WSN Editor Jagmohan Singh recently addressed an event organized by the American Sikh Caucus Committee on 3 November, titled, “Remembering the 1984 Sikh Genocide and the Human Rights Situation in India.” Revisiting the 1984 pogroms in India, Singh drew a long arc of history from Holocaust to the genocide in Rwanda and the systemic hate induced into the body polity of India against minorities, primarily Sikhs and Muslims. He made a case for more and deeper engagement by the United States, the United Nations and other world powers. Readers may also wish to watch the proceedings by visiting the Facebook posts, which includes the contribution of other speakers too. A more definitive version of Jagmohan Singh’s presentation now forms part of the Congressional records.

DISTINGUISHED CONGRESSMEN John Garamendi, David Valadao, Patrick Meehan, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, Canadian Parliamentarian Tim Uppal, Political Scholar Shawn Nichols, Attorney Tejkaran Kaur and fellow Sikh men and women from across the world:

Greetings from Homeland Punjab!

I thank the American Sikh Caucus Committee for this opportunity to share my thoughts on Remembering the 1984 Sikh Genocide and the Human Rights Situation in India.

I cannot but recall Rwanda the moment anyone mentions the word Genocide. I cannot but think of the holocaust while speaking about ethnic cleansing and bigotry against people based on their religion. I cannot but remind the world’s great powers of their values and the pious document of the United Nations called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We all desire peace and tolerance and we all want Closure for the wrongs.

The accountability of politicians, administrative officials and the police have not been investigated and fixed for the pogrom in India in November 1984. 

Come 1/11 and like 9/11, though the order of the dates is different in this part of the world, a cataclysmic pall of gloom, frustration in anger and a glimmer of hope dawns on the Sikhs in their homeland Punjab and the Sikh Diaspora in India and the rest of the world, including the United States of America.  For someone like me, who at that time was in metropolitan Mumbai, which did not go through the mayhem and murder as in Delhi, the recalling of events as witnessed on the then state-owned television and the then print media, from October 31 to 8 November 1984 remains a heart-wrenching, painful, disturbing and soul-shattering experience, even 37 years later.  The accountability of politicians, administrative officials and the police have not been investigated and fixed for the pogrom in India in November 1984. 

With the advent of social media, hundreds of accounts that had so far remained unknown hidden events and experiences have been tumbling out of the closet. Victim families have been narrating the murderous crescendo of those days in the bylanes of Delhi and more than a hundred Indian cities, onboard trains across the country and on roads where it was easy to waylay any unsuspecting Sikh man or woman. This has added more pain.

New Delhi is pushing us to become a permanent Rwanda.

The ghettoisation of the poor Sikh victims for the last 37 years, without much change, is a challenge that is still looking for a solution. Not just justice for those who perpetrated the crimes against humanity -fully genocidal in intent and execution, but also efforts to bring to closure the pain of the children and widows left behind. 

Since you know US politics better, let me put it this way. President Joe Biden has been a lifelong centrist. India’s left-of-centre Indian National Congress party, with the Gandhis at the helm of affairs, moved decisively to the right in its economic outlook, but then it also seemed to have bowed down to the rightwing Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s agenda of hatred, bigotry and denial of human rights. India’s communists have been less revolutionary even in terms of pushing forward the economic agenda. 

Much as India’s minorities found the approach of the Congress problematic, but they now find themselves sandwiched between the ultra-rightwing party committed to turning India into a Hindu theocratic nation-state and the opposition Congress party which is too afraid to stand up for any ideals of a civil society lest it loses the Hindu vote bank.

As some of India’s leading political thinkers often say, of the two key contenders of power in the country, one is programmatically communal, the other is pragmatically communal.

As some of India’s leading political thinkers often say, of the two key contenders of power, one is programmatically communal, the other is pragmatically communal. As for the Left parties, the entire bunch spent decades bearing either the standard of Moscow or of Beijing. Between India’s GOP – the Congress party – and our version of Trump’s bunch called Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the Left has been gamed out of the system.

In such a scenario, who should minorities engage with to demand minimal safeguards? Where is the debate about multiple pogroms of Sikhs or Muslims under the regimes of both parties? Where is the forum where we can debate if the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 or the killings of Muslims in 2002 were incidents of flash communal violence or systematic genocide backed by the regime? When was the last time that the United Nations took up the cause of justice for 1984 with the Indian government or at any appropriate international forum which may have led to opprobrium to India?

One can understand how, after its experience in Serbia, the Bill Clinton administration fought shy of directly intervening in Rwanda when it had the information, time and ability, but history will forever record that one of the world’s worst cycles of killings could have been stemmed if Washington had its ear to the ground.

I am here to simply remind Washington, the influential lawmakers and opinion leaders that the situation in India is no different to Rwanda.

I am here to simply remind Washington, the influential lawmakers and opinion leaders that the situation in India is no different. Public lynchings of minorities are par for the course, evidence of atrocities against minorities and those who speak up for them are now well documented and available to anyone who can surf the internet, and hatred and bigotry are being systemically made part of majoritarian life.

When you change school textbooks to create false versions of the past, re-write the outcome of battles fought centuries ago, and wield a megaphone to tell people of certain ethnicities to leave the country and go to another one, often Pakistan, then no one is left in any doubt that you are clearing a pathway towards genocide.

