleaders were eliminated in the operation, but unfortunately the temple premises suffered considerable damage in the military maneuvers. The Sikh community was greatly aggrieved and four months later, on October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was shot dead by two Sikh bodyguards posted for her own security. The ruling Congress party was stung by the murder of their leader and its prominent leaders decided to punish all Sikhs for the misdeed of two persons from that community. For the next three days, Delhi and many parts of north India witnessed brutal attacks on innocent Sikhs. An estimated 8000 people were killed in the atrocities, which is equivalent to the civilian death tolls of the Northern Ireland conflict, Tiananmen Square and 9/11 combined. This book examines the pogrom by Congress workers who manipulated state machinery to ensure no conviction for the perpetrators from a judicial court of law. Pav Singh is settled in England and the son of Punjabi immigrants. He is a leading campaigner on the issues surrounding the 1984 massacres.

 

Indira was shot in the morning and her body was taken to AIIMS Hospital. The electronic media was totally under government control then and they did not report anything about the incident till afternoon. Rumours began to spread like wildfire. A serious one among them was how some Sikhs in Delhi celebrated the death with firecrackers and distributing sweets. The author claims this to be false, but there is a strong balance of probability that some incidents of rejoicing might have occurred. It is recorded that in London and other British cities, the expatriate Sikhs made a great show of joy and dance. Attacks on Sikhs started by that evening itself and its victims included no less a person than the Sikh head of state, President Giani Zail Singh. As his cavalcade approached the hospital gate, it was pelted with stones and a bodyguard’s turban was forcibly removed. This was child’s play when compared to what happened next. By the state-sanctioned complicity of enforcement agencies, large scale organized terror was unleashed on innocent people and spread throughout the capital and surrounding rural areas. The book is replete with gruesome descriptions of how people were killed and their property torched. Such graphic testimony of violent acts and sacrilege of holy books seem to be intentional to keep the flame of hatred alight in the hearts of Sikhs who have no memory of those times.

 

The complicity of Congress party leadership in the riots is a point the author repeatedly hammers home. The chain of guilt extends from the very top to the most bottom. The author notes that Rajiv Gandhi remarked on his arrival at the airport that the Sikhs must be taught a lesson. He also termed the riots as a natural response expected from an angered Indian populace. Even when the ferocity of the pogrom was fully exposed a short while later, Rajiv did not flinch a bit as observed in his public remark that when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth shakes a little. Prominent Congress leaders like HKL Bhagat, Arun Nehru and Jagdish Tytler met at the hospital and organized the violence. They also coined the rallying cry khoon ka badla khoon (blood for blood) which is clearly audible in the television footage aired from the hospital premises. Congress politicians brought mobs in buses who descended on Sikh neighbourhoods to carry out horrible crimes. The leaders openly walked alongside the mobs and cracked black jokes on the suffering Sikhs. Practically nobody was taken to task for their crimes. Any serious attempt to punish the guilty began only after the Congress was voted out of power. Commissions of enquiry were set up and incriminating reports published after two decades. When the Nanavati Commission report was tabled in parliament in 2005, Jagdish Tytler was a member of the Manmohan Singh ministry and Sajjan Kumar the chairman of Delhi Rural Development Board.

 

It is true that the society must be aware of the crimes committed on victims in riots of this nature. This helps it to understand how far a section of its members can deviate from decency and take steps to prevent such occurrences in the future. But this exposition should be done in a careful way so as not to make passions flare up again. This book fails on this crucial aspect. Perhaps with around fifty pages listing each and every atrocity, it might have been deliberately crafted to excite Sikh temper and to muddy things up. Sikh militancy that erupted in Punjab for nearly a decade is taken very lightly and not criticized at all. In fact, it is highly probable that the book caters to dissenting Sikh elements in Britain. Congress politicians planned and instigated the violence, but the author tries on many occasions to paint the conflict as one inflicted by Hindus on Sikhs. This is a clear falsehood as we have evidence of people’s participation in the riots irrespective of religion. This book is written with liberal inputs from foreign-funded NGOs which allege that the violence was pre-planned and would have taken place even if Indira Gandhi was unharmed. The violence was said to be scheduled to start on Guru Nanak Jayanti on Nov 8. However, this is just hearsay even though he claims to have obtained it from ‘influential officials’ without naming them. Indira Gandhi’s indifference to Sikh lives is ‘proved’ on the fact that Operation Blue Star took place on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev, one of the busiest days of the Sikh calendar. It is also mentioned that India availed the services of a British military expert in planning the eviction of terrorists from inside the Golden Temple.

 

A large part of the book consists of repeated allegations raised by spurious human rights groups. Some of them are ridiculously unauthentic. Facts published in the government white paper on Punjab militancy are claimed to be false, because a report on ‘Surya’ magazine refuted it! The author claims that the weapons seized from Golden Temple after Blue Star was placed there by security agencies. If the terrorists were unarmed, then how come hundreds of security personnel were killed in the initial stages of the assault? Pav Singh insists that caste differences in Hinduism did not exempt anyone from the blame on violence against Sikhs and notes that some of those who participated were hailing from scheduled castes (p.122).

 

Commissions of inquiry constituted by non-Congress governments were helpful to some extent, but even they were handicapped by the passage of time and bureaucratic apathy. The Ranganath Mishra commission followed the official line in its report that what happened was more of an unavoidable backlash than organized mass murder. Still, it must be admitted that the very few who were convicted were indicated by the commissions. The book suggests a truth, justice and reconciliation commission to be set up to ensure that lessons are learned and implemented, a semblance of justice for the victims is secured and closure achieved to allow the healing process for Indian society to truly begin.

 

This book appears to be a mouthpiece of Khalistani Sikh organisations in the UK. The narrative is propagandistic in nature rather than a calm and pointed analysis. Many anti-India remarks are seen in the book such as its description as ‘a dangerously corrupt political system masquerading as a democracy’. Another outrageous remark is that India executes a deliberate campaign to spread drug addiction among Sikh survivors of the 1984 riots. The author’s real motive in writing this book is not to heal the wounds but keep it festering. This malicious intent come out into the open through cleverly camouflaged rhetoric.

 

The book is not recommended.

 

Rating: 2 Star