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The Politics of
Memorials
WSN Network
 In
order to give a bad name to aspirational movements, the Indian
Government has now started making shrill noises about the killings
by insurgent groups. It came out with posters featuring gory
photographs of those killed allegedly by Naxalites and inserted
advertisements in national newspapers to defame the Naxal movement.
Now, in Assam's
Dhemaji town, it has raised a memorial to the ten children killed in
a blast alleged to have been carried out by the banned United
Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) on August 15, 2004, in which a
total of 13 people were killed.
There is nothing
wrong in such tactics of the Centre as the government will do all in
its power to obfuscate the debate and take the focus away from the
root causes of violence. In fact, much of the Indian media these
days is busy underlining the fact that the intellectual community's
support to the Naxalites must end.
Clearly, the
intellectual support is embarrassing the Indian government because
it brings the focus on issues of discrimination and disempowerment
of the tribals and the other marginalised people.
But how must the
tactics of raising memorials like the one in Assam be tackled? One
way, say intellectuals, is to respond in kind. After all, the
government is the biggest murderer of innocents. It has not been shy
of naming roads after killers of the Sikhs in
Delhi.
It has not done anything to stop intsallation of a statue of CM
Beant Singh even though his regime was proactive killer of innocent
Sikh youth. It has not shied away from parking men like KPS Gill in
one or the other coveted slot over the years. And it never remembers
the victims of state violence when it celebrates occasions like
national police day.
Here is what
experts have said the Sikh community must focus on:
* Raise a
memorial to martyrs of Operation Bluestar.
* Raise memorials at all those gurdwaras where police had attacked,
raided, searched, defiled during Operation Woodrose.
* Raise memorials at every street corner, roadside, bridge, premises
where innocent Sikhs were killed during the 1984 genocide. This
should become a movement and may see tens of hundreds of memorials.
* Wherever a Sikh was killed in a fake encounter, local gurdwaras
and their managing committees should be asked to commemorate the day
when sangat should be reminded of the great annihilation drive that
went on in
Punjab.
Many other
similar steps can be taken to tell the Indian state that civil
society can come up with better tactics because of the simple reason
that its capacity to speak the whole truth is much more than the
state can ever afford.
28
October 2009
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