Ten years ago, World Sikh News in­ter­viewed ace ac­tivist Harinder Singh Phoolka. He has come a long way since then and is now a mem­ber of the Pun­jab Leg­isla­tive As­sem­bly from Lud­hi­ana. Nev­er­the­less, he still con­tin­ues the le­gal fight for vic­tims of No­vem­ber 1984. Here are rel­e­vant edited ex­tracts of the in­ter­view.

His beard is rolled up in a typ­i­cally royal Phoolka misl style.  His tall stature and de­meanour has all the qual­i­ties of a learned per­son.  His pa­tience to lis­ten goes be­yond that of a sea­soned lawyer.  The glint in his eye sparks of deep re­li­gios­ity. His pas­sion for pub­lic work has very few par­al­lels.  His de­ter­mi­na­tion and con­sis­tency is an ex­am­ple to em­u­late.  His de­sire to work be­hind the scenes is a no­ble trait picked up from his an­ces­tors.  Hail­ing from a vil­lage in Bhadaur, San­grur where his fam­ily lives, he has all the earthen ground­ing and the ur­ban so­phis­ti­ca­tion to be part of the who’s who of Delhi.

He is Harvin­der Singh Phoolka.  He is the only lawyer, per­haps the only ac­tivist who has sin­gle-hand­edly and painstak­ingly con­tin­ued to work for two decades, seek­ing jus­tice for the vic­tims of the anti-Sikh pogrom of No­vem­ber 1984.  A re­mem­brance of No­vem­ber 1984 would be in­com­plete with­out a men­tion about the con­tri­bu­tion of Harinder Singh Phoolka.  

JS: Where do we go from where we are?
Phoolka:  The first gen­er­a­tion of the fam­i­lies of vic­tims has set­tled down.  Some have been re­ha­bil­i­tated well, some not.  But by and large they have.  Now we have the duty to take care of their sec­ond gen­er­a­tion.  The first gen­er­a­tions lived through the times with­out ed­u­ca­tion and in many cases were un­able to pro­vide ba­sic ed­u­ca­tion to their wards, as they were still liv­ing the trauma.  There was no male mem­ber in the house and most of them were left to fend for them­selves.  Chil­dren were brought up in ur­ban ghet­tos, liv­ing on measly doles from the gov­ern­ment and some Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions.

JS: What can the Sikh Di­as­pora do?
Phoolka: The Di­as­pora has done a lot, but more needs to be done.  There is a whole body of in­ter­na­tional law that nails down the likes of Bha­gats, Tytlers and Modis.  There is a com­pendium of US law which needs to be un­earthed.  Now is the time for this phase of ac­tiv­ity to be­gin.  The young Di­as­pora Sikh who has heard or read about 1984 should be ex­cited to look into all pos­si­bil­i­ties of pros­e­cu­tion of the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship which en­gi­neered the pogrom. We will con­tinue our work here, but the net needs to be strength­ened all around. No one should be al­lowed to go scot free.  I must say that the fo­cus should be on re­sult-ori­ented ef­forts.  Not much talk, only work should be the motto.

JS: What kind of re­sponse do you sense amongst the Sikhs to­day?
Phoolka: Some peo­ple still talk about it in Pan­jab. Peo­ple in Delhi do not want to talk about it.  The Di­as­pora keeps the is­sue alive.  I re­it­er­ate that the Di­as­pora has noth­ing to fear.  They should come for­ward and work.  Noth­ing is go­ing to hap­pen.  Do not fear about the con­se­quences.  Con­sider this.  All those who stood wit­ness and de­posed are bet­ter off than those who chick­ened out for what­ever rea­son.  Jag­mo­han, please tell the in­ter­na­tional Sikh com­mu­nity that they have noth­ing to fear.

JS: Would you have a mes­sage or call to Sikh youth?
Phoolka: Keep the is­sue alive.  Ten years ago, no one would have imag­ined that they would have got seven lakh ru­pees as com­pen­sa­tion!  In 1994, peo­ple told me, why don’t you give up, noth­ing is go­ing to come out it. When the Nana­vati Com­mis­sion was set up, peo­ple called it the BJP’s game, but they were in for a shock when they got more com­pen­sa­tion.

JS: Apart from the com­pen­sa­tion part, what more was achieved?
Phoolka: A Union Min­is­ter of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia had to re­sign, the par­lia­ment had to pass a res­o­lu­tion of con­dem­na­tion in Au­gust 2005 and the Prime Min­is­ter of the coun­try had to bow his head in shame. 

JS: Are you sat­is­fied with the role of civil so­ci­ety in In­dia?
Phoolka: The way civil so­ci­ety in In­dia re­sponded to the gov­ern­men­t’s ‘No Ac­tion Taken Re­port’ on the Nana­vati Com­mis­sion was re­mark­able.  I am more than sat­is­fied. Every chan­nel, every sin­gle news­pa­per of the coun­try crit­i­cised the gov­ern­men­t’s acts of omis­sion and com­mis­sion.  The un­der­ly­ing mes­sage was loud and clear that peo­ple are by and large with us. 

JS: Would you have any ad­vice for the In­dian state?
Phoolka: 84 went un­pun­ished and set up a prece­dent.  It is my view that had the killers of 1984 and their po­lit­i­cal mas­ters been awarded ex­em­plary pun­ish­ment in good time, Gu­jarat and Bom­bay would not have hap­pened.

JS: In all these years, what would you re­call as your worst mo­ment?
Phoolka: I was hurt and an­gry when the Sikh lead­er­ship, in­stead of fa­cil­i­tat­ing our work, hurled hin­drances.  The Sikh lead­er­ship shame­lessly used money power to side with the likes of Saj­jan Ku­mar, Jagdish Tytler and HKL Bha­gat.  This lead­er­ship at­tempted to re­duce the sig­nif­i­cance of our work to their petty in­fight­ing and po­lit­i­cal sub­terfuge. When this po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship at­tempted to ma­lign my rep­u­ta­tion on flimsy grounds of fi­nan­cial gain, I felt sad. This pain still lingers.

JS: What is your best mo­ment?
Phoolka: ‘Na haar di gammi, na jitt di khushi’…de­feat does not make me sad, vic­tory does not make me happy. Till the Tytler res­ig­na­tion hap­pened, I was on TV chan­nels for three days.  The mo­ment he put in his pa­pers, I de­clined all in­ter­views. My job had been done.  I am a seeker of jus­tice, not re­venge.

JS: What keeps you go­ing?
Phoolka: Up­par­wala -God Almighty. He has been benev­o­lent and kind to me be­yond my askance. 

JS: What is your ad­vice to the man­agers of the In­dian state?
Phoolka: I have sub­mit­ted a de­tailed pre­sen­ta­tion to the Par­lia­men­tary Com­mit­tee on the Com­mu­nal Vi­o­lence Bill to be pre­sented to Par­lia­ment.  I have sug­gested ma­jor changes in the rule book, pri­mar­ily de­tach­ing po­lice of­fi­cers from po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age and also hold­ing the po­lice and bu­reau­cracy per­son­ally re­spon­si­ble for any killings in their ju­ris­dic­tion when the num­ber of deaths ex­ceeds ten.  All pre­ven­tive mea­sures should be au­to­matic and clearly laid out with no dis­cre­tion to the po­lice or the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship.

JS: What is your mes­sage for con­cerned cit­i­zens?
Phoolka: No is­sue is big or small.  If you think that you should do some­thing, do it. Do not wait for any­one. Al­ways think about your role. You need to re­mem­ber whether you are work­ing for him or Him.  You need to work for your chil­dren, for your peo­ple and for your Lord. No one else.