By R. Paul Dhillon
October 31st, 1984 will forever remain etched in the collective Sikh psyche as that was Day 1 of four days of looting, rape and murder of innocent Sikhs in New Delhi following the assassination of India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh body guards which was itself an act of earth shattering proportions.
Indira Gandhi was the first Indian Prime Minister to face such a cruel fate and it was followed by another assassination, the blowing up to pieces of Indira Gandhi’s successor – her son Rajiv Gandhi – by a Tamil suicide bomber.
Interestingly, it was Rajiv Gandhi who gave the orders on October 31st, 1984 to his goons and underlings to slaughter innocent Sikhs without mercy, a kind of genocidal attack not seen since the Mughal rulers against the Sikhs. In the film, Gandhi’s top henchmen – Sajjan kumar and Jagdish Tytler – are seen instructing criminal gangs to commit crimes against all Sikhs and providing them with weapons and gas to burn them alive (The committee that looked into charges against the guilty recommended registration of cases against H.K.L. Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar, Dharamdas Shastri and Jagdish Tytler).
The mass killings in Delhi are without a doubt the modern “Ghallugara” (A Massacre or cleansing) in Sikh history.
Producer-co-scriptwriter Harry Sachdeva dramatizes real-life events in 31st October – depicting the first day as it began normally for people in Delhi but became a hellish nightmare for Sikhs once the assassination took place and the wheels of motion were put into play by Gandhi and his evil underlings and their goons on the streets.
The violence – expertly staged by director Shivaji Lotan Patil – is hard to watch even though it has been depicted in a number of other films like Babbu Mann starrer Hawaayien and in Amu, another fine film on the massacre of Sikhs.
Many people in audience were left disturbed by the sheer brutality meted out against innocent people only because they happened to be from the minority Sikh community and their only crime was that they happened to belong to the same community as Gandhi’s assassins.
But the level of criminal intent here is much higher since this was no natural outburst of violence but was highly orchestrated and carried out with such sheer cruelty that it would make ISIS look like a bunch of amateurs. It’s sickening and stomach churning violence and to think that this was the result of not some terrorist outfit or extremist group, but directed from the Prime Minister’s office, a pillar of democracy, and down through the rank and file, a real Crime Against Humanity!
But to this day despite so many commissions and committee looking into justice for the victims – there is still no justice as Sajjan Kumar and other walk free. The film rightly ends with Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.
Hopefully, this film will be shown to Western leaders and the UN so that they take this crime against humanity as seriously as the do the Holocaust.
A real hats off to the whole film team for constructing a great film on an important, if dark, event in India’s history with a humanist touch where not all Hindus lost their sense of justice and humanity and gave their lives to save their Sikh friends and brothers.
But the film can also serve as a wake up to call to all Indians as there have been other communal incidents of violence that it’s important not to lose your common sense and human dignity in the face of evil.
Great marks to the two lead players – Vir Das as Devinder Singh and Soha Ali Khan as hsi wife Tejinder – who bring real human dignity to their characters and survival skills where they not only have to deal with pure evil but also Devinder suffering from low blood pressure. The film gives you a real sense of dread and let’s you experience what it felt like for innocent people living through such a horrible nightmare.
This is a must see film for not just Sikhs but for all who care about humanity!
Reviewed at Vancouver International Film Festival.
