In the 1984 massacre of Sikhs, next to the Home Minister was the role of the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. As per K R Malkani’s affidavit, Rajiv Gandhi told a senior official that Sikhs should be taught a lesson. The officer ought to have been called. The affidavit also stated that the same information was shared with two other persons, including a journalist. Perhaps a Congress leader once named the associate of Rajiv Gandhi who told everyone that Sikhs need to be taught a lesson. But Nanavati does not probe any of this. He defends Rajiv Gandhi on his own, claiming that the PM showed a lot of sympathy for the Sikhs. ‘‘He even visited riot-affected areas, and appealed for calm and peace’’, Nanavati writes. Here a Prime Minister is accused of complicity in the killing of 4,000 people. But Nanavati chooses to brush it aside and goes on to defend Rajiv Gandhi. In fact, this is the task of Commissions. Commissions are needed to probe events and incidents which cannot be investigated by the local police. There is no need for Commissions to find out which councillor of Trilokpuri led the mob. The victims will tell you that if you want the rule of law to take its own course. This is what the government has been telling the Sikhs for two decades now — Why not let the law takes its own course? Hundreds of affidavits were filed by victims and survivors. Let all these affidavits be considered as FIRs and each police station begin its own investigation. If you go to a police station and record your complaint, the police are duty-bound to register an FIR — unless you are a Sikh victim of 1984 massacre, that is. Commissions should let the police register FIR’s and probe individual cases of killings. In Punjab, Akali party workers are routinely arrested because somebody just calls up a police station and alleges some misdemeanor. In the 1984 cases, however, you have affidavits accusing people of murder and yet no action is initiated. The Commission should ideally probe whether there was a larger game plan of organised massacre, and what the involvement was of the Congress party, the party chief or the PM. The question is: If the government has now conceded that Tytler, Bhagat and Sajjan are guilty, why did Rajiv Gandhi make them Ministers? Why is it that all those accused of participating in the massacre, be it Tytler, Bhagat or Kamal Nath etc. were rewarded by Rajiv Gandhi with plum posts? The task of honouring those accused of complicity in the violence, coupled with the ‘‘big tree falls’’ statement are, in my opinion, enough to convict a Prime Minister. Another affidavit informs us that Mani Shankar Aiyar was ‘‘given the task of portraying Sikhs as terrorists’’. And that thousands of videocassettes had been prepared to be distributed abroad. Aiyar evidently told a friend, ‘‘I did this with a heavy heart’’. Who paid for the cassettes? Did the Commission try and obtain copies of these cassettes? Who provided footage for such cassettes? The Commission has no answer. Talking of the portrayal of Sikhs, we need to be aware of the role of Doordarshan. If Doordarshan was allowed to telecast slogans like ‘‘Khoon ka badla khoon se lenge’’ then the Director General of DD should have been sacked and booked for complicity. Was Doordarshan acting under instructions? The Commission does not even try to ascertain this. When the Sikhs make their museum of genocide — and there have been many occasions since the time of Ahmad Shah Abdali — they will surely recall the mysterious white powder that was used in 1984. Page 20 of the Nanavati report informs us that the so-called ‘‘rioters’’ brought with them a certain ‘‘white powder’’ which was thrown on the body of many a Sikh to make the body combust immediately. What was this incendiary powder? Who provided the crowd with this powder? Did the ruling party supply it wholesale to the mob? The Commission is again silent. What Justice Nanavati forgets is that the massacre was not restricted to Delhi alone. It occurred all over India, and specially in Congress-run states. A mere coincidence! Or a criminal lapse on the part on the Commission. Justice Nanavati had a chance to hang a few portraits in the hall of shame. Instead he added his own portrait to the line-up. Twenty-one years, yes, but it is never too late to mourn and honor the dead! When we Sikhs are asked to forget what happened, we are effectively being asked to forget a small genocide — and it was not that small either, given how tiny the Sikh community is, in India and world-wide. Look at how the Holocaust is remembered and memorialized in Europe and the United States, 60 years after WW II. Look at how Nazis are hunted down even today, when few survive and live as old fugitives all over Latin America. Look at the historical research, the multi-disciplinary scholarship, the legal and judicial effort across nations, the art, cinema and museum-building dedicated to ensuring that the genocide of the Jews is never forgotten, and never repeated. Perhaps the Sikhs need to learn from Holocaust survivors and their descendants, how to bear witness to their own trauma in 1984. (Concluded) The writer, a barrister at law and an Akali MLA from Gidderbaha constituency, can be reached at: manpreet badal@hotmail.com PART I
