A number can also tell a story. Yes. A number. A digit. It is immaterial whether the story makes you feel sad or it brings a smile on your lips. But a number can be associated with some names, places, details, and many other things. And those elements are enough to build a story.

I am going to share with you the story of a number that is permanently etched on my memory. But I am sure it won't make you happy. Knowing that, I still would like to share it with you. It's not that I want to make you feel sad. All I want is to make you think, so that you get offended and angry. Why? I will tell you later. First let me tell you the story. And by the way, it's a story based on real events and not fiction. 

The number that is on my mind is four. Yes. Number "4"; that reminds me of a series of numbers that continue to haunt me.

The very first combination of digits that remind me of number 4 is 1984. How? Very simple. Add them all. 1+9+8+4. That makes it 10+12 = 22. Now add 2 and 2 and you will get 4. Therefore, I associate "4" with 1984, an unforgettable year.

I was 14 at that time. We lived in Amritsar, the holiest city of the Sikhs. The most sacred shrine of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple complex, is in that city. The temple had come under military invasion that year in the month of June. The then Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi, had sent army to the temple to flush out a handful of militants who had turned it into a fortress.

They were angry with the government that was not listening to the demands of the Sikhs, who were fighting against discrimination and seeking some rights and privileges. The Hindus felt threatened by the militants who were carrying out an armed insurgency from inside the shrine.

While Hindus make up 80 percent of the Indian population, they are only 40 percent in the northwestern state of Punjab, where Sikhs are in the majority. Sikhs make up only about two percent of the national population. These numbers too explain a lot, but I need to focus on number 4.

Political killings and the mass murders of Hindus resulted in the army invasion on the temple, leaving many devotees dead and the buildings inside the complex destroyed. Sikhs were outraged and there were angry protests across the world.

Assassination triggered wholesale massacre

Sikhs felt that the attack was avoidable and was planned to please the Hindu majority across the country to win the forthcoming national elections.

After the siege was lifted and people were given access to the Golden Temple, our family visited the place. The image of destruction inside shook me completely. Since I was born and raised in a Sikh family, as a teenager I could not control my emotions after seeing bullet marks everywhere in front of me. 

In October that year, the news came that Indira Gandhi has been murdered by her Sikh bodyguards who were seeking revenge for the invasion. But the story did not end there.

Following her murder, Sikhs outside Punjab came under organized attacks by mobs led by members of her Congress Party. We were always told that the Congress is a secular party that believes in equality and denounces religious fanaticism. But now, everything seemed to have gone wrong.

Sikh men were being burned alive and Sikh women were being raped by goons incited by Congress men. An entire community was being taught a lesson for the murder of Indira Gandhi by just two Sikh men.

We were worried about our relatives outside Punjab. Fortunately, nothing untoward happened to them, but they had to live through fear. They survived mainly because of their Hindu neighbours, who not only ensured their safety but also because they stayed indoors during the violence.

Why was the government doing this to its own citizens? First it invaded their place of worship and now it was targeting ordinary Sikhs everywhere?

The mystery was over soon. It was election time and Indira's son, Rajiv Gandhi, was elected to power with a brute majority. His slogan for "national unity" in the wake of his mother's death paid him the dividends.

The invasion of the Golden Temple was justified in the name of national unity. The Sikh militants were accused of getting support from foreign powers, which the government claimed were bent upon dividing India.

Indira Gandhi's assassination was also seen by her supporters as a terrorist act committed as part of an international conspiracy. No evidence was needed to prove that.

Sikhs were targeted to win the election that followed these horrible events.

Bhopal tragedy followed pogrom

Before we move further I want to quickly add here that 1984 was also very painful for the people of Bhopal. In December that year, following large-scale repression of Sikhs a month earlier, one of the biggest industrial disasters struck the city. Gas leakage at the Union Carbide plant killed many people and left many blinded and the drinking water contaminated.

The U.S.-born CEO of the company, Warren Anderson, was allowed to leave the country. Slowly, it became visible to everyone that the plant was constructed in the wrong place despite warnings of a possible accident in future. This could only have happened in exchange of favours given by the owners of the plant to the corrupt leaders of the Congress, who ruled both in Delhi and in Madhya Pradesh, the state where Bhopal is located.

Obviously, Anderson was given a safe exit as part of a cover-up. A similar cover-up was used to hide the complicity of the government in the massacre of Sikhs. Both the poor slum dwellers who lost their lives in Bhopal and the Sikhs who were systematically murdered became numbers that remain irrelevant for the privileged society and the ruling classes of India whose constitution guarantees social and economic equality.

In his first public reaction to the criticism of violence against Sikhs, Rajiv Gandhi remarked, “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.”

