1984 Commemorative Articles Operation Bluestar

1984 & I:
The Face of Evilby GURMEET KAUR





This year, 2009, marks the 25th Anniversary of 1984, when horrendous crimes were committed against the Sikhs in the very land of their origin. To commemorate this sad milestone, we at sikhchic.com have asked our regular columnists, as well as our contributors and readers, to share with us the impact 1984 has had on their lives. We have requested personal stories and anecdotes, as well as an attempt to capture their inner thoughts and deepest ruminations on what 1984 means to each one of them and their loved ones - without going into a litany of facts and figures or a listing of the injustices to date, all of which will invariably be covered with due diligence elsewhere. We intend to present these personal perspectives to you throughout the twelve months of 2009.


The following is the sixth of the series entitled "1984 & I". It is notable in that it describes the personal experiences of the author who lived in a city several hundred miles south of New Delhi - the latter being the main location of the anti-Sikh pogroms. As she explains, such massacres took place in towns and cities across the country.


He loved eating tandoori chicken and goat curry.

We suspected that his wife didn't care to cook meat in her kitchen; perhaps because they were observing Hindus. So he loved to stop by at our home to eat with my Dad; as a neighbour, he was always welcome. He was also the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of our area, and Dad was happy to have a "friend" in the police.

DSP Bhadoria's visits were almost a weekly affair.

Chickens, whiskey, jokes, laughter - loud ones.

I did not particularly care for Daddy's drinking or his meat-eating buddies, because they always stayed late, way past our bed time, literally nibbling on food like mice; picking off the flesh one bone at a time, while my little sister and I waited on them with hot phulke (thin, flat breads) on demand. Mom stood for hours in the kitchen, fluffing them on the gas-stove and tending to other chores in between.

I had a special aversion for this friend of his ... I was a self-converted vegetarian and every chicken killed was a personal blow to my compassion-to-animals philosophy, and Mr. Bhadoria's big belly consumed them in multiples. Besides, I thought that he was taking advantage of his position. How come Daddy was never dining at his home?

On the afternoon of October 31, 1984 - I remember studying on our flat rooftop, under the canopy of the old giant tree that stood next to our home, tall enough and aptly positioned to provide just the right shade for my desk, chair and lamp - my make-shift eco-study-room
.
We lived in Indore, a city located in the central part of India, several hundred miles south of its capital, New Delhi. My parents had moved here when I was just a month old.

I heard my buddy, Sapan, calling and waving at me from his third floor apartment porch that overlooked the roof of our single storey house. His body language conveyed a sense of urgency.

I ran to end of the roof closer to his house. A side street separated our homes.


"You don't have to kill her anymore, she is dead. Her Sardar (Sikh) bodyguards roasted her."

I could see him feeling important, delivering a very important piece of news. His tone had a bit of accusation in it, though.

I froze.

I still remember the enormity of emotions that engulfed me. And I shamelessly admit that pride and relief were some of them. Fear was natural, but an afterthought.

June of that very year - a mere five months earlier - flashed in front of my eyes. I remembered when my maasi (mother's sister) was visiting us from Delhi. All the way from the train station to home, she was silent and could barely hold her tears, her face flushing-hot. As soon as she walked inside, she had let go into a wail.

Words poured out: "Darbar Sahib (a.k.a. Harmandar Sahib or The Golden Temple in Amritsar) was attacked, the army killed thousands of innocent Sikh visitors, the sarovar (the pool surrounding the main shrine) turned red with blood..."

They had heard the news of the army assault on The Golden Temple on the train, as they were headed to Indore to visit us for summer. To add insult to injury, they had to bear taunts from their co-travelers in their train.

For days and days, we talked about what had happened in Punjab. Hurt, humiliated, enraged. We heard the neighbours, schoolmates, newspapers justify the attack and declare victory over the so called "secessionist" agenda of the Sikhs.

"If you have to live in our country, behave yourself, live with your head bowed low ..." a shopkeeper had told me once, after I picked up and paid for provisions.

I had remembered telling Sapan how I felt like taking revenge upon and killing Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, who had ordered the attack on the heart of Sikhism, the Darbar Sahib, alongwith some 40 other gurdwaras throughout Punjab. I was a 15-year-old who wouldn't harm an animal, but Mrs. Gandhi - she was a monster for me.

"Did she have to launch a full scale army attack to get to a few armed men who roamed about freely and even appeared before the media just a few days ago? What happened to intelligence services? Everybody knows that the Darbar Sahib has four doors, and is always open to all. Anyone could walk in and request a meeting with Sant Bhindrawale (the Sikh religious leader accused of rebelling against the government) and his men. [As Harry Reasoner of CBS' 60 Minutes had said, only a few days before!]

And was it a mere coincidence that she chose to assault us on one of our primary high holidays, the very day we were commemorating the martyrdom of Guru Arjan - who died while upholding freedom of religion, for all? Even on a normal day, the visitors numbered in tens, if not hundreds of thousands, coming in from all over the world ..." - I would argue with him, on and on.

The most important center of the fifth largest religion in the world had been attacked and how adeptly she had managed to plan it, concealing the enormity of it and later trying to justify it, barring the international press and human rights groups from the province way in advance of the assault.

The intentions of the so-called "Operation Blue Star" were clear as crystal to me, even 25 years ago. It was meant to create the semblance of national unity by creating a national enemy. What better than, under the ruse of moving to preserve the "integrity of India", actually consolidating her own political power by launching a war against this enemy?

