Recently, Amit Shah addressed a meeting conducted by Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee in New Delhi. He made a few assertions: one, he praised the community’s service to society and nation; two, he said the community has found justice over the 1984 anti-Sikh genocide only after 2014 when BJP came to power; three, he added, Sikhs from Pakistan and Afghanistan will benefit from the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). On Shah’s second statement, overall 650 cases were filed with the Delhi police. In Feb 2015, a new Special Investigating Team was constituted which recommended the closure of 241 cases. However, the Supreme Court tasked a two-member team of retired judges to reopen those cases. Contradicting Shah’s assertion that justice was delivered only after the BJP came to power, the BJP Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary stated in the Rajya Sabha that 442 people have been convicted until date and a compensation worth about $9M (today’s value) has been distributed to families of victims. Under the BJP’s rule, in 2018, the Courts upheld convictions of 70 out of 89 people involved in the genocide. But barring one high profile leader Sajjan Kumar, no senior leader or mastermind of the genocide has ever been convicted. Some of those leaders are now dead from natural causes. The genocide is clearly summed up with justice delayed is justice denied. No political party should be able to score brownie points over it. On Shah’s third statement, the CAA, which was passed in 2019, will help Sikhs but the law is yet to be implemented. The speech was BJP’s outreach to Sikhs where the intent was not justice but to please the community. Sadly, Shah kept using the term riots for massacre, pogrom, or genocide.
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