FRESNO, California, USA—The proposal to recognize the 1984 Sikh massacres in India as a genocide was taken back by Fresno city council member Clint Olivier on June 23. The proposal was initially scheduled to be passed on January 14, 2016, however, due to technical difficulties at that time, it had to be postponed.
Fresno Bee correspondent Andrew Castillo reported that the Indian consul of San Francisco met with Fresno city council members and convinced them that the proposal recognizing Sikh massacres as a genocide was “inaccurate and one-sided”.
“Olivier first proposed the resolution in January. He said he put it on hold to do more research after Sudarshan Kapoor, a retired Fresno State social work professor and longtime peace activist, met with Olivier’s council colleagues to express his reservations. Kapoor accompanied the consul, Ambassador Venkatesan Ashok, to his meetings Wednesday. Kapoor said what happened in 1984 wasn’t like the Armenian genocide or the Holocaust and said the city shouldn’t get involved,” Andrea Castillo reported.
Sikhs in Fresno have expressed distress over withdrawal of the resolution under the pressure of Indian officials. The Jakara Movement, an organization of Sikh youth based out of Fresno, made the following statement on their Facebook page –
The Fresno Sikh Youth have taken the lead on making sure the Sikh Genocide of November 1984 is recognized. While the Indian Government and their Fresno-area lackeys have attempted to label supporters as “terrorists” and “extremists”, the youth leading this are part and parcel of the Fresno fabric. The text of the resolution makes no reference to any other community, but places the blame squarely on the Indian Government, who orchestrated the genocide. Such facts are not ‘controversial’, for they are the truth – and there are many people in Fresno that bear witness to this truth.
Dr. Kapoor does not get to set the Sikh agenda, especially since he does not belong to the Sikh community. And while he would love for Sikhs to worry about bullying and other less “troublesome” affairs, his human rights concerns, for which he has gained many admirers, unfortunately seem to end at the borders of the Indian State. When we see genocide against the Sikhs he calls for “moving on”; when Muslims were massacred in Gujarat, he makes not a peep. While his politics may be “progressive” in the United States, supporting fascist regimes in India, point not to principle, but to selective hypocrisy.
We are organizing and need your support this weekend. If interested and from Fresno, we are organizing a meeting. Send a message and more details will soon follow. We are confident that OUR city representatives will put OUR city and OUR constituents above the fear tactics of any foreign national government. This is OUR city, OUR home, and we will ALL shape its future, together.
While Sikh community is pressing council members to re-introduce the proposal, a letter written in January 2016 by Fresno Planning Commission to a Fresno city council member demonstrates a larger hand by the Indian Government against the 1984 Sikh Genocide proposal. On January 13, 2016, Rama Kant Dawar, a member of the Fresno Planning Commission wrote to Olivier that the proposal could impact India’s relations with the State of California. He added that the proposal could potentially lead to issues between communities in Fresno.
Last night, during a radio show on Punjabi Radio USA, Sikhs based out of Fresno expressed their anguish over involvement of Rama Dawar and Dr. Kapoor in Sikh issues. During the show with host Balwinderpal Kaur and Gurdeep Shergill, callers condemned withdrawal of the proposal. Punjabi Radio USA is the biggest broadcast media for the Punjabi and Sikh community in the United States with listenership from all over North America.
“Rama Dawar and Dr. Kapoor have stated the proposal will divide different [Sikh and Hindu] communities. It’s almost as if they are putting the responsibility of Sikh massacres on the Hindus, which is not true,” said the radio hosts. Gurdeep Singh, who is a renowned and respected radio host from Fresno, said, “I have read the proposal and it has no mention of the Hindu community. The proposal will not lead to any differences. We do not hold Hindus responsible for the Sikh genocide.”
Full letter written by Rama Dawar to a Fresno county official is available here –
We must not allow any one to do genocide of our people.
We need to take every possible preventive steps to prevent the 4 th genocide of our people.
Miss Meena Khanna, Please have your facts right, I am pretty sure earlier inquiry conducted into the Godhra incident concluded the fire was an accident started by some electrical malfunction then another study some few years later stated it was arson , it is your choice who one should beleive, It is a fact U.S. government denied visa to Mr Modhi, for five years now you be the judge what was going on.What is mind boggling is that persons living in this country are following the govt of India propaganda line without spending any time to find out what other side is saying.You saw few persons probably on door darshan tv distributing sweets did the same channel show the carnage:dogs eating human bodies in 1984 .It is a human rights issue if you don’t stand up for them today then tomorrow it could be your turn the who will stand up for you( quote by Mr Martin Niemoller)
Actually, my family was there at the time and witnessed the mithai distribution and celebrations first-hand. Some of my family here in California also witnessed people taunting everyone with sweets here as well. So I’m actually speaking from experience, not what I saw on TV.
Since you want to talk about facts, here they are: “The commission set up by the Government of Gujarat to investigate the train burning spent 6 years going over the details of the case, and concluded that the fire was arson committed by a mob of 1000 to 2000 people. A commission appointed by the central government, whose appointment was later held to be unconstitutional, stated that the fire had been an accident. A court convicted 31 Muslims for the incident and the conspiracy for the crime, although the actual causes of the fire have yet to be proven conclusively.”
The Gujarat incident is besides the point, though. I was simply pointing out that everyone conveniently leaves out all of the facts in order to twist things to suit their needs.
