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The Injustice of Secularism in India

The Injustice of Secularism in India

Last updated on: April 2, 2009 at 4:25 pm by Desh Kapoor

The Injustice of Secularism in India 2009-04-02T16:25:09-05:00 Desh Kapoor

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For a long time now, I have repeatedly raised the question of 1984 Sikh Massacres and the complete silence from the Indian Pseudo-secular burgeosie. These same people jump on anything Hindu – from Muthalik to Varun Gandhi – to push the blame on them for all that goes wrong with Muslims; but are loathe to even utter a word against the perpetuators of the worst crimes outside of the “Hindu” confines.

From 1984 Delhi to Nandigram, people from Congress and Communist Parties specifically targetted the minorities and the lower class (Nandigram) and are protected by the Culpable and Deliberate Silence of the Pseudo-Secular. And I have not even touched the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits yet – who have had to see the day when a butcher like Bitta Karate was set scott free by the same administration!

It is this deliberately biased and downright unethical definition of “Secularism”, which I had argued that I REJECT its semantic and application. I reject the “pick-and-choose” Secularism championing that goes with impunity in the Indian Media and political debate!

Everyone who had lived in Delhi in 1984 knows EXTREMELY well who the culprits were – HKL Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler. While Bhagat already died, the other two should NOT have been allowed to see the light of day! They should have been behind bars since a LONG TIME now if the law of the land had not been tampered with repeatedly.

This elections in 2009, 25 years after the massacre, the remaining duo of that carnage have again been given the ticket to stand for the elections (Jagdish Tytler from North East Delhi and Sajjan Kumar from South Delhi). The same Prime Minister – Dr. Manmohan Singh, who doesn’t lose any opportunity to give sermons on secularism to Advani and others, loses NO opportunity in public to push the blame for the carnage to RSS! He had NO qualms over presiding over a Government with Tytler as a Union Cabinet Minister!

This time though, his Government has come up with a decidedly brilliant move – to use CBI to simply get them a clean chit, which is ANYTHING but clean! The Justice G.T. Nanavati commission was established by the Indian Government in 2000 to investigate the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots and in his report in early 2005, the commission clearly indicted the three:

The commission submitted its final report in February 2004 detailing accusations and evidence against senior members of the Delhi wing of the then ruling Congress Party, including Jagdish Tytler, later a Cabinet Minister, MP Sajjan Kumar and late minister H.K.L. Bhagat. They were accused of instigating mobs to avenge the assassination of Indira Gandhi by killing Sikhs in their constituencies.

Yet, now, the CBI has gone ahead and used the very familiar argument that the statements of the victims were “inconsistent, unreliable and unworthy of credit”. The political pressure that was put on these victims (Surender Singh and Jasbir Singh) and the widows – who were made to change their statements is well known. To use their weakness in face of the “Goonda-ism” by Tytler and Kumar as their being UNWORTHY is playing political poker, where Dr. Manmohan Singh, India’s first Sikh PM, is AS GUILTY!

Even the timing of the “clean chit’ is suspect. Just before the elections. Which many are pointing to.. and rightly so!

If you look at the entire trail of the inquiry that has gone on into the Sikh massacres of 1984, you can see that there has been a certain and CONSISTENT pattern to forcibly exonerate the culprits:

Marwah Commission: Ved Marwah was the Additional Commissioner of Police in 1984. He was asked to give his report. But as he was trying to complete his report (which many in the police department itself protested of.. OBVIOUSLY SO!) – he was asked by the Home Ministry abruptly to stop his work and not to proceed further, as he revealed in his interview with Karan Thapar. Marwah said in that interview with Thapar that he was still being targetted by the kids of the Police Officers whose names he was going to reveal despite the fact that NOTHING happened to them![2]

‘’After I received a written order from the then police commissioner to conduct an enquiry into the role of the Delhi Police in the 1984 riots, for which I was given three months, I worked day and night, getting all documents from the control room and commissioner’s control room and meeting a large number of witnesses and NGOs.’’

