Jus­tice Ajit Singh Bains rues the fact that de­spite steps by right-think­ing ac­tivists and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, jus­tice eludes the vic­tims of the No­vem­ber 1984 mas­sacre. The Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights and the In­dian con­sti­tu­tion up­hold rule of law and any state which di­gresses is likely to face con­se­quences, ar­gues the ac­tivist for­mer Judge in this ar­ti­cle co­in­cid­ing with the 10th an­niver­sary of the No­vem­ber tragedy in Delhi and be­yond.

THE AIM OF A CIV­I­LIZED STATE IS TO EN­SURE JUS­TICE FOR ALL ITS CIT­I­ZENS. If a state fails to dis­pense jus­tice, it is not cor­rect to call it a civil state.

De­lay­ing jus­tice is a good strat­egy to deny jus­tice. For the last 10 years, vic­tims of the Delhi car­nage are wait­ing for jus­tice. The killers are not brought to trial and jus­tice, in­spite of the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Delhi Chief Min­is­ter Madan Lal Khu­rana.

Thou­sands of in­no­cent Sikh men, women and chil­dren lost their lives in Delhi and other Con­gress-ruled states in the first week of No­vem­ber 1984. Re­ports pre­pared by hu­man rights ac­tivists like Jus­tice Tarkunde, Prof. Kothari and Jus­tice S.M. Sikri -for­mer Chief Jus­tice of In­dia, have held that the mas­sacre of Sikhs, rapes of women, ab­duc­tion, kid­nap­ping, ar­son and loot were planned and be­trayed a pat­tern.

     Jus­tice V. M. Tarkunde, Prof. Ra­jni Kothari, Jus­tice S. M. Sikri

The promi­nent among the guilty are H.K.L. Bha­gat and Saj­jan Ku­mar be­sides many po­lice of­fi­cials. The Khu­rana Gov­ern­ment in Delhi ap­pointed a com­mis­sion un­der the Chair­man­ship of Jus­tice R.S. Narula for­mer Chief Jus­tice of Pun­jab and Haryana High Court, soon af­ter the gov­ern­ment was formed. The Narula Com­mis­sion has rec­om­mended that the re­port of the Jain Ag­gar­wal com­mit­tee be im­ple­mented.

H. K. L. Bha­gat, Saj­jan Ku­mar

The promi­nent among the guilty are H.K.L. Bha­gat and Saj­jan Ku­mar be­sides many po­lice of­fi­cials. The Khu­rana Gov­ern­ment in Delhi ap­pointed a com­mis­sion un­der the Chair­man­ship of Jus­tice R.S. Narula for­mer Chief Jus­tice of Pun­jab and Haryana High Court, soon af­ter the gov­ern­ment was formed. The Narula Com­mis­sion has rec­om­mended that the re­port of the Jain Ag­gar­wal com­mit­tee be im­ple­mented.

Jus­tice R. S. Narula and Madan­lal Khu­rana

In spite of the Khu­rana Gov­ern­men­t’s earnest ef­forts, the Home Min­is­ter has not taken any steps to bring cul­prits to jus­tice. It is re­ally tragic that even af­ter 10 years, the mur­der­ers are at large.

Ac­cord­ing to a for­mer DIG, he could not im­pose a cur­few or call in the army as he was for­bid­den to do so by in­struc­tions from the PM house. From this, it is quite ev­i­dent that not only HKL Bha­gat and Saj­jan Ku­mar but the PM and Home Min­is­ter were also in­volved in the car­nage.

In this sub­con­ti­nent, there had been mur­ders of Ma­hatma Gandhi in Jan­u­ary 1948, Li­ayakhat Ali Khan first Prime Min­is­ter of Pak­istan in 1951, Shiekh Mu­jeeb­hur Rehman, cre­ator of Bangladesh along with his wife and chil­dren in 1975. But the com­mu­nity of the as­sas­sin never be­came the vic­tim. It is only in the case of Sikhs that planned car­nage was or­gan­ised and no ac­tion taken against the guilty un­til to­day.

Peo­ple of Delhi had ear­lier suf­fered such car­nage dur­ing the pe­riod of Alaud­din Khilji and Nadir Shah. But No­vem­ber 1984 car­nage was most hor­ri­ble as one com­mu­nity was sin­gled out. Their homes were torched, women raped and Gu­rud­waras burnt. The Mughal car­nage and holo­caust were not against one com­mu­nity ex­cept in 1947 when in re­tal­i­a­tion to the killings of Hin­dus and Sikhs of West Pun­jab, the Mus­lim com­mu­nity of Delhi be­came the vic­tim.

 Mo­han­das K. Gandhi, Li­akat Ali Khan, Sheikh Mu­jibur Rehman, In­dira Gandhi

In this sub-con­ti­nent, there had been mur­ders of Ma­hatma Gandhi in Jan­u­ary 1948, Li­akhat Ali Khan first Prime Min­is­ter of Pak­istan in 1951, Shiekh Mu­jib­hur Rehman, cre­ator of Bangladesh along with his wife and chil­dren in 1975. But the com­mu­nity of the as­sas­sin never be­came the vic­tim. It is only in the case of Sikhs that planned car­nage was or­gan­ised and no ac­tion taken against the guilty un­til to­day.