George W. Bush must have learnt a lesson or two for his war against terrorism from Indira Gandhi. His mistake, though, was that he didn't ban the press outright and conceal his crimes from the world.

I don't think my friend understood my rage.

His sources were the newspapers that would describe Sikhs generically as terrorists, preparing for armed rebellion to declare their homeland free. They also reported isolated incidences of violence against innocent bus travelers, followed by pictures of brave police officers boasting alongside a dead "Sikh terrorist", lying down next to purported "automated artillery".

Yet, my cousins from Punjab would tell me how the police would pick up young Sikh boys and stage fake encounters, kill them and plant weapons on them to make them look like armed terrorists. There were news reports later - but hidden in the back pages - of cars found abandoned with turbans and fake beards hidden in their trunks! The media did not dare to draw conclusions!

Sometimes, our arguments would heat up. I remember beating my friend one day when he lost an argument and resorted to insults. I was taller than most boys my age, athletic and hot-headed. He just liked to test my muscles from time to time; we were still the best of friends.

Dad had come home early, as soon as he read the news in the evening tabloid. A dark cloud hung over our heads. We spent the evening glued to the TV and calling our relatives. The news of "revenge against Sikhs" had started to trickle in, alongside the swearing-in of Mrs. Gandhi's son, Rajiv Gandhi, as the new Prime Minister of India.

The next morning, we were violently interrupted in our breakfast as a loud brick flew in through our living-room window, pelting shattered glass all over.

A mob of about 20 was outside the courtyard gate, hurling bricks and rocks at our home, chanting slogans like "Sikhs are traitors!" "They killed our Mother!" and "Blood for blood!"

The one-time dictator of India who had, only a few years earlier, unilaterally dissolved the government, censored the press ... and had herself, as a result, been charged, convicted and imprisoned for crimes of corruption and seen as a tyrant by Indians and the rest of the world alike, had suddenly become a martyr and the Mother of the nation?

The mob quickly dispersed after a few minutes of terrorizing us.

Daddy quickly got on the phone to call his police-officer friend. Strangely, he was nowhere to be found, either at home or at the police station. Daddy kept calling him through the day and leaving urgent messages.

Finally, the phone rang. I jumped up, anticipating Daddy's friend. But it was not him. The voices were unfamiliar, clear and stern. They addressed me by my name.

"We are coming to your home soon. We will ... you in front of your mother, your father and your brother ... hundreds of us ... before we kill you all".

The language they used made the term "gang-rape" sound sophisticated. I couldn't exactly process all the words, but the message managed to terrorize one who was generally referred to as a "tomboy" and "fearless" - me! Perhaps it was their calm and authoritative tone of voice - conveying that they meant business - that got to me.

Who were they? How did they know it was me who had answered the phone, and not my mom, not my sister? Dad looked at my pale face, my shaking hands, and grabbed the receiver. He heard the last bits and pieces and figured what was going on. He yelled at them; they hung up.

The calls didn't stop throughout the day. Each time, they would tear the already scary silence that had pervaded the space of our cozy home. We had no choice but to answer the phone - in anticipation of help from the Police.
Read More:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=25150 (1984 Commemorative Articles Operation Bluestar)

In the meanwhile, after trying him for the hundredth time, Dad got DSP Bhadoria on the line. "I will send you some security", he had said.

The security never showed up. But the mob did.

This time, they came with more bricks, as well as torches, in their hands. They hurled the bricks first, broke more windows, jumped over the locked gate and set fire to our car and the scooter. They damaged the electricity panel outside and cut off the supply into our house. And quickly, they disappeared again. They were probably testing if we had any weapons. We didn't and Dad was regretting not having anything to protect his family with.

We called the fire department, in vain.

As soon as we felt safe, we rushed out to put off the flames with the garden hose. None of the neighbours came to help. The street was quiet and deserted, as if nobody lived in that area. It was getting dark and as soon as the fire was put out, we locked ourselves inside, hoping that it was over, still naively thinking that the police and the fire department would show up any minute to help us.

When the realization occurred that we were on our own, we started cooking up some defence strategies if the mob were to show up again. We knew we wouldn't last long. My sister was only 13, my brother 11. Mom was no good to put up a fight. She had never even raised her hands on us.

Running would be an option, but where to and how far? Why weren't the neighbours worried about us? They surely saw the mob the last two times. Why hadn't anybody called to see if we were okay?

All the while, we were hoping that it was over and the government would act by now. They may be a bit slow, but how could they let an innocent law-abiding family be treated like this? After all this was India, the biggest democracy in the world, a country that boasted its secularity and diversity. A country for whose freedom Sikhs had laid down their lives for centuries, first against the Persian, Turkish and Afghan invaders, and then against the British. A country for whose defence they still fight today and sacrifice in an enormously huge proportion, given their small population ratio.

Little did we know that it was the government who was sponsoring this program against its own people. Later, we were to find out that even the Sikh members of the Armed Forces who were riding the trains that day were dragged out and set on fire.

The sun was starting to set and silence of the dark got scarier. Smoke was seen in the distance and occasional telephone rings chilled our bones.

The calm before the storm did not last long.

They were back before long, over a hundred in number this time around, armed with bricks, torches, metal rods and machetes. We were surrounded from the front and the side. Before we knew, some had jumped the gate, broken the front door open and entered the living room. There was another door that separated the living room from the hallway, that led to the bedrooms on each side and the kitchen towards the center back of the house.

Dad yelled, asking us to jump off the back-wall behind the kitchen's courtyard and to run for our lives, while he rushed to shut the hallway door in order to get us some time.

