Of Murderers, Traitors & Quislings
by Dr. JASWANT SINGH NEKI
It has been said that "our memories are independent of our will." It is not easy to forget - especially the memories of devastating happenings and ravaging exigencies. That is why the things we remember most are those that should better have been forgotten.
Sikhs have often been advised to "forget" what happened in 1984 and "let bygones be bygones."
When a nation is subjected to almost genocidal carnage, how on earth can the survivors forget the holocaust? Millions of Jews perished in the Nazi years. Have they been able to erase their collective memory? Sikhs, too, have not been able to forget the various attempts at ruinous devastation of their entity.
During the eighteenth century, Divan Lakhpat Rai mounted armies upon them to finish them. Sikhs remember it as the Chhota Ghalughara (the Minor Holocaust). This was followed by Ahmed Shah Durrani's even more devastating internecine attack on them, and declared with the beat of drums that "Sikhs have been exterminated." The memory of this event in Sikh memory persists as the Vaddaa Ghalughara (the Major Holocaust).
Both these holocausts are etched in our collective memory and probably will continue to haunt us as long as Sikhs exist as a nation.
However, the holocausts of the nineteenth century pale in comparison to the pogrom of 1984 launched against the Sikhs in "secular India" by Indira Gandhi and her dutiful son, Rajiv Gandhi.
In this instance, the Indian Army, along with its artillery and tanks was employed to invade the Golden Temple Complex, devastating the Akal Takht and piercing the walls of the Harmandar Sahib. Additionally, mobs were organized and studiously directed to the carefully marked residential and business houses of Sikhs by leaders and agents of the ruling Congress Party, which resulted in several thousand innocent Sikhs being killed in cold blood.
In a "secular" democracy, any action by the majority community is easily considered as secular, while an action by the minorities to safeguard their interests, but not palatable to the majority community, is blatantly dubbed as "communal."
No wonder then, that in "secular" India, minorities do not feel safe. The pattern set by Indira Gandhi was employed by the BJP in collusion then with the Congress Prime Minister to devastate the historical Babri Masjid. The Muslim community was subjected to well planned attacks in the Gujarat state.
Attacks on Christian missionaries too have become a regular feature.
Don't all these happenings show a pattern?
The attack on the sanctum sanctorum of the Sikh community by the armed forces of India and ordered by the Congress Government was lauded by the supreme Hindutva leader of the Bhartiya Janata Party, and former Prime Minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpai.
Does this not underline the fact that the Congress and the BJP have the same agenda vis-à-vis the minorities?
When, under Rajiv Gandhi's rule, mobs were mounted on Sikhs not only in India's capital city but in many other cities and towns of India as well, there was hardly any Muslim, Christian or Parsi thug among the violent mobs that attacked the Sikhs.
Doesn't that stand out clearly?
The Sikhs remember the happenings of 1984 with anger and agony. The government has done little - if anything at all - to help the surviving Sikh widows and orphans. Shockingly, on the other hand, the leaders who organized the attacking mobs were honored by providing them places in the Union Cabinet.
Commission after commission and committee after committee was set up to enquire into the anti-Sikh pogroms - oddly, labeled "riots" by the government and the compliant media - but these commissions hardly did anything to assuage the injured psyche of he Sikh Community. There were many private individuals, however, that made efforts to dig out the truth, but the government simply ignored their findings.
It is understandable then that the Sikh psyche continues to smolder with continuing anguish and resentment.
However, there is another side to this picture that makes us hang our heads in shame and embarrassment, namely, the role that some of the Sikh community's "most honorable" members have played.
Many sensible Hindus rejected the lines of Indira's sordid designs. General Sunderji, who was ordered to mount an armed attack on the Golden Temple - Akal Takht Complex, reminded Indira Gandhi that the army was not meant to attack its own country. However, Major General K...S Brar had less misgivings and attacked not only the sanctum sanctorum of his own "faith" but also on those who were his own countrymen and members of the community to which he ostensibly belonged.
Giani Zail Singh, who was not only the Rashtrapati (President) of the country, but also Commander-in-Chief of its armed forces, quietly acquiesced to whatever Indira did in June 1984. In November 1984, when S. Khushwant Singh called him seeking safety at Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential Palace), he was advised to "better seek asylum at some Embassy".
