Friday, January 31, 2014

Memories, the Duffer and justice.

30th December 1982 was the day my father died. He had a heart attack, so, to that extent, his passing was unremarkable. I remember clearly what happened that night. I am sure Mother Stonethrower and Sister Stonethrower remember too. If, we are called by a Special Investigation Team, today, and questioned, the testimonies given by us three would, when read together, give you a complete picture of what happened. The passage of almost 32 years has not dimmed those memories.

Assume that we were a Sikh family in Delhi between 31st October and 3rd November 1984 and our father was killed by a rampaging mob in front of us. Assume that our home was ransacked. Assume that the shop we ran in the neighbourhood was ransacked. Assume that we had to flee and hide somewhere in mortal fear of our lives. Assume our neighbours and relatives were subjected to the very same thing. Would I, my mother and sister not remember every single detail of what happened? You damn well bet we would!

Of course, the very same position would exist in case of the Gujarat Riots and Mumbai and every other riot since then and ones that will happen in future. One is not better or worse than the other.

Now, the Duffer is being interviewed by Arnab Goswami and he is pushed into a corner and admits that members of the Congress Party were involved in the 1984 riots. I presume no one [except Arnab] asked him to make that statement, he did it himself. Why? Because, I am convinced, he is a duffer. Anyway, on cue, the Sikhs, the AAP and the BJP are now at the Congress’s throats asking for the formation of a Special Investigation Team to once again probe those terrible days. The news channels are adding fuel to the fire. The actions by the BJP and the AAP are certainly political, but, my point is, they were handed this on a platter by the Duffer, he opened the door, wide.

What intrigues me, and this is something that I have been grappling with since the fateful night of the `Interview’, is what really passed thru the minds of H K L Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar, Lalit Maken and Jagdish Tytler to do this. There really was and even today is no real animosity against the Sikhs. In 1984 Giani Zail Singh, himself a Sikh was the President. Dr. Manmohan Singh has been in the Congress for years. When writing this, I looked at articles on the 1984 riots on the internet. What you read is chilling, really really disturbing. It is said that Sajjan Kumar incited a mob with the words "Indira Gandhi is our mother and these people have killed her". I cannot vouch for its correctness, but, the conclusion that this leads me to is that the devotion and the sycophancy to the Gandhi family was the prime reason for the riots. Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler are very much around even today. Lalit Maken was assassinated and H K L Bhagat died. The Duffer comes from this stock. He has been brought up with and obviously supports this devotion and the sycophancy to the Gandhi family.

To go back to what I have written in the opening paragraphs. If a Special Investigation Team is set up, people will give evidence, the evidence will be of good if not very good quality. People do not forget. I do hope that this Special Investigation Team is set up and finishes its job soon. Forget all those empty words, `closure’ `victims’ `survivor’ and so on and so forth that our middia loves to bandy about. Justice should be done. Unless the Congress is guilty, I see no reason why the establishment of the Special Investigation Team should be objected to by the Congress. The problem is that the Duffer has really mucked up things for the Congress.  

If people have an argument that you cannot vote for the Bluffer because of what his role is in the Gujarat riots, for which they may have a point, can you really vote for the Duffer, who is a Duffer and who carries loads of this sycophantic baggage and who has lived and thrived in this atmosphere?




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