As Rahul Gandhi wearing an orange turban paid his obeisance at the Golden Temple on January 10, a day before kicking off the Punjab leg of his ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra, posters appeared on the walls of the Congress Bhawan in Ludhiana questioning the top Congress leader over his party’s role in the country’s Partition in 1947 and the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.
The handwritten, anonymous posters read: “1947 mein Bharat toda, 1984 mein samaaj…1984 mein Sikh dangon mein sainkdon nirdosh maarey gaye… Rahul Gandhi aur Congress jawaab de… (The country was divided in 1947, society was split in 1984. Hundreds of innocents were killed during 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress must answer.)”
Rahul was 14 during the Sikh massacre in Delhi that followed the assassination of his grandmother and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, months after Operation Bluestar was carried out by the Army in the Golden Temple to flush out Khalistani militants led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Rahul’s father Rajiv Gandhi had taken charge as the PM after Indira’s assassination.
Decades later, Rahul, now 52, is still haunted by the 1984 riots when he visits Punjab, especially its gurdwaras, as he faces a clamour of protests from the Opposition as well as victim families seeking his apology over the carnage.
The Punjab Congress leaders have always defended Rahul, saying he could not be held accountable for the 1984 riots as he was a teenager then.
Surjit Singh, president of the 1984 Danga Peerit Welfare Society, a body of 10,000 victim families, says since Rahul has taken over the political legacy of the Gandhi family it is his moral responsibility along with his mother Sonia Gandhi to apologise for the 1984 carnage. “What is stopping Rahul now from apologising and admitting that what Congress did was wrong. What is stopping Rahul from removing Jagdish Tytler and Kamal Nath from the party?” he says.
Gurdeep Kaur, co-president of this society, saw her two brothers-in-law burnt alive by the mob in Delhi’s Mangolpuri during the 1984 riots that left her husband bed-ridden for life. “Yes, he (Rahul) was a child then, but what about our children who have been orphaned? What was their fault? Some children were even born without fathers and never saw them because mobs who wanted to avenge Indira’s death burnt them alive in front of our eyes… We can never forget what happened but at least there will be a closure if Rahul apologises… Our wounds flare whenever someone from Gandhi family comes to Punjab,” she says.
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Senior Supreme Court advocate and ex-AAP leader HS Phoolka, who has been fighting court cases for riot victims for decades to get them justice, says the question is, what has Rahul done to “rectify his family’s mistakes” and to make the Sikh community believe that he actually felt their pain.
“How has Congress changed after 1984? It is still the same old Congress which has people like Tytler and Kamal Nath at the helm of affairs. I would still say that it was Congress as a whole which was responsible for the massacre not Rahul Gandhi but then being in power now to make those changes, Rahul should have actually shown that he stood with Sikhs by doing it,” says Phoolka. “How come Tytler and Nath are still a part of the Congress? Not just a part, they are in powerful positions. Rahul is not responsible for what happened in 1984 but he is certainly responsible for what is happening in the party now. He needs to answer how and why those people who were a part of the conspiracy are still in the party.”
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Both the SAD and BJP, ex-allies and now rivals, were the first to target Rahul over his Yatra in Punjab. SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal alleged: ”This (Gandhi) family has a history of breaking Punjab and discriminating against it. No one has damaged Punjab as much as Gandhi family. Former PM Indira Gandhi ordered an attack on Darbar Sahib using tanks and mortars which destroyed Sikhism’s highest temporal seat Akal Takht. Rajiv Gandhi engineered 1984 riots and even justified them. Rahul Gandhi should look into his conscience before coming here.”
Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma charged, “Congress has never felt ashamed of 1984 riots till date. I hope at least now he (Rahul) will tender an apology to Sikhs for this heinous act of his family.”
SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami charged, “At least for the sake of his Bharat Jodo Yatra drama, Rahul could have apologised but he did not. This proves he and Congress have no regrets for 1984.”
However, the Congress’s Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, whose grandfather Beant Singh, ex-Punjab CM, was assassinated in 1995, says that Rahul was being “unfairly” made to pay a price for a crime that he never did, and that “his apology to the Guru, which he has already tendered multiple times, is powerful”.
“When it comes to a tragedy like 1984 genocide, then apology is a very small word. No one is denying that what happened with Sikhs was something indescribable and their pain cannot be lessened in anyway. But then didn’t Rahul lose his grandmother and father? For how long will you keep blaming a man who was not even aware what was happening then? No apology is more powerful and supreme than that tendered before the Guru, and it has been multiple times now that he has visited Golden Temple and bowed his head in front of the Guru,” Bittu says.
Bittu also says that if SAD and other parties feel that it was Rahul who should be blamed for the 1984 riots, then why did Sukhbir’s wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal failed to ensure action against him when she was a minister in the Narendra Modi-led NDA government.
During the Congress-led UPA government, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had expressed his apology in Parliament in 2005, saying “I have no hesitation in apologising to the Sikh community. I apologise not only to the Sikh community, but to the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our Constitution. On behalf of our government, on behalf of the entire people of this country, I bow my head in shame that such a thing took place.”
Earlier in 1998, Sonia Gandhi had expressed her apology over the 1984 riots.
On his part, Rahul has a couple of times in the past echoed their sentiments. In 2014, he had said: “The Prime Minister of the UPA has apologised and the president of the Congress (has) expressed regrets. I share their sentiments completely. Innocent people dying is a horrible thing and should not happen.”
Then in 2019, Rahul had snubbed Congress leader Sam Pitroda for his remark “hua to hua” on the 1984 riots, stating on his social media handles, “I think what Sam Pitroda ji said is completely out of line and he should apologise for it. I think 1984 was a needless tragedy that caused tremendous pain. I think justice has to be done. The people who were responsible for the 1984 tragedy have to be punished. The former PM, Manmohan Singh ji has apologised. My mother, Sonia Gandhi ji has apologised. We all have made our position very clear – that 1984 was a terrible tragedy and should never have happened…I will be communicating this to him directly. He must apologise for his comment.”
In August 2018, however, while speaking at an interaction with UK-based parliamentarians and local leaders in London, Rahul sparked a political row, saying that the anti-Sikh riots were a “tragedy” and “a painful experience” but the Congress was not involved in them.
Senior Akali leader and ex-MP Prem Singh Chandumajra said the reason why the Opposition parties and victim bodies have always sought apologies from Rahul is rooted in the question of “accountability and closure”.
