The murder of anyone, be he a Prime Minister or a lower grade clerk in a municipal office is heinous and worthy of the strongest condemnation. A life is a life and a life lost is a life lost for ever. But isn't it time for the Congress to pause for a moment and look back to years past - more specifically to October 1984 - when a Sikh guard shot to death the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and pore over the events that followed? The killing of Mrs Gandhi was deliberate. It followed the attack on the Golden Temple at Amritsar by India's Armed Forces to dislodge Bhindranwale and his gang which, of course, led not only to their decimation but to the gross devastation of the Temple premises. Mrs Gandhi had become the victim of her own sick approach to Punjab politics during which she played Sant Bhindranwale against the Akali Dal.
The attack on the Golden Temple was bad enough; the assassination of the Prime Minister was worse. But what followed remains a permanent blot on the history of the country and the Congress Party needs to be reminded of it. From the late afternoon of October, 31, 1984 for four whole days, the refrain which emanated from Safdarganj Road was'khoon ka badla khoon se'. Does Sonia Gandhi remember those words? Every Sikh was targeted in the capital, primarily. But Sikhs in areas nearby and further away like Gurgaon, Kanpur, Bokaro and Indore were not spared either. Even Sikhs travelling by train came under the attention of murderers. The innocent men were attacked with iron rods, trapped in burning tyres and had their homes and shops set on fire. According to Ms Jaya Jaitly, the Samatawadi leader, "the police went round on motor-cycles, shouting encouragement to the mobs, while Congress leaders were seen instigating those beholden to them in the vast slum clusters". Desperate Sikhs tried to hide their identity by cutting off their hair and removing their turbans. For four days the killings went on mercilessly. According to government count, some 425 Sikhs had been killed.
The BJP, after a consistent search put the final toll at 2,500. But the official figure compiled by the Justice Ahuja Committee as late as 1987 - three years after the mass killing - confirmed 2,733 deaths. Let the figure be emphasised: it is two thousand seven hundred and thirty three Sikhs mowed down in the most gruesome way. No government has provided a consolidated figure for the rest of India. The final figure of Sikhs killed could well pass the three thousand mark. Yes, three thousand. No one shouted for the resignation of Rajiv Gandhi. By way of an excuse for the murders Rajiv Gandhi was to say that "when a great tree falls, the earth will shake". One does not remember any of our secular leaders pulling him up for that thoughtless and insensitive statement.
The young Prime Minister got away with it. Indira Gandhi was a great tree, wasn't she? Besides, she was then the Prime Minister, wasn't she? What Rajiv Gandhi intended to say was that in the face of her deliberate murder, the killing of some three thousand Sikhs - innocent Sikhs - was only to be expected. But consider what happened following the events in Godhra and the killings that went on subsequently in Ahmedabad. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was quoted as saying that what happened followed Newton's Law that action and reaction were equal and opposite. Modi says he never used these words. But suppose he did; in what way can one describe it as worse than Rajiv Gandhi's statement about the fall of a great tree that shakes the earth? No one called the ruthless and systematic killing of Sikhs as genocide.
Let it be remembered: only Sikhs were killed. None else. According to the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission, a number of Congress workers participated in the 'riots', only the Congress party was not directly involved. How very gracious of the Congress party to remain so detached. Does anyone remember that at 5.00 p.m., on the evening of the assassination, the car of none less than the president of India, Giani Zail Singh, a Sikh, was stoned near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences? Large scale violence had already begun. The Delhi police did not suffice to control the mobs - Congress mobs, to be very precise. Not RSS or VHP mobs. Clearly they were Congress mobs. They went on a rampage. The Army should have been called to action at once. Reports Ms jaitley: "Even on November 1, as killings went on in east and west Delhi, Palam area and the south districts, curfew was not imposed till 4.00 p.m. - and that, too, only in central and south Delhi: In the east it led to 1,026 Sikhs being killed, Only at 8.00 p.m. on the night of November 1 was curfew imposed throughout Delhi".
