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The 1984 Anti-Sikh riots: India’s unhealed wound

Nov 08, 2024 08:33 PM IST

“Are we not citizens of the country who deserve justice?” asks Darshan Kaur. “But society just forgot about us.”

After the mob set Darshan Kaur’s husband ablaze, she gathered her three children, the youngest just 15 days old, and bolted. In the frenzy, the baby slipped from 19-year-old Darshan’s hands. But there was no time to stop. For the next three days, she and the remaining two children ran from the police station to gurudwara searching for a safe place.

New Delhi, Nov 02 (ANI): 1984 sikh riots survivor Darshan Kaur breaks down during a press conference on the release of the video series - 1984 Genocide-Unending Quest for Justice on the 40th anniversary of the Anti-Sikh riots, at Press Club of India in New Delhi on Saturday. (ANI Photo/Amit Sharma) (Amit Sharma) PREMIUM
New Delhi, Nov 02 (ANI): 1984 sikh riots survivor Darshan Kaur breaks down during a press conference on the release of the video series - 1984 Genocide-Unending Quest for Justice on the 40th anniversary of the Anti-Sikh riots, at Press Club of India in New Delhi on Saturday. (ANI Photo/Amit Sharma) (Amit Sharma)

There was none to be found. For three days following the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by her Sikh bodyguards, the capital city was the epicentre of a mass massacre, as mobs, allegedly incited by Congress leaders and spurred by Rajiv Gandhi’s statement, “When a big tree falls, the ground will shake,” targeted innocent Sikhs.

By government estimates, around 2,800 were killed in Delhi but senior advocate HS Phoolka reckons it was closer to 4,000.

In Trilokpuri, 12 of Darshan Kaur’s male relatives were killed. She saw a man in dark glasses and a white kurta pyjama give instructions to the crowd. In court, she identified him as the now-deceased Congress leader HKL Bhagat. He was never convicted.

Eventually, only 587 FIRs were filed, leading to barely two dozen convictions. It took 33 years for Sajjan Kumar, a Congress Member of Parliament at the time, to be sentenced to life in prison. On August 30 this year, a trial court judge ordered charges to be framed against another Congress leader, Jagdish Tytler.

“Are we not citizens of the country who deserve justice?” asks Darshan Kaur. “But society just forgot about us.”

To mark those days, Phoolka, who has for years appeared pro bono for the victims of the 1984 riots, recently released a video series on his YouTube channel. Earlier this month, The Kaurs of 1984 by Sanam Sutirath Wazir added to the limited literature on the riots.

While not easy to watch or read, these are essential additions in an age of truncated attention spans. If justice has failed, then at least there is a record of it; a documentation of one of India’s most shameful chapters.

Already, 1984 is receding from national consciousness and those who lived through those days are now old or dead. I was in college then living with my parents in Civil Lines, Old Delhi. I remember looking up to see the sky red from the flames of the tyre shops at Jhandewalan, most owned by Sikhs.

Sonia was just three when her family, barring a 13-year-old sister, was killed. Her memories of those days are hazy, but she sees it as her responsibility to pass on to her son what her sister told her — how the mob targeted the men, even children. How so many girls and women were raped. Nobody filed a police complaint because of the shame.

Darshan Kaur was eventually reunited with her lost baby. Another woman had found him and kept him safe. It is perhaps the only silver lining in her story. Her 17-year-old granddaughter, Ishpreet, now in Grade 11, says she never knew her grandfather: “But because we never got justice, we can never forget.”

Namita Bhandare writes on gender.The views expressed are personal

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