Candle Vigil In Birmingham City Centre

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Feature Articles: Lions of the Great War

Article on Sikhs in the World War 1

With the outbreak of war in Europe, India, the Crown Jewel of the British Empire, joined the Allies in battle on the 4th of August 1914.

Contributing the most volunteers of any of the British imperial holdings that fought in the war, India produced between 900,000 to 1.5 million troops for combat by 1919. Of these troops, the Sikhs, one of the two loyal 'martial races' of the British Raj, rallied in enormous numbers for the King, Empire, and the defence of Europe.

At the beginning of the war, Sikh military personnel numbered around 35,000 men of the 161,000 troops of the Indian Army, around 22% of the armed forces, yet the Sikhs only made up less than 2% of the total Indian population. By the end of the war 100,000 Sikh volunteers joined the British Armed forces with a few Sikhs also contributing to the French Air Service and the American Expeditionary Force.

It is also said that some Sikh POWs, captured in Belgium, were believed to have been Muslims by the Germans and taken to Turkey to fight along side their fellow 'Mohammedans'. However, they still remained loyal to the British Crown and escaped on a long trek to the British posts in Afghanistan, from Turkey through the Middle East, to once again fight under the British flag.

Though being paid a mere 11 rupees a month for his services to the Empire, the Sikh soldier took his duty as a soldier in an almost religious aspect in a romanticized idea of being a martyr and a knight for the King.

A Sikh soldier, Indar Singh, fighting on the Somme in September 1916, wrote home:

It is quite impossible that I should return alive. [but] don't be grieved at my death, because I shall die arms in hand, wearing the warrior's clothes. This is the most happy death that anyone can die.

The idea of martyrdom and battlefield heroics proved to be a necessity for the British as they were being pushed back by the Germans time and time again. In fact, the British felt it necessary to nourish Sikh fanaticism by allowing the Sikhs areas to set up temporary Gurdwaras (Sikh Temples), to observe the birthdays of Sikh gurus, to use traditional Sikh weapons (such as Sikh quoits and the sabre), and it was not uncommon to see the Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, being carried before a marching Sikh battalion or even on the front lines among the battling Sikh troops.

These 'unique stalwarts from the east,' fought in the battles of Ypres, Flanders, the Somme, Gallipoli, East Africa, Palestine, Egypt / Suez Canal, Mesopotamia, and numerous other battlefields in nearly all theatres of the war.

This article cannot justly commemorate the contribution of these fine warriors who fought disease, filth, gas attacks, and the onslaught of German and Turkish troops and maxim guns with only their turbans to protect them from head wounds and their unshorn hair and long beards, as prescribed by their religious faith, in disease infested, muddy trenches.

The average Indian battalion had around 764 men when they landed in France, but by November 1914, the 47th Sikhs had only 385 men left. In Gallipoli, the 14th Sikhs lost 371 officers and men in mere minutes, and thousands of other Sikhs died in various other encounters such as Neuve Chappelle and the Somme.

The "Black Lions," as the Arabs called them in Mesopotamia, of the Punjab sacrificed their lives for the defence of freedom in Europe for an ally that was ruling their own homeland, yet they did it out of honour and loyalty.

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:: Delhi Massacres ::

Massacre of Sikhs - 1984

In November 1984 following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, mobs lead by Congress leaders committed murder, loot, arson and rape, across India for over a week, however the worst effected area was the capital of India Delhi.

Due to the large span of area the actual number of those dead is unknown, official figures of those who died are over 4000 and 60,000 were rendered homeless in Delhi alone, these figures to not incorporate those “missing”.

“India is ablaze with hate and anger. In city after city from one corner of the country to the other enraged mobs have gone and are going about systematically burning and looting Sikh properties and assaulting Sikhs without discrimination.” 1The Times of India

“Sikhs were sought out and burned to death. Children were killed, shops looted, cars burnt, markets destroyed, houses gutted. Trains were stopped and Sikhs were picked out and murdered.” Akbar M.J.

“Around 300 Sikh officers and men in uniform were done to death in the presence of non-Sikh soldiers, who stood as silent spectators.” 2 Economic and Political Weekly

Police officers “stood by and watched arson, rape, looting and murder, without making any attempt to intervene to protect citizens brlonging to the Sikh minority, without attempting to dissuade the attackers to call for reinforcements or other support, or even to inform the fire brigade.” 3 Independent Report

“Many people complained that, in some cases, the police were not merely hanging back, but giving active support.” 4 The Times

“We started from the foot paths after the 1947 Partition, now we get back to it in our old age” wept an old couple, they had been deprived of all their belongings and also a young son.

1 The Times of India November 2 1984

2 Economic and Political Weekly – Thapar, Ramesh.

3 Who are the Guilty? - Report PUCL and PUDR

4 The Times, 5 Nov 1984

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Details on Delhi Pogrom 1984

Commissions and Committees Click Here

Articles on 1984 Delhi Massacre

Eyewitness Accounts

Sequence of Events

A recapitulation of the 1984 Delhi carnage in which about 4,000 Sikhs were massacred in three days in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

October 31, 1984:

9.20 am: Indira Gandhi was shot by two of her security guards at her residence No. 1, Safdarjung Road, and rushed to All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

11 am: Announcement on All India Radio specifying that the guards who shot Indira Gandhi were Sikhs. A big crowd was collecting near AIIMS.

2 pm: Though her death was yet to be confirmed officially, it became common knowledge because of BBC bulletins and special afternoon editions of newspapers.

