Once again, Bidar sends an important new signal. The November 1984 incidents did convey a message but their full significance was neither fully comprehended nor understood by the world at large. The Bidar message rings clearer and louder.
Now unbiased press and sociopolitical probers have established beyond doubt that the Sikhs were subjected to a pre-planned conspiracy and the persecutors were encouraged by the fact that those responsible for November 1984 anti-Sikh carnage had gone scot free.
The September Bidar incidents sent shock waves and indignation among all democratic individuals and human rights activists when, for four days, the writ of law did not run in the city. The communal chauvinists ran amuck and innocent students and persons belonging to the Sikh community were subjected to untold miseries. The town was virtually rocked by looting, arson, mayhem and murder.
Bidar, a small historical town with a population of a little more than one lakh in Karnataka State, was visited by Guru Nanak Dev on his way to Ceylon around 1510. Ever since this ancient town has a small but conspicuous Sikh society. Guru Gobind Singh paid much attention to these Sikhs. One of the “Five Beloved Ones,” Bhai Sahib Singh hailed from this town. During his last days, the 10th Sikh Guru sent Mai Bhago to settle at Janwada about 10 km from Bidar to preach Sikhism.
Mr. Joga Singh and few others are descendants of troops sent by the Sikh empire to help the Nizam of Hyderabad around 1830. Several others joined them in 1947 and there is at least one Mr. Iqbal Singh Bhatia who has settled only recently after his retirement.
The sweet water spring (Jhira) around which the main Sikh shtine, Gurdwara Jhira Sahib, is built attracts the attention of the Sikhs since a similar place of worship (Panja Sahib) became part of Pakistan. After that, this place has become a big center of pilgrimage for the Sikhs.
Sri Nanak Jhira Sahib Foundation has taken up certain social welfare measures for the people of Bidar. It runs five insitutions: Hospital with 500 beds providing free medical aid; Public School; Engineering College, Polytechnic and Pre-University Colleges,
A great deal had already appeared in the press regarding Bidar carnage before the Punjab Human Rights Organization decided to send its Chairman, Mr. Justice A’S. Bains, a retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, to Bidar to probe into the matter, He was accompanied by Mr. Gutej Singh, a former TAS officer, who at one time had served in adjoining Medak district of Andhra Pradesh and had acquaintance with the area and its people.
The fact-finding team visited the spot, recorded statements and collected other information. Those interviewed included a few officials, Gurdwara and college management people, local politicians, one Kuldip Singh (18) inflicted with a dozen stab wounds in Hyderabad Hospital who was pursued for a kilometer and hunted in a maize field like a wild beast, and several other students.
The team inspected the well near the Superintendent of Police’s residence (about 100 meters away) from where four dead bodies of Sikh students were recovered. They were first badly beaten up then thrown into the well to ensure that they would not survive. Other two students died in Hospital due to injuries sustained during mob attacks. One boy was put up on electric saw to be cut up like a log. Apart from a dozen or so grievously hurt at least 125 Sikh students’ sustained serious injuries.
The police did not allow the team to proceed to Janwada where Bhai Bhago’s gurdwara was desecrated and looted twice on September 16 and 25.
All the 11 households and nine business establishments belonging to Sikhs at Bidar were looted and burnt completely. Extensive damage was done to the buildings housing Sikh institutions. Private property worth Rs.2 corer was looted or destroyed.
All this happened mostly on Ganeshpuja festival on September 15. This festival invariably accompanies tension between Hindus and Muslims and has quite often resulted in violence; some isolated incidents had occurred last year on this occasion.
A few days earlier, a new organization known as “Nav Shiy Sena” was launched. Navy and Swagath groups were already in existence. The activists of these bodies indulged in huge extortions and forced Sikh students to pay donations ranging from Rs. 100 to 500 ostensibly for the celebration of Ganesh Chaturathi festival.
The trouble started first on September 14 when a group of Sikh students was confronted by the donation seekers, the students refused to pay on the ground of having paid earlier. Receipts were demanded but were not readily available, this led to an altercation and resulted in the students being beaten up by these chauvinists, and they further started attacking Sikhs in the area and set their houses on fire.
Students gathered in groups and Started reaching either the Gurdwara or the Engineering College for their safety. Police intercepted some of the students and took them in custody. About 600 students collected in the college and a few dozens in the Gurdwara (the two are five miles apart).
A small mob on September 15 demolished the boundary wall of the Engineering College. The police remained silent spectator. It stirred only when the mob entered the college campus and students tried to repulse the attack, forcing the students to retreat. The police stood by while the mob destroyed the College property.
The Superintendent of Police appears to have been running around the town all the time without intervening anywhere to check the mob fury. Instigators freely moved about in the city inciting the violence. The S.P. was duly informed prior to the looting and burning of Mr. Joga Singh and Mr. Iqbal Singh’s houses. But he did nothing to prevent it though he passed that way.
Right before the eyes of the police, the crowds went plundering maiming and murdering. The students claim that they often heard the mob shout: “Police Zinabad” and “S.P. Zinabad”. The crowd was armed with bamboo Sticks of uniform size and colour, iron pipes, daggers and incendiary, matter.
On September 16, the Deputy Inspector General of Police arrived from nearby Gulbarga, arranged the shifting of students from the College to the Gurdwara and rescued 41 students from the police net, who complained of harsh beating by the police. Vandalism and arson continued the whole day. Some stray incidents also took place on September 17 and 18.
Muslims did not take part in attacks, they rather saved the students. Some Hindus did the same. But unfortunately a few Punjabi students (Hindus) were in forefront of the criminal groups. Some houses belonging to Muslims were set on fire along with the luggage of the students. In rest of the cases, only the property was taken out and burnt. The lumpen elements from outside Bidar were imported.
