Shamsul Islam

Shamsul Islam is an Indian author, retired political science teacher at the University of Delhi and street-theatre director, best known for writing against the RSS and Hindutva. In this record he matters for one argument: that the November 1984 killings of Sikhs in Delhi were not the work of the Congress alone. He is a living public figure. The argument below is his, and it is disputed by those he writes against.

Wikipedia says he taught political science at the University of Delhi from 1973 to 2013, and Mainstream describes him as a former associate professor at Satyawati College. He founded the street-theatre group Nishant, and his books include Know the RSS, Hindutva and Fascism and Religious Dimensions of Indian Nationalism: A Study of RSS.

His case on 1984

• In "Genocide 1984: Long Search For Culprits" (10 April 2009) he accepts the common belief that Congress cadres were behind the killings, but argues that other forces took part and that their role has never been investigated. He asks the Nanavati Commission to examine whether what George Fernandes's weekly headlined "Indira Congress-RSS collusion" went beyond politics into the killing fields.
• His main evidence is a document, "Moments of Soul Searching", which he says Nana Deshmukh, a veteran RSS ideologue, circulated on 8 November 1984. He says it justified the killings as an expression of Hindu anger, blamed Sikhs collectively, praised Rajiv Gandhi, and asked for no remedial action while the killings continued. He says it was printed in the Hindi weekly Pratipaksh, edited by George Fernandes, on 25 November 1984 under the headline "Indira Congress-RSS collusion".
• In Mainstream (2 December 2018) he argues that the state, the courts and the main parties have failed to punish those responsible, that the Marwah Commission was wound up when it became inconvenient, that Justice Ranganath Misra's 1987 inquiry blamed unnamed "gangsters", and that at least nine commissions followed. He says the RSS and BJP have shown no more will to prosecute than the Congress, and cites the lawyer H. S. Phoolka on how political perpetrators rise instead of being convicted.

Reception: Wikipedia records that an Indore venue cancelled one of his events citing a government order, and that in 2023 the ABVP protested his lecture at Mangalore University, calling him "anti-Hindu".

Remembered for: keeping the question of who beyond the Congress took part in 1984 in public view, and for the Deshmukh document as the centre of his case.