The rebellious teenager that I was, I refused to leave him. I was his strong warrior, the second line of defence. I joined him as he held the door handle from the hallway side, trying to shut it.
We found the mob already at work on the other side. The three young men leading the mob had got hold of the door and started pulling it in the other direction, trying to get to us. We knew it was over for us. We only wanted to delay them so my sister and brother had a chance, and they needed at least one parent.

Blood-curdling screams of "Kill them! Get them!" filled the space, alongwith the glowing light of the torches, the flashing iron-rods and machetes and, above all, the deviously criminal, shining eyes of the mob. The door went back and forth a few times between us.

It was them, the ones who had called on the telephone. I recognized the tone of the voice, the words, even through all the noise. The struggle went on for a little over a minute.
Then, suddenly, I came face to face with the killers, rapists, plunderers ... The scene comes clearly alive even today as I write, this day 25 years after that dreadful day.

Then, something happened, and our bodies switched to survival mode and, together we seemed to be applying a super-human force ... Dad and I somehow managed to shut the door and latch it closed.

Our hands were bruised and seemed to have become one with the door handle, but the struggle gave my brother and sister just enough time to jump off the wall and escape. My weeping and terrified mother was still desperately trying to climb the six-foot-high wall, but kept falling back over to our side.

We picked her up and literally dumped her on the other side in a split second. Dad and I were working in unison, as if we had coordinated each action to the second and practiced the drill several times beforehand.

The poor thing ... Mom fell flat on her belly. And I, most unexpectedly burst into laughter. We didn't know whether I was laughing at the crisis or whether I had gone insane. But later, to my relief, I learnt that nervous laughter is not an unusual response to a sudden shock or crisis.

The ground was much lower on the other side, where the little hut belonging to the neighbourhood Jamaadaars (toilet-cleaning workers) stood. I jumped over next. Helped my mom, dragging her to the home across the narrow street on the left.

I could see the torch-bearing mob slowly trickling into the side street, but at a safe distance. And then Mrs. Jain flashed out of her darkened house, grabbed us, shut the door, shoving and locking me inside her bedroom. I fell to the floor in exhaustion, and then blacked out.

When I woke up, I remember struggling with Mrs. Jain. I was trying to grab a knife from her kitchen to go back outside in order to look for my brother, sister and Dad. She was somehow prepared for it. Perhaps, because she was familiar with my temperament. A few months ago, I had beaten up her son (who was a couple of years younger than I) for harassing my little brother and messing with his patka (turban). When the door bell rang at our house that day and she appeared with her bruised and bleeding son, Vikas, I knew I was in big trouble.

But an educated and cultured lady that she was, she had brought Vikas to my home for us to make truce. When she saw my torn shirt, disheveled hair and scratched face, she made him apologize, for he had raised hands on a girl! When she left, she had a smirk on her face and I, a blush of embarrassment; she had probably not met a rogue like me, nor I ever encountered a classy woman like her. Vikas and I remained good friends thereafter.

As I waited, a "prisoner" in her kitchen on this fateful day in 1984, for a few hours I did not have a clue as to what had happened to the rest of my family. I only knew that my mother was safe.
Where did they go; was Dad able to jump? Did the mob get them? Those few hours of my life were some of the toughest I can recall. Humiliated, hurt and helpless ... I was crying to be let out. What if they were wounded and needed help?

If someone had killed my family, didn't I have a right to go after them? But who would I go after? Deep down, I knew I could do nothing but wait ... yet, I couldn't sit still. My mouth was dry with screaming and it took Mrs. Jain's whole family to keep me there.

Around midnight, one by one, we all finally were united. All five of us intact, but with some minor injuries.

Dad, who did not get an opportunity to cross over the street, was quickly hidden by the jamaadaars in their hut. Fortunately, the mob didn't expect him to be hiding in a vulnerable, insecure hut or perhaps did not want to venture into the dark shack of the "untouchables".


The mother had stood outside, calmly consoling a crying baby in her arms, pretending she hadn't noticed a thing, when a couple of hooligans came looking for us. A small mud wall separated Dad and them; he could hear them questioning her.

The kids were helped by a Christian school teacher in the apartment complex to the right of our house. They had to jump a couple of walls to get there. We all spent the night at Sapan, my Hindu friend's, home, and watched our home from his third floor porch as it smoldered. Not much was left of our car and scooter.

Apparently, since several of our neighbours ultimately realized that their homes were threatened by the spreading of fire, they finally approached the Fire Department, which then turned up and mercifully put out the flames in our house.

It had taken us five years to build our dream house. Dad was busy running his small transport business, often out of town, so he was always behind in his paperwork. When we moved into this place from a 300-square-foot space, it seemed like a mansion. Most of all, we were happy to be settling down for the first time ever in our own home.

We kids had our own bedroom and spacious bathroom and a king-size bed that we were glad to share. I had even my own racks for clothes and books. There was a small garden in the front courtyard, but most precious of all was the flat rooftop with the shade of the giant tree under which my desk stood; my haven.

All I wanted was a quiet spot to read, and that was it! Now, in new-found camaraderie, we could see our haven smouldering, with the smoke merging with other smoke clouds emanating from Sikh homes and businesses across the city of Indore.

The city had a decent Sikh population, a cluster enveloping each of the dozen gurdwaras. Guru Nanak himself had visited the city while on his second major sojourn (between 1506 and 1513 A.D.) and a few of those gurdwaras were historical, protecting the places where he had held discourses, enlightening many. They had been established in the 16th century by locals who had been inspired by him.