This statement from the the new prime minister was a part of the cover-up. Gandhi tried to make everyone believe that it was a reaction of people over the death of their beloved leader. Clearly, he did not want to acknowledge the complicity of the state's machinery in the massacre.

Fanatic still admired for killing Mahatma Gandhi

His big lie could not cover-up another historic reality.

The year 1948 again reminds me of number 4. Back then, a much bigger tree fell, but the earth did not shake at all.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Marathi Hindu extremist. That particular Gandhi, like it or not, was much more respected than Indira and Rajiv. Yet, Marathi Hindus did not become target of such madness.

For that matter, when Rajiv Gandhi was killed by Tamil separatists in 1991, Tamil Hindus were not punished by the mobs belonging to his Congress party.

Both the Sikhs and the sufferers of Bhopal tragedy continue to await justice. No senior Congress leader has been convicted until now except a former member of Parliament, Sajjan Kumar, and that, too 34 years, later.

Anderson also remained unpunished up until his death in 2014.

Gujarat followed a similar playbook

The precedent of dividing people, letting big shots involved in deaths of civilians go scot-free, and allowing impunity for crimes was already set by the year 2002. You read it right; 2002 that also equals 4.

I had moved to Canada by then. The current Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, was the chief minister of Gujarat back in that time.

In 2002, the state that was the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi—who was opposed to Hindu theocracy and was murdered for this reason—went up into flames. Muslims became the target of violence by supporters of Modi’s Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that believes in a Hindu theocracy.

Not surprisingly, some of its hawkish leaders consider Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, as their hero. The BJP happens to be the political wing of the ultra-Hindu supremacist group Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) that was banned after Mahatma Gandhi’s death. Godse was an RSS man.

In 2002, the 1984 technique that was applied on the Sikhs to avenge the assassination of the then prime minister was repeated to terrorize Muslims.

The massacre followed the burning of a train bringing Hindu pilgrims from the disputed site of Ayodhya. Hindus believe that city is the birthplace of their revered god, Lord Rama.

BJP supporters claim that the original temple built there was demolished long ago by Babur—a Muslim emperor—to build a mosque. The BJP has always desired to build a grand Ram temple at the exact location.

In 1992, the party's supporters gathered there and razed the Babri mosque. Since then, the place remains a point of conflict.

In February 2002, some Hindu pilgrims were returning to Gujarat from Ayodhya after performing prayers at a makeshift Rama temple. Some BJP supporters harassed Muslim passengers and vendors at railway stations along the route.

Under these circumstances, a compartment of the Sabarmati Express caught fire on February 27, 2002, leaving over 50 passengers dead. Though one commission of inquiry found that it was an accident, the Modi government blamed Muslim extremists allegedly supported by Pakistan.

Hell broke out on Muslims throughout Gujarat after the mobs were given a free hand to kill and loot with the help of police.

In the aftermath of the massacre, Modi won the assembly election for the BJP in with a huge mandate. This came after he campaigned on the plank of the threat to national security from Pakistan-based terrorists.

Much like Rajiv Gandhi, he also tried to rationalize the bloodshed and violence by saying that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In a way, he was using a similar argument with some variation to cover up the complicity of the state in crimes against humanity.

More mass killings came in 2020

The events of 2002 were the culmination of the politics of hate, which had started much earlier. Down the road I won’t be surprised to come across more such connections.  

By the way, in February 2020 (2+2=4), more than 50 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in state-sponsored violence in New Delhi. This came in response to opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act, which discriminates against Muslim refugees coming to India from neighbouring countries.

I have not shared these details to promote numerology or to suggest that number four is unlucky. This is just my story. Because I associate the number with these gory incidents it does not mean that number four should be considered ominous by all.

You may have some sweet memories associated with the number four. Likewise, for others some other numbers might bring worse memories than the ones I shared.

For the oppressed groups in India—like the Dalits (or so-called untouchables), LGBT+ people, Indigenous peoples, women, and those with disabilities—every day is an ugly reminder of structural violence and injustice. Especially, Dalits continue to be suppressed under a brutal caste system practised by orthodox Hindus.

Here again, the number 4 has its footprints. Hindus are divided in four caste groups, where the lowest on the ladder and those outside are treated inhumanly by those on the top. It is for this reason that Dalits are forced to adopt other religions, such as Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and Sikhism.

This also explains why right-wing Hindus see these religious groups as enemies or a direct challenge to their supremacy. For Dalits, my version of number four or the events related to the years, 1948, 1984 or 2002 might not mean anything. From their perspective, much worse incidents might have occurred between 1948 and 2002 and continue even now.

This is not to suggest either that the incidents I have listed were the only tragedies that happened during those years. The story I have shared is more to do with keeping our memories alive, however painful they might be, because those in power want us to forget. They want to erase these memories to deny us justice.

For me, number four is not just a reminder of ominous political events but also a key to keep our memory alive to hold people in power accountable.