My recent piece in Tehelka on the four seats that AAP won from Punjab in the General Election 2014.
‘For a party that was contesting the Lok Sabha polls for the first time, Aam Aadmi Party has done quite well. The only regret is that it set its own target so high that it fell massively. In Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party’s tally is equal to that of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and one better than the Congress’. Yet, before we congratulate Aam Aadmi Party, we need to look at the context of this victory.’
Please read …
Tags: 2014 General Elections, Aam Aadmi Party, AAP, Faridkot, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, Punjab, Sangrur
On the thirtieth anniversary of Operation Blue Star my piece in IBNLive.in.com.
‘Democracies are based on a system of ‘social contract’ between citizens and a state. This social contract implies the citizens elect their government and expect the government to take care of their safety and well being. When a nation state attacks the sanctum sanctorum of its community, it hits the community’s centre of faith. Whatever is the intent, the message that goes out is: the state is against the religion. When Blue Star is backed by another Operation Woodrose in which hundreds of Gurdwaras in the state are raided and innocents captured and killed, the message becomes even louder. These events and the November pogrom brought about a change in the way the majority Sikhs, the moderates, now viewed the idea of Khalistan.’
Read full article here.
Tags: Operation Blue Star, Punjab
This is what happens when you have been roaming the Dargahs and tombs of Sirhind and get late keeping your appointment with dear friend and contemporary intellectual from Punjab Daljit Ami. By way of penalty, he calls you to the studio and forces a brief interview on you. My first in Punjabi. Interview by Jaideep.
Please see here …
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Khalistan, military school, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, Roll of Honour, schizophrenia, Sepia Leaves
An old friend from University called me today morning on my Bangalore number. I had activated the number only recently after five years. He told me that Roll of Honour is on The Hindu Prize 2013 Shortlist. I could not speak to him, I asked him to give me some time to recover. I put the phone down, broke down, checked the newspaper online, saw an email from Krithika at The Hindu informing me of the nomination and finally registered that it has happened. Roll of Honour is nominated along with another four books by the authors: Manu Joseph, Anees Salim, Manjul Bajaj, and Sonora Jha.
Thank you everybody. The friend who called, Bobby George, had quoted to me from the Talmud after Sepia Leaves was out, ‘A man is known by the tree he plants, the book he writes, and the family he raises.’ Thank you! See more here …
Tags: adolescence, fear, military school, Punjab, Roll of Honour, terrorism, The Hindu Award 2013
Rajmohan Gandhi’s Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten is the first book in 125 years to chronicle the undivided Punjab from Attock to Delhi. The region was seven times the size of the Punjab in India. Please read the full review here.
Tags: History, Punjab, Rajmohan Gandhi
My piece in Tehelka on how the path of ethics in Punjab is not merely some abstract but is directly linked to progress through inflow of capital. A policeman has confessed to having killed 83 people without trial. Will the government(s) have the will to pursue this and other accounts by policeman and victims and seek closure to the violence in Punjab? Please read here …
Tags: 1985 - 1995, Akali Dal, Canada, Decade of Disappearance, Khalistan, Khalra, murders, Police, Punjab, Sukhbir Badal
Friends, it is September 2013. Roll of Honour completes one year with us. In this year we collected over fifty reviews and interviews on Roll of Honour and some more on Sepia Leaves. Thank you so much for your love and support. I feel humbled and honoured. Please read all the pieces in the right panel under ‘Roll of Honour’.
This week Dr Charanjeet Kaur from the esteemed literary journal Muse India interviewed me on both my books and the writing life. Thank you Dr Kaur. Please read here …
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Khalistan, military school, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, Roll of Honour, schizophrenia, Sepia Leaves
My piece in Tehelka on the controversy around the movie Sadda Haq and the ban on it by the Punjab government. Please read …
Tags: police atrocities, Punjab, Sadda Haq
It is an honour to get such a glowing review in The Book Review. Thank you Nishat.
‘As the writer grapples with emotions of anger, fear, pain, suffering, confusion, chaos, resistance and endurance, the novel moves from poignant to contrived, disturbing to formulaic, profound to crude, literary to raw, lyrical to macabre and real to phoney. In short it leaves the reader as enraged, confused and silenced as its narrator is, opening up, in turn, several interpretive possibilities. … he narrates his personal experience of a political event, without pontificating or taking sides. It is through his unsullied account of what he witnessed and endured that the writer seeks to remember his dismembered self. Writing, in this sense, is also a survival strategy for the writer …This safe haven is also the space where the ‘performative’ reality of the nation is preserved, unadulterated by ideological hues, a space which the readers like birds must turn to, to find a trace of their history and hence a space that allows the literary writer a serendipitous entry into the social, historical and political debates.’
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Khalistan, military school, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, riots, Roll of Honour
Daman is a friend and a fellow writer but I did not know she was reviewing Roll of Honour in Asian Age.
‘Roll of Honour is an important work for it sets out to explore dark spaces in time and place and forbidden recesses of the mind. … Written as a fictionalised memoir, Roll of Honour is completely credible. While it may not answer all the questions that it raises, it certainly forces the reader to face them. These questions are both personal and political. Amandeep Sandhu has a remarkable command over the art of personal narrative. He writes with startling honesty and with searing intensity.’
Please read
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Khalistan, military school, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, riots, Roll of Honour