1984
An Award For 1984 Mass-Murderer Jagdish Tytler?
by SHIVAM VIJ
Jagdish Tytler, an Indian politician who has been identified as one of the leaders of the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, is to be awarded the Maulana Mohd Ali Jauhar Award on 10 December, 2011 at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi.
Seven others will share this award. The undersigned appeal to the other seven awardees to not accept the award as a mark of protest against honouring this man who has managed to date to avoid all accountability for his crimes against humanity. His involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom has been recorded by several fact-finding reports, including those by PUCL and PUDR.
The seven names of his co-awardees are:
1. S Y Quraishi (Chief Election Commissioner of India)
2. Sanjeev Bhat (Indian Police Service officer, Gujarat cadre)
3. Zafar Agha (senior journalist, Delhi)
4. Mohd Najeeb Ashraf Chaudhry (Chief Income Tax Commissioner)
5. Maulana Mohd. Haseeb Siddiqui (Chairman, Deoband Nagar Palika Parishad)
6. Nusrat Gwalliori (Urdu poet, Madhya Pradesh)
7. Begum Rehana AR Andre (social activist and educationist, Mumbai)
The award is being conferred by Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar Academy, headed by M Saleem. It is sad that the name of Maulana Mohd Ali Jauhar (1878-1931) is being used to felicitate someone accused of organising mass murder.s Maulana Jauhar was a key figure of the Indian freedom movement, a leader of the Khilafat movement and the sixth Muslim to be President of the Indian National Congress. We are sure this is not how he would have liked his name to be remembered, and that he would not have approved of being used to white-wash the sins of a politician who was part of communal violence and mayhem in the capital of India.
It is regrettable that an award being given by members of a minority community is honouring someone who has played a key role in the victimisation of another religious minority. Therefore, we the undersigned call upon the seven distinguished individuals named above to boycott this award ceremony. We make the same appeal to Justice (Retd.) M.S.A. Siddiqui of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, who is reportedly scheduled to chair the award ceremony.
Signed:
1. Mahtab Alam, civil rights activist and journalist, Delhi
2. Shabnam Hashmi, social activist, ANHAD, Delhi
3. Manisha Sethi, Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association
4. Subhash Gatade, writer and activist, New Socialist Initiative, Delhi
5. M Gauhar Iqbal, social activist, Delhi
6. Mukul Dube, writer and columnist, Delhi
7. Sohail Hashmi, writer and filmmaker, Delhi
8. Shivam Vij, writer and journalist, Delhi
9. Mazin Khan, Pharos Media, Delhi
10. Preeti Sampat, Researcher and Activist, Delhi
11. Kabir Khan, Activist, Mumbai
12. Musab Iqbal, Editor, NewzFirst.com, Bangalore
13. Savad Rahman, Journalist, Kerala
14. Harsh Kapoor, South Asia Citizen’s Web
15. Nisar Ahmed, Independent Journalist and Activist, Beed, Maharashtra
16. Mohd.Rais Khan,Editor,Qaumi Farman, Mumbai
17. Javed Naqi, Human Rights Activist
18. Shafiq R Khan, Activist and Founder Empower People
19. Waqar Anwar, Member, Advisory Council, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Delhi and Haryana
20. Mahipal Singh, National Secretary, PUCL
21. Anuradha Bhasin, Editor, Kashmir Times
22. Faisal Anurag, Journalist and Activist, Ranchi
23. Akshay Azad, Journalist, Jammu
24. Ahmed Sohaib, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
25. Safwan Amir, University of Delhi
26. Dr. Tanweer Fazal, Jamia Millia Islamia
27. Dr. Aftab Alam, Aligarh Muslim University
28. Prof. Kaleem Koya, Editor, Thejas Daily, Kerala
29. Kamayani Bali Mahabal, Human Rights Activist, Mumbai
30. Himadri Sekhar Mistri, Research Scholar, Delhi School of Economics
31. Vijayan MJ, writer and activist, Delhi Forum, New Delhi
32. Wali Laskar, Human Rights Activist, Guwahati
33. Imran Ali, Advocate, Delhi
34. Aashish Gupta, Researcher, Allahabad
35. Bobby Kunhu, Researcher and Writer, Kerala
36. Iqbal Abhimanyu, Jawaharlal Nehru University
37. Mary Abraham, Ambedkar University, Delhi
38. Abu Zafar, Special Correspondent, Afkar-e Milli Magazine
39. Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Writer and Activist, Delhi
Please add your name to this plea to the conscience of the seven co-awardees and the organization hosting the event, by CLICKING HERE.