The next ‘honorable' Sikh on the list is the former Union Home Minister, Buta Singh. He did nothing to help the community; instead, he applied salt to the wounds of the community by having the devastated Akal Takht repaired at the expense of the government and against maryada (convention) of the Sikh community - which would not let it be desecrated by the blood-smeared hands of the government. The community later tore down the structure so "repaired" and rebuilt it on its own.
Buta Singh at least had the decency of appearing before an assembly of the Panj Pyara and accepted the tankhah (punishment) meted out to him and carried it out sincerely.
There was another Sikh, General J.S Bhuller, who became an agent of the Indian Government to sabotage the International Sikh Organization that was being built to organize the Sikh community worldwide.
These were all official dignitaries and may have assumed that they were obliged by their duty to the government. But there are those who consider themselves "religious dignitaries" of the community whose actions have been even more abominable.
A former President of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee actually conferred a saropa (robe of honor) on Jagdish Tytler, one of the leaders of the mobs which hunted out Sikhs and slaughtered them in the Capital city in 1984.
The current President of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) likewise decorated another mob leader, Babu Lal Sharma, who had been indicted by a non-governmental enquiry (titled Who are the Guilty) as one such who urged the murderers on in their depraved task.
Another former President of the DSGMC is alleged to have prevailed upon a complainant Darshan Kaur (for whatever consideration) to retract her statement which named who was leading the crowds that killed her husband.
While Indira and Rajiv Gandhi might have had some political agendas (however unsound and dishonorable), the Sikh dignitaries alluded to betrayed their community - for whatever personal benefits, actual or desired.
Sikhs justifiably express indignation against Indira and Rajiv for the attacks unleashed upon the Sikhs, but why have we condoned "Sikh" leaders who willfully betrayed their community?
Have we been left with no conscience to even demand an explanation from these quislings?
We now wish to ask for an explanation through these columns. Let them give whatever explanation they would like to offer. Silence will only be seen as acknowledgment of their culpability.
April 27, 2010
http://www.sikhchic.com/1984/of_murderers_traitors_quislings
by Dr. JASWANT SINGH NEKI
It has been said that "our memories are independent of our will." It is not easy to forget - especially the memories of devastating happenings and ravaging exigencies. That is why the things we remember most are those that should better have been forgotten.
Sikhs have often been advised to "forget" what happened in 1984 and "let bygones be bygones."
When a nation is subjected to almost genocidal carnage, how on earth can the survivors forget the holocaust? Millions of Jews perished in the Nazi years. Have they been able to erase their collective memory? Sikhs, too, have not been able to forget the various attempts at ruinous devastation of their entity.
During the eighteenth century, Divan Lakhpat Rai mounted armies upon them to finish them. Sikhs remember it as the Chhota Ghalughara (the Minor Holocaust). This was followed by Ahmed Shah Durrani's even more devastating internecine attack on them, and declared with the beat of drums that "Sikhs have been exterminated." The memory of this event in Sikh memory persists as the Vaddaa Ghalughara (the Major Holocaust).
Both these holocausts are etched in our collective memory and probably will continue to haunt us as long as Sikhs exist as a nation.
However, the holocausts of the nineteenth century pale in comparison to the pogrom of 1984 launched against the Sikhs in "secular India" by Indira Gandhi and her dutiful son, Rajiv Gandhi.
In this instance, the Indian Army, along with its artillery and tanks was employed to invade the Golden Temple Complex, devastating the Akal Takht and piercing the walls of the Harmandar Sahib. Additionally, mobs were organized and studiously directed to the carefully marked residential and business houses of Sikhs by leaders and agents of the ruling Congress Party, which resulted in several thousand innocent Sikhs being killed in cold blood.
In a "secular" democracy, any action by the majority community is easily considered as secular, while an action by the minorities to safeguard their interests, but not palatable to the majority community, is blatantly dubbed as "communal."
No wonder then, that in "secular" India, minorities do not feel safe. The pattern set by Indira Gandhi was employed by the BJP in collusion then with the Congress Prime Minister to devastate the historical Babri Masjid. The Muslim community was subjected to well planned attacks in the Gujarat state.
Attacks on Christian missionaries too have become a regular feature.
Don't all these happenings show a pattern?