Now those very places were being attacked by the locals, perhaps agonizing the souls of their ancestors who had played host to the great Guru.

We learnt later that the two senior bureacrats (Collector and Additional Collector) of the city that day in 1984 - one was a Christian, the other a Sikh) were instrumental in imposing curfew across the city, thus bringing the mayhem and violence within control within a day, which was much sooner than what New Delhi, Kanpur and other cities in the Northern India had experienced.

A total of 26 Sikhs were officially reported to be killed by the mob in Indore and surroundi
ng areas. [The real figures in India are invariably higher than "official counts".] Thousands of businesses, homes and automomobiles were destroyed.

No respectable family ever reports a rape in India; hence, none were talked about, although there were plenty of rumours of rape-suicides. The second day, as news of the curfew order was broadcast, we went back and took a walk through what was left of our house.

The mob had taken everything they could and destroyed the rest. Photographs and sports trophies, the things that mattered to me the most, were burnt or charred. My handcrafted doll that I had made for a craft project was lying there half-burnt, one-eyed, accusing me of desertion.

It was Dad's first home that he owned in his country of refuge - he had fled here in 1947 from the tragedy and mayhem of Partition. It was my last. Refugees and renters - that's what we felt we were in India.

Make something of yourself, get out of this place. This country does not want us anymore", Dad had said, choking back tears, as I looked at my doll.

The seeds of emigration had indeed been sown. Five years later, I would finish my Engineering degree and apply for graduate school in the United States. One by one, the rest of my family would flee that sad land to join me.

Except Dad.

Perhaps he had lost the courage to be displaced again in his lifetime. He was already thrown out of his homeland (West Punjab) when he was a child.

They had arrived in Kanpur empty-handed, along with his extended family - half of them Sikh and half Hindu Bannuwals (of the city Bannu in the Sarhad Province of current-day North West Frontier Province in Pakistan).

A new language, new culture, new country: they had to build their lives from scratch.

I have returned to India a few times since, and every time the plane lands into the inauspiciously named "Indira Gandhi International Airport" at Delhi, the city where thousands of Sikhs were burnt alive, it gives me a queasy feeling.

I want to ask every person in uniform, every taxi driver, every common man on the street: "Where were you in 1984 - in the mob, or hiding in your home, peeping out and watching a neighbour being raped or burnt?"

Then I think of our neighbours - the Jains, who took us in, the Shahs who sheltered us for the night, perhaps risking their lives ... and I stop myself.

Till today, I have not had the heart to visit my birthplace, Kanpur. It was in Shastri Nagar, Kanpur (in Uttar Pradesh Province) that three of my paternal cousins - Harjinder, Bhupinder and Khalsa, aged 30, 25 and 20 - were dragged out of their homes and torched alive, right in front of the eyes of their widowed mother who had raised them singlehandedly through extreme circumstances. Their young wives and a little daughter, too, were made to watch the massacre.

The three months that followed November 1984 in that home in Indore were some of the most humiliating days of my life.

A couple of the thugs from the mob rode by on their bicycles every morning, and again in the evening, perhaps heading home from work, right on the street in front of our house. At times, they would run into me and they would utter the same words I had heard on November 1. Their eyes would brighten up with cruel delight as I would squirm, enraged.

I didn't speak about them to my parents. I knew it was pointless. I did not want to bother them; they were already burdened, rebuilding our lives and livelihood. Besides, who could they complain to? The police?

We had heard by now of how the mob leaders were given positions in the government. Some, clearly identified as criminals, were appointed cabinet ministers in the national government.

How could one seek justice from the very criminals who had committed the crimes? I would often fantasize about killing them, but somehow managed to tough it out for three months.
I jogged a lot and joined judo school instead, taking my wrath out at the opponent on the mat. Two years later, I would win the state championship.

"Deal with it!" I told myself.

We did go to court. The day our case was dismissed for lack of evidence, we all decided that it was time to move on and that pursuing justice was useless.

"Learn a lesson and look forward" has been the motto of my life from then on. I have become real good at running away from negativity.

By February of 1985, four years after we had moved into our much-loved home, we had fixed the damage, repainted it ... and then, said goodbye to it. We rented a small apartment in a Sikh neighborhood which had stayed safe during attacks.

There was a little gurdwara in the neighbourhood and as soon as the residents had heard the news of violence elsewhere on November 1, 1984, they had gathered and organized themselves. They had made a human wall around the neighbourhood and would man it for the next three days and nights. They were a bunch of truckers, ex-armed services men, etc., and hence managed to muster a good bit of arms and hardware, including traditional Sikh artifacts from the gurdwara, to keep the mob at bay.

We were back to crummy quarters, about 500-square-feet of space that we could afford. I would spend the five years of my college studying on the rooftop in the hot scorching sun ... without the shade of my tree.

Nonetheless, it felt safer, with fellow Sikhs around and the shade of the gurdwara - incidentally, built in memory of Guru Arjan.

This is where my longing to connect to my roots began. To be a Sikh had slowly started to have meaning.

Guru Arjan's life and martyrdom itself has a lesson for anyone that is looking for any answers and I was begining to see it - "Tera kiyaa meetha laage, har nam padarath Nanak maange" - "Sweet is Thy Will, O Lord, All Nanak asks for is the Gift of Thy name".

My mom, sister and brother hated the move, for this was far away from the "cosmopolitan" neighbourhood and the good school district we used to live in. They resisted and tried to convince us, saying it was a once-in-a-lifetime incident, but failed to convince the two of us.

