Journalist throws shoe at Indian official

Gyani Jarnail Singh · #46 (**permalink**) 10-Apr-2009, 11:53 AM

all politicians are like the Buffaloes in the Mud....none is clean.
And ALL politicians have to be REGULARLY changed like Diapers....and for the SAME REASON.

*

Soul_jyot · #47 (**permalink**) 10-Apr-2009, 21:29 PM

source: http://www.andhranews.net/India/2009...izes-99837.asp
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/hard-talk/24531-journalist-throws-shoe-at-indian-official.html

Tytler apologizes for shameful 1984 riots

April 10, 2009 - Andhra News

Congress leader Jagdish Tytler has vowed to apologize a thousand times for the shameful anti-Sikh riots in 1984.

New Delhi, Apr. 10 : Congress leader Jagdish Tytler has vowed to apologize "a thousand times" for the "shameful" anti-Sikh riots in 1984.

"I will apologize because it happened in our time. I would apologize a thousand times for what happened to the whole Sikh community. I would say whatever happened was shameful," a TV news channel quoted him as, saying.

On Thursday, a troubled Congress cancelled the names of leaders Tytler and Sajjan Kumar from the electoral fray as the ghost of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots returned to haunt the party.

Tytler, who was the Congress candidate in North East Delhi, now holds the then government responsible for the 1984's blood-shed.

"I would say the people, the administration and the governor, who should have controlled (the situation), did not control at that time," Tytler said.

The Congress decision comes amid the enraged Sikh community protesting against the CBI decision to give a clean chit to Tytler in 1984 riots.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=24531

An incident of shoe-throwing by a Sikh journalist at Home Minister P Chidambaram at AICC press conference further aggravated the situation.

ANI

Narayanjot Kaur · #48 (**permalink**) 11-Apr-2009, 09:52 AM

CBI has no evidence against Tytler? Why not? Could this be one of many reasons why not?

Source is Outlook India

'Ever Since I Deposed Against Tytler...' '...I have not had a moment's peace,' says Surinder Singh, who was a granthi at Gurudwara Pulbangash in Delhi during the 1984 riots and adds that he vividly remembers 'seeing Tytler urging rioters not to waste time on looting but to get down to killing people'

Chander Suta Dogra interviews Surinder Singh

| e-mail | one page format | feedback: send - read |
Surinder Singh was a granthi at Gurudwara Pulbangash in Delhi during the 1984 riots. After resiling from his statement given to the Nanavati Commission, allegedly due to pressure from Jagdish Tytler, he was emboldened to give a fresh statement to the CBI following the SFJ campaign in 2008.

The CBI has told the court that the case against Tytler should be closed as your statement is inconsistent and unreliable.
I had first given a statement to the CBI in February 2008 and immediately after that I went to Bridgewater gurudwara in New Jersey to escape harassment from Tytler’s men. In December 2008 the CBI again grilled me for 14 hours in the US and wanted me to identify colour of clothes, shoes and turbans of the victims. After 25 years I do not remember these details but I do remember vividly seeing Tytler urging rioters not to waste time on looting but to get down to killing people.

So the mob put a tyre around Ragi Badal Singh, a Sikh police inspector Thakur Singh, and a Sikh servant and set them on fire. Tytler was there from 9 am to 11am overseeing the carnage. The CBI’s questioning was only designed to let Tytler off. During those 14 hours of questioning they kept accusing me of telling lies and threatened to take action against me if I do not tell the truth.

You wanted to leave Delhi and settle in Punjab, after the deposition. What happened?
I had been asking the SGPC to give me a job in a Punjab gurudwara, but for the last two years they have been paying just lip service. I broke my silence of so many years only for the community, but unfortunately I have not got any support from the Sikhs in Punjab. I am scared to open my door and have security neither from the Punjab police or the Delhi police. The NRI Sikhs are more helpful.

Why are you scared?
I am a poor man who is being used as a pawn. Ever since I deposed against Tytler, I have not had a moment’s peace. My passport was impounded as soon as I returned from the US in February.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=24531

They have got my daughter in law to slap a dowry case on me and I am scared to go out to attend the hearing. The case was filed in March 2008 but they have activated it only now after I have returned. It is a flimsy case because my son has got a work permit from Canada only now and could not take his wife with him. Then, her visa was rejected because, they were unable to prove that she was married to my son. We have processed the papers again and it will work out.