While giving his assessment on the role of the Press, a noted journalist, Mr. Kuldip Nayar said, “The anti-Sikh riots at Bidar have many lessons for the country. The national Press, which reported the protests against the Defamation Bill in far-flung areas, failed to take notice of the rioting at Bidar for 10 days. Not a word came out until some Sikh students reached Delhi to tell their tales of woe.
“Stringers in Bidar, it appears, were late in sending their dispatches, and what is worse, Press telegrams were not cleared for a few days, But even when the story appeared in some regional newspapers, correspondents of big newspapers did not follow it up. The national Press, therefore, cannot absolve itself of the initial lapse.”
(The Tribune, October 6, 1988).
All India radio and Doordarshan maintained a studied silence for several days. Who could have arranged the operation black out particularly at the initial level of the incidents? The blackout reminds once again of the similar arrangement made at the time of the November 1984 incidents. It seems certain powers kept a close vigil on the news agencies which were not allowed to report the incidents in a normal manner.
But it is further shocking that the international media such as the B.B.C. and Voice of America, too, routinely depends on the Indian news agencies for the entire Indian scene.
The theory that the students indulged in eve teasing does not hold water in the face of the admission by the personnel of Central Intelligence Department that eve teasing was not a problem in Bidar. The D.I.G. Gulbarga too supported them and said that there was no police case against the students for such offences. Mr. Veera Shathy Kushnoor of the Indian Express disclosed that the stories of eve-teasing were circulated on the eve of Chief Minister’s visit to Bidar after the “riot” in order to malign the students.
The second theory repeatedly asserted was that the real cause of the trouble was controversy over affiliation of a medical college sought by several rival organizations. The Chief Minister himself clarified that Congress (I) Member of the Legislative Council Mr. GM. Bhimanna Khondre had never applied for a medical college, as was propagated, and his Government had rejected the request of Sri Nanak Jhira Foundation for affiliation vide letter No. HFW/82 dated 18.7.1988.
The real causes, thus, must be sought elsewhere. The fountain heard of all the trouble is the Congress and it’s so called national leaders. It was Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who took the lead in declaring the Sikhs outside Punjab to be hostages depending upon the mercy of local Hindus. “Sikhs were advised not to press their demand of Punjabi Suba as it would result in their eviction from other states of the Union (cf: Pettigrew, Joyce, Robber Nobleman, International Library of Anthropology, London 1975, p. 92).
His daughter Indira Gandhi, too, echoed the same sentiments both inside and outside the Parliament when the Sikhs started their struggle for securing certain constitutional rights to Punjab. This refrain was in keeping with her new policy of henceforth depending upon Hindu votes. The elevation of her son Rajiv Gandhi to Prime Minister Ship in 1984 was inaugurated with the indiscriminate massacre of Sikhs all over the northern States governed by the Congress (I) party, he heads.
Anti-Sikh propaganda incessantly pouring out of the State-controlled media added fuel to the fire. Matters have been further aggravated by the undeclared but nevertheless effective immunity extended to all those who perpetrated such crimes in November 1984, Going still further, the guilty ones of that massacre have been rewarded with ministerial berths in the Central cabinet,
A systematic and continuous vilification campaign launched by the Congress (I) during and after the December elections of 1984 through official and controlled media largely whipped up anti-Sikh feelings among the innocent Hindus who were prone to the media propaganda. It paid dividends. The ruling coterie at the center, since then, is following the same policy in which it had discovered a potential goldmine to bolster up its dwindling fortunes to retain the dynastic rule,
The same spirit worked at Bidar. No explanation for what happened at Bidar is, therefore possible. The circumstantial evidence, too, points out an accusing finger towards the Congress as the Karnataka government has nothing to gain from the Bidar incidents. The state government did try to defuse the situation.
It appears that the Superident of Police symbolizes the attitude of the Congress (I) while the Deputy Inspector General that of the Karnataka State ruled by the Janata Party. This fact is evident, as in the recent past, Congress (1) stalwarts have been directly operating District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police to use them particularly against the interests of the opposition ruled States.
Having ruled out the other theories of eve-teasing and affiliation to the medical college controversy, one is inclined to believe that the guilty ones of Bidar in 1988 are same as those of Hindus and sweep the forthcoming elections.
Bidar may, therefore, be repeated in all other States governed by the Opposition as the Sikhs did not suffer significant loss in West Bengal, Andhra Pradash, Jammu and Kashmir including Karnataka in the wake of assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. The aim is to cut off the accusing finger of the Opposition pointed towards the guilty of November 1984 carnage and to obtain political gains out of it
There is no doubt that much more about the shocking incidents would become known as the time passes. The police and Shiv Sena insiders have yet to come out with their parts of the Bidar conspiracy (perhaps the enquiry to be conducted by the High Court Judge will examine these issues threadbare).
If Hindu-Muslim contradiction has been a matter of fact in India for centuries, the Hindu-Sikh cleavage is now a new reality. In case this cleavage is allowed to grow, as is likely, it will have far reaching consequences for India and the South-East Asian security because of the geographical reasons as Punjab is located at a pivotal place in this region.
The misdeeds of India’s chauvinistic ultras are, therefore, a God-sent opportunity to those who would like the region to be Balkanized. This is the signal, Bidar has sent to the world at large.
It is an eye-opener to all those who believe in democratic norms and to whom humanistic values are the very sustenance of social norms and to whom humanistic values are the very sustenance of social and political life. They must remain vigilant lest traitors and criminals masquerading as political leaders succeed in their diabolical and motivated design of destroying inter-community relations.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 30, 1988
