'Victims Will Never Forget The
Violence': Shamsul Islam On 1984 Massacre of Sikh
[Shamsul Islam taught political science at the University
of Delhi [1973-2013]. As an author, columnist and dramatist, he has been
writing and performing against religious bigotry, dehumanisation,
totalitarianism, persecution of women, Dalits and minorities. He is known
globally for fundamental research on the rise of religious nationalism and its
development in India and around the world. In an exclusive interview with Abhish
K Bose on the upcoming 40th anniversary of the gruesome incident,
Shamsul discusses the massacre of the Sikh community members and the role of
the RSS in it.]
Here
are the excerpts:
Abhish K Bose: You have worked among the survivors of the 1984 Sikh
riots and have extensively written about your experiences and comments on the
riots held by targeting the Sikh community members. Taking into account the
rampant nature of the atrocities against the Sikh population and the organised
nature of the attacks could you simply categorise the riots as orchestrated by
some Congress leaders enraged over the assassination of Indira Gandhi by some
of her Sikh bodyguards? Do you think there was any overt or covert support from
any other organisations other than the aggrieved Congressmen in flaring up the
fire?
Shamsul Islam: First, let me clear the air about the term “1984 Sikh
riots”. It would be a misnomer to call 1984 ethnic cleansing of Sikhs as a
riot. Riot is a situation when two groups are embroiled in a violent
confrontation. Was it the case in 1984? Absolutely not. It was pan-India,
one-way, nasty and brutish campaign of annihilation of innocent Sikh females,
males and children. Sikh women were raped with impunity. Their properties were
looted or burnt, police and local goons organised orderly loot and provided
safe exit to the perpetrators. The methods and tools used for cleansing of
Sikhs in 1984 were an improvement over the inhumane practices of the killer
gangs in earlier incidents of violence against minorities in India. Many Sikhs
were put to death by slipping burning vehicle tyres to their necks thus
prolonging their painful killing for many hours. The killers and crowd “enjoyed
the tamashaa” together.
It is unfortunate that violence against other minorities
too is described a riot. It is true that I with members of Nishant Natya Manch,
a street theatre group with which I am associated since 1971, joined other
democratic and civil rights organisations in the relief work. But my main
intervention was cultural. It was long before the October-November 1984
cleansing of Sikhs that Nishant was involved in countering the Hindu
majoritarian narrative of demonising Indian Sikhs through street theatre and
songs. 1984 started with ominous signs of majoritarianism culminating
in June 1984 destruction of the major portions of the
holiest shrine of Sikhism at Amritsar under the garb of Blue Star (ironically,
this military campaign which burnt major parts of the Golden Temple and caused
hundreds of deaths was named after a beautiful wild American flower!)
Nishant went around the country, especially in north
India with a street play in Hindustani and Punjabi titled “Sadharan Log” (common people) based on a
play of renowned peoples’ theatre
practitioner, Gursharan Singh, with the same title. It had four main
characters―two Hindus, one bigoted and one common person with similar two Sikh
characters. It was in the argumentative form highlighting and countering the
stereotypes and denigration of Sikhs. Audiences were expected to join the
debate. Every performance was preceded and followed by songs in Punjabi and
Hindustani calling for unity of all common masses. I was part of the hundreds
of performances and it was heartening to see audiences participating in the “garmaa-garm behes” [heated arguments], some resorting
to abuses.
It is true that Congress leadership after the
assassination of the then PM Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October
31, 1984, gave call to take revenge, but there were other forces―committed to
turn India into a Hindu rashtra― involved in this project of cleansing of Sikhs
in 1984.
Abhish K Bose: It is often claimed that the RSS cadres were involved in
1984. If true, why was their involvement not investigated?
Shamsul Islam: As a researcher of Hindutva politics and violence against
minorities, Dalits and Bahujans, while investigating the 1984 cleansing of
Sikhs I found that without doubt, the Congress leaders/cadres were behind this
genocide. But there were other forces too which actively participated in this
massacre and whose role has never been investigated. It could be one of the
reasons that actual perpetrators remain unknown. Those who witnessed the
genocide were stunned by the swiftness and military precision of the killer
gangs―later on witnessed during the Babri mosque demolition, burning alive of
Graham Steins with his two sons on January 23, 1999, the 2002 pogrom of the
Muslims in Gujarat and the cleansing of Christians in Kandhmal region of Odisha
in 2008―which roamed around India in 1984. This, surely, was beyond the
capacity of the thugs led by many Congress leaders.
A crucial proof of this criminal collusion in the
massacre of Sikhs is a document circulated by Nana Deshmukh, a prominent
ideologue of the RSS (now deceased). Titled as “Moments of Soul Searching”
it was circulated by Deshmukh on November 8, 1984. This should help in
unmasking a number of criminals involved in the massacre and rape of ordinary
innocent Sikhs who had nothing to do with the killing of Indira Gandhi. This
document may also throw light on where the cadres came from, who methodically
organised the killing of Sikhs. Nana Deshmukh is seen outlining the
justification of the massacre of the Sikh community in 1984.
