A few days later, Prime Minster Rajiv Gandhi, a Cambridge dropout, used really bad physics to justify the pogrom: When a big tree falls, the earth shakes. The anti-Sikh “riot,” was mostly mentioned in the Indian public sphere as a footnote to Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Barring the exceptions of Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence and Amitav Ghosh’s 1995 essay, The Ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi in The New Yorker, most Indian writers were reluctant to engage with that horrific past. Things are changing slowly. Several human rights reports and a few books have appeared, the most significant one being, When a Tree Shook Delhi by the distinguished journalist Manoj Mitta and the Supreme Court lawyer, H. S. Phoolka. Among other aspects it examines the role played by Delhi Police in facilitating the atrocity, and the sinister role played by the judiciary afterwards. A few documentaries have been made and a feature film, Amu by Shonali Bose appeared a few years earlier.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:13:37 +0000
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