Before I went abroad, I had one Punjab Police security man, but that too has been withdrawn now. With no protection and the Punjab leaders and SGPC too busy with elections, I have no hope of any help from them. They are powerful men and very arrogant. They have no use for a poor granthi like me. I rue the day I decided to depose against Tytler.

Narayanjot Kaur · #49 (**permalink**) 11-Apr-2009, 23:47 PM

Jarnail Singh interviewed later by Rahul Singh in the Hindustani Times

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Art...&kword=&mode=1

I AM not excited. I don't feel victorious, said Jarnail Singh as he
watched a news channel breaking the story on Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=24531
being denied Lok Sabha tickets.

If the Sikh community is mollified by Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar being
denied tickets, then I would say I have achieved a small part of my
objective, said the 36-year-old journalist.

An unassuming reporter who covered the defence beat, Singh shot into
limelight after he threw his Reebok shoe at Home Minister P.

Chidambaram on Tuesday protesting the CBI clean chit to Tytler in the 1984
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=24531
anti-Sikh riots case.

Remorseful, he insisted that he never intended to hit the minister. ?I
tossed the shoe to his right. Impulse got the better of me. The home min
ister had said last week that he was happy that Tytler had got a clean chit.

I was bereft of all hope. Did he not know that our hearts had bled for 25
years, said Singh, known among his colleagues as a reticent and
uncontroversial man.

His cell phone rang incessantly at his brother?s modest apartment in Lajpat
Nagar. His brother runs a business of automobile accessories.

Singh swigged down a mango drink.

It appeared as if nothing has changed.

Only, he has not returned home since Tuesday and almost forgot to wish his
wife on their wedding anniversary on Wednesday . He missed being with his
six-year-old son and the two-year-old daughter.

Singh, I always called him Jerry, had bought the Reebok pair from a store
in Seattle last May during an assignment. He had asked me if they looked
cool. I had nodded in agreement. The sneakers cost him $60. He grinned when
I reminded him that.

Did you get your shoe back, I asked.

Negative, he replied.

I checked out his new leather sandals. They were black. The sneakers were
white with a blue logo.

Singh veered the conversation from the offbeat to the more intense. It?s
not about two men not contesting the elections. It?s about healing the
wounds of the Sikhs. The ghost of the 1984 massacre never left us,?he said,
switching off his cell phone that was being bombarded with calls from
journalists wanting his reaction on the Tytler-Sajjan Kumar saga. All this
is giving me a headache. Singh was playing cricket in the neighbourhood
park when a mob charged into Lajpat Nagar to slaughter Sikhs, 25 years ago.
His mother hid him in a small room. His polio-strick en brother was
attacked. The neighbourhood gurudwara was burnt down. Those images are still
fresh in his mind.

I never wanted to be in the limelight. I only wanted to remind the nation
that Sikhs are still waiting for justice. This is India and not Afghanistan
where the Taliban rule,said Singh. He is known to be deeply religious but
not dogmatic. He often read spiritual books while travelling on defence
assignments.

When the PM apologised for the anti-Sikh riots in 2005, it purged the
bitterness from our hearts. The Sikhs were hopeful that justice would be
done. And then the CBI gave a clean chit to Tytler. He clarified that he
had no plans to jump into the hurly-burly of politics. Nor is he hankering
for cash rewards announced by a few Sikh organisations. Use the money for
the rehabilitation of riot victims, he said.

rahul.singh@hindustantimes.com

Soul_jyot · #50 (**permalink**) 12-Apr-2009, 19:30 PM

Sunday Pioneer, New Delhi, April 12, 2009

When everyone is guilty, no one is guilty!

MJ Akbar

What would have been the reaction of Indians if the shoe thrown by Jarnail Singh at Home Minister P Chidambaram had actually hit his face?

Sympathy is a sentiment best measured by mercury. A little shake of the thermometer and it can shoot off in either direction. Jarnail Singh did himself a great favour by missing. If the shoe had hit the Home Minister smack in the face, who knows, he may have shared some sympathy.

The errant shoe did far more damage than an accurate one might have done. It served Indian sentiment to a nicety, by delivering a sharp message without causing physical damage. Singh claims that he had never meant to hit the Home Minister in any case, but I am not too sure that he was in control of his actions when he suddenly spurted into the national limelight and Sikh lore. It was an involuntary gesture sparked by a deep, traumatic pain, a signal that the human spirit would not be defeated even when the hopelessness of an individual confronted a massive and even insolent cover-up by authority.

