By Gurpreet Singh

The Punjabi version of a book about the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom was released to sombre celebration in Surrey this week.

When a Tree Shook Delhi

is the first person account of H.S. Phoolka, a new Delhi-based lawyer who represents the victims of the carnage that followed the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards.

Phoolka has co-authored the book with the help of senior Times of India journalist Manoj Mitta.

Indira was assassinated for sending troops into the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, to flush out extremists who had stockpiled weapons.

In retaliation, thousands of Sikhs were murdered in Delhi and other parts of India by goons supported by Indira’s Congress party.

The title of the book attacks a statement by Rajeev Gandhi, the late son of Indira who succeeded her as the next Prime Minster.

Rajeev Gandhi had justified the mass murders of the Sikhs by describing them as the fallout of a big falling tree.

"The carnage was not a reaction, but a well planned genocide," argues author Phoolka.

His book, released in India last year in English, is translated in Punjabi by Balkar Singh Bajwa and was released by the Punjabi Press Club Monday.

In it, Phoolka claims that the current Indian Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath was also involved in the violence against the Sikhs, along with Indian MPs Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar.

Phoolka came to Metro Vancouver in connection with the events that were organized in the memory of the victims of the 1984 violence.

Though his trip was sponsored by the Dashmesh Durbar Sikh Temple in Surrey, he later decided to pay his airfare from his own pocket to avoid any controversy.

The management of the temple supports Khalistan, a separate homeland for the Sikhs, something Phoolka doesn’t endorse.

"I don’t want my enemies to damage my cause by labeling me a separatist," he said.