Out Loud! with Gurpreet Singh
Wed, November 12 2008
Every year Remembrance Day is celebrated in memory of soldiers who died for freedom and democracy. But who remembers the Sikh soldiers – duty-bound upholders of democracy – who were killed by hired thugs following the assassination of then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh body guards on Oct. 31, 1984?
Gandhi was killed to avenge the military operation that was launched that same year to flush out religious extremists who had stockpiled weapons inside the Golden Temple Complex in Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs. Thousands of Sikhs were murdered by mobs led by Gandhi’s Congress Party leaders across the country. Among the victims of the violence were these Sikh soldiers, who were either returning on leave to their homes and families or in transit to their units.
Most of them were junior ranking young soldiers who were in uniform, but unarmed at the time of the violent attacks. The frenzied killers did not respect their uniforms or their contributions to civil India society, and lynched the soldiers after dragging them outside the trains on which they were travelling.
“Despite such an atrocity, the children of some of these slain soldiers have joined the Indian army, setting an example of true patriotism,” Col. Phoolka said.
Ironically, the Indian Army has done nothing to raise a memorial for those forgotten soldiers, and no formal apology was ever made for them despite the fact that the Indian Army was led by Sikh General J.J. Singh from 2005 to 2007.
What could be more shameful than soldiers of a country being killed by none other than hooligans of the state? These men, who had joined the Indian Army to protect its borders and uphold the principles of freedom and democracy, were killed by enemies within.
These murders have left a permanent scar on the history of a country that calls itself a secular, modern democracy.
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