The testimony of dozens of survivors recorded by Commissions of Inquiry recount how hysterical mobs led by Congress leaders hunted down the Sikhs, drenched the victims in kerosene and set them on fire
The recent order of a Delhi court directing the Central Bureau of Investigation to re-investigate the role of Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in the anti-Sikh violence of 1984, has rekindled hopes among the victims of that dreadful pogrom that justice will be done. The order came on the plea of a relative of one of those killed in the violence at Gurdwara Pulbangash in north Delhi.
Mr Tytler is one among several prominent leaders of the Congress, who allegedly led the mobs which indulged in arson, looting and killings in Delhi after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The CBI had given Mr Tytler a clean chit twice before in this case, but the court wants the agency to examine the allegation afresh. Side by side, a Delhi judge has reserved his order in the case involving another leader of the party — Mr Sajjan Kumar — who is accused of inciting a mob in the Delhi Cantonment area.
These developments come as a timely reminder to all citizens who wish to see that the core values in our Constitution which guarantee a secular and democratic society, will ultimately prevail. It is also a reminder to the Congress that, try as it might, it just cannot make the people forget its barbaric role in unleashing a pogrom against the Sikhs in the national capital and many other parts of north India, after Indira Gandhi’s assassination on October 31, 1984.
In order to divert public attention from the shameful role it played in 1984, the party repeatedly rakes up the issue of the Gujarat riots of 2002. Often the remarks are ill-mannered. For example, a spokesperson of the Congress said the other day that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was certainly not the knight on the white horse that his party vice president Rahul Gandhi alluded to, while addressing the cream of India’s business and industry. WhyIJ Because Mr Modi’s favoured vehicle is (like lord Yama’s) a buffalo. His comments were akin to the Maut ke saudagar label that Ms Sonia Gandhi tried to pin on Mr Modi in 2007. That did not go down well with the people of Gujarat, but the Congress will never learn.
Every now and then, there is a re-run of its rusted arguments against Mr Modi in the hope that everything that happened prior to 2002 can be wiped out of public memory. It is exactly this mindset which made it destroy copies of the Shah Commission report which exposed the fascist policies of this party during the Emergency. The same approach is adopted vis-à-vis the mass killing of Sikhs by its cadres in Delhi and elsewhere in 1984. The party thinks that, if it keeps reminding people of Gujarat 2002, somehow, 1984 will be forgotten.
Every Indian must know the facts about the pogrom that the Congress ordered against the Sikhs, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Thereafter, they must decide who the real maut ke saudagar are in India’s politics. Several commissions and committees probed the systematic and barbarous attack on the Sikhs at that time. Among them, two commissions of inquiry provide us grisly details of the horrific crimes perpetrated by Congress workers at the behest of leading politicians of that party in Delhi.
According to the Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry, as many as 3,874 people were killed in 1984, of which a majority —2,307 — were killed in Delhi. The Commission found that many of those who participated in the killings were from the Congress or its sympathisers. It said the mobs comprised persons associated with the Congress and sympathetic to that party. Strangely, the Commission sought to explain this behaviour of Congressmen by saying that everyone who took a dip in the Ganges was not purified. Similarly, everyone in the Congress is not a Gandhi who believes and practises non-violence.
The Nanavati Commission, which was appointed in May, 2000, because of complaints that the riots had not been fairly investigated, also spoke of the involvement of members of the Congress. It said the attacks on the Sikhs took place in a systematic manner and “without fear of police”. Many relatives of victims told these commissions that they were jeered at by policemen when they went to police stations to lodge complaints.
This Commission said large number of Congress leaders and workers “had either incited or helped the mobs in attacking the Sikhs”. Further, it categorically declared that “but for the backing and help of influential and resourceful persons”, so many Sikhs could not have been killed so swiftly. In its view, the mobs were assured “that they would not be harmed”. The testimony of General AS Vaidya, the then Chief of Army Staff, lent credence to this view that the Government was soft on the rioters. He told the Ranganath Misra Commission that, though 6,000 troops were available in the Capital, the Government did not immediately call in the Army.
The testimony of dozens of survivors recorded by these commissions recount the manner in which hysterical mobs fuelled by Congress leaders hunted down members of the Sikh community, drenched the victims and their homes in kerosene and set them on fire. Yet another repulsive method used by Congress workers was to throw burning tyres around the necks of victims and lynch them if they tried to escape. As the victims burnt to death, Congress workers danced around them chanting, “Khoon ka badla khoon se lenge”.
Goons belonging to the ‘secular’ Congress destroyed 131 Gurdwaras in just Delhi alone. These slogans were heard near Teen Murti Bhavan as well and were broadcast by Doordarshan. Many witnesses said the brutality of Congressmen was worse than that witnessed in the post-Partition riots in 1947.
Today, although 29 years have gone by, not one of the Congress’s leaders who planned and executed the killings has been punished. This dreadful episode in India’s history culminated in the most shameful manner when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi justified the pogrom against the Sikhs. He surmised that such violence against the Sikhs was inevitable when he told a public meeting in Delhi that “when a big tree falls, even the earth trembles”. So, now that we have refreshed our memories, we need to ask the Congress spokesperson as to which animal was the favoured mount of Rajiv GandhiIJ And who, Sir, is India’s Maut ka SaudagarIJ
