UPDATE: #Neverforget84
6/4 @ 2:15pm – More tweets by Panjabi MC, award-winning MC Amrit Tung, even hiphop artist B-Magic. Also pagh salute to our friends at Naujawani for keeping us up to date with their twitter feeds.
6/3 @ 4:45am – Since the post went up, Bhangra Star Jassi Sidhu, famed DJ Bobby Friction, Gurdarshan Mangat (Saintlion), and Raxstar. Keep the list growing!
So as they say, it starts with an idea. This one comes from Simrat Kaur from the Bay Area. Sometimes, it happens even on the BART.
It was an idea to increase awareness all over the world of the events that unfolded during Operation Blue Star in 1984. If people from the Middle East can use sites such as Twitter to start revolutions, then why not Sikhs? We need to stop using social networking sites for the purposes of hitting on girls and flirting with guys. We need to start a revolution. How long will Sikhs stay quiet? I am one hundred percent sure that if the same attack had been carried out on the holiest of places of any other religion, things would have definitely not ended this way.[link]
The challenge is simple and symbolic. We have not forgotten. Without justice, there can be no forgetting. So here is what we are asking. Use your twitter or start an account – but tweet the following #neverforget84 everyday and all day from Jun 3rd to the 6th. Here is the event page on Facebook. The goal is to get #neverforget84 to trend. Is it slacktivism, maybe….but can it have real ramifications, maybe…..
The Jakara Movement is participating so you can follow them too at @jakaramovement . At the time of this posting, even bhangra sensation Jassi Sidhu has tweeted #neverforget84 . With some encouragement, maybe even Jay Sean, Gurbaksh Chahal, and others will follow. Do your part! Tweet! and ask for favors from friends/family/people you are following!
Also for some general information about Sikhs and 1984 – follow this link.
Hope to see your tweet!
17 Responses to “UPDATE: #Neverforget84”
This is deep shit……tusi apne ap nu sardar kehnde ho…..guru Gobind Singh ji de bhagat akhde ho apne ap nu…..pehlan ja ke dekho ki eh 'Sikh' da ki matlab hunda hai….
We are exploring our Sikhi, we are attempting to follow the path, Guru Gobind Singh Ji never tolerated injustice. Our Guru's always fought for social justice.
Indian Sikhs have moved on from 1984 to 2011 .
I suggest you all in West also move on .
maybe this is the case in Lucknow and in India; this is not the case in Punjab
I think we can divide people into two groups
1) Those who live in history :–like the one who live in Ramayan times , 1984 or Muhammad era
2) Those who make history : —-These people dont live in past but build there new future .
I love your jejune binaries harinder!
This division into 2 groupings seems more apt:
1) people that are devoid of logic and hold to mumpsimuses – like harinder
2) everyone else
If you aim is to provoke Sikhs in India to take revenge for extracting justice
Then I guess this is job you will have to come and do it yourself .
You cant sit behind safety of your computer in a distant land and start preaching people.
As for 1984 I know it is certainly gross injustice not to punish killers of 5000 people.
Every Sikh feel the need of justice for a closure of events of 1984.
But there is a plan in this whole scale madness of genocide .
1) Taming of Sikhs :– Sikhs by nature are care free and don’t care a hoot for any one , set of people .
Empires through centuries have attempted to tame Sikhs by using "GENOCIDE " as a tool. eg
a) Mughal empire did two genocide to tame Sikhs
b) British empire did its genocide in Jallianwala bagh to tame Sikhs
c) India did it in 1984 to tame Sikhs
Ans : Empires fade away with time .
2) Justice loving is a cardinal property in Sikhs which can be exploited :– 1984 is so painful not only because of deaths but also because of lack of justice in it .If you don’t like some one then one way is to kill him .The other way is to attack his properties without the need to Kill him eg for a Sikh Love for justice is such a strong inbuilt property that doing an injustice to him is to give him a life long pain.
Ans :– This property of loving justice should have some conditionality attached to it that justice in world of today is skewed toward ‘victors justice ‘ and not divine justice.
3) Don’t think Sikhs are innocent in the whole story of 1984 : We have our hot heads too who have compounded the story of 1984.
Ans : Tame our hot headed people
There is a difference Harinder between C and the rest. The difference is India and Sikhs had an agreement prior to '47 that this is a shared constitution and land between all who dwell on it. Mughals came and conquered as did the British. The rest of us were all already there before and after '47, and made a combined effort to remove A and B. If someone else came into my house and attacked me and went away its one thing but if someone is living with me and chooses to constantly harass me this is another. By the way A and B have not been forgotten, unless you have not been to a gurudwara in the last 50 years, or one of 100 nagar kirtans around the globe.
@harinder – finally something worth commenting on….
Nobody is trying to \’provoke Sikhs in India to take revenge.\’ We are calling for accountability and justice by courts. Many have hoped that it would come from the Indian judicial system, but we have come to learn it is a farce. Now we take our pursuit of justice to the world stage. We will clamor for accountability in international courts and help push for international recognition of these despicable acts of state-sponsored genocide.
All of those historical examples are cases where Sikhs did not \’move on\’ and \’forget the past.\’ They were engaged and pursued justice. Today, the sword is no longer the primary weapon. The pen is also powerful. We begin there.
You are right there is much for Sikhs to introspect about their roles in the violence and trauma to the community, often at the hands of other Sikhs. Still this does not justify the state-sponsored violence and continued impunity by the Indian State.
Nicely said Harinder,Jodha and his cohort's like his sister,are wuses crying over spilled milk.People have moved on ,nobody even remembers 1984 in Punjab or India.Jodha let the sleeping dogs lie.
“Jodha and his cohort’s like his sister,are wuses crying over spilled milk.People have moved on ,nobody even remembers 1984 in Punjab or India.Jodha let the sleeping dogs lie.”
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Great post! I really hope that my simple idea will grow into a real revolution. About a month ago, I e-mailed JusReign, Humble, and AKakaAmazing; I was really hopeful that they would promote this event but I guess those e-mails went unnoticed. I am happy to see that JusReign tweeted out #neverforget84; hopefully other influential Sikh youths will follow. Let me know if you have any other questions!
keep on tweeting them!
Indian Sikhs have forgotten and "moved on", I have relatives their and no this does not apply to 100% of the Sikh population in India. For those that have "moved on", apparently they seemed to not have learned anything the first time around. These are the same type of people who got themselves slaughtered in Delhi in the first run. They chose to live outside the community and preferred the company of the majority as they probably considered their culture and way of life superior to their own. These people had also "moved on", ignoring the fact they had a greater loss of numbers in 1947 then most other Indian communities, from riots ignited from the ruling class, ignoring the fact that they were not given a state till the 1970’s after struggling for it in their own country. The list goes on and on. These people are worthless to the community in the advancement of this subject matter, because they have themselves “moved on” and put aside rape, killings, torture at mass scales of innocent “Indian Citizens,” whos own democracy betrayed them, and considered them “…a barbaric race of people, who should be dealt with force”. Moving on is an option and should be considered by all means, but not when the government itself chooses not to move on, and let go of its historical view points towards the Sikh community, which is continually played out by, not bringing to justice government leaders responsible for 84 massacre and consistent debasing of Sikhs in the media.