For nearly three decades, on every anniversary of the 1984 Sikh genocide, I have reminded the nation that the Indian State and its judiciary never identified and punished those who slaughtered innocents from the country's second-largest religious minority. Each year I hope justice will finally arrive and I will not have to write again. It has not. This year, on the 42nd anniversary, the State has stopped even pretending that it is working for the victims.
Justice R.S. Sodhi (retd) recently described the horror: men burned alive in Trilokpuri, Sultanpuri and Mangolpuri; women raped; turbaned passengers dragged from trains; police who stood aside or joined the mobs. He noted that some 11 commissions and committees probed the killings, yet almost nothing followed. Compensation for a death was fixed at Rs 10,000, later Rs 20,000. A State that pays promptly for accidents, but in instalments over four decades for a massacre it failed to stop, has told its Sikh citizens what their lives were worth.
The numbers are damning. Of 650 registered cases, chargesheets were filed in 362, and only 39 ended in conviction. Barely 20 cases remain alive.
This is a pattern. The Nellie massacre (1983), Hashimpura (1987), the violence around the Babri Masjid demolition (1990-92), Gujarat (2002), Kandhamal (2008) and the continuing violence against the Kuki tribals in Manipur all ended the same way: commissions that outlive public memory, and perpetrators rarely punished.
Anti-Dalit atrocities follow the same script, from Kilvenmani (1968) to Bathani Tola and Laxmanpur Bathe (1996-97), Khairlanji (2006), Mirchpur (2010) and Dangawas (2015). Prosecution rates have never exceeded 20 percent. Yet when Dalits, workers or minorities stand accused, special investigation teams and fast-track courts move briskly, invoking "national security" and "the wish of society." The courts' motto is Yato Dharma Tato Jaya, "where there is righteousness, there is victory." The judiciary must explain whether its dharma includes minorities and Dalits.
The betrayal began early. The Marwah Commission was wound up when it became inconvenient. Justice Ranganath Misra's later report described the violence as spontaneous, later "channelized" by gangsters, reducing a genocide to "riots" as if Sikhs had been equal participants. He never said where the gangsters came from. According to Jarnail Singh, author of "I Accuse", Misra was later rewarded with a Rajya Sabha seat.
The BJP's memory is selective too. Narendra Modi, campaigning in 2013-14, repeatedly demanded to know who had killed thousands of Sikhs and whether anyone had been convicted. As PM in 2014 he called the violence a dagger in India's chest. Yet he never explained what the NDA governments of 1998-2004 did to prosecute the guilty. As journalist Manoj Mitta, author of *When a Tree Shook Delhi*, observes, there seems to be a tacit deal between the sponsors of 1984 and 2002. In the 2024 parliamentary campaign, 1984 was barely mentioned.
The RSS record from that time is revealing. On November 8, 1984, while killings continued, RSS ideologue Nana Deshmukh circulated a paper, "Moments of Soul Searching," which "Pratipaksh", the weekly edited by George Fernandes, published on November 25 under the headline "Indira Congress-RSS Collusion." As I read it, the paper treated the violence as genuine anger rather than the work of criminal gangs, and treated the assassins' act as if it carried the Sikh community's mandate. It told Sikhs to answer the mobs with patience, not self-defence. It praised Operation Blue Star and branded opposition to it anti-national. It framed the violence as a Hindu-Sikh matter, ignoring the Muslims, Christians, Jains, atheists and communists who also sheltered Sikhs. And it did not ask the Congress government to stop the killings.
The RSS organ "Organiser" mourned Indira Gandhi and asked sympathy for Rajiv Gandhi. Balasaheb Deoras called the carnage "infighting in the Hindu Samaj" and never acknowledged that Sikhs were the targets. The RSS, which loves to publicise its social work, has no photographs of rescue work in 1984.
Even the Congress was not alone in the planning. Eyewitnesses described the killer gangs' military-like precision, which many believe exceeded what local Congress leaders could have organised. That role has never been investigated.
Decades later, an RSS-linked body asked NCERT to delete from school textbooks any reference to Manmohan Singh's 2005 parliamentary apology to the Sikh community. And in 2019, the government awarded Deshmukh the Bharat Ratna, salt on the wounds of survivors.
The People's Union for Democratic Rights and the People's Union for Civil Liberties published "Who Are the Guilty?" in November 1984, naming names. The State buried it. It remains the most authentic account of the carnage.
Scholars of communal violence agree that impunity in 1984 made 1992-93, 2002 and 2008 possible. The only hope is that Indians who value a democratic, secular republic force the State to act.
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*Link for some of S. Islam's original writings and video interviews/debates:
http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/shamsul.islam.332; Twitter: @shamsforjustice;
http://shamsforpeace.blogspot.com/
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