Journalist: It is a common practice to pay a token compensation to the families of those who lay down their lives while fighting the enemy forces.
Diplomat: That’s right.
Journalist: Compensation is meant to serve as a tribute to the departed and a small economic help in the form of a sewing or stitching machine to the soldier’s family.
Diplomat: Very correct.
Journalist: What special circumstances were there that the families of soldiers killed in the attack on the Golden Temple were paid a fabulous amount of one hundred thousand each?
Diplomat: Not in national interest to disclose.
* * *
Journalist: It has been reported that a suit of 20 billion dollars compensation is being filed for the death of 2,500 persons in the Bhopal gas leakage tragedy.
Diplomat: That’s right.
Journalist: Which amounts to four hundred thousand dollars for each of the dead?
Diplomat: Very Correct.
Journalist: How is it that your government has announced only 10,000 rupees (less than one thousand dollars) for each Sikh killed allegedly at the instance of ruling party functionaries?
Diplomat: Not in national interest to disclose.
* * *
Journalist: Two Delhi based People’s unions, one for Democratic Rights and the other for Civil Liberties, have published a joint report regarding the senseless violence in Delhi.
Diplomat: That’s right.
Journalist: The report has squarely blamed a central minister, congress (I) members of parliament and youth congress (1) leaders for inciting the mob and distributing money and liquor to the rioters.
Diplomat: Very correct.
Journalist: How is it that no case has been registered against these perpetrators of heinous crimes and why has the minister not been dismissed and arrested for abetment?
Diplomat: Not in national interest to disclose.
Letter to the Editor:
Dear Editor,
The dictionary describes assassination as “to kill by secret or surprise assault.’ At first glance at the recent events in India one may think that Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated. The same dictionary describes execution as “subjection to capital punishment; the execution of a criminal.’”’ In my mind and in the minds of most of the Sikhs, Mrs. Gandhi was executed for the murder of thousands of men, women and children. Most of the people were unarmed pilgrims. If what took place in Amirtsar June 6, 1984 had happened in the U.S.A. or any other Western country, I would have agreed that the killing of a political leader was the act of a terrorist group. But what we are seeing in India are the acts of desperate persecuted people who had no other recourse left to them. In the Western world there would have been an inquiry leading to the identity of the people responsible and those people would have been brought to book. Such justice is non-existent in India when it so therefore that could never have happened in India.
Mrs. Gandhi with India’s military might behind her, could have surrounded the Golden Temple and starved out the Sant Bhindranwale, she could have cut off the temple from the rest of India until such time that the people she was after had surrendered.
Instead she chose to use that military might to make a show of force. Instead of following a slower path that would have cost fewer lives of both pilgrims and soldiers, she followed a path that was meant to terrorize the Sikh community. And these actions of terrorism that she brought about were at best ignored by all world leaders.
Mrs. Gandhi committed a bigger act of terrorism on June 6, 1984 than all the instances that the alleged terrorists inside were accused of committing in the past two years. If taking of these people was truly the only goal of Mrs. Gandhi’s brutal attack, then why did she enter 38 other Sikh temples in the same savage and ruthless manner? The ‘so-called. Terrorists. It 1S this Background that was the reason that Sikhs won’t just stand back and let the Indian government steamroll over them. If taking sanctuary in a religious shrine is so criminal then the President of India, Giani Zial Singh himself is guilty of the same crime because he took refuge behind those same walls when he was a freedom fighter against the British. Even the British Indian Army surrounded the Golden Temple but never entered out of respect to the people’s religious rights. But Mrs. Gandhi thought she could crush the Sikhs and at the same time improve her chances of winning elections which were coming up at the end of the year. To achieve her personal political goal she murdered men, women and children. If that was not the case she could have allowed the media in to see what was happening. It was this action of hers that outraged the Sikh community worldwide. The helplessness and bitterness that every Sikh felt are hard to put into words.
Yours Truly, Baldev Singh Shergill
Article extracted from this publication >>JANUARY 4, 1985