Unfortunately, nobody stands up for the rights of Hindus to begin with, so that point doesn’t really have any merit in my book. Anyways, as I’ve said already, we are on your side when it comes to wanting true justice for the people & families who were harmed in 1984. We just don’t appreciate the false information being spread. Deeming it a genocide, especially since that’s not what it was, gets you nothing. It just defames the entirety of India for nothing. If the $140 million dollars in reparations weren’t enough, we’ll help you get more. If the 400+ arrests weren’t enough, we can help find everyone involved and have them suffer the consequences.
Also, very importantly, dividing the communities this way is harmful for everyone involved.
General definition of Genocide is systematic killing of a group of people . Isn’t that what happened in Nov 1984,( Government sponsored killings) Please tell me any incident in which Hindus were killed anywhere in India on that scale we will go with you stand by you to protest against the government and make sure that doesn’t happen again. It is not us who are spreading wrong information It is the state controlled media which did the damage and public at large without checking believed that ?We are just trying to correct it so that it doesn’t happen again. I asked you above did door darshan showed any of the Nov 1984 carnage on live TV. Please ( I hope you didn’t mean it the way it came out)be careful in choosing your words no one is begging for money from you or anyone else all we want is justice.Also justice delayed is justice denied.
1984 genocide is so very wrong.
Innocent people should not be summarily executed.
If they were celebrating then they could have been booked under a law .
Infuriated mob needs to be kept under check how so ever angry they may be.
Completely agreed. It was handled terribly. But like you said, it was a (large) angry mob. Angry mobs doesn’t equal genocide.
We are living in a country where human right protection is number one, speaking out against these violations is top priority. It is a shame a resolution which is based on human right violations is withdrawn because of a political pressure from a foreign government. Any sensible person irrespective of his or her religion should support this and stand alongside the victims so that these acts are not repeated again.( which unfortunately was repeated later against muslims ) Sikhs as a community have always stood up for the rights of all. As recently as in 1970’s when Indira Gandhi suspended the Indian Constitution who stood up against her ?Almost 30% of persons arrested all over over India were form Sikh Community who make up only 2% of the population. I have a suggestion for persons like Kapoor they should get down from their white horses and see what India really is?when it comes to human right violations.
“I have read the proposal and it has no mention of the Hindu community. The proposal will not lead to any differences. We do not hold Hindus responsible for the Sikh genocide.”
The proposal doesn’t mention the Hindu community only because you know you can’t say it officially. You can tell people all you want that this has nothing to do with Hindus, but when we hear it from the people, we can figure out what’s going on in your hearts.
Here are a couple of comments I’ve seen from people on the Fresno Bee article:
“I didnt call all Hindus cunts, I just defined the word Hindu and they pretty much lived up to it. if calling a spade a spade makes me a racist then I am one.”
Yup, no differences between Hindus & Sikhs there.
“more religious minorities have been killed by radical hinduism than religious minorities in Pakistan by the taliban”
Wow, look at all that “we don’t hold Hindus responsible”
So if that’s what you truly believe, Gurdeep Singh, then please talk to your people and inform them of how misguided they are.
For the Jakara Movement & Sikh youths:
Dr. Kapoor is not a politician. He has half a century of history & documented proof of his support towards every kind of human being, very much including Sikhs. He himself is from Punjab, so yeah he has every right to speak on the matter. Why can you get non-Indian people to support you, but when a non-Sikh says something they are automatically speaking out of place?
Also, do any of you even know what happened in Gujarat? No one seems to ever include the fact that Hindus retaliated against Muslims then ONLY because when a train full of Hindus (59 people, including 25 women and 25 children) were coming back from a pilgrimage from Ayodhya, a bunch of Muslims trapped them all in the train and burned them all alive. It’s not like one day some Hindus just woke up and said, hey let’s go kill all them Muslims. Try and tell anyone you’d do differently.
Also, none of you ever seem to include the fact that the riots in Delhi and elsewhere started when Sikhs were running around giving mithai to everyone saying “teri massi nu mardiya” or “teri dadi nu mardiya” and literally inciting violence. I want to make myself clear here: I AM NOT CONDONING WHAT HAPPENED. ALL I am saying is that it was not exactly how you are portraying it to be- that India just randomly decided to wipe out all the Sikhs. I mean come on, as of 2015 there are about 22 million Sikhs living in India, and I know with 100% certainty that almost all of them are happy to be there. Many of you have never even been there and have no idea what you’re talking about.
What happened was awful. We are all sorry for it. India has apologized over and over again, has given financial reparations & sheltered victims and their families, has acknowledged the wrongdoings. Dr. Kapoor and Rama Dawar just didn’t want any more divide between Hindus and Sikhs, because we are already seeing that between our communities, and it is not a good thing.
I hope you are not part of the RSS Taliban group or a caste supremacist otherwise you would share sympathy with your sikh brother. Simply call it genocide or what you will, Sikhs wants awareness for thousands of innocents sikhs killed in 1984. Let the Indian government and its RSS puppets be shamed in front of world media.
Did you read what I said at all? I do sympathize. Like I said, what happened was terrible. If you guys asked for more legal reparations from the Indian government, I can guarantee you’d have the support of so many more people, including Hindus. The issue is the fact that it was simply not a genocide. “Mass killing” is a more accurate term for what happened. There’s plenty of awareness for what happened then. If you want more awareness, you can do that without dividing the communities and disrespecting India unnecessarily. The people involved then are not the people in charge now, and it doesn’t make sense to shame the entirety of India. You guys are the first to scream about how just because there was an Osama Bin Laden doesn’t mean all Muslims are terrorists. Just because some Indian government officials were scumbags doesn’t mean the entirety of the country needs to be punished for it. Also, ask Sikhs living in India; a majority of them don’t agree with you guys.