Anti Sikh Riots

The 1984 anti-Sikh riots, also known as the 1984 Sikh massacre, was a series of organised pogroms against Sikhs in India following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Government estimates project that about 2,800 Sikhs were killed in Delhi and 3,350 nationwide, whilst other sources estimate the number of deaths at about 8,000–17,000.

The assassination of Indira Gandhi had taken place after she had ordered Operation Blue Star, a military action to secure the Golden Temple, a Sikh temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab, in June 1984. The operation had resulted in a deadly battle with armed Sikh groups who were demanding greater rights and autonomy for Punjab and the deaths of many pilgrims. Sikhs worldwide had criticized the army action and many saw it as an assault on their religion and identity.

In the aftermath of the pogroms, the government reported that 20,000 had fled the city; the People's Union for Civil Liberties reported "at least" 1,000 displaced persons. The most-affected regions were the Sikh neighborhoods of Delhi. Human rights organizations and newspapers across India believed that the massacre was organized.Swadesh Bahadur Singh (editor of the Sher-i-Panjâb weekly): "Cabinet berth for a Sikh", ''The Indian Express'', 31 May 1996. The collusion of political officials connected to the Indian National Congress in the violence and judicial failure to penalize the perpetrators alienated Sikhs and increased support for the Khalistan movement. The Akal Takht, Sikhism's governing body, considers the killings a genocide.

In 2011, Human Rights Watch reported that the Government of India had "yet to prosecute those responsible for the mass killings". According to the 2011 WikiLeaks cable leaks, the United States was convinced of the Indian National Congress's complicity in the riots and called it "opportunism" and "hatred" by the Congress government, of Sikhs. Although the U.S. has not identified the riots as genocide, it acknowledged that " grave human rights violations" occurred. In 2011, the burned sites of multiple Sikh killings from 1984, were discovered in Hondh-Chillar and Pataudi areas of Haryana. The Central Bureau of Investigation believes that the violence was organised with support from the Delhi police and some central-government officials.

After 34 years of delay, in December 2018, the first high-profile conviction for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots took place with the arrest of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court. Very few convictions have taken place in the pending 1984 cases, with only one death penalty conviction for an accused, Yashpal in the case of murdering Sikhs in the Mahipalpur area of Delhi.

Background

In the 1972 Punjab state elections, Congress won and Akali Dal was defeated. In 1973, Akali Dal put forward the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to demand more autonomy to Punjab. It demanded that power be generally devolved from the Central to state governments. The Congress government considered the resolution a secessionist document and rejected it. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a prominent Sikh leader of Damdami Taksal, then joined the Akali Dal to launch the Dharam Yudh Morcha in 1982 to implement the Anandpur Sahib resolution. Bhindranwale had risen to prominence in the Sikh political circle with his policy of getting the Anandpur Resolution passed. Others demanded an autonomous state in India, based on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.

As high-handed police methods were used on protesters during the Dharam Yudh Morcha, creating state repression affecting a very large segment of Punjab's population, retaliatory violence came from a section of the Sikh population, widening the scope of the conflict by the use of violence of the state on its own people, creating fresh motives for Sikh youth to turn to insurgency. The concept of a separate Sikh state (the Khalistan movement) was still vague even while the complex was fortified under the influence of former Sikh army officials alienated by government actions who now advised Bhindranwale, Major General Shabeg Singh and retired Major General and Brigadier Mohinder Singh, and at that point the concept was still not directly connected with the movement he headed. In other parts of Punjab, a "state of chaos and repressive police methods" combined to create "a mood of overwhelming anger and resentment in the Sikh masses against the authorities," making Bhindranwale even more popular, and demands of independence gain currency, even amongst moderates and Sikh intellectuals.

By 1983, the situation in Punjab was volatile. In October, Sikh militants stopped a bus and shot six Hindu passengers. On the same day, another group killed two officials on a train. The Congress-led central government dismissed the Punjab state government (led by their party), invoking the president's rule. During the five months before Operation Blue Star, from 1 January to 3 June 1984, 298 people were killed in violent incidents across Punjab. In the five days preceding the operation, 48 people were killed by violence. According to government estimates, the number of civilians, police, and militants killed was 27 in 1981, 22 in 1982, and 99 in 1983. By June 1984, the total number of deaths was 410 in violent incidents and riots while 1,180 people were injured.

