Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
New Delhi, Nov 2 (IANS) It is never easy for a serving Union minister to speak publicly about the pain he and his community suffered during retaliatory mass violence. Yet Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri did just that recently, recalling the horrors of the genocide-like situation faced by the Sikh community after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.
His detailed social media posts exposed the trauma endured by him and his community, and he did not hesitate to name the Congress party and its senior leaders at the time as the culprits. His expression of anguish even after 41 years not only highlights the depth of the trauma but also the failure of the system to deliver justice promptly and completely.
More than four decades later, the community continues its long fight for justice, and is still awaiting judicial closure. Over the years, the 1984 riots were investigated by at least four commissions and committees – Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission (1985), Jain-Aggarwal Committee (1990), Narula Committee (1993), and Justice Nanavati Commission (2000). All submitted their reports, many cases reached the courts, some were adjudicated, some were appealed and many remained unresolved. The process of justice has progressed slowly, but at least there was acknowledgment of wrong and a mechanism, however imperfect, to address it.
The pain expressed by Hardeep Singh Puri is of palpable suffering – which the present generation can only imagine. Yet, at least their community’s case was investigated, commissions were set up, and victims were provided a platform to record their plight and identify the perpetrators.
Unfortunately, other communities suffered similar genocidal horrors, were uprooted from their homes, and yet were never even given the dignity of a formal investigation.
The ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus is one of the darkest and most neglected chapters of India’s modern history. The community of more than seven lakh people in the Kashmir Valley was systematically targeted in the early 1990s. Threatened, attacked and killed, they were forced to flee their ancestral homes. Hundreds of people were brutally murdered and many women were gang-raped and killed. Houses were looted or usurped, temples were destroyed and burnt and entire areas were evacuated. Within a few months the valley’s two percent Hindu minority almost disappeared.
Yet, in 35 years, neither the central government nor the erstwhile state administration of Jammu and Kashmir (before the abrogation of Article 370) has established any commission or committee to investigate the atrocities or bring the perpetrators to justice. No human rights panel has taken up his case. Their tragedy has remained largely invisible because of the politics of Kashmir.
The displaced community remains silent and organizes peaceful protests from time to time to highlight the discrimination and neglect they have faced.
Even the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) could not consider this migration so gruesome that it could be called genocide. It recorded its stance in its decision in June 1999, acknowledging “acts tantamount to genocide” and a “genocide-type design”. This observation was part of a judgment where the Commission stated that the crimes against Kashmiri Pandits, “as serious as they undoubtedly were, fell short of the strict legal definition of genocide under the Genocide Convention”.
Even the judiciary has failed to respond to the plight of the Kashmiri minorities. The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected petitions from the community, including a curative petition filed by NGO Roots in Kashmir, seeking a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the alleged mass killings and “genocide” of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989-90.
Citing the considerable passage of time, the Court said the evidence was unlikely to survive and no practical purpose would be served by reopening the case after so many years. The petitioners had drawn parallels with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, where the court had ordered an SIT probe decades later. Nevertheless, the Court did not see a similar case for interference in the Pandit case within the legal limits of the curative petition. In some cases, it directed the petitioners to first approach the Central or Union Territory governments, saying such issues fall within the policy domain of the executive.
In December 2023, when a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld the central government’s decision to abrogate Article 370, Justice Sanjiv Kishan Kaul wrote an emotional epilogue in his judgment. He recommended that the government establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission similar to that in post-apartheid South Africa. “This Commission must be set up speedily before memory fades away,” he wrote. “The exercise must be timely. There is already a whole generation who have grown up with feelings of distrust, and it is to them that we owe the greatest duty of reparation.”
Later, in a media interview, Justice Kaul revealed that his own ancestral house was burnt down during the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. He poignantly noted that perhaps the community did not attract political attention because it was not a “big enough electorate”. This comment perhaps sums up his long neglect.
There is no doubt that India is a vibrant democracy with strong institutions and well-functioning administrative networks. Yet the deep politicization of every issue has weakened the country’s ability to respond appropriately and timely to human suffering. Communities like Kashmiri Hindus feel that justice and political support remain elusive as they are neither a large vote bank nor a rich group that can influence the results. Their pain rarely finds a place in political discussions or media conversations.
The Sikhs, despite being a politically influential community with their own statehood and a strong collective identity, are still unhappy that justice for 1984 has not been fully meted out. Hope seems to be fading for Kashmiri Hindus.
Both stories highlight a deeper illness – that in India, the pursuit of justice often depends not just on law and morality, but also on political relevance. As long as the value of a community’s suffering is measured in poll numbers or media visibility, the idea of equal justice will remain elusive. Unless that changes, the cries of the forgotten will continue to echo unheard in the world’s largest democracy.
(Deepika Bhan can be contacted at Deepika.b@ians.in)
–IANS
dpb/dan