My mother was particularly afraid of us falling behind in our education and picking up "uncouth language" from the children of the neighbourhood's truck drivers.

It was my Dad and I who couldn't live in our former "educated" and "civilized" neighbourhood home anymore, because we had come face to face with the worst of humanity. If we were to have faith in the goodness of Man again, we needed to seek it elsewhere.
Read More:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=25150 (1984 Commemorative Articles Operation Bluestar)

My Dad needed to get away from his "friend" in the Police, and I from those evil eyes.












Source http://www.sikhchic.com/article-deta...?id=712&cat=21

1984 & I:
The Cartoonistby VISHAVJIT SINGH


This year, 2009, marks the 25th Anniversary of 1984, when horrendous crimes were committed against the Sikhs in the very land of their origin. To commemorate this sad milestone, we at sikhchic.com have asked our regular columnists, as well as our contributors and readers, to share with us the impact 1984 has had on their lives. We have requested personal stories and anecdotes, as well as an attempt to capture their inner thoughts and deepest ruminations on what 1984 means to each one of them and their loved ones - without going into a litany of facts and figures or a listing of the injustices to date, all of which will invariably be covered with due diligence elsewhere. We intend to present these personal perspectives to you throughout the twelve months of 2009. The following is the eighth in the series entitled "1984 & I".


October 31, 1984 was like any other school day, except for the contents of my lunch box. Instead of the usual onion paranthas wrapped in the daily newspaper, there was a change in the menu. I had decided the interiors of the lunch box were the perfect location to sneak in a transistor radio to chew in some live cricket commentary. The Indian squad was visiting Pakistan for a match up in the city of Lahore.

By the time the match started, classes were in session. Along with my friend, I played a delicate dance with the teacher. When the teacher was in long sessions facing the blackboard, the radio came out, glued to the ears. We went back and forth for some time until an abrupt interruption.

Late in the morning, live commentary of the game went off the air and a stern voice announced the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

We were stunned into silence. The match had been cancelled. We did not know what to do with this news. I was not ready to share it with the teacher, so I sat there, trying to digest the news which was about to change our lives.

The lecture went on without interruption. It was not long before someone entered the classroom, had a whispering session with the teacher and then announced that school was suspended for the day. We were to get ready for boarding the buses by the front gates of the school.

On any given day, I would have cheered the news of going home early from school, but not on this day.

I did not know what the day held in store for me. While I boarded the bus along with hundreds of fellow students, rumours were already beginning to swirl around.

Indira Gandhi had been apparently shot by her Sikh bodyguards. That might explain why we were leaving early.

We were students of a private Sikh school owned and operated by Delhi Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.

The forty-five minute bus journey through the streets of South Delhi was unusually quiet. Slowly, the bus emptied out as it made stops on the way. My brother and I were among the last to disembark from the bus.

We quietly walked home, knocked on the front door. Our mother could not have been more relieved to see us home. Although she did not know that we were heading home early, she reacted as if she was expecting us.

Now, we waited for my father.

These were the days before owning a phone was an affordable necessity.

As minutes turned into hours, my mother was beginning to panic. By now, it had become public knowledge that the Prime Minister's assassins were indeed her Sikh bodyguards. There was no precedent for such an event, but even as a young boy, I could sense tension in the air.

My father finally arrived in the early hours of the evening with news that disturbances were being reported around the hospital where the Prime Minister had been taken. The evening news was focused entirely on the tragedy at the Prime Minister's residence earlier in the day.

The elder son of the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, was sworn in as the next leader of the nation. There was no mention of any other events. So we all went to bed that night with the nation officially in mourning.

The morning came and the curtains remained shut. My parents had declared a self-imposed curfew. We were not to leave the house and were to stay away from the windows. I was not sure who we were hiding from, but intuitively knew not to question my parents.

We caught up on the news of the official mourning period in progress, which was in preparation for a grand funeral. It felt like a quiet holiday morning until we spotted police officers from the cracks of our bedroom curtains.

I took a peek, my brother took a peek and our father joined in as well. I remember seeing a khaki-uniformed police officer standing in the middle of the street, right next to our apartment building. He had this long gun pointed in the other direction. A couple of other officers were standing right next to him.

The asbestos roof tops of a local school blocked our view of his intended target. He kept standing for a while, fidgeting with his gun. We were almost losing interest until we saw the cop lie on the ground, still taking aim with his gun in the same direction. Maybe he got tired. He posed like that for a while. No shots were fired and we retreated away from the windows.

I felt a vague sense of relief at knowing these police officers were here to maintain law and order. We felt safe in their presence.

The next half hour or so felt like the intermission of a Bollywood movie. What came next, though, no Bollywood writer could even dream into his script.

There was a slight rumble of feet and sticks hitting the ground. We peeked out of one side of the apartment and saw nothing.

Then, we took a peek from the windows on the opposite end of the apartment. What we saw froze us in our spots.

As far as the eye could squint, there was a long orderly line of men with sticks in their hands marching quietly. As if that was not enough, the same cops we had spotted earlier on the street were guiding the mob of men. Never before had I seen Indians calmly and orderly move through in a line without a word being uttered.

This procession went for a while. Hundreds of men were pouring in from the neighbouring shanty town, heading into the unknown. Unknown to me, at least. These men probably knew exactly where they were headed.

Hours went by with no sign of the men with sticks. After some time, neighbourhood kids, including some of my friends, came out for a little game of cricket right in front of our building.
This whole scene was so outside the realm of my experience or imagination, that I just could not fathom what those men were doing on this day while in the company of uniformed police officers.

