Nanavati Report

Is this secularism?

• The selective secularism of the Congress is in full bloom in 1984. I was in Delhi and witnessed the rampaging Congress mobs from South Delhi’s slums, baying for Sikh blood. There is no justice in India. The politically correct Indian press, which prints 3,000 pages on the Best Bakery case, but will not even devote 30 pages for the 3,000 Sikh victims of the 1984 Delhi carnage.

— Sidharth Sydney

Eyewash

• These inquiries and commissions are an eyewash. No action will be taken because, as the political class has argued, “a person cannot be prosecuted simply on the basis of probability”!

— K.V.L. Shanta Singapore

Speak, Memory

• Harneet Singh has related the story which sent a chill up my 61-year-old spine (‘Hello Uncle, I greeted the stranger. Gudiya, this is Daddy, my mom said’, IE, August 9). When the riots broke out, my wife and I tried to convert my 9-year-old son into a girl, by re-arranging his locks of hair. He would try and resist our efforts and how we cried at his behaviour!

— Preet Kapoor On e-mail

• I was at a loss for words after reading Harneet Singh’s story. I am ashamed that even after 21 years these criminals have not been brought to justice. Dear
sister, please understand that these perpetrators have no religion, caste or creed.

— Vikas Kulkarni On e-mail

• This is yet another moving story to emerge from the Sikh riots and the madness that engulfed the country following the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984. We should have more of these stories so that we are reminded of the agony and turmoil faced by victims during riots. It is time we Indians realise the gravity of such historical blunders, which led to human suffering on such a mammoth scale. We need to be more sensitive to our fellow citizens and more forthright in protecting them when they come under attack.

— Praveen Rai Delhi

Failed democracy

• The UPA government has never been serious of confronting the ghosts of 1984. If this ‘secular’ government headed by a Sikh prime minister cannot provide justice for 1984, what moral authority will it have when it speaks for the victims of the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002? Sadly, the Congress views this as a political issue when it’s a profoundly moral one. Is our system capable
of giving justice to the victims of sectarian riots after 20 years? Can the system punish the people in influential positions, especially if they are involved in heinous crimes? Haven’t we already failed as a society? These are fundamental questions confronting our democracy today.

— Pranav Sachdeva New Delhi