One simple action would be ensuring visits to India of the USCIRF, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who are being denied the right to independently investigate violations. Let the American Sikh Congress Caucus announce setting up a Genocide Victims Torture and Trauma Rehabilitation Centre in New Delhi and work towards it.

Our concerns are duly reflected in the Human Rights Index, various reports about civil liberties and even the reports and statements of the US State Department, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom declaration of India being “a country of particular concern”, but what India’s minorities expect from those claiming to be the standard-bearer of democracy is more decisive action.

One simple action would be ensuring visits to India of the USCIRF, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who are being denied the right to independently investigate violations. Let the American Sikh Congress Caucus announce setting up a Genocide Victims Torture and Trauma Rehabilitation Centre in New Delhi and work towards it.

Washington must study some of the draconian pieces of legislation passed by the Indian Parliament under Congress and BJP regimes, and evaluate these on the scale of what is humane and what is inhuman.

Washington must study some of the draconian pieces of legislation passed by the Indian Parliament under Congress and BJP regimes, and evaluate these on the scale of what is humane and what is inhuman. Were these laws passed by adopting proper procedures mandated in India’s Constitution? The answer is YES. Are these laws in keeping with the spirit of democracy, and can pass the simple test of good sense, compassion and pragmatism? NO.

People belonging to a minority can be killed in widespread violence, as happened to Sikhs in 1984. Or they can be killed through structural violence so that there is no smoking gun. Deny them industrialisation, edge them out of entrepreneurship, push them into resource-intensive agriculture, frustrate all land reforms, squeeze them into a market-oriented economy, maintain a vice-like grip over how much the farmer finally earns, not support the ancillary vocations, make higher education so pricey that few can dream of going to college, destroy the public school network, demolish the primary healthcare system, and presto! Where is the need to go out and kill people in large numbers?

Mine is not a liberal wishlist. I am not asking you to live up to some higher value system than the next guy. Mine is an SOS – this is about the religious minorities’ right to live, often just their right to remain alive. That’s how minimal am I asking for.

My kids are being caught and killed by mobs or thrown into jail by the government because they may have expressed their wish to have a beef hamburger after watching a Hollywood movie.

People in India are being killed by regime-backed mobs because they might have a brisket in their fridge. My kids are being caught and killed by mobs or thrown into jail by the government because they may have expressed their wish to have a beef hamburger after watching a Hollywood movie. Do you know that we have laws on the statute to jail people for eating what is available on college tuck-shops and canteens across America and Europe?  

What do you think will happen to me if I am found with a recipe book for beef-based cuisines? NOTHING. Because I will be dead if they find the book on me. What will you call the killings of people based on their culinary tastes?

That’s why I like the ubiquitous yard signs that are now found in every Democrat’s house: “In This House, We Believe — Black Lives Matter / Women’s Rights Are Human Rights / No Human Is Illegal / Science Is Real / Love Is Love.” 

New Delhi is pushing us to become a permanent Rwanda. State television, state-inclined TV channels, radio and umpteen websites spew poisonous propaganda every day. Some of the worst peddlers of hatred are followed on Twitter by the Indian Prime Minister. The United States should come up with a white paper about either the crimes of this man and his regime or their achievements.

How do you prepare millions of people to remain ready to assault anyone found cheering for a team that wins a cricket match? By the systemic project of infusing hatred in social discourse. As I speak here, young students are in jail because they cheered for the team that won the match last week. 

I am not asking you to impose sanctions on India. I am asking you to use your moral authority and censure the wrongdoings. I am asking you to force the regimes to at least become hypocrites again. I could shame a hypocritical government at least. I can’t even shame a government that is blatant about its project of turning India into a Theocratic Hindu Nation-State. 

I only want you to add:  Genocides are bad. / Systemic violence based on religion is irreligious. / People must not be assaulted because they are a minority. / Kindness Is Everything.”

On a serious note, I beseech you to encourage the processes of reconciliation. India is far more divided today along religious lines than the supporters of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump. We can only save our souls by working towards reconciliation, truth-telling, introspection, a deep gaze within ourselves, and a system in place that ties laws, regimes, manifestos, public pronouncements and social discourse to minimal standards of probity, morality, democracy and human rights. 

The United Nations Charter of Human Rights is a good marker to start with. I, for one, have no other option except to seek and fight for universal welfare. It is the central tenet of my faith – Sikhism. Every person of my faith has to repeat these words to himself or herself every single day. Sarbat Da Bhala -Welfare of All. No exceptions. 

I should not be punished for following that motto, for being a Sikh. 

That’s why I like the ubiquitous yard signs that are now found in every Democrat’s house: “In This House, We Believe — Black Lives Matter / Women’s Rights Are Human Rights / No Human Is Illegal / Science Is Real / Love Is Love.” 

I only want you to add: 

Genocides are bad. / Systemic violence based on religion is irreligious. / People must not be assaulted because they are a minority. / Kindness Is Everything.”

We will be clear either way about which side of the line the world’s oldest democracy stands by your decisive transformative action.

In this part of the globe, you either save humanity today or prepare to live with another Rwanda on your conscience forever.

Thank you very much.