1984

The Great Betrayal

T. SHER SINGH

One of the greatest puzzles - and sadnesses - that have lingered since the November anti-Sikh pogroms in India centres around the failure of the Sikh community to properly tend to the needs of the survivors of the massacres and the traumatized families of the thousands of victims.

Sikhs are known for their big-heartedness, their seva, their dedication to helping the under-dog. They are renowned for their selfless service in helping the needy no matter where in the world, no matter which community the needy belong to.

Then, what went wrong in 1984 and the years that followed, when thousands in their own community hungered for help?

It is no secret. We have failed miserably in this instance, some would argue, to criminal lengths in our neglect of our own in their darkest hour.

What went wrong?

I recall the days that followed immediately after the first reports came in of mobs murdering innocent Sikhs in broad daylight in the streets of India’s capital, while the police and army and government leaders simply stood by.

It was November 1984 and I was in the midst of my six months of bar admission examinations, but remained glued to the television set, surrounded by every newspaper and magazine I could get my hands on for the latest news from India - it was an era before the advent of the personal computer. 

It was more than a mere spectator's interest.

I was then editing an underground newspaper, The Spokesman - not related to its Indian namesake -  a weekly financed by a handful of local Sikh professionals who too were moved by the tragic goings-on in distant India, but did not want to be seen as being involved in a pro-Sikh cause: such was the terror unleashed by the Indian government operatives in the diaspora, including Canada.

There were no other Sikh lawyers known anywhere in the country; certainly none came forward. I knew I was going to be the first turbaned lawyer in the country, and knowing the law, I knew there was nothing to be afraid of, particularly from the foreign Indian goons.

The Spokesman was started as a stop-gap measure to disseminate correct information, to counter the obvious lies being circulated by the local Indian Govt. missions both within the community and in the mainstream media.

It remained an underground venture, with a number of families getting together at one of our homes every Friday night to fold, staple, address and stamp up to 15,000 individual copies of the paper, so that they could be mailed to Sikhs around the world that night.

It quickly became the life-line, for many the only line of communication, for accurate and correct news, for Sikhs in distant nooks and corners of the world.

As a result, it also became the focal point of all information, incoming and outgoing, relating to the trauma of 1984. [It published for a little more than one year, at which point I was sworn in as a barrister and solicitor, and joined a busy law-firm practice; no one else was willing or able to take over the reins.]     

It took a few weeks for news to trickle in that entire pockets within the Sikh community in India, particularly in Delhi, had been brutalized and survivors by the thousands were suffering in ill-equipped refugee camps, still too afraid to go back to their neighbourhoods. Most had nothing to go back to: their homes and businesses had been burnt down.

The bottom line: they needed help.

We immediately began a collection: for clothes (blankets, tents, etc.), food and medical supplies … Called up people we knew in India. They confirmed the seriousness of the situation, and agreed to be conduits for everything we would send from here, to ensure that it was all used quickly and efficiently.

We put out word in The Spokesman asking Sikhs across the diaspora to get into similar projects and offered our contacts if needed.

People came out of the woodwork to help.

People we didn’t know even existed, people we didn’t know were Sikh or had Sikh connections. People with Sikh spouses, people with Sikh ancestors, people with Sikh in-laws.

They opened their hearts.

Mountains of supplies began to build up. Warehouses owned by those in the community were opened up to temporarily house the goods waiting to be shipped.

We started contacting airlines. Two of them instantly agreed to help by offering free cargo space at short notice. [Air India refused.]

The mainstream press picked up the energy and carried the stories of our efforts, as well as publicized the appeals for help.

The next thing we knew, the offices of the Indian High Commissioner in Ottawa and the Indian Consulate in Toronto were being quoted in the papers: there is no need for such efforts, they said, everything is in control in India. The stories you hear are exaggerated; everything has been taken care of, all those affected have gone home. All’s well. So, don’t worry about collecting or sending anything over.

We contacted our friends in India. They said the refugees were in dire straits, starving and homeless in the worst of the winter season, with NO help from the authorities at any level. So, please hurry!

We turned up at the Indian offices.

They were quite emphatic about it: nothing would be allowed into India … because there was no need. Period. If you send anything, it will not be allowed to be unloaded on Indian soil, we were told in no uncertain terms.

Before long, the newspapers started carrying statements from the Indian ‘diplomats’ as to how all was well in India, that Sikhs in Canada were merely sensationalizing the whole situation, and that those collecting things were merely scamming the public!

Then, a new development.

A much publicized announcement from the Indian missions that they had set up a special fund to which people could contribute money - only in dollars, please! Once substantial, it would all be sent to India to meet the needs of the needy, if any. [They collected several hundred thousand dollars; people were anxious to help. Not a cent ever reached India.]

It was followed by allegations that all those collecting anything in the community, outside the purview of the Indian government officials, were merely connected with the terrorists. Don’t give them anything, you’re merely financing the terrorists, they said.

It didn’t take long. All efforts were folded. Things collected were given away to local charities.

Anything we tried to start thereafter received a cold shoulder from one and all within the community. A new label had been introduced: anyone publicly active in a Sikh cause was henceforth a Khalistani!

Guess what? All the brave-heart corporate types whose hearts had bled up till now simply disappeared into the woodwork. You couldn’t get a penny from them, or a minute of their time.

It was as if it had become a criminal offence to be a Sikh.

If you had a khanda on your letter head or your newspaper masthead, you were Khalistani. If you went to the gurdwara, you were kutturr (fanatic)

How did I survive?

Simply because I had just finished my law articles (apprenticeship) with Canada’s largest and most prestigious law firm, and been hired as a lawyer by another large, prestigious law firm. I felt I was untouchable - except by those within our own community who were frightened and ran for cover.

I suspect the same thing happened in every other community in the diaspora.

I also suspect the same thing happened in New Delhi, in Punjab and across the length and breadth of India.

I don’t offer this as a justifiable excuse, only as an explanation.

The Indian Government had hired a public relations agency based in Switzerland, which was managing all of these goings on. A brilliant move on the part of the Indians, because even though they could muster up all the mischief and malice in the world, they had no skills, no class, no finesse.

In one fell swoop, a majority of the Sikh lions and lionesses around the world had been turned into giddarrs (jackals). We’d been hinduized.

Now, instead of fighting for our rights and for our own, we fight over vegetarianism and petty rituals and silly issues. We take pride in dropping our Sikhi identifiers, and have found brilliant and perfectly logical reasons to drop our singhs and kaurs and karras.

Yeah. We’ve turned into giddarrs.

Is there a way back?

Of course there is. It is simple, it is quick, and it costs nothing.

All you have to do is stand up and be counted.

Republished on October 31, 2013

read other articles in 1984