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.
The anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 is often invoked in political discourse but I did not know enough about all the literature that is available on the subject. So, I took my editor’s prompt as a trigger to research the documentation. Here are my findings. I am disappointed by how Punjabi did not really fully respond to the events and am impressed by how Hindi, English, even Assamese, Malayalam and Tamil have responded. Writing this article helped me create my own list, I do hope it serves as a map for your readings.
PS: My thanks to Rajesh Sharma, Daljit Ami, Surjit Singh, Nirupama Dutt, Chaman Lal, Deepinder Kaur, Abhirami Sriram, Kumar Anupam for immense help with information and guidance with this article. I am sorry I could not include everything but I am enriched by your support.
Please read.
Friends, acknowledging my work as a technical writer, a technology magazine was the first to interview me when ‘Roll of Honour’ was released last year. Techgoss.com, came back again now to check how I feel upon being nominated. The quote is linked to the earlier interview. Thank you Suneetha Balakrishnan.
‘Roll of Honour evokes the agony of not being able to resolve the dilemma of who is the self and what is the self’s identity. Yet, it acknowledges, that a space larger than the narrow partisan interest of a community is available and must be acknowledged. For that we have to move beyond the pain. We must learn to heed to the wounds. The nomination does that for me: it heals me, both personally and as a writer. I feel I have been heard.’
See full quote and link to an earlier interview here …
The hope that the book evokes is that the next generation will acknowledge the previous generation’s culpability in the violence and will work to bridge hearts. The book moves and even upsets the reader but that is needed if we have to work towards a society that chooses not to bury its ugly past. As a fight for justice, if victims, arguments, and evidences are the three basis on which the law acts, then the book does a fine job of expanding the canvas of the narration of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. My hope is that the possibility of justice evoked in fiction comes true in reality.
My interview with Canadian Indian author Jaspreet Singh on the publication of his new novel Helium on the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom from the point of view of a son of a senior police officer who facilitated the communal violence.
‘Helium is informed by survivor and relief worker testimonials and is based on oral histories and private archives. The hybrid form allowed me to pose questions like: ‘What happened?’ and ‘What could have happened?’ It also allowed me to create distance. Despite all this it was not easy to write. I often tried to abandon the project.’
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.
A few weeks back I found many of my Sikh friends abroad protesting against the would be hanging of Balwant Singh Rajoana. Then the media was full of news. His sentence was deferred and the media went silent on the issue. I traveled to Balwant Singh’s village to learn about the man. The article in two parts: