Can November 1984 be defined as genocide? Pav Singh investigates.

The term ‘riot’ to describe the 1984 massacres soon gained currency and has been used – sometimes in its modified form of ‘anti-Sikh riots’ – almost exclusively by the media, politicians, activists and academics ever since.

A riot, though, is normally defined as a crowd of people behave violently in a public place.1 In the Indian context it is usually framed as a communal clash between two or more communities resulting in damage to property and loss of life, as in the predominantly Hindu-Muslim riots during Partition.2

But in the events of November 1984, only Sikhs were looted and murdered.3 Where the violence was at its most fierce, the attacks were systematic and organised, aimed at wiping out Sikhs and Sikh neighbourhoods. In these instances, the perpetrators made their intentions known through public pronouncements calling for the eradication of as many Sikh males as possible. The level of physical and sexual violence inflicted ensured that even those who survived would be damaged for years to come.

The vast majority of victims were people who shared a common religious identity, the Sikhs. When an entire group representing a particular racial or religious identity are targeted for annihilation, and in consequence, hundreds of thousands of people are killed, the word for it is Genocide.

Inderjit Singh Jaijee, Movement Against State Repression.4

Some commentators indeed went as far as classifying the violence as genocidal in nature, as the victims were only targeted because they were Sikhs. According to one academic who had studied the Punjab situation in the 1980s, a clear pattern was evident:

Both the explicit targeting of Amritdhari [initiated] Sikhs as traitors following Operation Blue Star and the clear earmarking of Sikh residences and businesses in the post-assassination carnage speak to an incipient genocidal campaign.

Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, Fighting for Faith and Nation, 1996.5

Differing from the Holocaust and more recent internationally recognised genocides such as in Cambodia and Rwanda, smaller scale atrocities aimed at exterminating a section of a group, whether men, women or children, in a given area, have come to be defined as genocidal massacres.6 When unleashed by a state to deal with a ‘troublesome’ minority, they become devastating weapons.7

Following the November carnage, the use of the word ‘riot’ appears to have been deliberately chosen by the Congress government to absolve itself from any responsibility for the organised violence. Simultaneously it helped draw attention, including from the international community, away from the catastrophic level of one-sided violence that was unleashed, in what was in effect an anti-Sikh genocidal massacre.8

Lack of Legal Redress

What is unique in the case of 1984 is the continued lack of recognition and acceptance, including internationally, of the leading role of the Congress Party’s leaders in the conspiracy.

It is this cancer of unaccountability that sets 1984 apart from previous genocidal episodes that came before. Amongst those international bodies entrusted to recognise, investigate and prosecute genocidal crimes, such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, 1984 has never figured, although two victims did manage to testify before the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2014.9

In the subsequent thirty years, there have been a number of genocidal massacres in India including at Hashimpura (1987), Bhagalpur (1989), Mumbai (1992), Sopore (1993), Hyderabad (1990), Coimbatore (1998), Gujarat (2002), Kokrajhar (2012) and Muzaffarnagar (2013).10

Part of the problem lies in the Indian Penal Code. Although India remains a signatory to the 1951 Geneva Convention on Genocide, and is legally obliged to implement a specific law on all forms of genocide ensuring perpetrators are punished, this is something that does not feature in India’s main criminal code. As Professor Abraham Joseph of Ansal University, Gurgaon recently stated: ‘In the absence of such a legislative framework, it is hard not to conclude that India is in breach of its legal obligations’.11

In April 2017, Canada’s Ontario government passed a motion describing 1984 as a genocide. In response, Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson, Gopal Baglay, described it as ‘misguided’12 and the defence minister, Arun Jaitley, said the language used in the motion was ‘unreal and exaggerated’.13 This when in December 2014, India’s home minister Rajnath Singh had acknowledged the events of 1984 as a genocide.14 As Abraham Joseph notes:

India’s denial of the 1984 pogrom as genocide is problematic… given the non-existence of prescribed domestic standards to test such a claim. Claims of the 1984 pogrom being a genocide on certain occasions and a denial of the characterisation on certain other occasions reflect the casual and non-serious approach of the Indian political class to the human tragedy accompanying mass crimes in India. This problem is aggravated by the absence of a law laying down the contours of the offence like its essential elements, requirements and punishments.

Abraham Joseph, Assistant Professor, School of Law, Ansal University.15

Thus, the introduction of a proper legal framework and laws on genocide in India are clearly necessary and desperately required. Without them, the search for justice is severely hampered.

Rape as a method of Genocide

Since the International Criminal Court for Yugoslavia, rape, including gang rape and genocidal rape has been included as a method of genocide, recognising the severity of these crimes and their impact upon the victims.16

In 1984, Sikh women and girls were subject to a series of sexual violence, including gang rape and genocidal rape.

Oral and written testimonies revealed that many women were ‘stripped and raped while their husbands and sons were forced to watch.’ Targeted killing of men and boys but also genocidal killing of women and girls. Many witnesses spoke of witnessing ‘naked bodies dumped in trucks. Some of the sexual violence was committed in the presence of the still smouldering corpses of murdered family members.

Sexual violence in 1984

Pogroms

There is currently debate as to whether 1984 constitutes a pogrom or genocide. Both words that have similar meanings, but with a slight difference.

A pogrom is an organised persecution of a particular ethnic group by a government or political party while genocide focused on organised killing and extermination of a particular ethnic group, again sanctioned by either the ruling government or political party. Both terms have been increasingly used for the particular crimes that took place in November 1984.17

However, where the pogroms took a genocidal turn, following orders from Congress leaders and police to kill all Sikhs, men, women and children in the trans-resettlement areas of outer Delhi, and therefore proving intent to destroy a group, in whole or in part, these crimes can be characterised as Genocide.

In 2019, a UK-based law firm with expertise in international human rights in conflict-affected regions, Global Diligence LLP produced a report following an extensive study into the events of 1984. They concluded that

Both genocidal acts and crimes against humanity were committed against the Sikh populations of Delhi in November 1984 and that a number of Indian individuals are criminally liable for such acts and also India itself has incurred state responsibility for genocide.

Global Diligence LLP. Mass Violence against the Sikh people in India: The events of November 1984 – A Case of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. 2009.18

Delhi High Court

During the trials of Congress leaders and workers during the course of 2018, the Delhi High Court ruled the following crimes took place in 1984, including genocide:


The large scale rioting, mob violence, arson, plunder, genocide and looting has been duly proved and established.

Justice R. K. Gauba. Delhi High Court. 28 November 2018.19

A month later, another Delhi High Court case ruled on Crimes against Humanity:


The mass killings of Sikhs between 1st and 4th November 1984 in Delhi and the rest of the country, engineered by political actors with the assistance of the law enforcement agencies, answer the description of Crimes against Humanity.

Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel. Delhi High Court. 17 December, 2018.20

Sworn testimonies submitted to the official inquiries clearly record local Congress leaders inciting their followers with intent commit mass murder. By the definition of International law, this amounts to genocide.

Pav Singh, author

In 1984, thousands had been killed, raped, traumatised and displaced from their homes. The lives of the survivors, their children and of the generations to come have been irrevocably impacted.

It is time for India and the world to take a stand as they have with similar internationally recognised episodes of genocidal crimes such as the Srebrenica Genocide of 1995. 21 To this day more than ninety-nine per cent of the killers remain free and the Congress leaders who instigated the genocidal massacres remain mostly unpunished. We look forward to the day Churasee (‘1984’ in Punjabi) is acknowledged by the same world community, and India demonstrates the courage to uphold the rights and dignities of its own people above those of its leaders and their henchmen.

1984: A Case of Genocide

  1. ‘Riot’ Definition of. Collins Dictionary. ↩︎
  2. Hafsa Adil. Partition riots: A grave attack on all of humanity. Al Jazeera. 9 August 2017. ↩︎
  3. Amiya Rao et al, Truth about Delhi Violence: Report to the Nation, 1985. ↩︎
  4. Inderjit Singh Jaijee, Movement Against State Repression. India. ↩︎
  5. Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, Fighting for Faith and Nation. 1996, p138. ↩︎
  6. Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century. 1981, p 10. ↩︎
  7. Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Spartan to Darfur. 2007, p 13. ↩︎
  8. For further discussions on pogroms and genocidal massacres, see: Paul R. Brass, A New Cambridge History of India, 1990, p354; Paul Mojzes, Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, 2015, p5; Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century, 1981, p10. ↩︎
  9. Chander Suta Dogra. For first time, 1984 Sikh victims testify before United Nation panel. Indian Express. 9 November 2014. ↩︎
  10. Pradyot Lal, NK Bhoopesh, Anurag Tripathi, ‘A Festering Sore on Indian Democracy’, Tehelka, 11 April 2015. ↩︎
  11. Abraham Joseph, India is in breach of its obligations to the genocide convention, The Wire, 2 May 2017. ↩︎
  12. Anirudh Bhattacharyya, Ontario passes motion calling 1984. riots genocide, India says move misguided, Hindustan Times, 8 April 2017. ↩︎
  13. Ajay Banerjee, Ontario resolution on ‘84 riots ‘unreal, exaggerated’, Canada told. The Tribune, 18 April 2017. ↩︎
  14. Rajnath called 1984 killings ‘genocide’, now MEA objects when Canada does the same, The Wire, 7 April 2017. ↩︎
  15. Abraham Joseph, India is in breach of its obligations to the genocide convention, The Wire, 2 May 2017. ↩︎
  16. Sherrie L. Russell-Brown. Rape as an Act of Genocide. Berkeley Journal of International Law. 2003. ↩︎
  17. Paul R. Brass, On the Study of Riots, Pogroms, and Genocide. Prepared for the Sawyer Seminar. Session on Processes of Mass Killing. The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, 6–7 December 2002. ↩︎
  18. Global Diligence LLP. Mass Violence against the Sikh people in India: The events of November 1984 – A Case of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. 2009. ↩︎
  19. Justice R. K. Gauba. Delhi High Court. Shambir & Ors vs State. Paragraph 101. 28 November 2018. ↩︎
  20. Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel. Delhi High Court. State Through CBI vs Sajjan Kumar & Ors. Paragraph 368 (xi). 17 December ↩︎
  21. Srebrenica Genocide: No Room For Denial. United Nations. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.  ↩︎