New York City – It was his narrative of 1984 on display at a Manhattan art gallery last month. Vishavjit Singh, creator of Sikhtoons, commemorated the 25th anniversary of the anti-Sikh pogrom with 21 new cartoons that are a raw, courageous, no-holds-barred look at the players, politics and impunity of the Delhi carnage.
Click here to watch video about exhibit.

In the seven years that he has been cartooning the frustrations and aspirations of the Sikhs, Vishavjit has created more on the topic of November 1984. Because, he said, he lived through it. “I saw the pogroms first-hand.”

The exhibit, ‘When a Big Tree Falls,’ is named after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s statement at Delhi’s Boat Club on Nov. 19, 1984, justifying the killings of thousands of men, women and children as a natural reaction to the death of his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: “…We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken. But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little.”

The people, the media, the institutions… From top to bottom, they all had a hand in it, Vishavjit said. “I wanted to tell the continuing saga of 1984, from Oct. 31, 1984, to today.”

It’s been a year in the making. He approached many galleries, one responded: New Century Artists.

Vishavjit Singh stands by his 'When a Big Tree Falls' cartoons exhibit, depicting the players, politics and impunity of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. Photo: Sikh News Network.

About 500 people visited the Sikhtoons exhibit at the New Century Artists gallery in the Chelsea arts district of Manhattan. Photo: Sikh News Network.

Vishavjit Singh financed his first exhibit. He is hoping that sangats in other cities would host the exhibit in their cities. They would have to raise about $5,000 to meet expenses. Photo: Sikh News Network.

The non-profit gallery caters to underrepresented communities and is among 15 galleries housed in a building located in Chelsea. Known as the arts district, with a total of about 400 galleries, Chelsea spans 10-by-15 blocks of Manhattan, not far from the Empire State Building.

The 16x20 prints lined three walls of a large room on the fifth floor. The first two cartoons briefly introduced Sikhism and set the stage for the 21 on 1984, in chronological order.

Nearly 500 people, Sikhs and other Americans, visited the exhibit during its two-week run from Nov. 17 to Nov. 28. Many of the non-Sikhs came to see an adjacent exhibit and strolled through Vishavjit’s section. Most said they knew about Gandhi’s assassination, but did not know about the pogrom that followed, he said. They were thankful for the educational experience.

Vishavjit was born in Washington where his father worked for the Indian government. He and his family moved back to India in 1975, when he was 4. There he experienced his first life-changing event. He was 13 and in Delhi.

It was the morning of Oct. 31, 1984. Sitting in a classroom, listening to a cricket match between India and Pakistan on a transistor radio that he had snuck in, he was stunned when the match was suddenly cancelled. Gandhi had been assassinated, the announcement came.

He was attending a Sikh school run by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. Dismissed early, rumors began spreading as students boarded the buses that Gandhi had been shot by her Sikh bodyguards.

It was evening. Relieved that their father was home, Vishavjit , his brother Harpreet, 17, and their mother watched the single-channeled television, their only link to the outside world. The news focused on the assassination and on Gandhi’s son, Rajiv, being sworn in as prime minister.

It was the morning of Nov. 1, 1984. The curtains were shut in their government-owned apartment. Looking outside from the cracks, they saw some police officers, nothing unusual. The news focused on plans for the grand funeral.

It was afternoon. They saw from the cracks a stream of hundreds of men walking by, holding metal rods and wooden bars. And the same police officers were moving them along in an orderly line.

Later, those same men were walking back with sacks and containers of food. They seemed harmless, so the boys and their father went out onto their second-floor balcony to take a look. Big mistake. Someone spotted them and began hurling insults. Within minutes an angry mob gathered, calling for them to be brought down.

“We thought this is it,” Vishavjit remembers. As the family was locked in a bedroom, reciting Japji Sahib, the neighborhood kids dispersed the mob. They warned the men of the trouble they would get if they damaged government property.

It was night. Someone knocked on the door. A neighbor urged them to stay overnight in their apartment across the hallway. It was his kids who had talked down the mob. The family packed their suitcases.

It was the morning of Nov. 2, 1984. The family spent the rest of the day watching television.

“My most real memory is of Indira Gandhi’s body lying in state and people chanting “khoon ka badla khoon say layengay,” meaning, blood will be revenged by blood, Vishavjit said. The body was lying in state for two or three days, the imagery stoking the mobs. The prime minister, actor Amitabh Bachan and many other celebrities were there. “People were chanting slogans and nobody was stopping them,” he said.

Reports trickled in that men were being burned alive and women were being raped. From their neighbor’s kids, they learned that mobs were continuing to loot and kill Sikhs.

It was the morning of Nov. 5, 1984. People went about their lives. “It was weird to go out after the first few days,” Vishavjit said. When he and his family felt it was safe enough to venture outside, they heard that every Sikh-owned building was ransacked. The mobs came from nearby shantytowns and knew where Sikh-owned businesses were located. The local gurdwara was gutted and the bhai sahib roughed up. His school was somewhat gutted, the gym looted and parts set on fire.

Vishavjit’s first vision of the extent of the pogroms came from the cover of a magazine, Surya. It showed photos of a burned body and another of two or three lumps that were burned beyond recognition.

“This was gruesome,” he remembers. But before he could buy one, the magazines were pulled off the shelves.

“To get a magazine issue off the shelf at that time meant the (government) wanted to control the narrative in its entirety, of which they have done a great job,” he said.

His parents considered moving back to Punjab, but things got better. They voted for the first time in their lives, against the Congress Party. But in the special election in December, Congress saw the biggest landslide victory in India’s history.

Life went on. Vishavjit finished high school. His family moved back to the United States in 1989. 1984 was a forgotten memory. There were no reminders in the West. He left Sikhi.

But slowly, with his brother’s influence of indulging in kirtan, he began listening to shabads more and more. Then, nearly 10 years later, he again put on a dastaar.

It was just before 9/11, his second life-changing event.

Vishavjit had always loved doodling. But, like all Indian kids, he was told to leave the arts and focus on science. The 9/11 tragedies revived his passion for sketching, but this time with a purpose.

The images of people burned on 9/11 reminded him of how it happened in 1984. Feeding off online news reports and "armed" with his forefinger and touch pad, he created a few cartoons for the now-defunct sikhe.com. A year later, he had his own Web site, sikhtoons.com. Today, many Sikh blogs and online newspapers publish his cartoons.

Among the hundreds of cartoons Vishavjit has created, he has about 65 on 1984. The Manhattan exhibit was the icing on the cake. His Dad and brother came from California to attend the special reception at the gallery on Nov. 19.

“I wanted to have the exhibit in the arts hub, in the city of 9/11,” he said. Being in New York City, people have the perspective to learn about 1984 and identify with it.

“They can see that you have terrorist crimes in recent past,” he added. It was a terrorist plot done to inflict terror in Sikhs’ hearts. “It inflicted that much terror that Sikhs do not have the courage to commemorate 1984.”

Note: By Anju Kaur
Sikh News Network staff journalist
anjukaur@sikhnn.com
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