Delhi made Sikhs miss the bus in 1947. Delhi maimed and killed the Sikhs in June 1984. Delhi fell blind in No­vem­ber 1984. Delhi con­tin­ues to fail the Sikhs- day in and day out. The Sikhs are per­pet­u­ally await­ing jus­tice and feel out­raged about it. This is a quick peep into what hap­pened on the streets of Delhi and in the cor­ri­dors of power in the first week of No­vem­ber 1984. This is a short story of how an en­tire city be­numbed the Sikhs, as if a large co­bra had bit­ten them.

This is a peep into the too-well known Blind City of 1984 -Delhi. The cap­i­tal city of In­dia, for three days hounded the Sikhs in a naked show of sav­agery, un­par­al­leled in any civ­i­lized so­ci­ety. This is a peep into that Blind City from jour­nal­ist turned Mem­ber of Delhi As­sem­bly Jar­nail Singh’s book, “I Ac­cuse..The Anti-Sikh Vi­o­lence of 1984.”

“The first three days of No­vem­ber 1984, turned Delhi blind.”

The first three days of No­vem­ber 1984, turned Delhi blind. The vast me­dia pres­ence in the cap­i­tal of the coun­try could not see be­yond Teen Murti House. On the fourth day, Rahul Bedi of In­dian Ex­press opened the eyes of this blind city and its pur­blind peo­ple. Other re­porters ei­ther wore blink­ers or were semi-blind to the killing of Sikhs with burn­ing tyres around their necks was re­ported as some stray vi­o­lent in­ci­dents here and there.

Not only were the peo­ple blind, but seemed as if there is a ve­neer of fear and pres­sure to stop all news of the killing of in­no­cent Sikhs all around the city.

“It is nec­es­sary to raise the voice of the com­mu­nity. It is time to tell the world that we have not for­got­ten.”

The only TV chan­nel of the times,the gov­ern­ment owned Do­or­dar­shan was the blind­est of them all. All its cam­eras in Delhi were de­voted to show­ing the dead body of late Prime Min­is­ter In­dira Gandhi from all an­gles and the re­morse of the Con­gress­men from across the coun­try and the city. Noth­ing else.  Men and women dy­ing on the streets were ig­nored as pariah dogs or stray cows, which are oth­er­wise wor­shipped but left to die on the streets. 

Civil so­ci­ety rose to the oc­ca­sion and came to the res­cue of the dy­ing Sikhs. The hu­man pain and mis­ery was lost in the ef­forts of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. The story of the fam­i­lies, their an­guish about their fu­ture was sec­ondary at that mo­ment and time. It is time to record the hu­man side of the das­tardly turn of events that gave a new mean­ing to the life of Sikhs in Delhi and oth­ers parts of the coun­try.

Po­lice sta­tions re­fused to reg­is­ter First In­for­ma­tion Re­ports. The first First In­for­ma­tion Re­port against politi­cians ac­cused of lead­ing mobs on Sikhs was reg­is­tered af­ter 11 years. Po­lice­men re­sorted to dis­arm­ing those Sikhs who hap­pened to have some arms for self-pro­tec­tion. In some ar­eas po­lice min­gled with lumpens in iden­ti­fy­ing Sikh houses to be burnt and men, women and chil­dren to be killed.

Till to­day, the ju­di­cial sys­tem has not given a judg­ment to any of the per­pe­tra­tors which can be talked about.  Those who were the lead­ers of the crim­i­nal acts again be­came lead­ers, nay, min­is­ters in the gov­ern­ment of In­dia, rub­bing salt on the wounds of the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies. The flow of tears of such fam­i­lies re­fused to stop at the sight of Tytler, Saj­jan Ku­mar, Ka­mal Nath and oth­ers.

Sikh sen­ti­ments had been trounced. Sikhs had be­come numb. Their very ex­is­tence looked mean­ing­less. Sikhs had been re­duced to sec­ond class cit­i­zens. Now, when­ever there is a call to rec­ol­lect the times and seek jus­tice, there are cat­calls of for­get and for­give. Sikhs now take so­lace and sup­port from how the Jews have not for­got­ten and are de­ter­mined to go the Jew­ish route and con­tinue to seek jus­tice till the last man is pun­ished for the crime of killing Sikhs in Delhi and more than 1 70 towns and cities of In­dia.

In this kind of de­press­ing sce­nario, it is nec­es­sary to raise the voice of the com­mu­nity. It is time to tell the world that we have not for­got­ten. It is time to grow be­yond num­bers and sta­tis­tics and un­der­stand the hu­man side of the tragedy. It is time to tell the Sikhs them­selves and the world how the poor­est of poor Sikhs in Delhi are spend­ing their lives in ig­nominy. It is time to tell how the con­spir­a­cies were con­ducted to spread may­hem against the Sikhs in a co­or­di­nated and pre-med­i­tated man­ner. It is time to tell the story of how all the in­ves­ti­gat­ing agen­cies of the coun­try toed the gov­ern­ment line, ob­fus­cated facts, de­stroyed ev­i­dence and to­tally ob­structed the path of jus­tice.

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