The
gist of this lengthy document can be summarised as follows:
a)
The massacre
of Sikhs was not the handiwork of any group or anti-social elements, but the
result of a genuine feeling of anger;
b)
Deshmukh did
not distinguish the action of the two security personnel of Indira Gandhi, who
happened to be Sikhs, from that of the whole Sikh community. According to his
document the killers of Indira Gandhi were working under some kind of mandate
of their community;
c)
Sikhs
themselves invited these attacks, thus advancing the Congress theory of
justifying the massacre of the Sikhs;
d) He glorified the Operation Blue Star and
described any opposition to it as anti-national. When Sikhs were being killed
he was warning the country of Sikh extremism, thus offering ideological defense
of those killings;
e) Sikh community as a whole was responsible for violence in Punjab;
f) Sikhs should have done nothing in self-defence
but showed patience and tolerance against the killer mobs;
g)
These were
Sikh intellectuals and not killer mobs which were responsible for the massacre.
They had turned Sikhs into a militant
community, cutting them off from their Hindu roots, thus inviting attacks from
the nationalist Indians. Moreover, he treated all Sikhs as part of the same
gang and described attacks on them as a reaction of the nationalist Hindus;
h) He described Indira Gandhi as the only leader
who could keep the country united and because of her assassination, such
killings could not be avoided;
i)
Rajiv Gandhi,
who succeeded Indira Gandhi as the PM, and justified the nationwide killings of
Sikhs by saying, “When a huge tree falls there are always tremors felt”, was
lauded and blessed by Nana Deshmukh at the end of the document;
j)
Shockingly,
the massacre of Sikhs was being equated with the attacks on the RSS cadres
after the killing of Gandhiji and we find Deshmukh advising Sikhs to suffer
silently. Everybody knows that the killing of Gandhiji was inspired by the RSS
and the Hindutva Ideology whereas the common innocent Sikhs had nothing to do
with the murder of Indira Gandhi; and,
k) There was not a single
sentence in Deshmukh‟s document demanding from the then Congress Government remedial measures to
control the violence against the minority community.
Deshmukh circulated this document on November 8, 1984,
and from October 31 to this date, Sikhs were left alone to face the killing
gangs. In fact, November 5-10 was the period when the maximum killings of Sikhs
took place. Deshmukh was just not bothered about all this.
This document also shows the true degenerated and fascist
attitude of the RSS towards all minorities of India. The RSS has been arguing
that they are against Muslims and Christians because they are the followers of
foreign religions. Here we find them justifying the butchering of Sikhs who
according to their own categorisation happened to be the followers of an
indigenous religion. In this document, we come to know that the RSS, like the
then Congress leadership, believed that the massacre of the innocent Sikhs was unavoidable.
This document was published in the Hindi Weekly Pratipaksh edited by George Fernandes,
who later became Defence Minister of India.
Abhish K Bose: Is there
any other evidence which can substantiate the role of the RSS cadres in the massacre?
Shamsul Islam: The involvement of the RSS cadres in 1984
Sikh massacre is doubly confirmed by many other happenings. Former Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh in a speech in Parliament on August 12, 2005 offered an
apology as a Congressman to the nation for the 1984 anti-Sikh violence,
stating, “I have no hesitation in apologizing to the Sikh community. I
apologise not only to the Sikh community, but to the whole Indian nation
because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood
enshrined in our Constitution.”
This apology was included in NCERT school textbooks. It
was not acceptable to the RSS. A senior RSS ideologue, Dina Nath Batra, on
behalf of RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas demanded in July 2022
that the NCERT must remove this apology with other references to the violence
against minorities from the textbooks. As if this was not enough, on the eve of
the 2019 Republic Day, the RSS/BJP rulers of India bestowed the highest
national award Bharat Ratna on Deshmukh who had justified the cleansing of
Sikhs in 1984. Prime Minister Narendra Modi praising Deshmukh, said: “He
personifies humility, compassion and service to the downtrodden. He is a Bharat
Ratna in the truest sense.”
But why was the RSS involvement in the 1984 massacre of
Sikhs was not investigated? It was a
monumental blunder committed consciously by pro-Hindutva elements in the top
hierarchy of the police and administration. Another reason could be the public
support of the RSS to Rajiv Gandhi taking over as PM of
India. The RSS‟ English organ, Organiser
in its combined issue
dated November 11 & 18, 1984 carried an editorial titled 'Stunning Loss'
which praised Indira Gandhi and wished all the best to Rajiv Gandhi in the
following words:
“It will always be difficult to believe that Indira
Gandhi is no more. One had got so used to hearing her myriad voices for so
long, that everything looks so blank without her. The violent manner of her
death is the most shocking horror story giving the nation the creeps… It is a
case of treacherous fanatics stigmatising the whole nation by butchering a
remarkable specimen of Indian womanhood… She literally served India to the last
drop of her blood according to her own lights.” The same editorial ended with
the words supporting the newly installed PM, Rajiv Gandhi, who “deserves
sympathy and consideration”.
