Punish the guilty!

Widespread protests marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of one of the most horrendous carnages of twentieth century India, in which thousands of people belonging to the Sikh faith were butchered. Disregarding the homilies of the Indian state to “forgive and forget”, people in their thousands came out on to the streets to demand justice and punishment of those responsible for the massacre. The protests show the deeply ingrained desire for justice in the minds of the people.     

Twenty-five years ago, a mass murder of people belonging to the Sikh community was organised with the full backing of the Indian state, in the aftermath of the assassination of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi on 31st October 1984. Leading functionaries of the Congress Party led marauding mobs in singling out people belonging to the Sikh faith. Men were murdered and burnt alive in front of their families, women were raped in the presence of their children, and property was wantonly destroyed. The prowling mobs had come armed with lists of houses in which Sikh families lived, provided by the state authorities. Passengers were pulled out of trains and killed. The carnage continued for days on end, in the capital of the country, Delhi, as well as in many other towns and cities across India. Police in Delhi and other places looked the other way and refused to help those who asked for protection against the rampages.  On the other hand, ordinary people of other communities showed great courage and humanity in sheltering Sikh families from the state – organised genocide.  

These attacks preceded and followed heinous state terrorist attacks on the people of Punjab, particularly Sikhs, who were special targets all across the country . Thousands of Sikh youth in these areas were hounded out by security forces and many of them were killed in cold blood. Thousands more of Punjabis of all faiths  were killed in what were called “terrorist killings”. The Indian army participated in one of the bloodiest carnages in June 1984, cynically codenamed “Operation Blue star”, in the course of which the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, was assaulted with tanks and over 4,000 people were killed, according to the White Paper released by the Union Government some time later.  According to biographies of various top police chieftains of Punjab, the Punjab police actually organised many of the terror killings of people travelling in buses to build up its case of “fight against separatist forces”!

Not only was shelter and help refused to the victims and refugees by the police and authorities during the carnages of November 1984, leading functionaries of the state and the Congress Party actually justified it. Furthermore, the state has seen to it that none of the important functionaries of the Congress Party, who played a leading role in organising and executing the carnage, was punished. The judicial system has not treated the over 3000 cases of murder and several thousand other crimes of rape, loot and destruction as part of  one organised crime of genocide, clearly orchestrated by leading functionaries of a political party. It has instead treated each incident of violence as a separate individual crime. With its laborious procedures, the judicial system has ensured that except for some lower level participants, no one responsible for organising the butchery has ever been punished. On the other hand, the security personnel who gunned down Indira Gandhi were swiftly tried and executed.

Throughout the twenty five years which have since elapsed, our rulers have ensured that the guilty are not punished, and moreover, that people resign themselves to the situation. Moreover, several other crimes against the people, targeting people of different communities, have been organised, such as the state-organised communal violence in Mumbai in 1993, the Gujarat massacres of 2002, the pogroms against Christians in Orissa and other regions in 2007 – 08 and so on. After every such crime, events follow a familiar pattern – commissions of enquiry are set up whose proceedings carry on for years on end, a few lower level goons prosecuted perhaps, while the political bigwigs who organise these crimes against humanity escape scot free. It is clear that state organised communal violence is a preferred method of the ruling class in India to keep the people divided and rule over them.

However the massive protests in Delhi and across many towns of Punjab as well as in other cities of India show that people will not easily accept this design of the ruling class. In New Delhi, a militant protest was held on Saturday, 31st October 2009 outside the Kakardooma court, where a case against one of the senior Congress Party functionaries was in progress. On 1st November 2009, a massive “march for justice” proceeded from the historic Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, in which people from all faiths participated. The protestors demanded that all those guilty should be speedily punished, no matter how highly placed they may be. They also demanded that a detailed census be carried out of the number of people killed in the violence.

The protests in Punjab were organised over several days. The whole of Punjab was shut down in the wake of a call given to protest against lack of justice in punishing the guilty.

Trains were stopped in many towns, including Jallandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar etc on Tuesday, 3rd November 2009.  Blockades were set up by protestors between Rajpura and Shambu on the mainline Ambala Ludhiana section which provides a link to the national capital and Jammu and Kashmir.

Protests have also been reported from many other cities of India including Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.