In Delhi, the names of Sikhs were taken out from the Ration Card list that the area Ration Card shopkeepers had. The neighbourhood I lived in was attacked well planned as well. The cinema owned (partly) by a Sikh was burnt down, Chemist shop that belonged to a Sikh met the same fate, Sikh Grocery store owner could hardly find anything in his store as all was looted and burnt. I did not hear of any houses in my locality owned by Sikhs were set on fire. May be the mob could not get our names and addresses. But today I see the same business back up and running by WaheGuru's meher (blessings). Lots of my friends were surprised/shocked to see me and my other Sikh classmates alive when we returned to school after things cooled down. I had no hard feeling with Hindus earlier, but the way my friends reacted, made me think twice about the trust I could put in them. Everyone was blaming the whole situation on the dirty politician and Gunda elements that politician seek help from, but I believe it was more than that. Or else why would school going kids feel surprised (not in a good way) upon the return of their (Sikh) classmates back after such blood bath in the city. Obvisouly, at their home their parents/elders must have been talking anti Sikh. Anyways, I do not hate Hindus. How can I. My best friend is one, and I have relatives who are Hindus, but string once broken will always have a knot in the middle.
PS. You wrote on a really touching issue and I expect a lot of comments on it, some with bitter feelings, and multiple comments from some readers, including me. Publish them uncensored so that we know what everyone truly think.
Edited By Siteowner
Your blog showed up in a Google Alert for 'Sikh.' I am a survivor of the Delhi pogrom - most of my family were killed - and always try to read first person accounts of those days. So many questions I would like to ask your father, but I'll leave him in peace.
I have read several posts here and enjoyed them immensely.
@Sifar: Thanks for sharing your experiences!
I'll try, as I always do, to let the comments pass through with minimal moderation. 
@Mai Harinder Kaur: Thanks for dropping by and for the compliment!
I do hope that WaheGuru shall bring peace upon the departed souls and justice to their family members left behind. Our family was lucky enough to escape unhurt.
Nice to read ur article. I never knew things were that bad...but then i was very tiny then.
Things did become rather bad and one got to see the worst side of human nature during those days. I was nine years of age then and have some vivid memories, even though I didn't understand what was happening as clearly as I do now.
Your changing one word in my last comment changed the whole meaning of my comment.
I disagree and think that the message remains largely unchanged. That one word could've taken the focus entirely away from what you've conveyed through the comment, which I wouldn't want to happen.
I am very sad to learn of these tragic events from first hand account. (I was born a year after these tragic incidents took place)
May God bless the people who fell victim to this senseless and inhuman violence and may give courage to their family members. And bless us all so that we never fall in this state of degradation again.
Its indeed ironic that Sikhs have to be the worst sufferers. First the partition of Punjab (due to partition of India) where Sikhs were forcefully displaced from their ancestral homes and then the 1984 violence.
What do you think can be done now? I know people will mostly say that what has happened has happened and we need to move on. But I feel something needs to be done so that such events never occur again and the perpetrators are brought to justice. Maybe spreading more awareness about this will help in generating public support to pressurize the judiciary to punish at least some of the major criminals. Also declare a particular day to mourn the victims (I do not know if such a day has already been declared).
I know some people might oppose my comments (like declaring a day of mourning, spreading more awareness on this issue) on the pretext that it will weaken out national integrity and add fuel to the Khalistan movement. To them I will say that the existence of a country is of no importance if it cannot protect its citizens against violence. Also not to forget that had it not been for the martyrdom of the Sikh gurus, Hinduism will not have survived as a major religion in northern India. And it is the Sikhs, more than any other people, who have made the highest proportion of sacrifices in the cause of India - be they be during the freedom struggle or from the army.
Thanks for the message of hope and peace!
I do wish that more people would acknowledge the contribution and sacrifices made by the Sikhs, like you have done.
I agree that a public campaign for bringing the perpetrators of the 1984 riots to book should be of help. It could actually go a long way towards serving the cause of justice and restoring faith in the Indian state among the Sikhs. That could only take away support from the Khalistan movement and not add to it and, therefore, promote national integration.
More importantly, however, such terrible events can be prevented from happening in the future only if people do not reward the political parties that incite and organise communal violence, with overwhelming majorities in parliament and in state legislatures, as they have done in the past.
Sat Shri Akal and Namaste!
I have all day been thinking about what I need to say here. First, we two survivoring Kaurs, as well as my mother-in-law, have written our stories so people can know what happened. I will warn you, they are violent and ugly, and they are also real. We wrote them in hopes they could help educate people about what happened. They can be found in my blog sometimes - 2, at
http://mai-sometimes.blogspot.co...-from-
1984.html
Second, what is to be done now? A memorial day would be sweet, but then there would also need to be a day to commemorate Gujarat, eh? And there have been others. Soon there would be no working days left in India. Besides , your censor board when reviewing Amu, called this pogrom 'a history better buried and forgotten.' I doubt the government is ready to officially remember. A better thing to do would be to rehabilitate the survivors. Many widows have been working through their memories, horrors and injuries, physical, emotional and spiritual, to raise their surviving children doing the most menial work, poorly paid, disrespected and disregarded. These brave, valiant women need to be given reparations for the deaths of their men, as well as for their sufferings in the years since. I personally think each one should also be given a siropa for valour, but that would be inside the Sikh community. BTW, I am Canadian and have escaped these problems, so I do not refer to myself here.