Abhish K Bose: Researchers of Hindutva politics have found that the RSS
and violence are synonymous. What are the earlier examples of its involvement in
anti-minority violent acts, especially in the post-Partition violence?
Shamsul Islam: RSS was not only involved in horrendous violence against
Muslims in the post- Partition period, but also in pre-Partition and in the
course of Partition. It is proved by the
contemporary authentic narratives. Ram Lall Dhooria and
his family lived in the town of Haveli Lakha, District Montgomery (now
rechristened as Sahiwal) of western Punjab in pre-Partition India. Haveli
Lakha, like many neighbouring towns in the western Punjab, had a mixed
population of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. According to his autobiographical
note, Dhooria was about 10 or 11 years
old when he
joined the RSS
in 1942 and
started attending its
daily shakha (drill) held in
an enclosure in the town where Muslims were in majority. He was forced to
migrate to India along with millions other Hindus and Sikhs due to Partition,
but he also got disillusioned with the blood-thirsty views and acts of the RSS
against Muslims. After migrating to India and while teaching at the University
of Delhi, he penned “I was a Swayamsewak:
An Inside View of the RSS”, which not only provided a firsthand account of
the debased activities of the organization, but how the RSS instigated violence
against Muslims in areas where non-Muslims were in a minority.
He stated: “I thought of the two handsome children back
in my home-town (Haveli Lakha) who had been murdered and thrown into a
discarded well outside the town. They were the children of the Sheikh who ran a
bookshop in the town’s only bazaar [market].”
“It was alleged that a RSS volunteer had done the hellish
thing. At the time, I did not believe the story. Some days, later, I learnt
about who had murdered those innocent children. What I heard substantiated the
suspicion. The atmosphere had been sought to be vitiated by bunch of over-
zealous RSS members egged on the murderous act by another RSS worker from
Montgomery.
“Years later, I met him in Saharnapur in western Uttar
Pradesh and asked him about it. He made no bones about his role in the whole
affair, though he confessed that at times he experienced “the compunctious
visiting of remorse…”
What devilish role the RSS played during the Partition is
described by none other but the first home minister of India, Sardar Patel, who
is a favourite of the RSS. In a
letter (September 11, 1948) written to M S Golwalkar, the second supremo of the
RSS, Patel stated: “Organizing the Hindus and helping them is one thing, but
going in for revenge for its sufferings on innocent and helpless men, women and
children [of the Muslim community] is quite another thing… It was not necessary
to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organise for their
protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the
sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji.”
Abhish K Bose: Did the scars of the 1984 Sikh riots still persist or are
obliterated? Did you revisit the places and interact with the survivors or
their posterity so as to know their current whereabouts?
In certain places near Ahmedabad in Gujarat where
large-scale Hindu-Muslim riots took place in 2002, the two communities no
longer live together. Both communities are living in their exclusive places
with no connection with other community members. Is it the same with the
survivors of the 1984 Sikh riots?
Shamsul Islam: The perpetrators of the violence wish that all traces of
their criminal acts are forgotten or obliterated, but victims never forget the
treatment meted out to them. Even if they were unable to take revenge, they
wait even for decades to settle accounts or their sorrowful stories become part
of their folklore. Take the example of Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of April,
1919. The colonial masters saw to it that in Britain this horrible incident of
repression remained under wraps. But the great martyr, Udham Singh (re-naming
himself as Mohammad Singh Azad in order to underline the necessity of unity of
Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in the anti-colonial struggle), took revenge by assassinating Michael
O‟Dwyer (chief of the British
administration of Punjab at the time of the massacre) on
March 13, 1940 in London. He was hanged on July 31, 1940 in a jail in London.
He waited almost for 21 years to take revenge.
I have been in touch with many of the victims. Many of
them are close family and political friends. It is true that many of them have
moved on financially, but the tragedy continues its devastating run in the case
of hundreds of Sikh widows and those Sikh children and youngsters who witnessed
the massacre. Many of the young lives were lost to drugs and suicides. The poor
Sikhs were forced into ghettos or migrate to Punjab.
In the case Muslim victims of the carnage in Gujarat in
2002, the tragedy continues to unfold; in fact, it has aggravated with the
running amok of the Hindutva juggernaut. The major parts of every city in
Gujarat became out of bounds even for the rich Muslims. Now we have Muslim
ghettos of the well-off as well as poor. Since most of the Muslim victims were poor
artisans or marginal farmers, they were reduced to the status of paupers.
https://www.outlookindia.com/national/-victims-will-never-forget-the-violence-shamsul-islam- on-1984-anti-sikh-riots-news-319801/amp
