Rights groups, survivors, activists, and political leaders gather at Jantar Mantar here to mark the anniversary—not just as remembrance, but as a reminder of the state’s enduring failure to deliver justice
NEW DELHI – Forty-one years after the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, the ghosts of that dark week continue to loom over the Indian republic. On Sunday, rights groups, survivors, activists, and political leaders gathered at Jantar Mantar here to mark the anniversary—not just as remembrance, but as a reminder of the state’s enduring failure to deliver justice.
Organised by Lok Raj Sangathan and allied organisations, the meeting became a potent indictment of successive governments for their complicity in the violence and their systematic shielding of the guilty. Banners reading “Punish the Organisers of the Sikh Genocide!” and “End State-Organised Communal Violence!” reflected the anguish that continues to define India’s broken promise of justice.
A Genocide, not a Riot
“This was no eruption of anger—it was a meticulously planned massacre,” said S Raghavan, President of Lok Raj Sangathan, who cited evidence from various inquiry commissions that the violence was carried out with the tacit and active consent of the state machinery. “More than 10,000 Sikhs were killed. And yet, not a single orchestrator at the highest levels of power has faced real punishment.”
Speakers emphasised that what happened in 1984 was not an exception but part of a pattern of state-enabled violence — a pattern that has since been replicated in Gujarat in 2002, Muzaffarnagar in 2013, and Delhi in 2020, among others.
Despite the change of leadership over the decades, the culture of impunity remains intact.
Rights groups, genocide survivors, activists and political leaders gathered at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi to mark the anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom on Sunday.
A Nation Divided by Design
Mohammad Salim Engineer of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind observed that the tragedy of 1984 was deeply rooted in the communal politics that took shape at the time of Partition and has been exploited ever since. “The state has normalised hate as we witnessed more profoundly in the last 11 years,” he said.
“From the genocide of Sikhs then to the lynchings of Muslims today, the playbook remains unchanged. The guilty are protected, the victims forgotten.”
Other speakers drew links between the past and the present: the disenfranchisement of marginalised communities through the voter list purge in Bihar, the criminalisation of dissent under UAPA and NSA, and the demonisation of Bengali-speaking Muslims through laws like CAA–NRC. “It’s all part of a strategy to divide people and divert attention from real issues — unemployment, inflation, social decay,” said Sucharita of Lok Raj Sangathan.
Democracy Under Siege
“India’s ancient philosophy teaches that the state must protect life and dignity,” Raghavan reminded the gathering, “yet our institutions have repeatedly failed this duty.” The blatant violation of the legal principle of “innocent until proven guilty” — with thousands jailed without trial — was called out as evidence of an authoritarian drift.
For many, the gathering was also a reckoning with electoral politics. “Elections alone won’t change this system,” said Comrade Sheomangal Siddhanthkar of CPIML-New Proletarian. “A political process that thrives on hate cannot be cured by ballots. It must be confronted by unified popular resistance.”
Justice as a Collective Duty
Speaker after speaker, including Dr SQR Ilyas of the Welfare Party of India, Deepak Dholakia of Citizens for Democracy, and Birju Nayak of the Communist Ghadar Party, underlined the urgent need to build unity across communities and movements. “Communal violence is a tool of the ruling elite,” Nayak declared. “The only way forward is to dismantle that power structure and uphold the right to conscience, dignity, and equality.”
The event concluded with a collective pledge to “remember and resist”—not merely to commemorate the genocide of 1984, but to ensure that its lessons inform future struggles against state-led communal violence. As participants stood in solemn silence, it was clear that the fight for justice is far from over — and that India must confront the violence of its past to reclaim the promise of its democracy.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” read a banner fluttering against the Delhi sky.
As slogans of “Justice for 1984!” and “End State Terror!” echoed through Delhi’s historic protest space, the message was clear: India cannot move forward unless it confronts the violence buried in its past – and the violence now unfolding in the present.
Forty-one years later, the wait continues. However, the pledge by participants to “carry forward the struggle” was not just a ritual close to an event, but a call to action — reminding the nation that in forgetting 1984, we allow it to repeat itself, in new and more insidious.
