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Anti-Sikh riots In fact, Rajiv was faced with major crises from the outset. He had hardly any time to come to terms with the personal grief of his mother’s violent death. As the dignitaries from across the world were arriving in Delhi for Indira Gandhi’s funeral, a horrific massacre of Sikhs in revenge for her assassination was taking place in the city, especially on its outskirts in the ‘re-settlement colonies’ where the poorer sections lived. From 31 October, the day of Indira's death, to 3 November, many Sikhs were attacked, their businesses and houses looted and burnt, and around 2,800 killed. The perpetrators of this horrific crime against humanity were alleged Congress party workers, even some local level leaders were involved in assisting and guiding the crowd, and police at the local level turned a blind eye to what was going on. It is also true that thousands of Sikhs were sheltered and protected by Hindu friends and neighbours On 3 November, the day of the funeral, Rajiv visited some of the affected areas in the morning, and later the army was called in and the violence suppressed. Many voluntary agencies, whose personnel were generally Hindu, worked for months to bring relief to the families of victims. Similar violence, though on a smaller scale, broke out in some other North Indian cities, especially Kanpur and Bokaro. Bhopal Gas tragedy Within two weeks of his becoming prime minister, there occurred the Bhopal gas leak tragedy, in which around 2,000 people, mostly poor slum-dwellers, lost their lives and many thousands more were taken ill because of poisonous emissions from a chemicals factory run by Union Carbide, a multinational company. The legal battle for compensation dragged on for years in Indian and US courts, and the final settlement was not a generous one, and was further bogged down in bureaucratic delays due to difficulties of identifying the sufferers. |
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