Third, it is fairly easy to mistreat, even murder people you already treat with disrespect. Let's get rid of the horrible, buffoonish portrayals of Sikhs in Bollywood and present us as the respectable upstanding people most of us are. And knock off the Sardar jokes as well! We have earned your respect over the centuries. It wouldn't hurt our Hindu co-Indians to show a little gratitude. As I sometimes remind my Hindu friends, if not for us, my friend Raj would be Mohammed and Sita would be Miriam.
Finally, there is only one way to guarantee this doesn't happen again. I won't write it here because I'm certain it would be moderated out, but we know what I'm talking about.
Chardi kala!
We come from a generation that has taken Partition in Gurhti and have survived the 15 years of so called extremism in Punjab and the pogrom of 84.
Charhdi Kala
Our generation's ability to remain in chardi kala has been/is being greatly tested, eh?
It seems in every generation we have different Mughals to fight, but we always manage to survive with some sense of style!
Chardi kala!
Mai Harinder Kaur
@ Mai Harinder Kaur :
"Finally, there is only one way to guarantee this doesn't happen again. I won't write it here because I'm certain it would be moderated out, but we know what I'm talking about." - I am not quite sure if this is going to solve the problem. Such an action will again lead to widespread violence and might prove counter-productive to the interests of the sikh community. Besides, who would prefer to live in a land-locked country that is sandwiched between Pakistan and India. (Will you leave Canada to settle in Khalistan?)
And I do not see any guarantee either. Where is the guarantee that neither India nor Pakistan will ever be tempted to flex their muscles against a smaller state? It will simply lead to another playground where both the countries will wage a proxy way directed against each other. And again it will be the sikhs who will suffer.
I might be wrong on this, but I feel 1984 happened because Gandhi family had become very strong. (Did not the rest of India suffer during the emergency?) So I do not think the events of 1984 were directed against the sikhs by a particular community (Hindus, in this case).
No political party can ever make this mistake again. Congress will never dare to do such a thing. (Also it is not the sole dominant party any more). The Sangh parivar sided with the sikhs during 1984. Hence BJP harming the sikhs is out of question. Then what is there to be afraid of or be apprehensive about?
As I had written before, people reward the political parties that organise mass-murder of minorities with huge majorities in parliament and state-legislatures, as happened in the general elections in 1984 and Gujarat state legislature elections in 2002 and once again more recently.
The root of the problem, therefore, is not the actions of such political parties, but the hatred in the hearts and minds of the people who vote for them in overwhelming numbers.
It can be eliminated, obviously, if more and more people recognise and acknowledge the sacrifices and contributions made by citizens who belong to minorities like the Sikhs, for instance, just like Garuav has done.
Blaise Pascal: Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
Dear Siddhu
I was so touched by these memoirs..I have nothing to say in the face of such a horrible situation - I read the post while reading a book on the violence during the Partition and I was double depressed
Glad that your father shared this. Memories have to be reconciled.
Dear Gaurav Mohanty
We are doing everything in our power to peacefully establish Khalistan. In doing this, we are only trying to overcome the broken promises of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas K. Gandhi.
However, this blog is not, I think, the appropriate place to argue about Khalistan. I have done that long and in detail elsewhere. Instead, let us honour the author's father for his courage in fetching milk for his family, when a less courageous man would have simply huddled in his house!
A last comment, in answer to your question:
Will you leave Canada to settle in Khalistan?
YES, YES, YES AND YES!!!
Thank you so much for sharing this piece with the rest of us. You write very beautifully and I was captivated by your father's story. I am currenly in the process of interviewing my parents, which I find to be very spiritually fulfilling; through these discussions, I find that their experiences become knowledge and within it, I come to a deeper understanding of myself and my Truth.
I appreciate you taking that knowledge and allowing the rest of us to access it as well. Within your father's story is a strong link to our Guru jis' struggles for equity and justice and contemporary struggles that Sikhs continue to endure.
Thank you again, for sharing this with us.
Poignant description of the events. As someone said, your father is a man of courage, and I'd add dignity.
Thank you for sharing his memories.
wow, very well written. Only thing I remember of the account is my father telling me how he used to be respected for his turban before 1984 in UP and Bihar where he used to work as a bank manager, and how after terrorism was rife, his turban became his enemy.
AMitav Ghosh's article on this issue is a must read.It brings out how power had corrupted Indira Gandhi's proteges completely and how cruel was people's thinking in those days.In fact it was from the time of Mrs. Gandhi that politics took a crass,dishonest, disrespected turn
One thing is for sure . There was a vaaaaast difference between Nehru ji and his Daughter in everything
Though I dont know what to say on the main issue (my age was 'minus 6' at that time , I sympathise with all who were affected.
Btw, I LOVE the royal enfield.. do you?
@Sriram: I do like it quite a bit, but own a Yamaha RX135 that I bought in 2001.
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