Chaitra Krushnapaksha 9, Kaliyug Varsha 5115
By Saurabh Bhattacharya
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Twenty-nine years after the anti-sikh pogrom in Delhi, in which 3000 people were massacred and 20,000 people had fled the city (as per Government data), the victims await justice. Justice delayed is justice denied and the Sikhs of Delhi have waited for far too long. This denial of justice has primarily happened because of the fact that the Government, then led by Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress, had a vital role to play.
While there had been enough eyewitnesses to nail the high-profile Ministers of Rajiv’s Cabinet who incited crowds by spitting venom and destroyed many lives and families; yet, not even one of them has been nailed. While there have been documented reports of voter-lists and school registration forms being distributed amongst the rampaging hooligans to specifically identify the Sikh families and destroy them, it is also a proven fact that during the same period, at a massive rally in Delhi, while reacting to the killings, Rajiv Gandhi had stated that ‘Once a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it shakes‘.
It was for the first time in the history of India that a democratically elected leader publicly justified the butchering of people of a specific community.
This raises a few questions. The delay in the course of justice saw natural demise of collaborators like HKL Bhagat, then I&B Minister, and freeing of people like Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar. This implies that had they been nailed, it would probably have led to skeletons falling out of Congress’s cupboards.
Could such an active role from the nation’s democratically elected leader have destroyed the image of the so-called ‘first family’? If people like Tytler had indeed faced justice, would Congress have retained the ‘secular democratic’ tag?
But power ushers in possibilities of changing the course of history, be it through honest convictions, or through illicit networking. The nation has been miserably let down by the political brand which it awarded with immense trust and faith repeatedly.
The big question is: Will India now reject this deceit from the Nehru-Gandhi clan?
Source : Niti Central