‘’However, just as I was about to complete the probe and fix responsibility on individual officers, I received another written order from the commissioner asking me to stop the enquiry,’’ Marwah told Karan Thapar in the ‘Tonight Show’ on CNBC.

Marwah revealed that from the documents he had collected in the course of the probe, it was clear that the Delhi Police was absent from large part of the areas affected by riots, specially in the south, east and New Delhi districts, which were the main affected districts in the riots.

‘’In these areas, there was no movement of officers. It was not there for days altogether. In fact, the stories given to me by a large number of witnesses was that when Sikhs were picked up and burnt, some of them took about an hour to die. This is happening in the Capital city of Delhi and there was no police to rescue them because the police had absented themselves,’’ Marwah said.

Then came the Misra Commission. All the records of Marwah Commission were passed on EXCEPT the most important – his hand-written notes. And when Justice Rangnath Misra, who was a sitting judge of the Supreme Court of India, came out with his report he gave another interesting twist to his “Scope” – that it was not part of his terms of reference to identify any person and recommended the formation of three committees. So, one would naturally ask – WTF were you supposed to do then? ‘to enquire into whether or not the violence was organised“. Such was the insult to everyone’s intelligence!

Yet, NOT A WHIMPER .. not a voice raised by anyone! Even till today .. not a word said!

Then came the Jain Bannerjee Committee – where Justice M.L. Jain, former Judge of the Delhi High Court and Mr A.K. Banerjee, retired Inspector General of Police finally indicted Sajjan Kumar and his accomplice Brahmanand Gupta and recommended registeriing cases against them in August 1987. Well, Gupta obtained a stay against the committee in December 1987, which the Government merrily went along with and ultimately, after prolonged and circuitous process, the writ petition was quashed by the Delhi High Court and the appointment of the committee was taken off.

So, anyone who even pointed as much of a finger in the direction of the accused – was TAKEN DOWN!

In March of 1990, Patti-Rosha Committee was formed. It again recommended filing of cases against Sajjan Kumar and others. When the CBI team went to Kumar’s house, that team was locked by the goons of Kumar and threatened and based on this intimidation, the term of the Committee was allowed to expire.

Then in December 1990, yet another attempt was made via Jain Aggarwal Committee to pinpoint the blame. Justice J.D. Jain, retired Judge of the Delhi High Court and Mr D.K. Aggarwal, retired DGP of Uttar Pradesh went into this question YET again! The Committee recommended cases to be filed against – H.K.L. Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar, Dharamdas Shastri and Jagdish Tytler – ALL of them Congress “Stalwarts” from Delhi. Such was the opposition from the administration machinery that EVEN the police didn’t file any charges! They refused to even carry out the orders!

After all this TWO other Commissions – Narula Committee and Nanavati Commission – have recommended cases against H.K.L. Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler. CBI had filed charges against the three FINALLY in December 1994 – a FULL 10 years AFTER THE massacres! Just the filing of the CHARGES took a decade!

It was on the tabling of the Nanvati Commission report that JD Tytler – who was the Cabinet Minister in Singh’s Government had to resign because he was directly named.

In November of 2007, however, all cases were closed against Tytler by CBI because – CBI said – there was “no evidence” or “witness” to establish that he had a role in the rioting. [4]

Interview with Harpreet Kaur and Manmeet Singh of Sach Productions, maker of the documentary “The Widow Colony” on the survivors of 1984 anti-Sikh violence in Delhi. I think VERY RIGHTLY – the makers call what happened in 1984 as SIKH MASSACRES and NOT Anti-Sikh Riots (because the Hindus didn’t kill the Sikhs, they helped them).. which I have been saying for so long!

Reference Links:

1. CBI clears Tytler in anti-Sikh riots case
2. Police didn’t help victims
3. 1984 anti-Sikh riots
4. Fresh probe into India politician

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