[Courtesy: Kafila]
December 6, 2011
Conversation about this article
1: Baneet Singh Nayar (Australia), December 06, 2011, 8:32 AM.
Such a disgrace for India that these culprits even get nominated for these kinds of awards.
2: Mandeep Kaur (New Delhi, India), December 06, 2011, 8:50 AM.
Such a shame. He should be behind bars, not getting awards.
3: Kamaldeep (India), December 06, 2011, 9:03 AM.
All he deserves is the hangman's noose!
4: Taranveer Bains (Delta, British Columbia, Canada), December 06, 2011, 9:19 AM.
Speechless.
5: Inderjit Singh Athwal (London, United Kingdom), December 06, 2011, 9:30 AM.
What a shame! Justice delayed is justice denied!
6: Satvir Kaur (Boston, MA, U.S.A.), December 06, 2011, 9:31 AM.
How can we add our names to this plea? Can the Editor please set it up on an actual petition site so that it's easy to sign and can be delivered together with all the signatures? [EDITOR: Good suggestion! - we've just added the link at the bottom of the article!]
7: Harpal Singh Sodhi (Chandigarh, Punjab), December 06, 2011, 9:43 AM.
Sikh dango(n) ko hu-ey 25 saal beet gaye aaj bhi mujhe yaad hai jamna paar swarn picture hall se jo katal e aam ka silsila jaari hua 3 din tak chala yeh mujhse behtar kaun janta hoga kyunki wahan rehne wali sikh familyon mein se kuch hi khushnaseeb bache jin mein se meri family padosiyon ki meharbaani se bach gayi.
8: Ari Singh (Sofia, Bulgaria), December 06, 2011, 4:14 PM.
Prison bars, not award, for him, please.
9: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), December 06, 2011, 6:14 PM.
Are you surprised?. Let's revisit General Dyer, the butcher of Jallianwala infamy, who had hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed citizens who had gathered for a peaceful meeting on Vaisakhi Day. Dyer admitted that he felt obliged to teach a moral lesson to the people of Punjab. The guardians of the Golden Temple then - stooges who had been appointed by the Brits themselves - enrolled him in the brotherhood of the Sikhs and presented him with siropao. It was Winston Churchill's scathing comment that stands to this day: "The incident in Jallianwala Bagh was an extraordinary event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation." The Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the King-Emperor in protest. This massacre was the major catalyst for India's Independence movement.
10: Harinder (Jalandhar, Punjab), December 06, 2011, 11:13 PM.
It's absolutely essential that Sikhs and their partners work this one through, and beyond. It's in all our interests.
11: Gurteg Singh (New York, U.S.A.), December 07, 2011, 12:39 AM.
There should be no surprise in this as most other politicians, police and military officers who committed genocide against the Sikhs were awarded with plum posts and conferred the highest civilian and military honors. These criminals are fully protected by the entire Hindu establishment. The inquiries, the court trials and various legal formalities are deliberately designed to delay and obfuscate, and ultimately deny justice. It is only naive and simpleton Sikhs and their cowardly, corrupt leaders who are participating in this farce to please their Hindu masters and in return collect blood money as collaborators. Similarly, Badal - the biggest traitor in our history who has sold us in India to the fascist Hindu RSS has managed to confer upon himself a hollow title.
12: Bikramjit Singh (U.S.A.), December 07, 2011, 8:25 AM.
Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and noted journalist Zafar Agha have declined to receive the Maulana Mohd Ali Jauhar Award as a mark of protest against honouring of accused criminal Jagdish Tytler with the same award.%E2%80%98tainted%E2%80%99-jagdish-tytler/
13: Raj Singh (Ottawa, Canada), December 07, 2011, 12:44 PM.
World's largest democracy, my foot! Nincompoops!
14: Saeed Ali (Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.), December 08, 2011, 2:09 AM.
I am shocked to hear of this award to a person who is accused of terrible crimes against Sikhs. The award dishonors Maulana Muhammad Ali who spent his life fighting against tyranny and state crimes against humanity.
15: Harman Singh (California, U.S.A.), December 08, 2011, 9:05 PM.
The link provided takes you to a website that is not accepting any furthur names. It says that the "thread is closed."
16: Jaswinder Kaur (Germany), December 09, 2011, 1:13 PM.
What's so new. It is kalyug and in this yug, the awards are given to those people who have served the community, BUT in a negative way. Be it Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew or any other religion, all they have in common is that they are politicians!