Then, came the sequel.

Late in the afternoon, we spotted the mob of men again, this time all straggling back, in clusters, in the direction of wherever they came from earlier in the morning.

Except, this time around, instead of sticks in their hands, they were carrying sacks of wheat, tin-cans of biscuits and bags full of groceries. They all seemed so content and harmless that, after a while, my father made the most stupid decision of his life.

He decided to venture out into the balcony in full view of these men. I still have the crisp vision of this old man on the street, wearing a dhoti and a tank top with a huge can of crackers on his head. With a Gandhi-like body and balding patches of white hair, he seemed so harmless.

We made eye contact and he went his way. We spotted a few others. All with hands full, gingerly making their way towards the shanty town.

Then we spotted this one man on the same street where we had seen the cops in the morning. He was empty-handed. Actually barefooted, he had his rubber flip-flops in hand. The anchor on one of them must have slipped out and he was fixing it. He spotted us.

"Maadar chodh, Sardar!" is the expletive I heard erupt from his throat.

And then, it became a litany and a chorus, arising from the crowd!

We rushed into the apartment. My father locked the balcony door. The insults got louder and more men seemed to have joined the seemingly ****ed-off empty-handed man.

Within minutes we were surrounded. "Maadar chodh, Sardar, bring them down!" seemed to be the chorus now, emanating from the mob.

Then we heard the neighbourhood kids, who had by now left their game of cricket, trying to talk with these men. They were almost screaming, attempting to talk over the men. I actually heard one of them say: "There are no Sikhs here".

"What audacity!" I remember thinking. A young kid, yelling at a man hell-bent on looting, lying to his very face. More insults flew in our direction.

Then one of the kids cried out: "These are government-owned apartments. This is a government-owned shop". That was a fact. We did live in government-owned housing and the apartment below ours was converted into a shop.

By this time, my mother was panicking and my father had us sequestered in his bedroom.
My father was a Sikh version of Woody Allen. The same dark rimmed glasses, a skinny figure with an anxious edge. He had a mean temper but I could not imagine him saying, "Jay marna hi haiga, taa(n) larrh kay mariye" (If we have to die, then at least let's die fighting!).

Even if we had to, what were we going to fight with? Kitchen knives? We formed a circle and started to recite Japji Sahib. I could not imagine death, but fear was beginning to take a tight grip.

The voices now seemed to be fading into the distance.

I cannot remember if we finished reciting the Japji Sahib, but the voices had stopped. I was waiting for a cue. Would the front door come smashing down? Would we suddenly see the faces of those men up close? Screams, insults and then, a confrontation?

We sat through the longest minutes of our lives.

As time passed, so did my imagination began to relax. Once darkness set in and it appeared as if the crisis had blown over, we heard a knock at the door. We waited anxiously ... and silently.
Then we recognized the voice of a neighbour. My father went to the door. Our neighbour, whose sons were good friends of mine and my brother, was checking on us.


His sons and our cricket buddies had pulled off a miracle. They had somehow convinced the mob to turn away. With the sun down, we were not sure if the men would come back now that they knew or at least suspected that a Sikh family resided in the building.

Our neighbour offered us his place for the night. We had a quick dinner. My parents packed a few suitcases with things close to their hearts, and we set out a few steps into the open to spend the night on the gracious floor of our neighbour.

We woke up to a new day. We walked back to our apartment to spend the rest of the day watching, hearing people walk past the body of the slain Prime Minister on television. There was a crush of people surrounding the body, covered in countless garlands. While they paid obeisance, periodic chants filled the airwaves. "Khoon ka badla khoon se laingay" (With blood, we shall avenge blood!).

For the next two days, these chants reverberated on television and in my head. Stories of Sikh men chased by mobs began to trickle in. The ones caught in the fury had kerosene poured on them and then were set on fire.

This would happen a few thousand times before it was all over.

I tried to visualize the image of human skin lit on fire, but couldn't. Until I set my eyes a few days later on the cover of a current events magazine, Surya. The magazine cover had the image of three massive charred lumps of Sikh men who were burnt beyond recognition.

Although that magazine issue was immediately pulled off the shelves on government orders, I still have that image fresh in my head. Apparently the powers to be, in their wisdom, decided the graphic images of the crimes committed against innocent citizens would provoke outrage.

"So the nation was officially sanctioned to only respond to the death of the Prime Minister, by whatever means", I thought.

After the cremation of the Prime Minister's body, when the streets of the capital city became safe for Sikhs, we ventured out and the real extent of the damage became clear.

We found out that all the local businesses owned by Sikhs were looted and reduced to rubble. The local Gurdwara was damaged and the caretakers beaten up. My school's gymnasium was ransacked by a mob and other parts set on fire.

Apparently the mobs that coalesced in our part of the city were not as bloodthirsty.

The story in the Trans-Yamuna areas of the city, far-off places that I have never visited even to this day, saw a very different face of humanity.

We heard story after story of mobs - guided by police, with the express blessings of local members of parliament - that were less interested in looting than in burning alive men and raping women. It was hard digesting these stories and walking out on the streets, where our local mobs had gone on a systematic rampage.

Almost immediately, I noticed Sikhs beginning to pick up pieces of their lives and businesses. Amidst all this information overload, it was hard to know how the nation would respond.