It would be a mistake to assume that this pain has only to do with the sight of two Congress candidates from Delhi who are believed to have been agent provocateurs during the three days of massacre in 1984. What is truly astonishing is the fact that not a single person has been convicted in twenty-five years. The 1984 mayhem took place in full public view. But the police could not find any witness. The obvious explanation is that beneficiaries of the anti-Sikh riots were in power between 1984 and 1999. VP Singh, who became Prime Minister in 1989, was a Cabinet Minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s Government, and among his close confidants was Mr Arun Nehru, who, according to his detractors, is alleged to have encouraged the rioting with a wink if not a nod. Chandra Shekhar, who toppled VP Singh, survived for a few months only with Rajiv Gandhi’s support. PV Narasimha Rao, who got his dream job in 1991, was Home Minister during the Sikh riots, and therefore directly responsible. The two Prime Ministers who succeeded him, Mr HD Deve Gowda and Mr Inder Kumar Gujral, were also in power with Congress support. Jagdish Tytler, incidentally, is right when he wonders why the man who was Home Minister while Sikhs were being killed at his doorstep (literally) was never considered unworthy of being Prime Minister.

That takes care of the first 15 years. The NDA Government went through the motions, but either could not, or did not want to, prod the police too hard. The police were safe in their stagnation once the Congress returned to power in 2004. The most important reason for their indifference was that the killings could not have taken place without the active collusion of the police, from constable to officer. Constables on duty literally directed mobs towards Sikh homes and localities in Delhi. Public pressure has ensured that there is some accountability for the Gujarat riots. There has been absolutely none for the Sikh riots, because the system collaborated with politicians to protect the guilty.

When everyone is guilty, no one is guilty. Sikhs have had to live with this harsh fact. They had begun to come to terms with it. Many of them voted for the Congress in 2004 and 2008. Jagdish Tytler was elected in 2004. Has the shoe ignited an old wound that might be forgotten but will never heal? The answers, as usual, are more difficult than questions. But this much is certain: The Akalis, who looked dead in the water, have suddenly revived in Punjab. Momentum is a decisive asset in electoral politics.

One problem with sympathy is sustenance. Rajiv Gandhi came to power in the election after the riots with the most decisive mandate in electoral history. His victory was routinely attributed to a ‘sympathy wave’. The voter simply eliminated the Sikh massacre from his consciousness, or even condoned it as the inevitable upsurge of anger after the assassination of a national icon, Mrs Indira Gandhi. But once Rajiv Gandhi won, the sympathy evaporated all too quickly. The electorate switched, as if it had paid its dues. The Congress began losing Assembly elections long before Bofors became a drumbeat and then a cacophony (one of the principal conductors of the cacophony was the Speaker of the last Lok Sabha, Mr Somnath Chatterjee).

The Indian voter is a tough bird. He knows his vote can turn an underdog into an overdog, but then waits to find out whether the overdog has become overbearing.

There is only one underdog in the 2009 election: Chiranjeevi in Andhra Pradesh. Conventional wisdom, of which we journalists are the unparalleled masters, places him a poor third in the results’ chart. But those who have seen the crowds swell with pride in his wake as he campaigns do not believe that they have witnessed a complete illusion. He doesn’t have to rent any crowd; people wait for hours in the blazing sun to see him pass. There is something happening which the beady, sceptical and perhaps even septic eye of the worldly wise cannot quite fathom.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=24531

Let us merely say that Chiranjeevi is one politician in the current mélange who need not be worried about a shoe hurtling in his direction at a Press conference. It is noteworthy that some superstar politicians have already increased the distance between their dais and the first row of journalists. They used to dread the pen once. But so many pens have now been purchased that the only dread left is the shoe. The pen was generally considered mightier than the sword; the shoe is very definitely mightier than the pen.

In Britain, no election is complete without a politician being hit by an egg or a pudding on the campaign trail. But that would be passé. Eggs are a bit jokey. The shoe is evocative of thousands of years of popular justice, since it has been used to beat the errant. It projects an intended element of humiliation. The shoe is essentially a non-violent weapon, and we Indians love to believe that we are non-violent. Is throwing a shoe libellous? This could turn out to be a lucrative debate.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=24531

I wonder if fresh instructions have already been issued to the elite VIP security squads, and there is now a posse trained to pick the slightest movement of a journalist’s arm towards a shoe at a Press conference. No more bending, ladies and gentlemen of the Press. You can kowtow of course, for that is what the high and mighty expect, but keep your hands in your laps, please.

-- MJ Akbar is chairman of the fortnightly news magazine Covert.