www.sacw.net | August 13, 2005
India: A Misfired Apology
by Sangeeta Mall
Prime Minister Manmohan Singhís speech in the Rajya Sabha on August 11, 2005, apologizing for the trauma caused to the Sikhs in 1984 is late by about 21 years. The apology was required on November 5, 1984, when the massacre of the Sikhs abated somewhat, rather than now, when people have other and fresher issues to agonise over. At the very least it should have been delivered six months ago, when the Nanavati Commission submitted its report. If there is anything the Prime Minister should apologise for now, it is the fact that his party and his government pulled out all stops to prevent the report from being tabled at all, and did so at absolutely the last moment when there was no other choice left. We must thank the Prime Minister for removing at least the Union Minister for NRI Affairs, Mr. Jagdish Tytler, a man with an infamous record that goes back to the hooligan days of Sanjay Gandhi, from the Government. We must also thank him for his speech in Parliament, albeit a shamelessly belated one, which reflects a genuine sense of anguish. But we, the citizens of India, must point out to Dr. Manamohan Singh why his speech is all wrong, and why a true leader of a nation must never give such a speech. For this we must understand what a nation is all about.
A nation in the true sense is a conglomerate of individuals working towards the same goals of prosperity, peace and social bonding. Ideally, the world is one nation. But realistically, nations are formed on the basis of different types of affinities, religious, linguistic, territorial. However, the role of the individual is central to the nation. A nation cannot be a conglomerate of different languages, for instance, or castes, or religions. It cannot be the sum total of the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees. It is the sum total of all Indians. Simplistically, we are all Indians first, Hindus second. The Indianness of the Indians has to have the weakest definition amongst all their different identities, yet it necessarily has to have the strongest presence. That is what being a nation is all about.
Therefore a blow to any one individual in the nation strikes a blow to the nation itself, in a small, imperceptible manner. The danger comes when these blows are taken to be insignificant and not worth considering in the task of nation building. At a very basic, subconscious level, all of us recognize how terrible an agglomeration of such blows can be, the blows of injustice, poverty, hunger, inequality, but when it comes to building an argument in favour of the state, we overlook the individual misery, and proceed to look at the ëlarger pictureí. When forced to look at the individual, we still proceed to first see her gender, her caste, her religion, her linguistic orientation.
But the knowledgeable amongst us must understand that the individual sits at the root and the pinnacle of all development, all governance, all nationhood. By this yardstick, the Prime Minister failed to acknowledge in his long speech that the massacre of 1984, and the subsequent failure to punish the guilty, is not an affront to the Sikh community, it is the failure of nationhood, it is the failure of India to be a nation. He calls the massacre a great ënational shame, a great national tragedyí, and then proceeds to apologise to the Sikh community specifically. That is contradiction at its worst. If the Prime Minister sincerely believes that the 1984 genocide is a ënational shameí, then he must apologise to the nation, to the individuals of this nation, who through their daily struggles, are striving ever harder to build this nation, and leave it at that.
It is a happenstance that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by two Sikhs. Her assassins could as well have been Nagas, or Kashmiri separatists, or PWG militants, or any one of the scores of unhappy groups that wish to discriminate between their own identity and their nation. The thugs and criminals who chose to show their fealty to their political party have no particular animus towards the Sikh community. Their whole action in initiating a genocide is aimed at undermining the concept of the state, and negating the role of the individual. So the Prime Ministerís speech gives additional fodder to the misguided people who believe that it is a community that has an identity, not an individual.
Why is the Prime Ministerís speech aimed at the Sikhs only? Why does he eulogise the Sikh community for its valour, its forbearance? Why does he choose to look at Punjab in particular? What does the greatness of Punjab have to do with the killing of Sikhs, and one of their murderers becoming a Union Minister. The Prime Minister is the elected representative of a secular nation. In looking at the Sikh community in the context of the genocide, he chooses to undervalue his own constitutional role, that of the representative of all the people of this country. He is, in a way, ultimately responsible for their security, their well being, their prosperity. The Sikhs do need an apology, but only those Sikhs who were directly affected by the pogrom, who lost their loved ones in that event. The Prime Minister is only the last one in a long line who has given such an apology. But the biggest apology needs to be given to us, the unfortunate participants of this nation. It is we, all of us, who have suffered the most by the terrible events of 1984, and events similar to that one. We are not Sikhs, or Dalits, or Muslims, or Parsees. We are Indians, neither brave nor valiant, nor great now small. We are just the citizens of this country who need to, deserve to live with justice, peace and harmony.
The Prime Minister says, ìÖwe have an option today to build a better future. Let us help the Sikh community to get out of that trauma of 1984.î Why is the Prime Minister only talking about the Sikh communityís trauma? Was the trauma any less for the rest of us? The Sikhs lost their family, their property, their pride and self esteem. But isnít their loss the loss for the rest of the country? Is the trauma of the Sikhs their trauma alone? How can one talk of the nation when even the leader of the country chooses to make such a distinction.
