Thank you judges for calling anti-Sikh riots 'genocide'
Monday’s verdict is a telling commentary on India's ruling class
Dubai: Shortly after Indira Gandhi was shot by her bodyguards on the morning of October 31, 1984, violent mobs began attacking Sikhs in capital New Delhi and other parts of the country. The violence broke out as her bullet-ridden body was lying in the operation theatre and senior members of the ruling Congress party huddled in a room in the same hospital to choose her successor.
Outside, a restive crowd of Congress workers swelled, shouting slogans against Sikhs, a community to which Gandhi’s bodyguards belonged. Elsewhere in the capital, mobs led by Congress leaders began torching Sikh properties, dragging out men and women from their homes and killing them in front of their children. In just four days, 2,733 Sikhs were killed in New Delhi and 3,350 more died in other parts of the country. An entire community was punished for the crime of two bodyguards.
Thirty four years later, a high court on Monday convicted Congress leader Sajjan Kumar for leading a mob that killed five, all from one family, at a Sikh temple. Kumar was an elected lawmaker when the incident took place. This is the first conviction of a senior politician in the 1984 anti-Sikh riot case. Kumar, 77, will now spend the rest of his life in jail.
Monday’s verdict by Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel is a telling commentary on India’s ruling class and the police that either failed to save lives or in some cases were complicit in mob attacks.
“The criminals responsible for the mass crimes have enjoyed political patronage and managed to evade prosecution and punishment. Bringing such criminals to justice poses a serious challenge to our legal system,” the court order said.
It also highlighted holes in the criminal justice system that lacks legal muscle to handle crimes involving mass murder of minorities. “Neither crimes against humanity nor genocide is part of our domestic law of crime. This loophole needs to be addressed urgently,” the order said.
More importantly, the judges called the mob violence a genocide, a first such description by a court of law. This judges went beyond 1984 violence and noted the pattern of mass killings in which members of the ruling parties were involved.
“There has been a familiar pattern of mass killings in Mumbai in 1993, in Gujarat in 2002, in Kandhamal, Odisha in 2008 and in Muzaffarnagar in UP in 2013 to name a few,” the judges said.
Indian laws lack teeth and the investigators’ will to punish those behind mass violence is weak for a simple reason — the perpetrators are from the political class. Even when a conviction does take place, powerful politicians find a way to subvert the criminal justice system. In April, Maya Kodnani, who was earlier found guilty of leading a mob that killed 97 Muslims in Gujarat, won an acquittal from a higher court.