Should India pay reparations or apologize to its minority & oppressed communities?
There is a famous adage in Tamil,
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(Oblivion, the curse of humanity!)
India, being the largest democratic country in the world, is famous for its diversity. One can see the difference in cultures, languages, lifestyles & food, for every 100 Km. Yet, some of its people didn’t see the beauty in it, trying to dominate these minorities or at least to say trying to take advantage of it. We as human, time and time again, forget the struggles, injustice and inhumane things done to them. So yes, oblivion is a curse. If we hear the word minority/minorities, the first one who will come to our mind is Muslims. For some, it includes Christian, Buddhist and Sikhs. Though there are other minorities/oppressed communities which we are aware of but forgot to recognise them as one includes Children, Women, Kashmiris, Indigenous people, Farmers and SC/ST.
Our history textbooks never did teach us about the problems faced by these communities. I remember studying about the partition of India & Pakistan and its effect in a single paragraph. In a chapter like India After Independence, where we came across, only to know about the death toll ranging from 1,000,000 ~`3,000,000 people and 15,000,000 people were migrated.
But what we don’t get to learn that time was, minorities from both India & Pakistan were massacred, separated from families & friends, forced to leave their homeland. And the most chilling about this was, all of these were done by the People whom they lived with them, grown with them, shared food with them, celebrated festivals with them and most importantly fought alongside one another for a single cause - Freedom...not for years but for centuries!
History repeats itself. And we people fail to understand it every single time. The Sikh riot of 1983, Bombay riot of 1992-93, Gujarat riot of 2002 and many more are some examples…During my school days, I never heard or read about the Sikh riot or any similar incidents but came to know about Bombay riot, not fully but thanks to Mani Ratnam through his movie ‘Bombay’.
As a common man/woman, what we fail to understand is the cause and effect - why such an incident occurs in the first place? What are the conditions of those affected people now? Whether it can be prevented? Actually we never really tried to dig deeper.
For example, let’s take the Sikh riot of 1983 -
What is the cause of the riot?
Shooting of then the Indian PM Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh security personnel(one of whom worked with her for nearly 10+yrs) was the immediate cause!
Is that the real cause?
No...Blue Star Operation ordered by Indira Gandhi to take down the separatist organisation which occupied the Holy Golden Temple & operated it has their base, also supported by Akali Dal. No of people killed - recorded: 300, estimated: 1000 including civilians, army and militants.
Is that the real cause?
Khalistan, the separatist militants wanted to secede from India, planted hatred against Hindus in the minds of Sikhs, and killed many of its people & Hindus for the same.
Is this the real cause?
The Indian government failed to address her own people’s voices or say understand & failed to act of her voices! Not handling the hatred at the initial for the sole purpose of gaining political advantage, even though most of the Sikhs were against the secession and against such hatred!
Now on the other side, What are its effects?
The immediate effect was 1000’s of Sikhs got killed - recorded: 2733, estimated: nearly 10,000. Tens of thousands of people got separated from their families, friends and homeland.
The future of the orphaned children, the future of the widows, the future of the elders and their livelihood were a big question mark! The trauma they experienced, recovering from such a horrible incident and seeking justice for the same was another painful story, which affects them in the long term.
So who is responsible? Since this never looked like on spur of the moment rather than a well-calculated one. And so here we go.
Govt machineries which vowed to protect its people failed miserably to act and protect its own people! Police, for spreading fake news such as Sikhs poisoned water bodies and a train arriving with full of Hindu dead bodies by going & informing to each and every home, supplying diesel to arsonists. Congress ministers by mobilizing mobs from nearby communities and supplied them with weapons and police. Finally, some of THE People who lived with Sikhs and been their neighbour for years didn’t help in the need of the moment and few of them even helped in identifying homes & shops of the Sikhs for the rioters.
At times like these, we came to know about the real face of the people. Yes, there are some people, who made us to still believe in humanity, saved some of the Sikhs from the mobs.
And again we can do this cause & effect for every riots/issue. But the fact is, we don’t get to know about this in our textbook. We only come across this through the works of some people on particular issues.
So the main question, why should we Indians pay reparations or should say sorry to its oppressed community?
Germany paid reparations to the Holocaust victims, raised memorials and apologized. Japan paid reparations to South Korea and felt guilty for its atrocities in China. The common things among both the countries were that both the people and the government recognized what they did is wrong!
You can argue that they paid reparations to other countries. Well, the South African government paid for Apartheid victims(read - its people), the Columbian govt, the Peruvian govt, the Philipines govt and the Nepal govt paid reparations to its own people.
Again why we Indians should pay reparations or should say sorry to its community which was done by our ancestors, great grandfather, father? Since I didn’t do anything!
Well yeah, that’s right. Why should we, the current generation should apologize/pay reparations? But we live in the same generation, where we Indians are asking for reparations or at least sorry from the current generation i.e., the people of England(British), for what their grandfather, great grandfather and ancestors did! Isn’t this irony?! We are demanding it from them, but we aren’t even ready to do that to our own people.
Then again, what good will come from if we Indians apologize/pay reparations to the communities?
Maybe you are right, if we agreed for reparations, we may not be sure whether it will reach to the rightful people or not, thanks to the corruption in every level of our State. So that might not be a suitable idea for us. But, by asking sorry and recognize that wrong had been done to its community, will be a relief for them. Since we deny them by saying such incidents didn’t even occur in the first place(like its riot, not massacre).
So, the possible solutions for them would be, first acknowledging that the inhumane things had been done. Second, maybe an art-form or remembrance in the form of a wall or memorial, which may remind us to prevent these things from happening again in the future. Finally, maybe we should keep the promise that we will protect our communities, friends, families, neighbours...no they aren’t the right word, the right word should be ’our fellow humans’ and make India a better place for our future generations.
Lastly, I remember someone saying and I quote him here, ‘We are Indians, Firstly and Lastly’. Well, I wish to differ with that and conclude by,
We are Humans,
Firstly and Lastly!
PS: Inspired from works of Menaka Guruswamy & Sashi Tharoor
(r-recorded & e-estimated)
Sources:
Farmers data:
NCRB & https://www.lse.ac.uk/asiaResearchCentre/_files/ARCWP62-Mishra.pdf
Reparations:
www.ictj.org/our-work/transitional-justice-issues/reparations
https://www.axios.com/why-nations-pay-reparations-45502a9f-a5e2-486b-af22-c158789507a2.html
Sikh riot:
https://www.epw.in/journal/2014/41/glimpses-past-web-exclusives/who-are-guilty.htm
Riots:
Wikipedia and related news articles