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Editorial
Who Were The Guilty?
 As India's civil
society shunned all civility and societal concerns, choosing to
remain largely silent and passive, the Sikh Quom marked 25 years of
Denial of Justice. Indian media woke up to the occasion as if
remembrances of carnages past are fixated with calendar’s pages.
Over a wide
spectrum of Indian media, the occasion seemed more important for the
death of Indira Gandhi than the unspeakable, abhorrent act of
burning of nearly 4,000 Sikhs on the roads of
India's
national capital.
As the Open
Letter of WSN editor to his counterpart in Outlook, Vinod Mehta,
brings out, the Indian media has failed to underline that even a
development as deathly as the carnage in the national capital failed
to change India. In article after article, biased opinions and
bereft of facts reportage has been the bane of the Indian media for
years. Nothing much has changed.
In the Hindustan
Times, its editorial director advisor Vir Sanghvi has dwelled
extensively on the life and times of Indira Gandhi, but failed to
mention the word 'Sikh' or 'Operation Bluestar' or '1984 riots' (as
the newspapers in India are wont to call them). No wonder, he found
someone to admire in the Prime Minister to whom are attributed most
of the ills of Indian system.
Shekhar Gupta
was no different in the Indian Express, and was so adulatory in
spasmodic bursts of repressed excitement about a leader India loves
to call strong that he even fished into the newspaper's archives to
publish a picture of himself with Indira Gandhi, circa 1979. Since
then, as the picture shows, Shekhar Gupta has lost his mop of hair,
but little of his prejudices.
Ajit newspaper,
that calls itself Punjab Di Awaz, did not shy away from calling
Indira Gandhi a Shaheed (Were you sleeping on the job, Mr. Editor?)
but then retrieved some of the lost respect by sending a team to
Delhi from where its correspondent H S Bawa did some first hand
reporting that was not only poignant but showed a depth of
perspective, a respect for facts and an acumen for balance.
But what most
newspapers, and even most of the Sikh organizations, forgot to
underline was a simple fact: Why did none of the political parties
in India even talk about the 1984 carnage when the community was
marking its 25 years? After all, the Congress comments on Babri
Mosque demolition every time the calendar loses one more page and
December 6 stares in the face. And every year it reminds the BJP of
the Gujarat riots.
Our problem is
not the BJP or the Congress or the Left parties’ stand on the issue
of Carnage. They are free to blame the Sikhs, accuse them of
militancy and efforts to break the country, justify the carnage as
an act of revenge by the people, but they cannot, and they have no
right to, remain silent when 25th anniversary of such a
pogrom is being marked, and when there is widespread and near
unanimous opinion that justice has not only not been done, but that
it has been thwarted proactively.
Clearly, the
Sikhs need to change tack. And they have already realized it. The
protest parade at Washington DC Capitol Hill is the way to go. We
need to reach out to the community of world leaders. It is a sad
fact that India’s civil society is failing Sikhs. We shall forever
be grateful to the kind of souls who came out with ‘Who Are The
Guilty?’ 25 years ago, but we still have to finish a roll call of
who all were guilty, and there is justice to be secured.
4
November 2009
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