When a Tree Shook Delhi

Hi,
Today writing my first book review(sort of). First of all I must tell that I am not a writer. I am just a reader giving my own views.
Coming back the name of this book which I just completed is "When a tree shook Delhi-The 1984 Carnage and its aftermath" by Manoj Mitta and H S Phoolka.As it is clear the book is about one of India's worst shame i.e. 1984 riots in our capital. This book provides a useful detail of what happened in those terrible 3 days when the national capital descended into anarchy and India's
most self assured communities were hounded into submission.The name of this book is due to an infamous justification made by Rajiv Gandhi at this incident. His words were "When a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth does shake a little".

In the first part of book the writers give a detailed description of what happened in those 3 days actually after death of Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984.3 days in which about 2733 sikhs were killed by none other than our people. This explanation narrates many incidents like:

• How administration was unable to handle this situation in the capital itself.
• How politics and police played a game with lives of those people.
• How the ones who were protecting themselves were disarmed and then left for the riot mobs.
• How a war hero of 1971 war was humilated by police.

Some incidents like of "Block 32" in this book are really annoying where about 400 sikhs were killed in one night.The another bitter truth is in "Rape in the time of mourning". The govt. of that time looked it as a riot in mourning but it is a truth that many of sikh women were raped in that "so called mourning".And more surprising was a veil of silence of government regarding these rape incidents. It is still a question that how this violence meant to avenge Indira Gandhi's murder took a carnal turn. The another main thing is role of Police Force in this incident. How police was so inactive at that time. How many false heroes were awarded and many real heroes punished??

In second part, the main writer Mr. H.S. Phoolka gives an explaination of his journey from 1984 to now. How he himself with many other members started a Citizen Justice Committee(CJC) in order to give justice to victims. It also puts light on the working of all the enquiry commissions involved in this case.Some of the incidents are really embarassing like signing of Anti-Victim
affidavits even without there knowledge, asking humiliating questions to victims, keeping press out of each enquiry commission and working of whole enquiry as a Camera enquiry within a camera enquiry.
It also puts light on role of some political leaders in this carnage and how they were rewarded instead of being punished in there parties. Though some of them got punished but after a long time and it is a saying that "Justice delayed is a justice denied". During this whole struggle, some of the moments of relief or so called mercy for those victims families were when govt. increased the compensation amount and the second was when on 11 August 2005(when Nanavati Commission Report was presented), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave an emotionally stirring speech with an apology to sikh community saying 1984 incident as a negation of concept of nationhood.

At the end I will say that this book is a sincere effort to give us details of this incident which is a shame on us. Everyone should read it to understand this dark side of our democracy to learn lessons for building and sustaining a plural India. But still we are not learning. We are still facing incidents like Babri Masjid, Godhra, Mumbai and Jalandhar one in June this year. At that times we do not have any terrorists. These are incidents when an Indian kills an Indian and more importantly a human kills a human. But we have to decide which way to go. We consider ourself a secular country but still we all divide ourself according to our religions, our communities or our social groups. No any religion advises us to fight with others but we always do the same which is really shameful and painful. and what we really need to learn is one religion above all. The religion of "HUMANITY".
Thanks for reading
Bikram