When 8,000 citizens in the world's largest democracy are murdered in a government- orchestrated genocidal massacre in just four days, how is it possible for the guilty to evade justice? This shocking exposé of a true-life Orwellian plot of nightmarish proportions reveals how they did it.
1984: India’s Guilty Secret by Pav Singh | Kashi House / non-fiction / tpb / £12.99 / 1 November 2017
In November 1984, the ruling elite of the world's largest democracy conspired to murder thousands of their country's citizens in genocidal massacres reminiscent of Nazi-era Germany while the world watched on. Over four days, armed mobs brutally and systematically butchered, torched and raped members of the minority Sikh community living in Delhi and elsewhere. The sheer scale of the killings exceeded the combined civilian death tolls of the conflict in Northern Ireland, Tiananmen Square and 9/11. In Delhi alone 3,000 people were killed. The full extent of what took place has yet to be fully acknowledged.
This definitive account based on harrowing victim testimonies and official accounts reveals how the largest mass crime against humanity in India's modern history was perpetrated by politicians and covered up with the help of the police, judiciary and media. The failings of Western governments - who turned a blind eye to the atrocities for fear of losing trade contracts worth billions - are also exposed.
- This is the first book to expose the chilling events of November 1984, the Indian government's 33- year cover-up and the moral indifference of Thatcher cabinet.
- Reveals for the first time the high-level conspiracy at the heart of the Indian establishment by connecting the lower level actors to senior politicians, high-ranking policemen, judges and ultimately, to the Gandhi family itself
- A powerful and compelling account exposing the dark underbelly of a key global and economic powerhouse - hailed as ‘a timely reminder of India's shameful inability to account for that explosion of racial and religious hatred’ in Delhi and elsewhere in November 1984 (Geoffrey Robertson QC)
- Includes an analysis of the previously unrecognised issue of mass genocidal rape against women and the killing of children: 'long overdue in coming since there is far too little writing on 1984' (Dr Uma Chakravarti, Indian historian & feminist).
About Pav Singh
Pav Singh was born in Leeds, England, the son of Punjabi immigrants. He has been instrumental in campaigning on the issues surrounding the 1984 massacres. In 2004, he spent a year in India researching the full extent of the pogroms and the subsequent cover-up. He met with survivors and witnessed the political fall-out and protests following the release of the flawed Nanavati Report into the killings. His research led to the pivotal and authoritative report 1984 Sikhs' Kristallnacht, which was first released in the UK Parliament in 2005 and substantially expanded in 2009. In his role as a community advocate at the Wiener (Holocaust) Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, London, he curated the exhibition 'The 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms Remembered' in 2014 with Delhi-based photographer Gauri Gill.
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