Then on November 19, the new Prime Minister of India addressed the nation. He said a lot of things, but one stood out among the rest. He had the answer to the carnage that followed his mother's assassination. He said: "When a Big Tree falls, the earth shakes".
Read More:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=25150 (1984 Commemorative Articles Operation Bluestar)

It was said as a matter of fact, as if we were just supposed to move on. Even before this carnage, I was beginning to realize each human life does not have the same value, but on this day I had a confirmation. As painful as these words were, amazingly, life forces you on.

Within a few months, the local Sikhs - ever resilient and perennially in chardi kalaa - and their businesses were back in action, as if no harm had ever been done to them. Our neighbourhood gurdwara was quickly repaired. My school had also removed all traces of damage.

The industrious Sikhs had done such an impeccable job at cleaning up, they made it difficult for me to memorialize, let alone trace, the enormous brutality let loose in the capital of the most populous "democracy" in the world.
Read More:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=25150 (1984 Commemorative Articles Operation Bluestar)

My parents for months seriously entertained the possibility of leaving Delhi for the safer confines of Punjab. But even they were convinced after a few months that things were back to normal.
Their only act of protest was to vote for the first time in their lives in the upcoming elections. They voted for the party standing against the ruling Congress party.

Not being literally touched by the fires of 1984, we moved on.

I finished high school to return back to the land of my birth, the United States of America.

With a typical immigrant sensibility, all I cared about was my career plans.

I went through college, graduate school, taking off my turban, shaving my hair, and dabbled in atheism, Buddhism, Taoism ... and then, eventually, discovered Sikhi for the first time in my life. In August 2001, I donned the Sikh turban as a reaffirmation to Sikhi.

A month later, 9/11 happened!

I was only a few miles north of New York City, as I saw the planes fly into the towers. I was just as far from the Trans-Yamuna area which saw the worst of the 1984 tragedy.

In the days following 9/11, somehow the tragedy of seventeen years past came rushing back. Maybe it was the incineration of thousands of innocent lives that connected the two tragedies. Perhaps it was the irony that a few thousand American lives are worth a quantum leap more than the few thousand Sikh lives in India.

The world changed in response to the loss of American lives and to this day, the process continues. I am inclined to say that nothing changed after the tragedy of 1984, but I would be lying.

To those who lost their loved ones, everything has changed. And even for those who conspired and perpetrated the genocide of 1984, something did change. They might be roaming free under the protection of the Indian state, but they have blood on their hands.


For me, the change came 18 years late. In the strange confluence of the two tragedies, partly aided by the response of American editorial cartoonists to 9/11 and the ensuing hate crime wave affecting many Sikhs, I rediscovered my long buried passion for the arts.

Cartooning has consumed my nights, weekends and many daytime hours for over six years. Armed with a computer touch pad and my right index finger, I have tried to give voice to Sikh aspirations and frustrations.

The 1984 tragedy might be racing to its 25th anniversary, but we do not have closure yet.

Countless perpetrators roam free on the streets of India, many as elected officials.

And then there is us, the countless bystanders who might think we have nothing to do with this tragedy.

But our silence is deafening.

Through cartoons, I continue to try and capture the perpetrators ... and the idle bystanders too!












Source sikhchic.com | The Art and Culture of the Diaspora | 1984 & I:The Cartoonist

Operation Bluestar


Operation Bluestar Images
Chronology of Events

Tuesday May 25th

125,000 Indian Army troops are mobilized and deployed throughout Punjab surrounding all important Gurdwaras including the Golden Temple complex.

Friday June 1st

Thousands of pilgrims start to gather at the Golden Temple complex to celebrate the martyrdom anniversary of Guru Arjan Dev on June 3rd.

As Bhindranwale sits on the roof of the Langer hall, police snipers open fire on him. They missed and Sikhs fired back.

A seven hour skirmish during the night lasting until the morning leaves 11 dead and 25 injured. There were bullet holes in the Langer building, in the marble pavement (parkarma) surrounding the Golden Temple and in the Golden Temple itself.

Sunday June 3rd

All communications including phone lines to and from Punjab are cut. Road blocks prevent anyone from entering or leaving Punjab and all journalists are expelled from Punjab. A total curfew is imposed and as many as 10,000 pilgrims are trapped inside the temple complex.

Milk vendors from the villages who supply milk to the city of Amritsar are shot dead for violating the curfew orders.

Monday June 4th

The army starts firing on the temple complex and their is a gun battle lasting 5 hours. Using machine guns and mortars the army fires at Sikh positions at the two 18th century towers called Ramgarhia Bunga's, and the water tank behind Teja Singh Samundri Hall as well as surrounding buildings. At least 100 are killed on both sides.

Tuesday June 5th

At 7:00 p.m. Operation Blue Star, the invasion of The Golden Temple begins with tanks of the 16th Cavalry Regiment of the Indian Army moving to enclose the Golden Temple complex. Troops are briefed not to use their guns against the Golden Temple itself or the Akal Takht. Artillery is used to blast off the tops of the Ramgarhia Bungas and the water tank. Scores of buildings in and around the temple complex are blazing. One artillery shell lands more than 5 km away in the crowded city.

In the narrow alley behind the Akal Takht paramilitary commandos try to get into the temple. Some make it to the roof but are turned back due to the heavy gunfire. Meanwhile tanks move into the square in front of the northern entrance to the Golden Temple known as the clock tower entrance.

At 10:30 pm commandos from the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment try to run down the steps under the clock tower onto the marble parkarma around the sacred pool. They face heavy gunfire, suffering casualties and are forced to retreat. A second wave of commandos manage to neutralize the machine gun posts on either side of the steps and get down to the parkarma.

