As the official curtain which curtailed information in Punjab is lifted, various aspects of state terrorism are being brought to light. It is now recognized by the international press and acknowledged even by the Indian media that Rajiv’s regime and that of his mother, played dirty by killing Sikhs. (such as Professor Rajinder Pal Singh whose wife was elected member of the Indian Parliament), by the harassment, rape and torture of women (as reported in the World Sikh News special supplement and from time to time), by keeping Sikhs even young children incarcerated (such as Simranjit Singh Mann who was elected MP, released recently and is now being lionized by the People).
That is taken so long for the truth to come out is a pity. When the Sikhs pointed out the atrocities committed against them, foreign governments and even the media ignored it. The position of the former is somewhat easier to understand than the latter since it is presumed that the media is a fearless champion of truth. That the truth been revealed is despite it rather than because of it, in this instance.
Rajiv’s regime had temporarily succeeded in their devious game of tarnishing the entire Sikh community as terrorists. This is now being exposed.
The new regime in India would be signaling its intent of breaking with the past practices if it were to allow Amnesty International and other Human Right bodies to investigate the reports of Human Rights abuses in Punjab.
There should be an open investigation into the police atrocities, into the extra judicial killings the “fake encounters’ the so called ‘Operation Humiliation’ in which the Sikh women were specifically targeted by the police, tortured and raped, the illegal detention of Sikhs in Punjab, the workings of Police sponsored killer gangs like the ones lead by ‘Kala’ etc.
The official files must be opened to the public, pursuant to V.P. Singh’s inaugural commitment of the right to freedom of information and the people have to know the details of Operation Bluestar, the Indian army’s brutal assault on the Golden Temple.
Sikhs and Muslims have been at the receiving end of communal violence. No official, police or civilian has been adequately punished. The Malliana massacre in which, the almost exclusively Hindu, Provincial Armed Constabulary massacred scores of Muslims is just one of many such incidents.
Thousands of Sikhs were butchered in November 1984 and in subsequent events. The guilty must be punished. The master minds who engineered the events have to be brought to justice and adequate compensation has to be provided to the survivors of the victims. Nuremburg style trials have to be held against the guilty police and civilian officials such as K.P.S. Gill, Julio Riberio, S.S. Ray as well as their superiors such as H.K.L. Bhagat, Buta Singh and Rajiv Gandhi.
The spirit and process of democracy have been severely violated in India yet again. Wrongs have to be readdressed. The Indian people need to ask themselves what went wrong that a government could create and use the machinery to kill its own citizens over a period of time, just as the German people needed to ask themselves the same question after the Nazi atrocities. An open public inquiry and apology will be a start. V.P. Singh’s visit last week was a signal but what is needed is not signals but action. After all he and others in his cabinet including Arun Nehru and M. Syed were a part of the previous government and did not raise their voice against the atrocities on the Sikhs. Sikhs all over the world are watching now.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 22, 1989
