|
Pogroms
only kill humans, we must not kill our soul
| |
Reading these excerpts from just a handful of affidavits submitted
before the Nanawati Commission, one wonders where has our sense of
outrage gone? Will nothing ever make us angry? Not even graphic
descriptions of mobs raping women, dogs eating their husbands'
flesh? Why swear on oath? Why not swear on this Incredible India? |
|
Never are editorial writers at pains for words on any subject to
write on, but this time at the World Sikh News, we were at a loss
about what to say on this one. What, possibly, has not been said so
far on the issue of November 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom?
The
world knows the reality. The Sikh community knows how the Indian
state has proven to be apathetic. The Indian state knows that this
is exactly what it wanted to happen, because had it not been the
case, it would have acted. Then, may be, we may not have had the
Gujarat riots.
Men
like H S Phoolka have been working like souls possessed. Politicians
like Parkash Singh Badal are sworn to eternal non-action. And the
community's leaders are busy in calling each other an agent of the
Congress or the Indian state.
Perhaps there is one thing that we do want to say. And that is that
the communities which may be passing through a crisis must shore up
all forces if they want to force the larger majority community and
the rulers into any action. The strategy of calling anyone with any
potential difference of ideology or action as an agent or a traitor
to the cause cannot help.
We
at the WSN have been throughout advocating a line of conciliation
among the Sikh communities leadership. There is little hope from the
ruling Akali Dal. The SGPC and the DSGMC have taken to calling each
other names and trying to get each other's leaders summoned at the
Akal Takht over an issue which is totally an internal matter and
should not have even made it to the media. The Jathedars are feeling
stiffled. The youth are leaderless, and the names of martyrs are
being bandied about by the crooks.
At
such a time, the advice of a sage must be listened to. And Advocate
Harvinder Singh Phoolka did speak like a sage when he said it was
time to act, to act silently with a missionary zeal on the social
front. We are destroying our heritage, not giving a direction to our
youth, making every kindly soul an agent of the Congress and not
recognizing that the real enemy must be chuckling at home.
What would our future generations say when they find out that this
entire Sikh community, which has many millionaires and great
activists in its ranks, never even thought of having a museum in the
memory of those killed in the army attack on our holiest shrine?
That we did not even discuss the idea of having a museum the way
Jews have preserved concentration camps? The offspring of the 1984
pogrom victims will look askance at us and ask why their fate was
not commemorized? What answers will we have?
That we were busy in calling each other agents of the Congress?
The
Sikh community must think why no one has so far thought of a similar
sting operation to bring out the real faces and reality behind the
1984 riots, just as Tehelka has done in case of Gujarat riots. Why
have we not honored men and women, irrespective of their
communities, who came out on the roads and landed in the pogrom hit
areas to stem the beastly tide? And who were later brave enough to
keep on stating their versions on oath before commission after
commission, calling the bluff of the Indian government and its law
and order and justice dispensing machinery?
There will be voices in future which will ask us questions. Be
afraid of the future if this is the way we are acting. The present
is in our hands. Pogroms only kill human beings. We must not kill
our soul.
31
October,
2007
|
Read Also
