Never Forget Bloody 1984

 © 2012, Peter Marshall

1984 for me always brings to mind George Orwell, but if you are a Sikh it has a different meaning, the year when the Golden Temple was stormed by Indian troops and when so many Sikhs were killed  there and in the massacres carried out by Hindu extremists and apparently encouraged by the Indian authorities, particularly after the killing by her Sikh bodyguards of Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi, in which many thousands of Sikhs were killed.

The object of the assault on the temple complex was to clear out Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters who were alleged by the Indian government to be terrorists and storing arms there. He led a movement calling for the return of Sikhs to their traditional practices and against Article 25 of the Indian constitution which declared the Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists to be part of the Hindu. He wanted a clear and distinct identity for the Sikh nation. Since his killing and the other events of 1984 many Sikhs have argued this can only be achieved by the formation of a Sikh state, Khalistan.

© 2012, Peter Marshall

Few of the speeches were in English, though there were a few short bilingual contributions, and without knowing some of the background many of the placards would be hard to understand, and the event difficult to photograph intelligently.

© 2012, Peter Marshall

One face on many of the placards was that of Balwant Singh Rajoana, involved in the 1995 plot which killed Beant Singh, Chief Minister of the Punjab who had ordered ruthless suppression of Sikh separatists and was allegedly responsible for the extra-judicial killing of many thousands of Sikhs. Sentenced to death in 2007, his execution fixed for 31 March 2012 was postponed following an appeal for clemency.

Placards and the messages on them are vital in photographing protests, and it’s sometimes easy to get things wrong. In this picture

© 2012, Peter Marshall

I’ve framed the foreground placard so that it appears to say ‘Forget 84’, while of course the opposite was actually intended, as the image below makes clear.

© 2012, Peter Marshall

Of course the real message of the upper image could be made clear in a caption, but captions and images are often separated. It’s best to make it clear in the image.

More in Sikhs Remember 1984 on My London Diary.

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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated are by Peter Marshall and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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