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: