While most Hindus remained mere spectators to the violence, others disturbingly indulged in the violence against their fellow Sikh neighbours. However, many Hindu, Muslim, and Christian citizens did come to the aid of Sikhs.

In Trilokpuri, in East Delhi, 600 Sikhs were saved by Hindus, among the thousands who lost their lives.1 According to an army officer posted in Shahdara, of the Sikh families he rescued from different parts of the area, at least seventy percent were sheltered by Hindus.2 In Yusuf Sarai market, Hindu shopkeepers laid down in front of Sikh shops and told the mob they would have to burn them first before touching any Sikh-owned businesses.3

In Vinod Nagar East, a Hindu dragged a Sikh and his children out of a burning taxi.4 In Sadiq Nagar, Sikhs were reassured by their Hindu neighbours that they would be protected.5 When a Sikh tried to rescue his niece in West Delhi, he was stunned to find that a group of Hindus were protecting her.6 A Hindu family in Shakurpur saved three families by keeping them hidden in their house.7

Reports also emerged in colony after colony of people forming their own protection squads, like in Janakpuri in West Delhi. Whereas the neighbours of their D-block banded together to ensure the protection of the area and its inhabitants, the neighbouring B- and C-blocks were hit hard by attacks. In the Govindpuri area of South Delhi, men from both the Sikh and Hindu communities set up patrols to deter the mobs from entering their neighbourhoods.8 Elsewhere, voluntary groups organised vigils in areas like Tilak Nagar, Hari Nagar, and Shiv Nagar.9 Residents, both Sikh and Hindu, informed reporters that none of the people who came to loot and kill appeared to be local.10

In Trilokpuri, five Muslim houses in Block 32 stood as a buffer between the mobs and the Sikhs. A Muslim risked his life saving his Sikh neighbour. Muslims also saved a Sikh lady and her children in Shahdara.11

A group of Hindus saved a Gurdwara and a Sikh doctor’s clinic at the GT-Karnal Road from being burned down and many provided protection of their own homes to the Sikh families in the Munirka Colony. Thirty Sikh families in Mayur Vihar were also saved by their Hindu neighbours. Between November 1 and 5, teachers and students from Delhi University kept vigil at the entrance of Sikh neighbourhood.12

Human rights workers would come across Sikhs in the refugee camps who told them that but for their neighbours, they would have been butchered.13 According to Mahinder Kaur, some of her Muslim neighbours from her mother’s locality came to rescue her and her brother’s family from another colony. Dozens were rescued by other Muslim neighbours and kept safe in their houses for several days.14

A team of lawyers who later visited five affected colonies heard similar stories from local Hindus who had wanted to protect Sikhs but were helpless in the face of highly organised mobs that were far superior in numbers.15

The sacrifice of Prabhu Dayal

Prabhu Dayal, a Hindu and a resident of Baljit Nagar, worked in a factory owned by a Sikh family in Ashok Vihar. His employer’s residence was situated on the first floor of the same building. On November 1, 1984, the factory was attacked by a mob who set the place on fire. While the factory guards ran away, Prabhu stayed on to rescue three Sikh women who had been trapped on the first floor. He sustained serious injuries in the process and died soon after.16

Sikh leader Sant Longowal (centre) honouring Shri Prabhu Dayal’s widow, Atam Devi, daughter and son. Courtesy Madhu Kishwar, Manushi

Prakash Chand of Palam

In the Palam Colony, Satya’s husband, Prakash Chand was killed by a mob because he saved the lives of his Sikh neighbours, Baldev Singh and his wife, Surjit Kaur in Vijay Enclave on Palam Road.17

Jugti Ram

One of the few policemen who risked his career in pursuit of his duty was Jugti Ram, duty officer at Kalyanpuri police station. He rescued Sikh women who had been abducted to nearby Chilla village in the eastern part of Delhi and sent a radio message to his superiors informing them about the large-scale massacre that had taken place in Block 32 in Trilokpuri. He recorded the same in his logbook.

He was subsequently suspended, and a case of criminal negligence filed against him as punishment for defying the order to not record the killings of Sikhs. In stark contrast, officers who acted in accordance with the directives not to log crimes against Sikhs were subsequently promoted.18

Maxwell Pereira

On 1 November, Maxwell Pereira, the additional deputy commissioner of police based in the north district of the capital, had that morning been pulled out of his area and sent to Teen Murti House. When he heard over the radio that disturbances were taking place at the historic Gurdwara Sis Ganj near the Red Fort in the northeast of Delhi, he rushed to the spot.

When he arrived, he saw hundreds of people marching towards the shrine. The Sikhs inside responded by coming out brandishing their swords. At that point, Pereira intervened by convincing the Sikhs that he was responsible for their safety and that they should remain within the gurdwaras premises. He also escorted several Sikhs, who had been hiding in nearby lanes, to the shrine.

With twenty or so policemen, Pereira managed to keep the two groups separated. On hearing that Sikh-owned shops in Chandni Chowk to the west of the gurdwara were being torched, he headed off to disperse the arsonists. But they lingered, becoming increasingly menacing and continued to burn properties. Pereira ordered a colleague to open fire and one person dropped dead, which had an immediate impact on the crowd. Potentially, hundreds of people had been saved by Pereira’s actions.

When he reported the firing to the police control room, no one responded. When he attempted to bring the matter to the attention of his superiors, Additional Commissioner Hukum Chand Jatav and Commissioner Subhash Tandon, their ‘pin-drop silence’ troubled him.19

Ranbir Singh

Another non-Sikh officer who helped significantly was Inspector Ranbir Singh, the station house officer at Karol Bagh. He held looters back and kept Sikhs in his area safe, even to the point of rushing on foot to disperse a crowd as his jeep had engine issues.20

“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire”

Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s List

Other Indian citizens of non-Sikh origin, who either helped Sikhs and/or tried to alert the authorities to act and/or helped in the relief effort and/or published accounts of the violence at the time:

Swami Agniwesh, social activist; Shanti Bhushan, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India; Lionel Baixas, author; Rahul Kuldip Bedi, journalist; Prashant Bhushan, lawyer; Mita Bose, social activist; Paul R. Brass, author; Uma Chakravarti, historian; Ravi Chopra, environmentalist; Barbara Crossette, journalist; Madhu Dandavate, Janata Dal; Veena Das, sociologist; R. K. Das, Rajeshwar Dayal, former Indian diplomat; economist; Ivan Fera, writer; George Fernandes, Janata Dal; writer; Aurbindo Ghose, human rights activist; Amitav Ghosh, author; Inder Kumar Gujral, Janata Dal; Nandita Haksar, lawyer; Brian Hanrahan, reporter; Kamini Jaiswal, lawyer, Jaya Jaitly, Janata Dal; Supreme Court of India; Ram Jethmalani, lawyer, Supreme Court of India; Rani Jethmalani. lawyer, Supreme Court of India; Madan Lal Khurana, General Secretary of the Delhi State Bhartiya Janta Party; Madhu Kishwar, editor; Rajni Kothari, human rights activist; Radha Kumar, social activist; Ram Narayan Kumar, human rights activist; Sucheta Mahajan, social activist, Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, author; Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Bharatiya Janata Party; Joseph Maliakan, journalist; Sudip Mazumdar, journalist; Manoranjan Mohanty political scientist; Manoj Mitta, journalist; Alok Mukhopadhyaya, rural health activist; Gobinda Mukhoty, human rights activist; Poonam Muttreja, social activist; Ashis Nandy, social psychologist; Govind Narain, former governor; Fali Nariman, lawyer; N. D. Pancholi, lawyer; Ram Bilas Paswan, Lalita Ramdas, social activist; Amiya Rao, social activist; Ken Rees, reporter; Rahul Roy, social activist; Salman Rushdie, author; Janata Dal; Shuddhabrata Sengupta, writer; Chander Shekhar, President. Janta Dal; Aseem Shrivastava, writer; Charan Singh, Janata Dal; Subir Sinha, social activist; Soli Sorabji, lawyer; Jaya Srivastava, social worker; Sanjay Suri, journalist; V. M. Tarkunde, retired judge; Romesh Thapar, journalist; Alok Tomar, journalist; Badr-un-Din Tyabji, lawyer; Ashok Vahie, photographer; Siddharth Varadarajan, journalist; S. M. Sikri, retired judge; Sharad Yadav, Janata Dal.

The volunteers of the Nagrik Ekta Manch (Citizen’s Unity Forum), People’s Union of Democratic Rights (PUDR), People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Citizen’s Justice Committee (CJC).

Shiv Narayan Dhingra, Additional Sessions judge.

In 1996, Dhingra refused bail to H.K.L, Bhagat who had been arrested awaiting trial for his role in the 1984 massacres. In 2018, he headed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to reinvestigate 186 cases.

Many Indian citizens saved Sikhs from the mobs, at great risk to their own lives. Read their stories.

  1. Who are the Guilty? Report of a joint inquiry into the causes and impact of the riots in Delhi from 31 October to 10 November 1984. Peoples Union of Civil Liberties and Peoples Union of Democratic Rights. November 1984. ↩︎
  2. ibid ↩︎
  3. Gangster Rule – The Massacres of the Sikhs. Madhu Kishwar. Manushi. November 1984. ↩︎
  4. Was it a Communal Riot? Outlook, 11 August 2005. ↩︎
  5. ibid ↩︎
  6. ibid ↩︎
  7. In the Name of Secularism and National Unity – How Congress engineered the 1984 Pogroms’, Madhu Kishwar, Manushi. ↩︎
  8. Jasneet Aulakh, ‘Sikh and Hindu Resistance in the 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogrom’, USC, 2012. ↩︎
  9. Was it a Communal Riot? Outlook, 11 August 2005. ↩︎
  10. Who are the Guilty? Report of a joint inquiry into the causes and impact of the riots in Delhi from 31 October to 10 November 1984. Peoples Union of Civil Liberties and Peoples Union of Democratic Rights. November 1984. ↩︎
  11. Was it a Communal Riot? Outlook, 11 August 2005. ↩︎
  12. Who are the Guilty? Report of a joint inquiry into the causes and impact of the riots in Delhi from 31 October to 10 November 1984. Peoples Union of Civil Liberties and Peoples Union of Democratic Rights. November 1984. ↩︎
  13. ibid ↩︎
  14. In the Name of Secularism and National Unity – How Congress engineered the 1984 Pogroms’, Madhu Kishwar, Manushi. ↩︎
  15. Truth about Delhi Violence: Report to the Nation. Citizens for Democracy. Amiya Rao, Aurbindo Ghose, N. D. Pancholi, Nagrik Ekta Manch, PUCL, PUDR, V. M. Tarkunde, January 1985. ↩︎
  16. A Hero Neglected by Hindus, Sikhs and Govt. Madhu Kishwar, Manushi. 3 November 2022. ↩︎
  17. Affidavit of Satya Devi. ↩︎
  18. Manoj Mitta and Harvinder Phoolka, When a Tree Shook Delhi, 2007, p 120 ↩︎
  19. Sanjay Suri, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After, 2015, p 127 ↩︎
  20. ibid ↩︎