Remembering the unforgettable horrors of 1984 Sikh massacre

The first week of November is very ‘unforgettable and haunting’ for the Sikh community. The gruesome atrocities that took lives of thousands of Sikhs were sparked after India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination on October 31, 1984. We have spoken to lawyer and human rights activist HS Phoolka who spearheaded the long and arduous legal battle against the accused of this pogrom.

SBS Radio’s Preetinder Grewal in conversation with Harvinder Singh Phoolka (H. S. Phoolka) who is a senior advocate of Delhi High Court, politician, human rights activist, and a well-known author.

Preetinder: In this interview, we are talking about one of the darkest spots in Indian history - the massacre of Sikhs in the streets of India post-death of India’s then prime minister Indira Gandhi. On the other side of the telephone line, we have H.K Phoolka, who is a senior advocate Delhi High Court, who fought legally on behalf of Sikhs on this issue against prominent Congress leaders who alleged to have a role in this massacre.

Sat Sri Akal (greetings) Phoolka sahib, welcome to the SBS Punjabi program.

HS Phoolka: Sat Sri Akal Preetinder and greetings to all listeners.

Preetinder: Starting the conversation about the 1, Safdarjang Road Delhi, 31^st October 1984, at 9:15am when then prime minister of India Smt. Indira Gandhi was killed by her two Sikh gunmen. Staying away from the question of what is right and wrong in this set of events; the first thing I want to ask you, were you in Delhi on this day? On a personal level how this incident affected you?

HS Phoolka: Yes, I was in Delhi, working in the court when I heard the news, and my wife was also on work. In the evening, I picked her up from the office. On the way to our home, someone stopped me on the road and advised me to escape from here, on the next intersection mob is killing Sikhs. We took a different route to our house and when we reached there, we found that our house surrounding were on fire. We were in the worst affected area. This was the area around All-India-Institute-of-Medical-Sciences (AIIMS). I used to live in the colony next to AIIMS. On this day this area was little affected, there was no such news from other parts of Delhi on 31^st October 1984.

After this on 2^nd November 1984, my own house was attacked. Our landlord saved us from the mob by locking us in his storeroom. Mob questioned the landlord’s son. The mob even started beating him to get our whereabouts. But he didn’t succumb to this pressure. Luckily, an army truck came and took us out of that area. 

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Preetinder: After the death of Mrs Indira Gandhi in AIIMS, the mob shouting slogans against Sikhs, “Eye for an Eye” was being shown by government media “Doordarshan”. We think that in democracy, media is responsible for bringing the truth out. Media telecast should be responsible and should understand the sensitivity of the issue. 

My question to you is about the role Govt media played in this massacre, is that ever been questioned? Is there any department in India who makes the Media accountable? Had there any complaint registered against Govt. media’s role in all this? I mean do we have any such laws in place that makes media accountable?

HS Phoolka: It’s not only the Doordarshan’s mistake but it was meticulously planned and organised an attack. By afternoon most of the people knew that PM Indira Gandhi was killed by his Sikh bodyguards. But until evening there was not even a single incident happened in Delhi. Sikhs were on the streets doing their normal routine work. Usually, it’s a one-off incident that escalates into a big mob. But that was not the case here.

The first attack happened not on a vulnerable Sikh somewhere in the isolated part of Delhi but President of India Giani Zail Singh who happens to be Sikh. President’s car was attacked when he arrived at AIIMS to see the dead body of Indira Gandhi. His press secretary’s car was attacked; firebombs were thrown into his car. Bodyguard of President was manhandled and got stitches over the head.  And it all happened in the daylight, in presence of police. Police didn’t bother to protect even the President! No case was registered against the mob. No action was taken against them. President Giani Zail Singh was attacked twice on the same day. When he went in the AIIMS and when he came out of it. By doing this Govt gave a clear message that no Sikh should be spared even the President of India is not safe.

Preetinder: You mean this happened with Government’s involvement?

HS Phoolka: It was evident that police had clear instructions to not to interfere in all this. When President of India can be attacked who else could have been safe.

Still, on 31^st October there were no big incidents in Delhi metropolitan. Only this area was affected where congress party goons like Arjun Das who was councillor and his brother started all this with youth congress goons. Until that time this was the only mob that was doing violence around this area only. Arjun Dass was later killed by Sikh youths in retaliation.

The main planning happened on the night of 31^st October. Lists were made of the Sikh’s houses. For all these lists, data was fetched from the Gurudwara committee election database, which was with the government departments. In the veil of darkness, these lists and rods were distributed. Trucks full of rods were provided to the mob. The inflammable powder was distributed. It was all thoroughly planned and the plan was executed 1^st of November first thing in the morning.

Gurudwara (Sikh temple) was made the first target in every colony so that Sikhs can’t assemble there and defend for themselves.  First, they burnt the Gurudwaras with complete planning. Where ever Sikh congregated, Police asked them to surrender the weapons and dispersed them so they cannot protect themselves. The police assured Sikhs that they going to give them protection. They took the weapons from Sikhs and triggered the mob to kill Sikhs. If Sikhs refused to give up the weapons they have arrested them but not the goons.

