November: The saddest month of the year

Khushwant Singh

November will go down in our history as the saddest month of the year because of what happened in November 1984. Mrs Gandhi was murdered a day earlier. And hell broke loose on Sikhs who had nothing whatsoever to do with her dastardly murder: upwards of 5,000 were slaughtered across India all the way down to Karnataka. On its heels came the Bhopal gas tragedy in which over a thousand were choked to death and thousands more maimed for life.

Have these tragedies lessons to teach? Yes, they tell us how to avoid their recurrence. First, let us take a closer look at the assassination of Mrs Gandhi. I have good reasons to believe that she was averse to deploying the army to clear the Golden Temple to rid it of Bhindranwale and his goons entrenched in the Akal Takht. She was persuaded to do so by her advisers who evidently knew very little about the Sikhs, their history and what the Golden Temple meant to them. She was assured that the operation would be over in a couple of hours as Bhindranwale would lay down arms as soon as he realised he had to face armoured tanks and aircraft. As it transpired, the battle lasted two nights and days with heavy casualties of life and sacred property. When Mrs Gandhi visited the Temple two days later, she was shocked by the sight. There were dead bodies still floating in the sacred tank and the Akal Takht was in ruins. Mark Tully has rightly described it as “The fatal miscalculation”. Mrs Gandhi herself should have known that her life was in peril.

Another aspect of the tragedy, which is rarely mentioned, is the cowardly silence maintained by leaders of the Sikh community, both Akalis and Congressmen, against the hateful utterances of Bhindranwale against Hindus and his gangsters pulling out Hindus from buses and shooting them. They were scared of losing their lives because Bhindranwale only knew one way of dealing with critics — killing them. I know because I was on his hit list for many years. This created a lot of ill-will against Sikhs and is the main reason why so few came to their help when they were attacked. It has not yet got into the skulls of Sikhs living abroad. Many gurudwaras overseas have Bhindranwale’s photographs on display and speakers refer to him as a martyr.

All that is now history. What remains is to punish those who took part in the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984. Hundreds have been named by eye-witnesses. Barely 20 have been brought to justice. As I keep repeating ad nauseam, crimes unpunished breed criminals. You can be sure if these criminals are not brought to justice soon, many of those who suffered will take to crime.

About the Bhopal gas tragedy, all I can say is that it was caused by criminal neglect of safety measures. We continue to use sub-standard material in laying roads, building houses and factories. We pay the price for doing so.

with thanks : source : http://www.hindustantimes.com/November-The-saddest-month-of-the-year/H1-Article1-476567.aspx

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