On 1 June, Operation Blue Star was launched to remove Bhindranwale and armed militants from the Golden Temple complex. On 6 June Bhindranwale died in the operation. Casualty figures for the Army were 83 dead and 249 injured. According to the official estimate presented by the Indian government, 1592 were apprehended and there were 493 combined militant and civilian casualties. Later operations by Indian paramilitary forces were conducted to clear the separatists from the state of Punjab.

The operation carried out in the temple caused outrage among the Sikhs and increased the support for Sikh separatism. Four months after the operation, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. One of the assassins was fatally shot by Gandhi's other bodyguards while the other was convicted of Gandhi's murder and then executed. Public outcry over Gandhi's death led to the killings of Sikhs in the ensuing 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Geo-political context

Before British colonisation, Punjab was a region dominated by Sikh states known as Misls, which were later unified into the Sikh Empire by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Following the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849, the Sikh Empire was dissolved, leading to its integration into the British province of Punjab. This period saw the emergence of religio-nationalist movements as a response to British administrative policies and socio-political changes. The concept of a Sikh homeland, Khalistan, emerged in the 1930s as the British Empire began to dissolve. This idea gained momentum in response to the Muslim League's demand for a Muslim state, with the Sikhs viewing it as an encroachment on historically Sikh territory. The Akali Dal, a Sikh political party, envisioned Khalistan as a theocratic state, comprising parts of what is today Punjab in both India and Pakistan.

Post-independence, the Akali Dal led the Punjabi Suba movement, advocating for the creation of a Punjabi-majority state within India. The movement's demands ranged from autonomous statehood within India to a fully sovereign state (Khalistan). Initially, the Indian government resisted these demands, wary of creating another state based on religious grounds. By the late 1970s and 1980s, the Khalistan movement began to militarize, marked by a shift in Sikh nationalism and the rise of armed militancy. This period, especially leading up to and following Operation Blue Star in 1984, saw increased Sikh militancy as a response to perceived injustices and political marginalization.

Violence

After the assassination of Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984 by two of her Sikh bodyguards, anti-Sikh riots erupted the following day. They continued in some areas for several days, in which 3,000-17,000 people were killed. At least 50,000 Sikhs were displaced. Sultanpuri, Mangolpuri, Trilokpuri, and other Trans-Yamuna areas of Delhi were the worst affected. Perpetrators carried iron rods, knives, clubs, and combustible material (including kerosene and petrol). They entered Sikh neighbourhoods, killing Sikhs indiscriminately and destroying shops and houses. Armed mobs stopped buses and trains in and near Delhi, pulling off Sikh passengers for lynching; some were burnt alive. Others were dragged from their homes and hacked to death, and Sikh women were reportedly gang-raped and Sikhs also had acid thrown on them.

The grief, trauma, and survival of Sikh victims and witnesses is an important human perspective missing in much factual coverage of the riots. In interviews with Manoj Mitta and H.S. Phoolka for their book "When a Tree Shook Delhi," survivors recount harrowing tales of watching loved ones burned alive, raped, and dismembered. One Hindu woman describes her family sheltering over 70 Sikhs from murderous mobs who were targeting Sikh homes marked with an "S."Ensaaf's 2006 report "Twenty years of impunity" contains dozens of eyewitness statements accusing police and government officials of enabling and even participating in the violence. Personal stories help convey the true horrors endured by the Sikh community.

The riots have also been described as pogroms,State pogroms glossed over
''The Times of India''. 31 December 2005. massacres or genocide.

Meetings and weapons distribution

On 31 October, a crowd around the All India Institute of Medical Sciences began shouting vengeance slogans such as "Blood for blood!" and became an unruly mob. At 17:20, President Zail Singh arrived at the hospital and the mob stoned his car. The mob began assaulting Sikhs, stopping cars and buses to pull Sikhs out and burn them. The violence on 31 October, restricted to the area around the AIIMS, resulted in many Sikh deaths. Residents of other parts of Delhi reported that their neighbourhoods were peaceful.