It was not an isolated incident. All over Delhi, the same strategy was adopted. There are two to three instances where Sikhs refused to listen to police and confronted police and the mob, only they come out to safety. Had police stayed inactive Sikhs would have defended themselves. The number of deaths would have been a lot low than 4000. Moreover, 4000 deaths are the number of deaths only in Delhi. There were deaths in other parts of India as well. Sikhs were trapped with great planning. Had Sikhs knew that Police is part and parcel of this planning; Sikhs would have fought for themselves and came alive out of Delhi.

Preetinder: Mr Phoolka let’s talk about the role of Congress leaders in the 84-atrocities. Cases were registered against quite a few congress leaders, and ironically these cases are still in court past 30 years this heinous crime. Still after 30 years of fight newspapers are flashing “I have no hand in 1984 riots: Titler”. You have a lot of hot debates on these issues on TV under your sleeves. You have debated with Sajjan Kumar, Titler and other prime accused, personally. What do you think, do they have any remorse for what they did or they are sticking to the same guns that no court has proven them guilty and so they are as clean as anybody.

HS Phoolka: There is not even an iota of repentance or remorse in them. In fact, these leaders were actively in full public view managing these mass-killings. All the important Congress leaders were actively involved in spreading the hate wave and were fuelling the massacres. One of my Hindu friends raised with me the issue that there was violence in his area as well but I haven’t seen Mr Titler there. I asked him, who was the face of the mob. He acknowledged that it was Titler’s goons. He had seen them around Titler. I questioned him; do you think all these goons were acting alone, without the permission of their bosses?

Sajjan Kumar was overseeing all the area of violence personally. He made sure Sikhs were killed in front of him. The world knows he was carrying revolver around and targeting Sikhs. The well-drafted plan was executed openly. It’s not that they were executing remotely from homes but they were right there and then. They openly did the meetings and provoked the general public to participate in the Sikh genocide.

Preetinder: Mr Phoolka, to my knowledge, you have fought a long legal battle without ever charging any fees for this work and you have done this as a service to the Sikh community. Did you actually get anything out of the legal proceedings, what is your analysis of this lengthy tussle with the authorities? Has anybody been ever charged for their crimes in this saga or was the same old story repeated by the judiciary that in light of the lack of evidence we cannot charge anybody and the suspects get vindicated?

HS Phoolka: Let me share a story with you. In July 1985, we were preparing to file affidavits for the Mishra commission. Mr G Tohra had kindly offered us his residence to work on the legal proceedings and we used to work from 7 in the morning to midnight every day. Upon seeing us working so diligently on the cases, Mr Tohra commented that albeit your team’s hard work, the government will not pay heed to your pleas. I responded by saying that we have two options to move forward, either we keep quiet on this matter or we let government take autonomous decisions based on the self-formulated committees who will ultimately come to the conclusion that all this violence happened due to the wild celebrations carried out by Sikh people in Delhi and due to this provocative gesture by the Sikhs, the people of Delhi could not hold back their emotions and killed or injured very few Sikhs.

Such was the state of affairs at the time that it wasn’t even known how many Sikhs have lost their lives due to this massacre. When the-then home minister released an official statement that in total 600 people have died in the entire nation, we followed up by making a comprehensive list which indicated that 3878 people, approximately 4000, actually died. Ironically, the New Delhi Police declared the official figure to be 1,419. So you can imagine that despite the occurrence of such a massive event in the heartland of India, New Delhi, the officials didn’t even have the correct figures. Finally, they released the correct figure two and a half years later.

It dawned on me that the state will close the matter altogether by saying that the provocative celebrations made by the Sikh community by distributing sweets and dancing in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s death led to the violent eruption of human emotion which further resulted in the death of an insignificant number of Sikh people.

Alternatively, we decided to adopt a strategy which will go in the history books as the resilient nature of the Sikh community who fought hard for their rights. That we did not give up easily despite the non-cooperative attitude of the authorities. We felt that whatever the result of this battle, we will try our best to win it and this we strongly felt as our moral duty to stand our ground.

Consequently, they did start to acknowledge that injustice has been served on the Sikhs and they admitted openly in their public lectures that the response of the Sikh community is being well documented. They also encouraged us to formulate the affidavits so that proper action against the guilty party can be taken.

Ironically, the congress party rewarded the accused politicians by promoting them in the political ranks, by making them parliamentarians. However, because of our constant pressure, the two chief accused (Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler) are neither in the national parliament nor serving in the state assembly. The reason that they were not given any cabinet ministry is because of our vigilance and unwavering pressure.

The fact that we are still talking about the Sikh genocide thirty years later is a testament that this issue has been kept alive all these years. If not for our persistence, this issue would have long been forgotten and would have faded away from people’s memories. Had we not raised our voice, people would vaguely remember this as a very insignificant event and call it a minor scuffle. So this would have happened exactly had we not offered our resistance.

