The Sikh Story: 1984 - Bbc 1 Documentary & Discussions On The Sikh Channel

[SarabhaPanjab]

This is Kuljit Singh. I reluctantly interviewed the two for Sikh channel.......... and demand a docum that actually portrays sant ji in the right manner.

The Sikh Channel can help by playing Sant Ji's speeches, which they refuse to do. No point complaining to the BBC.

well said

[Paneer Monster]

Yes, sonia did lie on the sikh channel. She claimed the documentary would not have a focus of the political events leading up to operation bluestar. Stupid me I thought she would have learnt a lesson after she was criticized so heavily for allowing a caller to stay on air after calling Phele Paatshsh Ji a ‘shytan’.

We have worked so hard to get our story out and still nothings changed.

One thing that really annoyed me was when she talked to bra, she should have really laid it on thick that they timed the attack to coincide with Satguru jis shaheed. The Satguru who founded the holy Sri harimandir Sahib. She could have mentioned the pictures that show the army with their shoes on, alcohol and smoking. The burning of the sikh reference library, the 50+ other gurdwarae that were attacked, the 50 granthi’s that were shot dead at point blank range, the Sikh sangat that were gunned down in neighbouring villages without warning when going to defend sri Harmandir sahib, the replica of sri darbar sahib they practised operation bluestar on, the Sikhs that were leaving the army since 1982 telling sant ji the gvt is planning an attack, why didn’t they arrest sant ji when he was preaching in delhi?| etc etc

She did an excellent job of calling portraying sant ji as a killer murderer terrorist etc. she failed to mention any of his jeevan, the seva he did and the hindu’s he served. She allowed bra to tell his lies but didn’t touch on sant ji’s efforts. He didn’t go streight to the gun and sri akaal thakat sahib… she should have made more clear what the purpose of the anandpur sahib resolution. She didn’t talk of the incident sant ji spoke so harshly of : police forcing sikh men to lie with their daughters naked. She didn’t mention human rights group amnesty international are banned from Punjab… why?... the choice of pictures for sant ji were very selective it was a joke. She didn’t mention illegal cremations done by the police – this is all fully documented. Gvt broke their promises to us in the first place.

She could have asked bra “y didn’t u cut the supplies off from the Harimandir Sahib, allowing no one to enter but people to leave”. With no food water or electricity coming out….this would have been a better method to use.

Bra claimed the attack couldn’t have been delayed as they would have been surrounded. This is not true... the gvt could have prosponed the attack three days after the shaheedi diwas of guru ji when the celebrations would have been over with. With the army deployed in sri Amritsar sahib and all over Punjab… they were already shooting anyone in sight as an unannounced cerfew was in place. The whole of Punjab had no electricity or water for over 2 weeks. They had full control over Punjab.

Mark tully lied: in a previous documentary he mentioned his crusty foot touched sant jis shashter…. And he said general shubag singh ji looked at him challengingly. In the documentary shown today he changed his story and saint sant ji looked at him and he felt intimidated. MARK TULLY HAS BLATANTLY LIED.

back to sonia, she don’t know Satguru gobind singh ji maharaj had a gun…. Even baba deep singh ji did. 6th Satguru Sahib instructed us to keep an army at sri akaal thakat sahib…..

She said that the 1st round of army men entered sri darbar sahib and were immediately fired at. She said this like she believed it. How could this have happened if the eyewitnesses she interviewed said there were no militants in sight?... MANY singhs have confirmed bhindranwale stressed, once the army enter sri darbar sahib, let them fire first then distribute the ladoo’s (ammunition). The weapons the gvt displayed to the world looked new, the weapons the Sikhs had were old weapons from ww1 and ww2. She didn’t give any real number of Sikhs that died either in operation bluestar, delhi riots or the killings that continued since.

she mentioned loads of bad untrue things about sant ji, she could have mentioned true things about indira ghandi such as: she was found guilty of election fraud, then wen found guilty she called a state of emergency and rewrote the constitution to make her actions legal. are these the actions of a democratic leader?

Overall extremely disappointed. Only good thing that came out the documentary was some of the beloved sangat got to share their experiences with us. as a journalist sonia should know about bias media and reporting. she should have also learnt about sikhi before learning about bluestar... or learnt about them both hand in hand then made the documentry

[Gursikh Singh]

For those outside the UK, download the programme below.

http://rapidshare.com/files/333481256/1984_-_A_Sikh_Story.mp4.part1.rar

http://rapidshare.com/files/333490357/1984_-_A_Sikh_Story.mp4.part2.rar

[Guest PunjabSingh]

Actually I was not able to see the documentary/program but I had expressed the apprehension before hand the people like Sonia or Tommy ,brought and bred in UK far from their actual Sikh culture are not the competent persons to make a documentary on such sensitive issues as 1984.

I feel from the above comments that I was right.

[Lion of Punjab]

Personally i thought she done OK. Remember she never really knew too much about 1984 to start with . The gora seemed liked some stuck up fool.

I knew people would over react on here.

[Paneer Monster]

Personally i thought she done OK. Remember she never really knew too much about 1984 to start with . The gora seemed liked some stuck up fool.

