Out­look mag­a­zine’s An­niver­sary spe­cial edi­tion on 1984 in Oc­to­ber 2009 had ar­ti­cles and photo-fea­tures on 1984. Most of these car­ried the typ­i­cal gov­ern­ment line of thought with the ex­cep­tion of Sikh writ­ers.  In re­sponse, Jag­mo­han Singh had writ­ten an Open let­ter to the ed­i­tor of Out­look -Vinod Mehta, chal­leng­ing the In­dian me­dia for per­pet­u­at­ing myths and stereo­typ­ing Sikhs.

Out­look ed­i­tor Vinod Mehta was known for his lib­eral views and also af­forded op­por­tu­nity to those missed by main­stream me­dia. Yet, this an­niver­sary spe­cial failed to come up to his neo-lib­eral stan­dards. Read the Open Let­ter, which is still rel­e­vant as re­gards Sikhs vis-a-vis In­dian me­dia.

Dear Vinod Mehta:

Let me con­grat­u­late you for bring­ing out the first of its kind is­sue on 1984. With jour­nal­ism be­com­ing more and more heart­less, it is nice to see the work of some­one with the heart in the right place. Well, al­most.

I still re­call your work with the In­dian Post in Mum­bai, though sadly it did not last long.

The Oc­to­ber 19 is­sue en­ti­tled 1984-the year that changed In­dia is a clas­sic prod­uct in the style and genre of Gir­i­lal Jain’s is­sues of Times of In­dia of the 70s and 80s of the last cen­tury, cir­cum­vent­ing the main is­sue at hand, over­sim­pli­fy­ing the crux of the is­sue and per­am­bu­lat­ing on the pe­riph­ery.  The lead es­say by colum­nist Ram­chan­dra Guha al­most holds the Sikh com­mu­nity re­spon­si­ble for what hap­pened to them in June 1984 and No­vem­ber 1984. There is no at­tempt to go into the his­tory of the dis­cord be­tween the Sikhs and In­dia with the pre-British pe­riod as the back­ground or even ear­lier.

“The dis­tinc­tive­ness of a Sikh from the Hindu is not based on ha­tred but a re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal con­struct which the scholar and con­tem­po­rary his­tory writer in a hurry does not de­lib­er­ately pause to com­pre­hend. Sikhs to­day too, are dis­tinct from Hin­dus -re­li­giously, so­cially, cul­tur­ally and po­lit­i­cally. Any­one who thinks oth­er­wise must spend some more hours in the his­tory class­room. ”

The gen­e­sis of the events in Pun­jab and in Delhi has been re­duced to a mere Con­gress po­lit­i­cal ex­er­cise. The role of then home min­is­ter P V Narasimha Rao in No­vem­ber 1984, his pre­var­i­ca­tion in call­ing in the army to stop the ma­raud­ing mobs from killing and burn­ing alive Sikhs on the streets of Delhi or maybe even his com­plic­ity in the con­spir­acy of geno­cide with oth­ers at the helm of af­fairs, is not even hinted. Ac­cord­ing to Guha, he was sim­ply paral­ysed by in­ac­tion.

In less than five para­graphs, the pogrom de­gen­er­ates into “anti-Sikh ri­ots”.  In an es­say on 1984, the geno­ci­dal acts of Con­gress lead­ers and their lumpens is no more than four lines.  The agree­ment, called the Ra­jiv-Lon­gowal Ac­cord in 1985 is touted as a bold ini­tia­tive, with­out men­tion­ing that none of the clauses of the ac­cord were ever ful­filled or whether the Con­gress still has the in­ten­tion of do­ing so. There is a men­tion at the end of the ar­ti­cle that the killers of the Sikhs have not been pun­ished, de­spite the twenty year lapse. No at­tempt has been made to look into the why and how of it.

The dis­tinc­tive­ness of a Sikh from the Hindu is not based on ha­tred but a re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal con­struct which the scholar and con­tem­po­rary his­tory writer in a hurry does not de­lib­er­ately pause to com­pre­hend. Sikhs to­day too, are dis­tinct from Hin­dus -re­li­giously, so­cially, cul­tur­ally and po­lit­i­cally.  Any­one who thinks oth­er­wise must spend some more hours in the his­tory class­room.