Let’s talk about the Jews for example. Jews are hunting the Nazis till this date and they are making sure that Nazis are properly prosecuted for their alleged role in the mass murder of Jews. This is what those communities are known for, relentless persistence. Although the Sikh massacre happened 30 years ago, the authorities are still scared of the fact we are pursuing this issue as if it happened only yesterday.

We are not doing this to seek revenge but we are just trying to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. It would be foolish to believe that this incident only happened once, provided similar circumstances it can be repeated. So we are just trying to safeguard our future in this democracy by exercising our rights safely and justly.

We would like to be remembered such that when similar circumstances arise like Indira’s Gandhi death and people again try to target a minority, the mother’s shall tell their emotionally charged sons that the Sikh community is still trying to bring justice to the victims of the tragedy which happened thirty years ago so you shall abandon this thought of harming them as they will pursue justice relentlessly.

This is what we are trying to do to bring awareness among the people. Secondly and most importantly, we want to send a strong message that the rule of law is above and beyond all, that no one is greater than the law of people. This is the very message that we would like to send throughout the nation so that wherever these things take place, those rioters and politicians shall be aware of the consequences that even after 25-30 years later, they can be charged in the criminal justice system.

I wrote my book back in 2007 called “When a tree shook Delhi”. At the opening ceremony of that book, Salman Khurshid, a prominent congress party leader, lauded our efforts by acknowledging that this book is a message to those people who are involved in such activities that even after a long span of time your past can catch up with you. He further mentioned that Sikh people have changed the history books with their efforts.

Therefore, regardless of the result, fighting this battle is of paramount importance and we will fight it till our last breath and we consider this as our greatest moral duty.   

Source: Supplied

Preetinder: Mr Phoolka, let’s talk about the witnesses now, the victims or the eyewitnesses like Jagdish Kaur, who said that we have grown old waiting for the closure to these cases. Justice delayed is justice denied, thirty years have gone past and the victims are patiently waiting for the outcome. Is that all you are going to get or the courts are just ignoring your pleas by postponing the hearings? Where to go from here?

HS Phoolka: Judicial inquiries are still pending. There are two cases pending investigation, one against Sajjan Kumar and the other one against Jagdish Tytler and there is an ongoing case against Sajjan Kumar. It is very sad to say that out of the pending cases, a particular case against Sajjan Kumar was based on the killing of four Sikhs on 1^st of November, 1984 and the F.I.R. was filed in 1987. It took the authorities three years to even register a complaint against the accused, let alone the investigation. However, they showed some form of investigation on paper and closed the case in 1992 after completing the charge sheet. The top police officials signed off the official document (Challan) on 8^th April 1992.

The normal court proceeding should have taken place within four to five days and the main accused, Sajjan Kumar, should have been tried in the court. Ironically, till this date, that charge sheet hasn’t been produced in the court. You wouldn’t have heard this kind of injustice before. The Akali Dal party protested a lot at that time in the parliament and also in front of Sonia Gandhi’s residence. They voiced their concerns that you are covering up this matter by protecting the accused.

In the current times, the Sikh Political Party Akali Dal has returned to power and it’s been there for more than five months (in Punjab). I wrote a letter to Sukhbir Badal recently and send him a reminder that your party in the past was protesting vehemently about registering the case against Sajjan Kumar.

Now that you have taken office, this is the time to bring that issue into the limelight again and you have forgotten about it altogether. I’d set him a one-month ultimatum by writing a letter on 30^th September that his party shall ensure the filing of that charge-sheet by 1^st of November. I reminded him that his party is in power now and they should get this done.

Also, that their party was protesting that congress party is protecting the suspects. I further reminded him that if they don’t take any action, we will start a campaign against the Akalis. Unfortunately, this is a fact that whoever brought up this issue, did this for purely political reasons but nobody had the righteous intent.

Secondly, 237 cases were dissolved by the local police by not filing the complaints in the first place. The police closed these cases altogether without any due investigation. Similar kind of scenario was reported in Gujrat riots where the local authorities were non-cooperative. To circumvent this, the supreme court of India formulated a special investigation team (SIT) to ensure the registration of those cases and the accused were punished justly. A similar demand for SIT was raised by us to investigate the Sikh massacre and the Akali Dal had fully supported us.

When the Kejriwal government took power in Delhi, they formed the SIT within a month and a half. But when the kejriwal government resigned after 49 days, the Delhi congress put brakes on the formulation of SIT immediately. They did their best to stop the making of SIT. Interestingly, five months have passed since the Modi government has acquired power but the SIT has not been formed yet. The current situation makes me feel that we may have to fight a similar battle against the Akali-BJP government as we did against the congress governments of the past.  

Preetinder: Mr Phoolka, with this we will have to conclude today’s interview in the interest of time. On behalf of our listeners, I thank you very much for your time.

HS Phoolka: Thank you very much!!

Harvinder Singh Phoolka (H. S. Phoolka) is a senior advocate of Delhi High Court, politician, Human Rights activist, and author of the book "When a Tree Shook Delhi".