REVIEW – 1984: A Sikh Story on BBC
Guestblogged by Joo Kay Singh
I’ve just spent the past hour watching 1984: A Sikh Story on BBC1 in the UK, and came away mildly disappointed, but not altogether surprised.
The documentary was framed as a “personal journey” for the presenter, Sonia Deol, to “unravel the events of 1984, an iconic year for Sikhs”, and informs us that “the bloody aftermath that followed [of Indira Gandhi's assassination] so shocks Sonia that she is forced to reappraise the depth of her commitment to her faith”
For the first part of the program, we were served up with interviews mainly with Mark Tully and K.S. Brar who sounded like they were both regurgitating paragraphs from their respective books on the subject on the background to the Invasion. Sant Jarnail Singh was given the usual ‘congress stooge turned bad’ treatment by both, and the Darbar Sahib invasion covered without a hint of investigative journalism. Sonia failed to enquire why 37 other gurdwaras were attacked on the same day, if as per Tully and Brar’s insistence, Indira Gandhi was merely interested in Sant Bhindrawale. She similarly fails to question either of the men on the timing of the attack, on why the entire state of Panjab was placed under curfew, the expulsion of all foreign media, or the killings of pilgrims by the Army.
The second part moves onto the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and the tone was set when she describes the events as “riots”, which even the most partisan commentators would agree they were not. There are a few interviews with Widows, a passing mention of alleged police complicity in an interview with some witnesses – but virtually nothing on political involvement and certainly no interviews with police or Congress officials on their role. The one person of note she did interview, Harvinder Singh Phoolka – a lawyer who fought for justice for the past 25 years, was only done in the context of him leading an organisation who planted saplings in memory of the victims. I’m sure he would have liked to move beyond that, and share his detailed knowledge of how the pogroms were orchestrated and who was to blame.
One of the most disappointing aspects of this program, for me, were that the events of 1984 and the interviews with the widows were playing bridesmaid to a pretty soppy central narrative – that of Sonia Deol attempting to “reappraise the depth of her commitment to her faith”. We are shown a few emotional scenes after she interviews witnesses and survivors of the invasion and the pogroms, but then she ends the program doing some bhangra with some families in Delhi celebrating diwali, proclaiming all is now well in India.
The second area of disappointment was how little Sonia really probed into the events of 1984, highlighted by the choice of interviewees and a script that could almost have been written by the GOI’s Press Office.
At the outset, I did say that although I was disappointed overall, I wasn’t very surprised. The first reason is that Sonia Deol isn’t exactly a Rageh Omar or Jeremy Paxman; she’s a Radio Presenter on the BBC Asian Network with self-admittedly little knowledge of 1984, so I would have been more surprised to see her asking tough and probing questions, or even knowing who to ask the right questions. That leads me to the second point; the location producer for this program was Mandeep Singh Bajwa, who if you follow his comments online and on the Sikh eGroups, comes across as a poster-boy for the GOI. So it’s no surprise that he’s the man that the GOI have instructed the BBC to use for all their interviews – if they want permission to be in India at all. Couple the above with some inside information that Sonia Deol was the third-choice presenter, suggests to me that the powers that-be at the BBC weren’t altogether interested in producing anything serious either.
Here’s to hoping the next 25 years will bring something more insightful documentaries covering 1984!
The film starts its narrative from 1984 which gives the Sikhs a sense of victimhood because of the murderous anti- Sikh riots that all condemn.
But most Sikhs living abroad are not told of the terrifying phase from 1978-1984, when murdering gangs of Sikh separatists were on the rampage in Punjab, often targetting hindus, in some instances ordering them off buses and gunning them down. Many were under the patronage of Bhindranwale. The Sikhs, particularly those living abroad, are ignorant or are in denial of these events. The most ridiculous statements I have heard is that those Sikh terrorists were actually govt agents.
I lived in Delhi till 1993 and some of my closest friends were both Hindus Sikhs so I can claim a fairly close hand knowledge of events on the ground. I was also a doctor who treated numerous Sikh victims during the riots, as well as some Sikh terrorists later, who were some of the most dangerous and brainwashed individuals I ever had the misfortune to meet.
Bhindranwale started a vicious war against India and the Hindus, and when Punjab was on the verge of vivisection and another bloody partition, the Indian govt and Army moved in. Yes, easy to criticise the botched action that followed, but let me emphasise- the temple was not desecrated by the Army moving in, it was desecrated by Bhindranwale and his gang who moved in with rockets and heavy armaments.
Punjab bled, India bled, it is time to move on.
How blind and fake can people like Dr Devesh Misra be?
It all began when Nirankaris killed 13 Sikhs with out provocation on 13 apr 1978 .
Sikhs only retaliated against Nrankaris and ther covert supporters.
Sikhs also fought ( without their knowing ) for India getting converted form a right wing state to a secular state where all religions were treated equally and fairly.
REST IS ALL HISTORY.
You all start moving on in life ;
we are already on the move.
This was a great documentary. This was never meant to be a investigative doc, I think datz what ppl were expecting. Sonia Deol did show the extent of atrocities of 1984, like showing those women who had lost their husbands and showing pictures of the massacres in the riots. People focused so much on the bad in this documentary that they forgot all the other things, jus cz it wznt that usual khalistani youtube propaganda doesnt mean that it's not a great piece of work. If also shed light on some things which few other docs do, the mass killings of hindus in 1984 and the years following up to it. If some sikhs wanna idolize Bindranwale, then by all means do so, but he does have some skeletons in the closet, he wznt exactly the greatest person.Even in the doc, one of the people who were present at the times of the attack said that bindranwale was smiling and laughing in the middle of all the death and destruction. When Guru Nanak Ji had even heard of som1 dying he would go into mourning for the lost soul and herez a supposed shaheed smiing while looking at all the dead corpses of the pilgrims. This was a personal journey about Sonia Deol, not an investigative doc, I think ppl shud keep dat in mind Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh
the show was shocking sonia deol done a very bad job she just told that golden temple was attacked but there were 35 other gurdwara were also attack REALLY BOD JOBB!
Come on folks stop criticising start doing something positive. Just becsue something does not match your perspective of things it does not mean that you should be asking for blood. If you know better go tell your story. If someone beleives you then it is your good fortune. Stop moaning about what some else have done. Go out there and do a better job if you can. If not go and learn being a Sikh, a learner, you might jsut succeed.