You did not hear that su­per­sonic boom, but Pun­jab’s Left fi­nally broke the si­lence bar­rier. Thirty-seven long years af­ter its tryst with si­lence over the 1984 killings of Sikhs in Delhi and else­where, the an­nual Mela Gadri Babiyan Da fi­nally re­solved to de­mand jus­tice for the vic­tims of these geno­ci­dal eth­nic killings, car­ried out in full view of the regime in a town swarm­ing with rulers, es­tab­lish­ment, mil­i­tary and diplo­matic brass. It should make no news that those com­mit­ted to the cause of hu­man rights and civil lib­er­ties every­where in the world have de­manded pun­ish­ment to killers of thou­sands in or­gan­ised mas­sacres, but in this case, the com­rades seemed to have wres­tled too long with the idea. In the spirit of Der Aaye, Darust Aaye, Se­nior Jour­nal­ist S P Singh takes note of crim­i­nal si­lence and rev­o­lu­tion­ary shift in the stand.

THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS AF­TER GOONS LED BY PO­LIT­I­CAL MAS­TERS killed, maimed and burnt alive thou­sands of Sikhs in the na­tional cap­i­tal of Delhi and other towns, the or­gan­is­ers of Mela Gadri Babiyan Da fi­nally in­cluded a de­mand that the cul­prits of such gory killings be pun­ished.

The res­o­lu­tion passed at this iconic an­nual gath­er­ing in Ja­land­har, largely com­pris­ing var­i­ous shades of Pun­jab’s Left, was the first time that a de­mand for jus­tice of the 1984 pogrom of Sikhs made it for­mally to the wish-list of the com­rades, a de­vel­op­ment pleas­ant and shame­ful at the same time.

Mela Gadri Babiyan Da has tra­di­tion­ally re­mained a three-day af­fair, in­vari­ably cul­mi­nat­ing with night long the­atri­cal per­for­mances on No­vem­ber 1 that end in the wee hours of No­vem­ber 2.

With its sched­ule pre­cisely con­gru­ent to the ex­act days when Sikh women were
be­ing raped in Delhi, Sikh men were be­ing haunted by mobs ready with voter-lists in hand to iden­tify them by eth­nic­ity, it had re­mained a mat­ter of shame and per­plex­ing con­spir­a­to­r­ial si­lence that the Left par­ties did not push for in­clu­sion of
the is­sue on their Mela agenda.

THE REV­O­LU­TION IN COM­RADES’ CAMP -The de­mand at num­ber 5 will serve more as a rev­e­la­tion of the Left’s mind­set when his­tory will record that it took 37 years for this per­func­tory rit­ual to be­come writ­ing on the wall -A WSN Pho­to­graph

Ca­sual ref­er­ences and per­func­tory chat­ter aside, the ex­clu­sion of the is­sue of the 1984 pogrom of Sikhs ran­kled com­mu­nity cir­cles who seemed to have given up hope. In fact, the con­duct and col­lu­sion of sec­tions of the Left with the deep state dur­ing Pun­jab’s dark era of mil­i­tancy also left much trust deficit be­hind. Suc­ces­sive lead­er­ship of Left par­ties did less work to cover that ground, cer­tainly much less than the metaphoric balm which Con­gress and oth­ers pre­tended to ap­ply.

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Read the re­cent WSN story that had called out the crim­i­nal si­lence
at the Mela about 1984 killings. The Abyss Be­tween Trilokpuri in Delhi
and Desh Bha­gat Yadgaar Hall in Ja­land­har. ਤ੍ਰਿਲੋਕਪੁਰੀ ਦੀਆਂ ਗਲੀਆਂ ਅਤੇ
ਗ਼ਦਰੀ ਮੇਲਾ — ਹਿੰਦਸਾ-ਨੁਮਾ ਵਰ੍ਹੇਗੰਢਾਂ ਅਤੇ ਮੁਸਤੈਦ ਕਾਮਰੇਡ

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While po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts and in­tel­lec­tu­als will some­day weigh on how much the Mela lost by keep­ing out the con­cerns of a per­se­cuted com­mu­nity while end­lessly blab­ber­ing in the mid­dle of Pun­jab’s Doaba about hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions and civil rights strug­gles in the jun­gles of Bas­tar and Dan­te­wada, the fact re­mains that the is­sue of 1984 was kept out of this event as a mat­ter of a con­sid­ered ap­pli­ca­tion of mind.

“You do not need the ef­fort to in­clude the de­mand for pun­ish­ing those who killed thou­sands of peo­ple of a mi­nor­ity com­mu­nity, but you do need ex­tra-or­di­nary ef­fort, opin­ion-mak­ing ex­er­cise and con­spir­a­to­r­ial net­work­ing among so many shades of the Left to en­sure that the is­sue is not raised for 37 years. Hats off to the com­rades for do­ing that — for keep­ing it out for 37 years, and in­clud­ing it this time,” said a se­nior jour­nal­ist who has been track­ing the Gadri Mela for years now.