During the night of 31 October and the morning of 1 November, Congress Party leaders met with local supporters to distribute money and weapons. Congress MP Sajjan Kumar and trade-union leader Lalit Maken handed out notes and bottles of liquor to the assailants. On the morning of 1 November, Sajjan Kumar was observed holding rallies in the Delhi neighbourhoods of Palam Colony (from 06:30 to 07:00), Kiran Gardens (08:00 to 08:30), and Sultanpuri (about 08:30 to 09:00). In Kiran Gardens at 8:00 am, Kumar was observed distributing iron rods from a parked truck to a group of 120 people and ordering them to "attack Sikhs, kill them, and loot and burn their properties". During the morning he led a mob along the Palam railway road to Mangolpuri, where the crowd chanted: "Kill the Sardars" and "Indira Gandhi is our mother and these people have killed her". In Sultanpuri, Moti Singh (a Sikh Congress Party member for 20 years) heard Kumar make the following speech:

The Central Bureau of Investigation told the court that during the riot, Kumar said that "not a single Sikh should survive". The bureau accused Delhi Police of keeping its "eyes closed" during the riot, which was planned.

In the Shakarpur neighbourhood, Congress Party leader Shyam Tyagi's home was used as a meeting place for an undetermined number of people. According to a local Hindu witness, Minister of Information and Broadcasting H. K. L. Bhagat, gave money to Boop Tyagi (Tyagi's brother), saying: "Keep these two thousand rupees for liquor and do as I have told you ... You need not worry at all. I will look after everything."

During the night of 31 October, Balwan Khokhar (a local Congress Party leader who was implicated in the massacre) held a meeting at Pandit Harkesh's ration shop in Palam. Congress Party supporter Shankar Lal Sharma held a meeting, where he assembled a mob which swore to kill Sikhs, in his shop at 08:30 on 1 November.

Kerosene, the primary mob weapon, was supplied by a group of Congress Party leaders who owned filling stations. In Sultanpuri, Congress Party A-4 block president Brahmanand Gupta distributed oil while Sajjan Kumar "instructed the crowd to kill Sikhs, and to loot and burn their properties" (as he had done at other meetings throughout New Delhi). Similar meetings were held at locations such as Cooperative Colony in Bokaro, where local Congress president and gas-station owner P. K. Tripathi distributed kerosene to mobs. Aseem Shrivastava, a graduate student at the Delhi School of Economics, described the mobs' organised nature in an affidavit submitted to the Misra Commission:

A senior official at the Ministry of Home Affairs told journalist Ivan Fera that an arson investigation of several businesses burned in the riots had found an unnamed combustible chemical "whose provision required large-scale coordination". Eyewitness reports confirmed the use of a combustible chemical in addition to kerosene. The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee later cited 70 affidavits noting the use of a highly-flammable chemical in its written reports to the Misra Commission.

Congress Party voter-list use

On 31 October, Congress Party officials provided assailants with voter lists, school registration forms, and ration lists. The lists were used to find Sikh homes and business, an otherwise-impossible task because they were in unmarked, diverse neighbourhoods. During the night of 31 October, before the massacres began, assailants used the lists to mark Sikh houses with an "S". Because most mob members were illiterate, Congress Party officials provided help reading the lists and leading the mobs to Sikh homes and businesses in other neighbourhoods. With the lists, the mobs could pinpoint the location of Sikhs they otherwise would have missed.

Sikh men not at home were easily identified by their turbans and beards, and Sikh women were identified by their dress. In some cases, the mobs returned to locations where they knew Sikhs were hiding because of the lists. Amar Singh escaped the initial attack on his house by having a Hindu neighbour drag him into the neighbour's house and announce that he was dead. A group of 18 assailants later came looking for his body; when his neighbour said that his body had been taken away, an assailant showed him a list and said: "Look, Amar Singh's name has not been struck off from the list, so his body has not been taken away."

International perspectives

Organizations like ENSAAF, a Sikh rights group, have documented the involvement of senior political leaders, notably from the Congress Party, in orchestrating the violence. These organizations have provided detailed accounts of how the violence was not spontaneous but organized, with state machinery used to facilitate the massacres, including using government buses to transport mobs to Sikh localities. Over the years, at least ten different commissions and committees were appointed by the Indian government to investigate the violence. These commissions faced criticism for a lack of transparency and effectiveness. The Misra Commission, for instance, was criticized for its in-camera proceedings and failure to allow victims' lawyers to attend or examine witnesses. Other commissions, such as the Kapoor-Mittal and Jain-Banerjee committees, recommended actions against police officers and politicians, but these recommendations were often not fully acted upon.

