Manmohan Singh apologises in Parliament for 1984

Who: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Congress-led government; the Opposition and the Left parties; Jagdish Tytler, a Union Minister, and Sajjan Kumar, a Congress MP, both of whom the Nanavati Commission's report spoke of in terms of probable involvement; and Sikh bodies such as the SGPC.

What: The Nanavati Commission's report on the November 1984 pogrom, in which The Tribune says 4,000 people were killed, reached Parliament in August 2005 with a government Action Taken Report that the Congress itself came to see as too legalistic. The Opposition attacked it, and the Left made a probe into Tytler and Sajjan Kumar a condition of its support. Tytler held out for two days, then resigned on 10 August. That day the Lok Sabha rejected an Opposition adjournment motion on the report by 254 votes to 128.

On 11 August, in the Rajya Sabha, Singh said he had no hesitation in apologising to the Sikh community, on behalf of his government and the entire people of the country. "I bow my head in shame," he said. He called the events of 1984 a negation of the idea of nationhood in the Constitution. He said the commission had reached no conclusive findings on individuals, only conclusions in the realm of probabilities, and promised that cases, including those against policemen, would be reopened where the law allowed, for anyone about whom the report drew adverse inferences. He promised help for widows, children and affected families. He also said there was no evidence that Rajiv Gandhi or other senior Congress leaders were involved.

Where: Parliament, New Delhi.

Why it mattered: Sikh reaction was mixed. SGPC member Harinder Singh Delhi pressed instead for an apology from Sonia Gandhi, jobs for the dependents of the dead and prosecution of those responsible. SGPC general secretary Sukhdev Singh Bhaur, who said he had been misquoted as welcoming the apology, argued that it put a formal stamp on Congress responsibility, and that the resignations of Tytler and Sajjan Kumar alone would not heal the community's hurt.

The apology came 21 years after the pogrom and did not by itself bring convictions. On 30 April 2013 a Delhi court at Karkardooma acquitted Sajjan Kumar in one 1984 case, the Raj Nagar case, according to The Tribune's report of 1 May 2013. The Delhi High Court convicted him only in December 2018, more than 13 years after the apology, as Al Jazeera reported.