4 pm: Rajiv Gandhi returned from West Bengal and reached AIIMS. Stray incidents of attacks on Sikhs in and around that area.

5.30 pm: The cavalcade of President Zail Singh, who returned from a foreign visit, was stoned as it approached AIIMS.

Late evening and night: Mobs fanned out in different directions from AIIMS. The violence against Sikhs spread, starting in the neighbouring constituency of Congress councillor Arjun Dass. The violence included the burning of vehicles and other properties of Sikhs. That happened even in VIP areas like the crossroads near Prithviraj Road where cars and scooters belonging to Sikhs were burnt.

Shortly after Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Prime Minister, senior advocate and Opposition leader Ram Jethmalani met home minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and urged him to act fast and save Sikhs from further attacks. Delhi’s lt governor P.G. Gavai and police commissioner S.C. Tandon visited some of the violence-affected areas. Despite all these developments, no measures were taken to control the violence or prevent further attacks on Sikhs throughout the night between October 31 and November 1.

November 1, 1984:

Several Congress leaders held meetings on the night of October 31 and morning of November 1, mobilising their followers to attack Sikhs on a mass scale. The first killing of a Sikh reported from east Delhi in the early hours of November 1. About 9 am, armed mobs took over the streets of Delhi and launched a massacre. Everywhere the first targets were Gurudwaras – to prevent Sikhs from collecting there and putting up a combined defence.

Mobs were armed with iron rods of a uniform size. Activist editor Madhu Kishwar saw some of the rods being distributed among the miscreants. Mobs also had an abundant supply of petrol and kerosene. Victims traced the source of kerosene to dealers belonging to the Congress party. For instance, a Congress worker called Brahmanand Gupta, a kerosene dealer, figures prominently in affidavits filed from Sultanpuri.

Every police station had a strength of about 100 men and 50-60 weapons. Yet, no action was taken against miscreants in most places. The few places where the local police station took prompt measures against mobs, hardly any killings took place there. Farsh Bazar and Karol Bagh are two such examples. But in other localities, the priority of the police, as it emerges from the statement of the then police commissioner S.C. Tandon before the Nanavati Commission, was to take action against Sikhs who dared to offer resistence. All the Sikhs who fired in self-defence were disarmed by the police and even arrested on trumped up charges.

Mobs generally included teams attending to specific tasks. When shops were to be looted, the first team that gets into action would kill and remove all obstacles. The second team specialises in breaking locks. The third team would engage in looting. And the fourth team would set the place on fire.

Most of the mobs were led by Congress members, including those from affluent families. For instance, a Youth Congress leader called Satsangi led a mob in the posh Maharani Bagh. The worst affected areas were however far flung, low income colonies like Trilokpuri, Mongolpuri, Sultanpuri and Palam Colony.

The Congress leaders identified by the victims as organisers of the carnage include three MPs H.K.L. Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar and Dharam Dass Shastri and 10 councillors Arjan Dass, Ashok Kumar, Deep Chand, Sukhan Lal Sood, Ram Narayan Verma, D.R. Chhabbra, Bharat Singh, Vasudev, Dharam Singh and Mela Ram.

November 2, 1984:

Curfew was in force throughout Delhi – but only on paper. The Army was also deployed throughout Delhi but nowhere was it effective because the police did not co-operate with the soldiers who were not empowered to open fire without the consent of senior police officers or executive magistrates. Meanwhile, mobs continued to rampage with the same ferocity.

November 3,1984:

It was only towards the evening of November 3 that the police and the Army acted in unison and the violence subsided immediately after that. Whatever violence took place the next two or three days was on a much smaller scale and rather sporadic.

Aftermath of the carnage:

Most of the arrested miscreants were released at the earliest. But the Sikhs arrested for firing in self-defence generally remained in detention for some weeks. Worse, there was also a pattern throughout Delhi of the police not registering proper cases on the complaints of victims. Instead, the police registered vaguely worded omnibus FIRs which did not deal with any specific incident or person. As if the damage done by such FIRs was not bad enough, the police made little effort to investigate the cases and trace the miscreants. The only acknowledgement of any wrongdoing on their part was the appointment of a committee headed by senior police officer Ved Marwah to probe the role of the police.

Two remarkable initiatives that came on the same month as the carnage, in a bid to make up for the failure of the Government, were from human rights organisations and a leading Opposition party. People’s Union of Civil Liberties and People’s Union for Democratic Rights came out with a devastating expose in a booklet titled, Who are the guilty? The Bharatiya Janata Party contradicted the Government’s claim then that only 600 people were killed in the Delhi carnage. On the basis of a survey done by its cadres, the BJP came out with a death toll of 2,700, which is remarkably close to the official tally of 2,733 arrived at three years later.

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benti for everyone to be there @ 4pm prompt and to also bring families. Parking will be free in most places after 6pm. Best place to park are the streets off broad street, you can get to the location via centenary square and past indoor maccie d's

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Vaheguru ji ka Khalsa

Vaheguru ji ki Fatheh

Benti to all the Saadh Sangat to come and pay your respects to all our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters that were killed during Anti Sikh Pogroms of 1984.

Vaheguru ji ka Khalsa

Vaheguru ji ki Fatheh

[۹βkaur۹β]

BUMP

3 days to go :lol:

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Vaheguru ji ka Khalsa

Vaheguru ji ki Fatheh

The World has forgotten, have you? Candlelgiht vigil in Remebrance of the victims of the Anti-Sikh Riots of 1984. Please attend and support the event tomorrow 4pm-7pm @ Chamberlain Square near Central Library in Bham City Centre