We have chosen to put the Sikhs into a pocket. The next step, of course, is to forget about that pocket, and in the subsequent part of his speech, the Prime Minister proceeds to do just that. He says, ìValiant efforts have been made by all our national leadership to achieve that task (of detraumatising the Sikhs), and we have succeeded(emphasis mine).î I wish the Prime Minister had elaborated a little more on this aspect. I, for one, do not know how the Sikhs have been helped in the healing process by the national leadership. Healing implies closure. With not even one person punished for the murder of over 3000 individuals, where is the closure?
The Prime Minister eulogises former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for his work in bringing Punjab into the national mainstream. Yet it was when Rajiv Gandhi was at the helm of the Congress Party, when his mother died, that this shameful incident happened. Can the Prime Minister talk about this also? Why does he not mention in his speech about the reason for the killings? Why does he not say, as so many venal politicians, including the present leader of the Opposition, have said before him @ that such killings are a spontaneous outpouring of grief? He doesnít say it because he knows it isnít true. The killings were planned, orchestrated, designed to appease the grieving family members of the slain leader, to show that blood begets blood. Does the Prime Minister not know this? What is his apology worth, if it doesnít apologise for the reality? ìLet us not do anything which will reverse the process,î says the Prime Minister in his apology of an apology. Does punishing the guilty mean a reversal of the healing process? Technically, punishing the guilty is the starting point for any healing process for the survivors. Nowhere in his apology does the Prime Minister talk about punishing the guilty. This is what he says about the Nanavati Commission report, ìThere are, of course, individuals mentioned. The Commission has not come forward with conclusive conclusions. These are in the realm of probabilities. And, I stated yesterday, in the other House, that there is such a thing as perception, there is such a thing as the sentiment of both the Houses of Parliament, and respecting that sentiment, whosoever figures in the Nanavati Report @ and the Commission has in its wisdom found it necessary to draw an adverse inference about their conduct or behaviour @ we will reopen those cases. So, that commitment I have given.î What does this long winded speech mean? Does this mean that Jagdish Tytler had to go because of the sentiments of the house? Does this mean that his guilt, and the guilt of other hooligans like him, is a perception? Or does it mean that he has to go because the Government fully acknowledges and condemns his crime? The Sikhs have been put in a pocket and forgotten about when the Prime Minister says, ìOne of my colleagues, a valued colleague, has tendered his resignation. His resignation has been accepted.î Is the resignation of Jagdish Tytler from the Cabinet the only sop that we are to be offered?
The Prime Ministerís speech is political, and meant to put a lid on the controversy surrounding the role of the Congress Party in the 1984 riots. That is the only significance of his so@called apology. He almost says so when he says, ìThe Report is before us, and one thing it conclusively states is that there is no evidence, whatsoever, against the top leadership of the Congress Party. That lie, which has over the last twenty one years been used to poison the minds of the Sikh youth, stands nailed conclusively.î I would like to remind the Prime Minister of these very words when there is a debate in Parliament about the role of Narendra Modi in the massacre in Gujarat. Yes, Rajiv Gandhi did not go out with a gun to shoot the nearest Sikh, but who is answerable for the impunity with which men like Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar went about the slaughter? Is it not the Congress Party and its top leadership, which was at the helm in 1984?
The Prime Minister appeals to the House that the events of 1984 ìshould be viewed from a wider perspectiveî. Indeed they should, just not in the way that the Prime Minister means. He chooses to take refuge in the adage ìLet bygones be bygonesî. They cannot be. That is why murderers are put in jail, to prevent them from killing again. They are not let off and forgiven, and the victimís family is not asked to forgive them while they are at large, ready to kill again. Forgiveness comes after the threat has been nullified, not while it continues to threaten. The wider perspective that the Prime Minister is probably referring to, though it is not clear from his speech, is that of good governance that he has set out for his government. Shakespeare could have told the Prime Minister that while the fires of vengeance remain alive in the breast of the victims, there can be no talk of governance. The affected and the guilty are both living in the same society. Who will good governance benefit? The affected who canít even get the satisfaction of seeing their loved onesí murderers in jail?
The wider perspective that the Prime Minister should have referred to is the damage that events like those of 1984 in Delhi and its surroundings, 1992 in Mumbai and 2002 in Gujarat, inflicts on the secular fabric of this country. He should have forsaken subterfuge and made it clear that there would be no tolerance for hate related and political crimes of this kind. He should have apologized for the inaction of several governments, including that of the present Opposition, to bring the guilty to book. He should have apologized for having inducted, in the first place, into his cabinet a man notorious for his criminal antecedents and role in one of the most shameful episodes of modern India. He should have praised the various commissions that brought to light the criminality of some of the big names in the Congress Party and apologized for not bringing even a police head constable to trial. Then at least he could have made a start in apologizing to the nation, and if he so chooses, to the Sikhs. Now there is no turning back. The speech is delivered, and now no action is going to be taken. Now there will be no further apologies. As things, the Prime Ministerís speech highlights why we are not a nation. It is because nobody, least of all the Prime Minister himself, has chosen to give any importance at all to the sentiments of the individual.
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