The attack on the sanctum sanctorum of the Sikh community by the armed forces of India and ordered by the Congress Government was lauded by the supreme Hindutva leader of the Bhartiya Janata Party, and former Prime Minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpai.
Does this not underline the fact that the Congress and the BJP have the same agenda vis-à-vis the minorities?
When, under Rajiv Gandhi's rule, mobs were mounted on Sikhs not only in India's capital city but in many other cities and towns of India as well, there was hardly any Muslim, Christian or Parsi thug among the violent mobs that attacked the Sikhs.
Doesn't that stand out clearly?
The Sikhs remember the happenings of 1984 with anger and agony. The government has done little - if anything at all - to help the surviving Sikh widows and orphans. Shockingly, on the other hand, the leaders who organized the attacking mobs were honored by providing them places in the Union Cabinet.
Commission after commission and committee after committee was set up to enquire into the anti-Sikh pogroms - oddly, labeled "riots" by the government and the compliant media - but these commissions hardly did anything to assuage the injured psyche of he Sikh Community. There were many private individuals, however, that made efforts to dig out the truth, but the government simply ignored their findings.
It is understandable then that the Sikh psyche continues to smolder with continuing anguish and resentment.
However, there is another side to this picture that makes us hang our heads in shame and embarrassment, namely, the role that some of the Sikh community's "most honorable" members have played.
Many sensible Hindus rejected the lines of Indira's sordid designs. General Sunderji, who was ordered to mount an armed attack on the Golden Temple - Akal Takht Complex, reminded Indira Gandhi that the army was not meant to attack its own country. However, Major General K...S Brar had less misgivings and attacked not only the sanctum sanctorum of his own "faith" but also on those who were his own countrymen and members of the community to which he ostensibly belonged.
Giani Zail Singh, who was not only the Rashtrapati (President) of the country, but also Commander-in-Chief of its armed forces, quietly acquiesced to whatever Indira did in June 1984. In November 1984, when S. Khushwant Singh called him seeking safety at Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential Palace), he was advised to "better seek asylum at some Embassy".
The next ‘honorable' Sikh on the list is the former Union Home Minister, Buta Singh. He did nothing to help the community; instead, he applied salt to the wounds of the community by having the devastated Akal Takht repaired at the expense of the government and against maryada (convention) of the Sikh community - which would not let it be desecrated by the blood-smeared hands of the government. The community later tore down the structure so "repaired" and rebuilt it on its own.
Buta Singh at least had the decency of appearing before an assembly of the Panj Pyara and accepted the tankhah (punishment) meted out to him and carried it out sincerely.
There was another Sikh, General J.S Bhuller, who became an agent of the Indian Government to sabotage the International Sikh Organization that was being built to organize the Sikh community worldwide.
These were all official dignitaries and may have assumed that they were obliged by their duty to the government. But there are those who consider themselves "religious dignitaries" of the community whose actions have been even more abominable.
A former President of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee actually conferred a saropa (robe of honor) on Jagdish Tytler, one of the leaders of the mobs which hunted out Sikhs and slaughtered them in the Capital city in 1984.
The current President of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) likewise decorated another mob leader, Babu Lal Sharma, who had been indicted by a non-governmental enquiry (titled Who are the Guilty) as one such who urged the murderers on in their depraved task.
Another former President of the DSGMC is alleged to have prevailed upon a complainant Darshan Kaur (for whatever consideration) to retract her statement which named who was leading the crowds that killed her husband.
While Indira and Rajiv Gandhi might have had some political agendas (however unsound and dishonorable), the Sikh dignitaries alluded to betrayed their community - for whatever personal benefits, actual or desired.
Sikhs justifiably express indignation against Indira and Rajiv for the attacks unleashed upon the Sikhs, but why have we condoned "Sikh" leaders who willfully betrayed their community?
Have we been left with no conscience to even demand an explanation from these quislings?
We now wish to ask for an explanation through these columns. Let them give whatever explanation they would like to offer. Silence will only be seen as acknowledgment of their culpability.
April 27, 2010
http://www.sikhchic.com/1984/of_murderers_traitors_quislings
r. Jaswant Singh Neki is absolutely right.We have proved to be very selfish , insecure qaum, with a very short memory.which is only interested in short term gains. 
