On November 19, 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi made the statement that “when a big tree falls, the earth shakes”, it was first time that the prime minister was addressing the nation after the massacre. But instead of condemning the massacre and assuring those affected that the guilty would be punished, he simply made a statement which justified the macabre chapter.
The Wire explains the 1984 Sikh massacre and how the failure to deliver justice and punish the guilty paved the way for the killings of Gujarat in 2002.