The Akal Takht is heavily fortified with sandbags and brick gun emplacements in its windows and arches. From here and the surrounding buildings the militants are able to fire at any commandos who make their way in front of the Gurdwara.
Read More:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=25150 (1984 Commemorative Articles Operation Bluestar)

Two companies of the 7th Garhwal Rifles enter the temple complex from the opposite side on the southern gate entrance and after a gun battle are able to establish a position on the roof of the Temple library. They are reinforced by two companies of the 15th Kumaons. Repeated unsuccessful attempts are made to storm the Akal Takht.

Wednesday June 6th

After midnight tanks are used to break down the steps leading to the parkarma from the hostel side and an 8-wheeled Polish-built armored personnel carrier makes it's way towards the Akal Takht. It is destroyed by a Chinese-made rocket propelled grenade launcher.

Six or more Vijayanta tanks enter the temple complex crushing the delicate marble inlays of the parkarma and plow their way towards the Akal Takht. Orders arrive and the tanks start firing their large 105mm cannons equipped with high explosive squash-head shells into the Akal Takht. These shells are designed for hard targets like armour and fortifications. When the shells hits a target, their heads spread or squash on the hard surface. Their fuses are arranged to allow a short delay between the impact and the shells igniting, so that a shock-wave passes through the target and a heavy slab of armour or masonry is forced away from the inside of the target armour or fortification.

The effect on the Akal Takht, the most sacred of the five Takhts,
is devastating. Over 80 shells are pumped into the sacred Gurdwara. The entire front of the Takht is destroyed and fires break out in many of the different rooms blackening the marble walls and wrecking the delicate decorations dating back to the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Marble inlays, plaster and mirror work, filigree partitions and priceless old wall paintings are all destroyed.

The gold dome of the Akal Takht is also badly damaged by artillery fire. At one stage a 3.7 inch Howell gun is mounted on the roof of a building behind the shrine and fired a number of times at the beautiful dome.
Read More:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=25150 (1984 Commemorative Articles Operation Bluestar)

At the other end of the Temple complex on the easternmost side a battalion of the Kumaon Regiment were invading the hostel complex where many of the innocent pilgrims were in hiding as well as the temple administration staff. There was no water because the water tower had been destroyed and it was very hot.

(Bhan Singh, Secretary of S.G.P.C.)
"They cut our electricity and water supplies. It was very hot in the rooms. There was no water. We had only two plastic buckets of water. Longowal had to place two people as guards over the buckets. Many people would squeeze their undershirts to drink their sweat to quench their thirst."

Around 1:00 am the Army entered the hostel and administrative buildings and ordered everyone out and made them sit in the courtyard of the Guru Ram Das Hostel. There were about 250 people who came out.

As night fell the Army troops were given the order to storm the remains of the Akal Takht and shoot on site anyone they found inside. The troops encounter little resistance and find dead bodies and the smell of death everywhere.

Thursday June 7th

In the early hours of the morning the troops discover the bodies of what was thought to be Sant Bhindranwale and his closest followers in the basement of the Akal Takht.

The day was spent in clean up operations flushing out any remaining snipers and collecting the dead bodies. Soldiers were openly walking about the temple in their shoes, drinking alcohol as well as smoking. Blood and bodies were strewn all over the broken marble of the parkarma. With putrefying corpses floating in the sacred pool of nectar and the smell of death everywhere.

The Darshani Deori the entrance gate of the Golden Temple which houses many priceless treasures was destroyed and looted. Although fighting had now died down, the central library complex was mysteriously burned down. Many priceless manuscripts, some in the Gurus own handwriting were lost forever.

The number of people who lost their lives will never be known. The Army refused to let the Red Cross enter the complex and cremated the dead before the bodies could be identified or claimed by their families. The Amritsar municipal sweepers refused to clear the dead bodies away but were eventually persuaded by offers of rum and being allowed to strip the bodies of all valuables. They piled the dead into garbage trucks and unceremoniously cremated them. Family members were not allowed by the army to claim the remains or perform any traditional funeral rites. It is clear that thousands lost their lives in the Temple complex.

Elsewhere across Punjab hundreds of Sikhs were killed in the army operation at the same time which saw 42 Gurdwaras raided at the same time as the Golden Temple, including high casualties at Moga, Mukatsar, Faridkot, Patiala, Ropar and Chowk Mehta.

Aftermath

Kar Seva is the ceremonial cleaning of the sacred pool is normally undertaken every 50 years. A special Kar Seva was undertaken in 1985 to replace some of the damage. Tens of thousands of Sikhs participated and the sacred pool of nectar was completely drained and cleaned.

Restoration work has taken 15 years to complete. The Akal Takht has been entirely rebuilt. The marble of the parkarma has been replaced in sections with new marble. Repair work on Harmandir Sahib included reguilding the temple dome and walls with new gold. The Ramgharia Bungas have been repaired and Teja Singh Samundri Hall has been left, pockmarked with bullet holes as a reminder of the tragedy.

What was one of the darkest chapters of Sikh history, reminiscent of the persecution the Sikhs faced at the hands of the Mughals has acted like a lightening rod for all Sikhs. It should not be viewed as a cause of incitement of hatred, but rather as a jolting reminder to Sikhs that they cannot take the existence of their religion for granted. As caretakers of the Sikh religion, it is up to Sikhs to actively participate and make sure that the message of the Gurus and the Sikh religion survives and grows, overcoming any and all adversities.

Source Operation Bluestar