FairPoint: Forgotten cries for justice from 1984 to Kashmiri Hindu exodus

New Delhi, Nov 2 (IANS) It is never easy for a serving Union Minister to speak publicly about the pain inflicted upon him and his community during a period of mass violence carried out in revenge. Yet Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri recently did just that, recalling the horror of the genocide-like situation the Sikh community faced after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.

His detailed social media post laid bare the trauma endured by him and his community, and he did not hesitate to name the Congress party and its senior leaders of that time as the perpetrators. His expression of anguish, even after 41 years, reveals not just the depth of that trauma but also the failure of the system to deliver justice promptly and fully.

More than four decades later, the community continues its long battle for justice, still waiting for judicial closure. Over the years, the 1984 riots were probed by at least four commissions and committees — the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission (1985), Jain–Aggarwal Committee (1990), Narula Committee (1993), and the Justice Nanavati Commission (2000). All submitted their reports, several cases reached courts, verdicts were delivered in a few, some were appealed, and many remain unresolved. The process of justice has moved slowly, but at least there was an acknowledgement of the wrong and a mechanism, however imperfect, to address it.

The pain Hardeep Singh Puri articulated is that of first-hand suffering — something the present generation can only imagine. Yet, at least his community’s case was investigated, commissions were set up, and victims were provided a forum to record their grief and identify the perpetrators.

Unfortunately, other communities faced similar genocide-like horrors, were uprooted from their homes, and yet have never been given even the dignity of a formal investigation.

The ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus remains one of the darkest and most neglected chapters in India’s modern history. A community of over seven lakh people was systematically targeted in the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s. Threatened, attacked, and killed, they were forced to flee their ancestral homes. Hundreds were brutally murdered, and many women were gang-raped and killed. Homes were looted or usurped, temples vandalised and burnt, and entire localities emptied. Within months, the two per cent Hindu minority of the Valley had virtually vanished.

Yet, in the 35 years since, neither the Central government nor the erstwhile state administration of Jammu and Kashmir (before the abrogation of Article 370) has established any commission or committee to investigate the atrocities or bring the perpetrators to justice. No human rights panel has taken up their case. Their tragedy has remained largely invisible, subsumed by the politics of Kashmir.

The displaced community has lived in silence, staging occasional peaceful protests to highlight the discrimination and neglect they have endured.

Even the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) could not find the exodus gruesome enough to be termed as genocide. It put on record its stance, acknowledging "acts akin to genocide" and a "genocide-type design" in its decision in June 1999. This observation was part of a ruling where the Commission stated that the crimes against the Kashmiri Pandits, “grave as they undoubtedly were, fell short" of the strict legal definition of genocide under the Genocide Convention.

Even the judiciary has failed to respond to the plight of the Kashmiri minorities. The Supreme Court has repeatedly dismissed pleas from the community, including a curative petition filed by the NGO Roots in Kashmir, which sought a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the alleged mass murders and “genocide” of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989–90.

The Court cited the significant passage of time, noting that evidence was unlikely to survive and that reopening the matter after so many years would serve no practical purpose. The petitioners had drawn parallels with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, where the Court had ordered an SIT probe decades later. Yet, the Court did not see a similar case for intervention in the Pandit matter within the legal boundaries of a curative petition. In some cases, it directed petitioners to first approach the Central or Union Territory governments, saying such issues fall under the policy domain of the executive.

In December 2023, when a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld the Union government’s decision to abrogate Article 370, Justice Sanjiv Kishan Kaul wrote an emotional epilogue in his judgment. He recommended that the government establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, similar to that of post-apartheid South Africa. “This Commission should be constituted expediently before memory escapes,” he wrote. “The exercise should be time-bound. There is already an entire generation that has grown up with feelings of distrust, and it is to them that we owe the greatest duty of reparation.”

Later, in a media interview, Justice Kaul revealed that his own ancestral home had been burnt down during the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. He poignantly observed that perhaps the community did not attract political attention because it was not “a large enough electorate.” That remark perhaps captures the essence of their long neglect.

India is, without doubt, a vibrant democracy with strong institutions and a well-functioning administrative network. Yet the deep politicisation of every issue has weakened the country’s ability to respond to human suffering in a just and timely manner. Communities like the Kashmiri Hindus feel that justice and political support remain distant because they are neither a large vote bank nor a wealthy group that can influence outcomes. Their pain rarely finds space in political discourse or media conversations.

The Sikhs, despite being a politically influential community with their own state and a strong collective identity, still lament that justice for 1984 has not been fully served. For the Kashmiri Hindus, hope itself seems to be fading.

Both stories expose a deeper malaise — that in India, the search for justice often depends not just on law and morality, but on political relevance. As long as the worth of a community’s suffering is measured in electoral numbers or media visibility, the idea of equal justice will remain elusive. Until that changes, the cries of the forgotten will continue to echo unheard in the world’s largest democracy.

(Deepika Bhan can be contacted at deepika.b@ians.in)

--IANS

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