THE GENOCIDE OF NOVEMBER 1984 WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN!
THE STRUGGLE TO PUNISH THE GUILTY SHALL CONTINUE!
JOIN IN CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL AT INDIA GATE ON NOV. 1
DATE: NOVEMBER 1, 2011
TIME: 5.30 PM
VENUE: INDIA GATE MARTYRS' COLUMN
27 years have passed since the cold blooded massacre of thousands of Sikhs on the streets of Delhi, Kanpur and other places, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. For three days leading members of the ruling Congress party directed armed gangs to burn and kill people of the Sikh community, rape women and plunder their property.
For the last 27 years, people have been demanding justice, demanding that those guilty of the heinous crimes of November 1984 be punished. Despite irrefutable evidence of the meticulous planning involved, including provision of voters' lists with residences of Sikhs marked, weapons and arson material distributed to the murderous gangs from Congress party offices, none of the leaders of the Congress party who masterminded and executed the genocide have been punished. The courts have repeatedly dealt with the killings as "crimes of passion" and not as part of an organized, pre-planned act.
In conditions when the entire state machinery and official media were crying out for the blood of the Sikhs, during and after the massacre, we ordinary people across all communities came forward to defend the victims and the survivors in the relief camps. Through our acts of courage, we established the unity of the people against the communal Indian state and the Congress party which had organized and perpetrated the crime.
The events of November 1984 clearly show that it is the Indian state that is communal. Our people are not communal. The ruling party and the state was responsible for the crime, not ordinary people or their personal religious beliefs. Belying the claim of India being a "secular" Republic, they have showed how political parties can openly organize communal violence, with the full assistance of the police and other arms of the state machinery.
The past 27 years have confirmed that there is no justice under the existing political system. Far from being convicted and punished, the organisers of the violence have continued to contest elections and enjoy seats of power. Political power remains concentrated in the hands of a minority privileged circle, which enjoys unlimited power to do what it pleases. In fact, state terrorism, including state organized communal violence, has become the preferred weapon of our rulers, to divert, divide and drown in blood the popular opposition to their rule.
The experience of the genocide of 1984 and subsequent communal massacres has clearly established that we cannot expect the organizers of communal genocide to either ensure justice or prevent future genocides.
Under public pressure, the Congress party has been forced to draft a bill addressing the question of prevention of communal violence. The experience of our people shows that any such law will be effective only if state organized communal violence and all forms of state terrorism are dealt with as organized crimes by the state and the party in power, and not as a bunch of individual criminal acts. Such a law must ensure that the organisers of the massacres of 1984, 1992-93, 2002 and other communal massacres are punished. But none of the versions of the bill presented so far has addressed these issues.
The past 27 years have shown time and again, that we cannot expect the organizers and perpetrators of the crime to punish themselves for it. Only when people are empowered can we ensure that those in positions of command will be held accountable for their responsibility of preventing communal violence, that mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that those guilty of such heinous crimes are punished, regardless of their political position.
27 years after the genocide of November1984, let us all unite and demand justice and punishment of the guilty! Let us affirm the rights of all members of society, and an end to sectarian persecution and discrimination of all kinds! Let us pledge to take forward the struggle for empowerment of the people, to put an end to state terrorism, including state organized communal violence, once and for all!
Let us unite and fight to ensure punishment to the guilty of 1984.
To demonstrate our opposition to all acts of state organised communal genocide and state terror against any community or people, to pledge to continue the struggle to punish the guilty, you are invited to join the candle-light vigil being jointly oranised by Lok Raj Sangathan, Sikh Forum, PUDR and PUCL.
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Pushkar Raj
General Secretary, PUCL
PUCL National Office:
270-A, Ground Floor, Patpar Ganj, Mayur Vihar-I, Delhi-110091
Ph. 011-22750014, 09810656100
www.pucl.org
o o o
Indian American Muslim Council
Anti-Sikh Massacres of 1984: Indian American group demands speedy justice for riot victims
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC - http://www.iamc.com), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India's pluralist and tolerant ethos, has called on the Government of India to mark the 27th anniversary of the anti-Sikh pogrom in 1984, by taking concrete steps to secure justice for the victims, and rehabilitation for the survivors.
The horrific violence that engulfed Delhi and parts of northern India, claimed the lives of over 3000 people and displaced thousands of others, in a reprisal against the Sikh community for the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.
Numerous eyewitness accounts have brought to light the fact that the rioters had access
Sikh shops and establishments were targeted and burnt during the 1984 violence (Courtesy AFP)
Sikh shops and establishments were targeted and burnt during the 1984 violence (Courtesy AFP)
to voter records that allowed them to mark Sikh homes. Mobs of rioters were taken by bus to areas inhabited by Sikhs, where they murdered, looted and raped, with the police often doing little more than being mute witnesses. The discovery of mass graves in Haryana in 2011 shows that a full accounting of the 1984 pogrom has not yet happened.
"The 1984 anti-Sikh massacres and the failure on the part of successive governments to apprehend the culprits even after 27 years, represents one of the lowest points in the history of our democracy," said Mr. Shaheen Khateeb, President, IAMC.
"It is absolutely unconscionable that despite 10 official commissions to investigate the events of those fateful days, the government has managed to secure convictions in only a tiny fraction of the cases," added Mr. Khateeb.
The failure of the Congress Party to hold accountable individuals like Jagdish Tytler, Kamal Nath and Sajjan Kumar whose political careers were untouched by their implications in the anti-Sikh riots, shows that the ruling party is still in a state of denial about its own responsibility for the mass killing of Sikhs.
IAMC has called upon the Government of India, even at this late juncture, to reverse the miscarriages of justice that have taken place over the last 27 years. By bringing to justice those responsible for the riots, regardless of their political and social standing, the nation can heal the wounds of countless victims, while ensuring that targeted killings of members of any community, have no place in the world's largest democracy.
Indian American Muslim Council (formerly Indian Muslim Council-USA) is the largest advocacy organization of Indian Muslims in the United States with 10 chapters across the nation. For more information please visit our new website at www.iamc.com.
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