I knew people would over react on here.

its not a case of over reacting. as a journalist she knows better then us about bias reporting. she should have done her research first... she should have asked the correct questions to the taksal ie "what was bhindranwale doing in sri harimandir sahib" etc rather then only showing indian gvt side of the attack. she said the indian army troops were send in and fired at immediatly. this is wrong.. eye witness accounts of civillians confirm this. singhs were under strict orders not to fire first. theres a number of this wrong with the documentry. the documentry clearly showed bhindranwale as a terrorist but didnt show the sikh struggle... not even for 1 min. they should have stressed we used peacefull means first after all they showerd indira saying "dont shed blood shed hatred". on the subject of indira why didnt the documentry mention that she rigged the elections to make her self win, when found guilty she rewrote the indian constitution to make her actions legal. does this sound like a democratic leader? this is who the village sikhs were up against. when the national and state gvt fails you who else can you turn to?

on the sikh channel sonia expressed the documention is more about the victems and its not about the leadup to 84. they did not show what sant bhindranwale was fighting for. they made out as if he was jsut hot headded and went into sri akaal thakat sahib as if it was all fun and games. there was loads of questions sonia could have asked bra..

She should have really laid it on thick particularly about why the attack was timed to coincide with the shaheedi diwas of sarguru arjan dev ji maharaj – the founder of sri harimandir sahib. She could have also mentioned:

-the photos which show Indian soldiers drinking alcahole and smoking tabocco inside the holy complex

-the photos which clearly show Indian soldiers smiling and posing outside the demolished akaal thakat sahib

-the burning of the sikh reference library

-the priceless and rare historical artifacts which were plund3ered by the indian government and to date not returned

-the 40+ gurdwarae that attacked sumptuously throughout Punjab

-thakat sri kesgarh sahib where 50 singh sahibs were killed, thakat damdama sahib where the granthi jis were lioned up and shot at point blank range.

-the sikh sangat were gunned down in neighbouring villagers withut warning when going to defend sri harimandir sahib

- The white paper (gov report) says that Singhs started shooting unprovoked - ALL eyewitness reports say the opposite

-generals in the indian army have confirmed that a replica of sri amritsar sahib was made where the soldiers would practice operation blue star

-in from 1982 (possibly earlier) real singhs started to leave the indian army, some joined bhindranwale knowing that their was going to be an attack.

-they had many oppertunities to kill or arrest bhndranwale, when he would preach in delhi.

-to date no arrest warrant had been produced. They knew if they arrested him they would have to release him because he had done nothing illegal.

Bra claimed the attack couldn’t have been delayed as they would have been surrounded. This is not true... the gvt could have prosponed the attack 1 week after the shaheedi diwas of guru ji when the celebrations would have been over with. With the army deployed in sri Amritsar sahib and all over Punjab on this hallowed occasion… they were already shooting anyone in sight as an unannounced cerfew was in place. The whole of Punjab had no electricity or water for over 2 weeks. They had full control over Punjab.

[bakaree]

Easiest way to conclude on the programs biasness:

she questiones a teenager about how he feels sikhi is under attack, and then HS Phoolka who has spent the last 20 years defending Sikh human rights is shown for 10 secs planting a

$%$£$ng TREE

[SikhSoulja]

Wjkk Wkjf

I agree with the sentiments shown by previous posters, it was very poor, by Sonia's figures only 3,200 people died in 1984 including Delhi riots! There was no images of women or children being killed in Darbar Sahib, it was just made out that Sanf ji was a fanatic who laughed all the way through! Sonia stressed that the whole operation was to capture Sant ji but why weren't the police sent? He was freely arrested before? Then after interviewing Satnam Singh, brilliant point about Mahatma Ghandi by the way, she then said some Sikhs said Sant ji shouldn't have been there but they didn't want to be interviewed, was that your family? Only positive was the masund looked totally lost and contradicted himself, you failed to mention that preparations from Sant ji only began when you were spotted by General Subhaig Singh! Also Sonia made out Sikhs fired first, when Sant ji always stressed that when the first bullet hit Akal Tahkt that's when will be Tiyaar pe Tiyaar!

Not really surprised with what I saw though!

[Wutgwan]

Waheguru ji ka khalsa, waheguru ji ki Fateh

Come on Guys, we need to get real here.

Did you ever really think this documentary was gonna present the view of June 84 events as most of us belive happened.

Forget who presented it, it could have been any muppet (with an indian sounding name) the BBC had put fwd, end of day, the BBC is the biggest tv channel in uk and thus 1 of the most powerful media outlet of our government, thus any programme produced by uk about 84 would "be done as to not upset it's friend - the indian government". You really think the BBC would produce a programme that showed the indian govenment and their actions in a true light!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Any film of this nature is gonna be edited to put an agenda fwd, obviously even indian government can't do proproganda that it was totally innocent in 84 etc, so next best step- justify operation bluestar and to be honest that's what came across and no doubt many who watched it who does not have much understanding of 84 will think "both sides equally involved. lets just move on". especially as both in inderjit singh and mark tully said this, also they referernced the current PM, being a Sikh, so what, Brar face meant ot be a sikh too.

The delhi massacres stuff was powerful.

End of day, we should all know by now, we can't realy too much on mainstream to do positive parchar for us on certain issues, there are some good 84 stuff out there, these videos need to be shown through avnues like Sikh Channel and continued internet parchar.

All we can hope is that youth (a bit like the bibi teaching gatka in Doncaster)will do their own research on 84 and make their own minds up

Waheguru ji ka khalsa, waheguru ji ki fateh ji

[chatanga]

video speeches of sant jarnail singh Ji are available with subtitles. these are the ones that shud be shown on sikh channel.

if ayone wants any of these dvds, then you can get them ftrom wednesfield gurdwara(in wolverhampton) or the youths in london have them as well.

i beleive that the ball in now in our court as to how we go about repairing the damage casued by yesterdays prog.

be active brothers and sisters!