When jus­tice is de­nied, de­pen­dence on re­pres­sion comes eas­ily to per­pet­u­ate the rule. Rule of law de­gen­er­ates into that of men and is fi­nally thrown off by vi­o­lent rev­o­lu­tions. Bangladesh is the re­sult of in­jus­tice done by the mil­i­tary rulers of Pak­istan in this sub­con­ti­nent.

Pre­cisely to stop such right­eous but vi­o­lent up­surge of peo­ple against tyran­ni­cal gov­ern­ments, the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights was adopted by the United Na­tions on the 10th of De­cem­ber, 1948. In­dia is a sig­na­tory to it. The pre­am­ble of the de­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights reads: “Whereas it is es­sen­tial if man is not to be com­pelled to have re­course, as a last re­sort, to re­bel­lion against tyranny and op­pres­sion, that hu­man rights should be pro­tected by the rule of law.”

Even the pre­am­ble of our con­sti­tu­tion leaves no doubt as to the aim and di­rec­tion of the con­sti­tu­tional gov­ern­ment: “WE THE PEO­PLE OF IN­DIA hav­ing solemnly re­solved to con­sti­tute In­dia a SOV­ER­EIGN SO­CIAL­IST SEC­U­LAR DE­MO­C­RA­TIC RE­PUB­LIC and to se­cure to all its cit­i­zens JUS­TICE so­cial, eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal LIB­ERTY of thought, ex­pres­sion, be­lief, faith and wor­ship; EQUAL­ITY of sta­tus and op­por­tu­nity; and to pro­mote among them all FRA­TER­NITY as­sur­ing the dig­nity of the in­di­vid­ual.”

In­dia to­day is fac­ing wide­spread re­bel­lion and armed in­sur­gency from Nax­alite mil­i­tancy to eth­nic-in­spired armed strug­gle. One thing is com­mon in all the dis­turbed ar­eas that jus­tice was not avail­able there. The only rea­son for the state and the ruler to ex­ist is to de­liver jus­tice, oth­er­wise, an­ar­chy is cer­tain. When the State is un­able to pro­vide jus­tice, the peo­ple de­vise their own mech­a­nism.

Parts of In­dia are in tur­moil be­cause gov­ern­ments of the day are not fair to them. The de­prived peo­ple have started look­ing to­wards the Nax­alite lead­ers in Andhra Pradesh.

This ar­ti­cle was pub­lished in The Spokesman Weekly, De­cem­ber 1994. This ar­ti­cle has been re­trieved from the archives of the Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary.

It is time we lis­ten to Emer­son “if the gov­ern­ment is cruel, the gov­er­nor’s life is not safe. If you tax too high, the rev­enue yields noth­ing. If you make the crim­i­nal code san­guinary, the ju­ries will not con­vict. Noth­ing ar­bi­trary, noth­ing ar­ti­fi­cial can en­dure.”

Parts of In­dia are in tur­moil be­cause gov­ern­ments of the day are not fair to them. The de­prived peo­ple have started look­ing to­wards the Nax­alite lead­ers in Andhra Pradesh.

The whole of Ut­tarak­hand is up in re­bel­lion. In­dia is a mul­ti­eth­nic, mul­ti­lin­gual, mul­tira­cial, mul­tire­li­gious coun­try, The only thing com­mon be­tween peo­ple of Pun­jab, Tamil Nadu, Ben­gal and other parts of In­dia is that they were co­erced by force into one coun­try by the British Colo­nial rulers.

It is tragic that in spite of the Khu­rana Gov­ern­men­t’s rec­om­men­da­tions and ef­forts, jus­tice is not be­ing done. The Delhi State Gov­ern­ment has very lim­ited pow­ers, even less power than other states. This bla­tant act of in­jus­tice is alien­at­ing the peo­ple of Pun­jab. The Sikhs have very pa­tri­otic cre­den­tials. They had opted for In­dia and were against the par­ti­tion. But due to long ne­glect by the Con­gress Gov­ern­ment, they are em­bit­tered. The in­va­sion of the Golden Tem­ple by the In­dian Army was a his­toric blun­der.

The rea­son given by the In­dira Gandhi Gov­ern­ment was that it was es­sen­tial to throw out the mil­i­tants from the Golden Tem­ple, though no list of the mil­i­tants was given to SGPC to hand them over to the Gov­ern­ment.

In the first week of May 1984, Ra­jeev Gandhi had de­scribed Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale as a re­li­gious saint. How come he be­came a ter­ror­ist in the first week of June 1984? In fact, op­er­a­tion Blue Star which was the start­ing point for alien­ation of the Sikh peo­ple proved to be the sin­gle most im­por­tant fac­tor for the rise of mil­i­tancy lead­ing to the as­sas­si­na­tion of In­dira Gandhi and the geno­cide of the Sikhs.

Jus­tice Ajit Singh Bains passed away on 11 Feb­ru­ary 2022. He was a hu­man rights cham­pion through­out his life.