The response within India was marked by a call for justice from various quarters, including victims and activists. The Indian government's formation of Special Investigation Teams (SITs) and the extension of their mandates were seen as efforts to address the issue, though some viewed these measures as inadequate. There has been a persistent demand for accountability and justice for the victims and survivors of the riots.

Timeline

31 October

* 09:20: Indira Gandhi is shot by two of her Sikh security guards at her residence, and is rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
* 10:50: Gandhi dies.
* 11:00: All India Radio reports that the guards who shot Gandhi were Sikhs.
* 16:00: Rajiv Gandhi returns from West Bengal to the AIIMS, where isolated attacks occur.
* 17:30: The motorcade of President Zail Singh, returning from a foreign visit, is stoned as it approaches the AIIMS. A bodyguard's turban is ripped off.

Evening and night

* Organized, equipped gangs spread out from the AIIMS.
* Attacks are planned in a meeting at the home of the Minister of Information and Broadcasting
* Violence towards Sikhs and destruction of Sikh property spreads.
* The "Seek blood for blood" statement is aired on state-controlled airwaves.
* Rajiv Gandhi is sworn in as Prime Minister.
* Senior advocate and BJP leader Ram Jethmalani meets Home Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and urges him to take immediate steps to protect Sikhs from further attacks.
* At night, homes of Sikh are identified by surveyors. They use lists to find homes, marking homes of Sikhs with an S.
* At around 9 p.m. an elderly Sikh man is the first to be killed.
* Delhi lieutenant governor P. G. Gavai and police commissioner S. C. Tandon visit the affected areas.

1 November

* Early in the morning organised mobs are transported outside of Delhi on buses and begin attacking Sikh neighbourhoods. They are equipped with firearms, knives, iron rods, clubs, and kerosene.
* In the morning, Gurdwaras are attacked and burned.
* At 7:00 a.m. mobs in Kanpur vandalise Sikh shops and loot Sikh homes. Local Congress leaders soon begin to lead mobs. Rapes and killings begin and continue till 4 November.
* In the morning, mobs roam the Trilokpuri colony in East Delhi. In two narrow alleys of the colony, hundreds of Sikhs were "butchered" throughout the day. The killings continued for multiple days. According to an eyewitness, Sikhs were able to fend off some of the mobs. Police forces then came and stripped Sikhs of their weapons, and blocked all exit points. This left the Sikhs defenceless and vulnerable to the mobs.
* In Trilokpuri colony: A father and his two sons were beaten and burned alive by a gang. The gang entered their home where a woman and her youngest son were found. She was stripped and raped by boys in front of her son. The woman tried to flee with her son after the rape, but the son was caught by a mob that beat him and burned him alive. The woman was also beaten and suffered multiple knife wounds and a broken arm.
* In Trilokpuri colony: Women were grouped together and were dragged one by one to a mosque where they would be gang raped. According to one girl, she was raped by 15 men.
* In Trilokpuri colony: 30 women are abducted and held in Chilla near Delhi. Some of the women were released on 3 November while the fate of the remaining women is unknown.
* 09:00: Armed mobs take over the streets in Delhi. Gurdwaras are among the first targets. The worst-affected areas are low-income neighbourhoods such as Inderlok (erstwhile Trilokpuri), Shahdara, Geeta Colony, Mongolpuri, Sultanpuri and Palam Colony. Areas with prompt police intervention, such as Farsh Bazar and Karol Bagh, see few killings and little major violence.
* According to an eyewitness in Bihar, in the morning large crowds armed with weapons raised anti-Sikh chants and attacked the homes of Sikh. They broke into the eyewitnesses home and dragged out her parents and three brothers. They were each "butchered" as she watched helplessly.
* At 6 PM a mob under the guidance of Congress leader Lalit Maken set fire to Pataudi's Gurdwara which created a panic in the city. As the armed mob rampaged through the town and set fire to Sikh homes in the city, one group of Sikhs escaped to the outskirts while another found shelter in a local Ashram

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