1984
Wikileaks:
Here's What the US Government Internally Knows About the 1984 Pogroms
SECRET U.S. GOVT. MEMOS PUBLISHED BY WIKILEAKS
DELHI DIARY, DEC 17-21
Date: 2007 December 20, 12:39 (Thursday)
Canonical ID: 07NEWDELHI5380_a
Original Classification: CONFIDENTIAL
Current Classification: CONFIDENTIAL
Classified By: A/DCM Ted Osius for Reasons 1.4 (B,D)
1. (U) Below is a compilation of political highlights from Embassy New Delhi for Decemebr 17-21, 2007, that did not feature in our other reporting, including: --
Court Orders Reopening Riots Case Against Congress Leader Jagdish Tytler …
1. (U) Justice may yet be served in the case of former Congress Minister Jagdish Tytler's orchestrating role in Delhi's 1984 anti-Sikh riots. A Delhi court has ordered India's Criminal Bureau of Investigations (CBI) to reopen the case against Tytler to take into account statements from a key witness.
Jasbir Singh, now settled in the U.S., claimed to have overheard and seen Tytler inciting and leading murderous mobs in North Delhi during the riots.
The Nanavati Commission's original investigation into Tytler's role during the riots found "credible evidence" that he played a role in organizing the communal attacks, but the CBI controversially recommended closure of the case in September for lack of evidence and because Jasbir Singh supposedly could not be traced. Singh filed his affidavit in 2000 but subsequently moved to the U.S. where Indian authorities insisted they had been unable to reach him until he recently resurfaced through media outlets following the closure of the case.
2. (C) Comment: Tytler's day in court is long overdue. In the days after Indira Gandhi's assassination, he was among the local Congress Party leaders competing with one another to see which wards would shed more Sikh blood. In exhorting his party cadres and goons to kill more Sikhs, he is reported to have told them they shamed him in the eyes of the top Congress leaders because there were fewer killings in his wards. The killing by his henchmen apparently ensured his success in establishing Congress Party bona fides and demonstrating fealty to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty because he has regularly been given the Congress Party ticket in parliamentary elections since then and has served as a federal Minister in Congress-led governments.
The role of Tytler and other Congress leaders continues to be a millstone for the Congress Party and the secular credentials it professes to espouse. Many commentators view the Congress Party's involvement in inciting and murdering innocent civilians in 1984 as far worse than the purported role of Gujarat Chief Minister Modi in condoning the 2002 Gujarat riots. While these recent court developments do not imply that we will see Tytler's conviction -- none of the mob leaders have been convicted in the 23 years since the riots -- they are a step towards justice for the families victim to Tytler's murderous actions in 1984.
The court's order shows how the CBI has become a pliant pawn of political masters but also demostrates the fierce independence of the Indian judiciary.
Note: Despite his notoriety, we learned recently that Tytler has a valid B1/B2 visa.
End Note.
[The author of the above note, Ted Osius, was at the time the Political Counselor at the US Embassy in India. He is currently the Senior State Department Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington where he holds the Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies and Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies.]
[Courtesy: Wikileaks. The above extracts have been published verbatim, with pre-existing errors and typos.]
November 4, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Kaala (Punjab), November 04, 2013, 10:19 PM.
The US has got double standards when it comes to human rights violations. Their conviction for upholding human rights is only limited to securing trade deals.
2: Kaala Singh (Punjab), November 06, 2013, 9:11 AM.
Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, Kamal Nath, HKL Bhagat, Lalit Maken, Arjun Dass, et al, were the henchmen who carried out the genocide with the help of their criminal hordes, the kingpin being someone else. These scoundrels were small time criminals who owe their political success after the pogrom. It is interesting to note that two of these were born to Sikh mothers (Tytler and Amitabh Bacchan) and there was a Sikh president who didn't consider it appropriate to resign as he witnessed the massacre of his own people and continued to enjoy the luxuries of his position. This shows the extent to which we have fallen.
3: Kaala (Punjab), November 06, 2013, 12:46 PM.
Further to my post above, this is precisely the reason why I will break all bonds with my daughter should she choose to marry a non-Sikh.
4: N Singh (Canada), November 08, 2013, 12:28 AM.
Kaala ji re your comment#2: The reason for this is that women are not respected and honoured amongst many of us or given their equal rights. They then take their subservient mentality with them when they marry either within the religion or outside of it. If you look at Judaism, there the religion is passed to the next generation via the maternal line, not the paternal. One is only a true Jew if your mother is Jewish. In Sikhi both men and women are equal. Both should strive, regardless of whom they marry, to bring up their children in Sikhi. This should be a stipulation upfront before the marriage occurs.
5: Kaala (Punjab), November 09, 2013, 1:22 PM.
N Singh ji, the issue here is not of respect and empowerment of our womenfolk, it is of dilution of identity and conflict of interest. Be it men or women who are in such situations and relationships, they find their loyalties elsewhere and are incapable or uninterested to protect the interests of their people. This has been our misfortune right from the time of the period of Ranjit Singh till today. People whose interests and loyalties lie elsewhere have influenced and led us. When we talk of Jews and the holocaust, for example, the material is now available which proves that such large scale killing of their people would not have been possible without collaborators from their own community and those who influenced them by masquerading as their well wishers.