Indira Gandhi |

"1984: 29 Years On, Are We Any Better As A Nation?" (Source: India Resists)

Remembering the 1984 Sikh genocide

November 1, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Each year, the end of October is met with heavy hearts for Sikhs around the world, as we commemorate the organized genocide against Sikhs in Delhi and across India in response to the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Beant Singh and Satwant Singh shot the Indian Prime Minister dead in retaliation to her ordering of the attack on Sikhism’s central shrine, the Darbar Sahib (aka the Golden Temple) only six months before, which […]

Categories: 1984 • Tags: anti-Sikh progroms, anti-Sikh riots, Beant Singh, Delhi, Harmandir Sahib, India, Indira Gandhi, New Delhi, Satwant Singh, Sikh genocide

Kush, film about 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, wins award at Venice film festival

September 3, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Recently featured at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, the film Kush by Shubhashish Bhutiani– set during the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in New Delhi, India — has been awarded the festival’s “Best Innovative Budget” award: “Kush” was made on a shoestring budget thanks to private contributions including by the Film Director and other individuals who sacrificed their fees and charges to make the film possible. The Director, a student of the School of Visual Arts in New York was also […]

Categories: 1984, Art, TV/Movies • Tags: 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Indira Gandhi, Kush, School of Visual Arts, Shubhashish Bhutiani, Venice International Film Festival

Scene from Kush, a short film by Shubhashish Bhutiani. (Source: Kush website)

Kush, film about 1984 anti-Sikh riots, to be screened at Venice film festival

August 22, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Based on a true story, Kush is a short film set in Delhi in the aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October, 1984, when organized mobs engaged in an anti-Sikh pogrom in India’s capital city and beyond. Thousands of innocent Sikhs were killed, burned alive, beaten, raped and tortured to avenge the Prime Minister’s death. To this day, few — including government officials implicated in the massacre — have ever been held to account by India’s […]

Categories: 1984, Art, TV/Movies • Tags: 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Indira Gandhi, Kush, Shubhashish Bhutiani, Venice International Film Festival

"A witness of the 1984 pogrom. More than 10 members of her family were killed before her eyes. She testified in a court that the Congress leader Jagdish Tytler was present at the site of the killings in 1984. Her lawyer was shot at in the very first hearing. She withdrew the case. The aftermath of the violence has left her numb." (Credit: Gauri Gill | The New York Times)

A survivor of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom reflects

July 23, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

In India Ink, The New York Times blog about India, a survivor of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in New Delhi writes of the experience during the carnage, and of the attempts by the Indian state to erase the history of its own participation. Most recently, Jaspreet Singh describes the efforts by government officials to prevent Sikhs from raising a memorial in tribute to the victims of the pogrom: Such control over sites of traumatic memory suggests the state is deeply anxious about […]

Categories: 1984 • Tags: 1984 anti-Sikh riots, anti-Sikh pogroms, Delhi, Indira Gandhi, Jaspreet Singh, New Delhi, New York Times

The morning when the sun set: November 1, 1984

November 1, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Once more I am the silent one who came out of the distance wrapped in cold rain and bells: I owe to earth’s pure death the will to sprout. Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973) One morning, 27 years ago, I – a young lad living in the west – was walking to school. It was seasonably cool morning. There was a dusting of frost on the grass and a slight chill in the air, but a warming sun was rising. […]

Categories: 1984, Reflections • Tags: 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Ensaaf, Harmandir Sahib, India, Indira Gandhi, Operation Blue Star, Operation Bluestar, Sikh genocide, Sikh Genocide Project, Sikhs for Justice

US court facilitates pursuit of justice on behalf of Sikh genocide victims

May 31, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

There is an interesting phenomenon currently going on in the United States whereby Sikhs in the US are seeking justice by way of a class action lawsuit for the targeted killings of several thousands of Sikhs across India during November of 1984 in response to the assassination of then-Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. How it has come to be that India’s ruling Congress Party could be sued in the United States by a group representing Sikhs for the killings that took place in […]

Categories: 1984, News Bits • Tags: Alien Tort Claims Act, Congress Party of India, Ensaaf, Golden Temple, Harmandir Sahib, Indira Gandhi, New York, Operation Bluestar, Sikh genocide, Sikhs for Justice, Torture Victim Protection Act

Remembering the Sikh genocide of 1984

November 3, 2010 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

In India, thousands of Sikhs were slaughtered by Hindu mobs in the days after Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984: Khushwant Singh realized “what Jews must have felt in Nazi Germany.” He concluded: “The killing assumed the proportions of a genocide of the Sikh community.” To this day, Sikhs are still awaiting justice for this massacre. See The Sikh Genocide Project for a thorough recounting of the events leading to the […]

Categories: 1984 • Tags: India, Indira Gandhi, Sikh genocide

Considering the experience of Sikhs in America.

Tag: Indira Gandhi