When it comes to the Sikhs and their his­tory, every bit of lib­erty is taken with im­punity. Friend of In­dia –Mark Tully also errs when he says that “nei­ther the out­rage among Sikhs at the des­e­cra­tion of their shrine nor in­deed the anti-Sikh ri­ots fol­low­ing In­dira Gand­hi’s as­sas­si­na­tion four months later ful­filled Bhin­dran­wale’s am­bi­tion of con­struct­ing a Sikh iden­tity based on ha­tred of Hin­dus.”

“In 1984, In­di­a’s politi­cians learnt the art of killing peo­ple, get­ting away with it and then go­ing on to win elec­tions in the af­ter­math. They have re­peated that in Mum­bai and Gu­jarat and some­body some­where may be mak­ing the next prepa­ra­tions. ”

The dis­tinc­tive­ness of a Sikh from the Hindu is not based on ha­tred but a re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal con­struct which the scholar and con­tem­po­rary his­tory writer in a hurry does not de­lib­er­ately pause to com­pre­hend.

It took 239 years for the Ten mas­ters –from Guru Nanak to Guru Gob­ind Singh and the Guru Granth Sahib -the scrip­ture which is to­day the liv­ing Guru of the Sikhs, to de­velop and har­ness the dis­tinct iden­tity of the Sikh. It did not need a Bhin­dran­wale to build it, it was there and it is there and it will con­tinue to be there. Bhin­dran­wale only re­it­er­ated it. He had too. Af­ter all, he was the head of a sem­i­nary whose ba­sic job is re­li­gious dis­course. The In­dian me­dia clev­erly and de­lib­er­ately dis­torted his id­iom and hyped his views.

Shock­ingly, the re­search work done by your team to put to­gether the edi­tion is also want­ing, a la Gir­i­lal Jain. The draw­ing by the twin sis­ters Am­rit and Ra­bindra Singh is apt, but the pho­to­graph of Sikhs com­ing out of the Golden Tem­ple com­plex with hands above shoul­ders, in a man­ner of sub­mis­sion and sur­ren­der is not of Op­er­a­tion Blues­tar.

Ap­par­ently the photo ed­i­tor is aware of this and has de­lib­er­ately done this mis­take. Oth­er­wise why is there no cap­tion? It is a pho­to­graph of Sikh rene­gades, planted by the then se­cu­rity forces in Pun­jab in­clud­ing the po­lice, com­ing out of Dar­bar Sahib, dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Black Thun­der. Even if the ed­i­to­r­ial team had read the ac­com­pa­ny­ing Mark Tully ar­ti­cle, they would know what the Sikh fight­ers did to the In­dian army “every­thing but sur­ren­der!”

A clas­sic miss of this is­sue is an in-depth in­ci­sive in­ves­tiga­tive story of the last twenty years for those who are in search of jus­tice. The hu­man an­gle is no doubt there with the pic­tures of the wid­ows and other fam­ily mem­bers, but with­out a de­tailed de­scrip­tion of how the per­pe­tra­tors have been let-off scot-free.

Nev­er­the­less, I give you credit for putting to­gether the is­sue, be­cause you had the good sense to ask two Sikhs to write ar­ti­cles and one Sikh woman to put to­gether a photo-es­say.  Though this too is the typ­i­cal bal­anced jour­nal­ism ap­proach of main­stream In­dian me­dia, the Sikh writ­ers drive the point home. I say this for like many a Sikh, I have lived these twenty five years un­der­stand­ing the pain of my peo­ple. What I am wor­ried about is that if your non-Sikh read­ers ac­cept only the non-Sikh writer’s view­point, then that would be a very sad day for you. Is­n’t it?

I asked ad­vo­cate Phoolka, “don’t you think the Out­look ti­tle is wrong? He said, “Why?” I said, “It should have been, 1984 –the year that did not change In­dia”, in­stead of “the year that changed In­dia”, for since then noth­ing has changed, same set of rulers, same think­ing, no jus­tice, no rule of law, same po­lice, same im­punity.  Phoolka cut me in be­tween and said, “No, no, Out­look is right. It was the year that changed In­dia.

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In 1984, In­di­a’s politi­cians learnt the art of killing peo­ple, get­ting away with it and then go­ing on to win elec­tions in the af­ter­math.  They have re­peated that in Mum­bai and Gu­jarat and some­body some­where may be mak­ing the next prepa­ra­tions. I am sure you did not have that in mind.

Any­way, thank you for small mer­cies.

Sin­cerely

Jag­mo­han Singh