The Army was called at 2.30 p.m. on November 1 but, reports Ms Jaitley, "when the General Officer Commanding went to meet the Lieutenant Governor, he was kept waiting for one hour". The Army reached south and central Delhi at 6.00 p.m. and east and west Delhi only on the afternoon of November 2. There was no magistrate to give permission to fire on mobs. And let this be remembered. Armed forces were available at short notice. They were not, as presently is the situation, massed at the Pakistan border. They could have been summoned in no time. But it took three days for the Congress workers - not the Party, if you please! - to teach the Sikhs "a lesson". It was some lesson. In Ahmedabad those killed number around 700. In three days those Sikhs killed numbered over 2,000. According to the Mishra Report, if the Army had been called in time, some 2,000 lives could have been saved. Saved, yes, saved. Now consider this. On 28 February 2002, Muslim mobs in Godhra set on fire two bogies of the Sabarmati Express, torching and burning alive 58 kar sevaks, including some 38 women and children. True, they did not include a Prime Minister. Yes, a decade earlier, Hindu - call them RSS and Bajrang Dal - mobs had brought down the Babri masjid in Ayodhya, but unlike the Golden Temple, this masjid was not a functioning one and no Muslim had been killed anyway. Let it also be conceded that the kar sevaks acted "provocatively". But did that call for the torching of railway bogies and the burning alive of women and children? Yes, next day mobs in Ahmedabad went berserk. Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been accused of taking his own time to call the Army. If that is so, did he behave in any manner vastly different from how Rajiv Gandhi behaved in the first week of November 1984? Or is one to excuse Rajiv Gandhi because his mother was killed or because his mother happened to be the Prime Minister of India? How many mother were torched to death - not just shot - in the Godhra massacre? Surely mothers are mothers even if they only happen to be from some poor hovel?
It may be argued both in the case of the murder of Mrs Gandhi and the torching of the Sabarmati Express bogies that there was provocation. In all truth there just was hardly any provocation to warrant burning 58 people alive, unless, it be that the provocatee is bloodthirsty. Which he undoubtedly was. Not one, but over a couple of thousand. And it requires an extraordinarily blase mind to believe that it was spontaneous.
In any event let us remember this: Indira Gandhi was shot dead by just one man. The Sabarmati Express bogies were torched by the joint effort of a couple of thousand people. For the crime of one man, Congress hooligans were responsible for the killing of over two thousand people. Admittedly one can't compare the riots of 1984 with the riots of 2002. But before throwing a stone at Narendra Modi or the Sangh Parivar in general, shouldn't Congressmen, the Left parties and our secular media give some thought to history that is not even two decades old? Is public memory so short that the killing of over two thousand innocent Sikhs should be so quickly and conveniently forgotten? Who is fooling whom?
The continuation of Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat is neither here nor there. Chief Ministers like Prime Ministers come and go and the country moves on. But if we attribute motives to Narendra Modi, can't we simultaneously attribute similar wicked motives to Rajiv Gandhi as well? Or is the Gandhi-Nehru family above and beyond correction. Whatever the unfortunate kar sevaks, their wives and children may have done, surely one can't compare their action to what Indira Gandhi ordered the army to do in Amritsar? Has Sonia Gandhi ever thought of that?
And in some quiet moments the good Muslim citizens of India must ask themselves whether it is worth their while to mock at Hindu susceptibilities over the Ram Janmabhoomi issue. How long will they let the tamasha of court sittings, citing of evidence etc etc to consider whether Shri Ram was indeed born at the place known for centuries as Ram Janmabhoomi, to continue? Is it worth their while to prolong a country's agony?
We can expect nothing from the Congress
and the Left parties by way of applying the soothing ointment of love to
hurt Hindu feelings. Only the Muslim community can do what is necessary
to make a fresh and happy start. When will they come to understand that?
And how many more Sabarmati Express bogies need to be set fire to before
we put history effectively out of our mind for ever? Let the Muslim community
give it some thought. They may find the effort worth it.