Homw Minister Rajnath Singh had publicly
pronounced the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as a ‘genocide’ at a function on December 26, 2014 to distribute cheques of compensation in Tilak Vihar, where many of the victims of the massacres continue to reside.
While the Indian government attacked the resolution for being “misguided”, Malhi and other legislators speaking in favour of the resolution repeatedly quoted the Indian home minister’s description of the 1984 riots as ‘genocide’.
“This motion is one of both not forgetting but honouring, and also of recognising and naming 1984 as a genocide. India’s interior minister, Rajnath Singh, in December 2014, described the events of 1984 and acknowledged them as a genocide, but several persons who had a role in the carnage are not yet punished,”
said Malhi in her presentation for the motion.
Thereafter, Todd Smith, a member of the centre-right Progressive Conservatives party also brought up the home minster in his speech. “As to whether the events of 1984 are genocide, I believe India’s current home minister, Rajnath Singh – and I know the member from Brampton-Springdale (Malhi) quoted him earlier – said it better than I could hope to: “It was not riot; it was genocide instead. Hundreds of innocent people were killed. The pain of the kin of riot victims cannot be compensated by even paying crores of rupees,” Smith noted on the floor of the Ontario parliament on Thursday.
Similarly, speaking in favour of the motion, Vic Dhillon, a Liberal MPP (member of provincial parliament) also mentioned Rajnath Singh in his remarks, describing him as “one of the most senior cabinet ministers in India”. Pointing to the 2014 remarks by Singh, Dhillon stated, “That is a very, very powerful statement, coming from a person of his stature”.