This time, for some real ef­fect, the Mela or­gan­is­ers even hung a ban­ner at the en­trance that in­cluded the de­mand for met­ing out pun­ish­ment to the 1984 killers of Sikhs.

Main­stream Left par­ties have had no com­punc­tion in strik­ing po­lit­i­cal al­liances with the Con­gress in the same of sec­u­lar­ism and not rais­ing the is­sue of killings of Sikhs in Delhi un­der po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age. 

Main­stream Left par­ties have had no com­punc­tion in strik­ing po­lit­i­cal al­liances with the Con­gress in the same of sec­u­lar­ism and not rais­ing the is­sue of killings of Sikhs in Delhi un­der po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age. While mas­sive doc­u­men­ta­tion and dozens of books by suf­fer­ers, chron­i­clers of ri­ots and lead­ing aca­d­e­mi­cians have de­tailed the role of the politi­cians and po­lit­i­cal par­ties in­volved and the ap­a­thetic at­ti­tude of the law en­force­ment agen­cies and the jus­tice dis­pens­ing ma­chin­ery, the Left’s deaf­en­ing si­lence even at a Mela ded­i­cated to hu­man rights and civil lib­er­ties have al­ways per­plexed those fight­ing for jus­tice.

Dr Par­min­der Singh, a key thinker and part of the Desh Bha­gat Yadgaar Com­mit­tee, ac­tu­ally took pains to point out to vis­it­ing jour­nal­ists that this time the Mela has in­cluded the de­mand for jus­tice to the killers of Sikhs.

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Read the re­cent WSN story that had called out the crim­i­nal si­lence
at the Mela about 1984 killings. The Abyss Be­tween Trilokpuri in Delhi
and Desh Bha­gat Yadgaar Hall in Ja­land­har. ਤ੍ਰਿਲੋਕਪੁਰੀ ਦੀਆਂ ਗਲੀਆਂ ਅਤੇ
ਗ਼ਦਰੀ ਮੇਲਾ — ਹਿੰਦਸਾ-ਨੁਮਾ ਵਰ੍ਹੇਗੰਢਾਂ ਅਤੇ ਮੁਸਤੈਦ ਕਾਮਰੇਡ

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Of course, the main­stream me­dia hardly ever ques­tioned the Mela for its si­lence on the is­sue for decades. Left par­ties re­mained shame­lessly silent on the Con­gress giv­ing prime po­si­tions to se­nior lead­ers ac­cused of lead­ing the killer mobs and par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pogrom, pos­si­bly con­sid­er­ing it an in­ter­nal af­fair of a party the Left loved to call “a sec­u­lar force” needed to keep out “the com­mu­nal forces.”

Se­lec­tive si­lence about the killings of Sikhs and de­nial of jus­tice for years has re­mained a defin­ing fea­ture of some of Pun­jab’s lead­ing in­tel­lec­tu­als play­ing tango with the Left, over the years. The list of econ­o­mists wail­ing loudly about falling ground­wa­ter table and debt-rid­den farm­ers but re­main­ing silent about pogroms in the na­tional cap­i­tal runs longer than the 38 years of Left’s crim­i­nal si­lence at a Mela known for Gadar Di Goonj.

Se­lec­tive si­lence about the killings of Sikhs and de­nial of jus­tice for years has re­mained a defin­ing fea­ture of some of Pun­jab’s lead­ing in­tel­lec­tu­als play­ing tango with the Left, over the years.

Sources close to the or­gan­is­ers of the Mela said they are not sure if the heart-wrench­ing cries of the wid­ows of 1984 will ever make their way into the com­rades’ flag­ship com­po­si­tion, Jhande Da Geet, the rit­u­al­is­tic defin­ing event of the Mela every year, but even the per­func­tory in­clu­sion of a men­tion of 1984 killings of Sikhs is be­ing seen as progress among cir­cles that took upon them­selves the cause of rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing so­ci­ety.

“When com­rades whip up a storm in a teacup, they do it sip by sip. It’s the pace of the rev­o­lu­tion they have be­come used to. Hence the three-day an­nual whis­tle-stop tour of the rev­o­lu­tion to Ja­land­har’s Desh Bha­gat Yadgaar Hall re­mains an is­land in a city of a mil­lion peo­ple and lakhs of mi­grant work­ers but does not at­tract even a cou­ple of hun­dred res­i­dents. Com­rades are happy with their cadre ar­riv­ing from all over Pun­jab in trol­leys to watch the­atre and do some net­work­ing over cups of tepid tea rather than in­volv­ing the masses. The Mela gives hope to the com­mit­ted com­rades and also ex­plains at the same time why the rev­o­lu­tion failed in its tracks,” said a po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst who min­gles with the Left co­horts every year at the Mela.