In August 1947, as many celebrated the end of more than 350 years of the British Raj – 10 million people were displaced from their homes. The British architect of partition drew lines between Punjab and Bengal. 70% of all displacement took place in Punjab. More than five million Muslims in India left their homes to enter Pakistan. More than four million (predominantly) Hindus and Sikhs similarly left Pakistan to enter India. For Punjab alone, the loss of life is estimated somewhere between 500,000-800,000 people. My four grandparents were among those forced to leave their homes in what became Pakistan overnight. On 14 August 2014, Pakistan marks 67 years of Independence and the following day (15 August 2014), India follows.
There are two reasons that Independence is not celebrated in my grandparents’ home. One is the memory and experience of Partition. The other is the memory and experience of June 1984.
This June marked the 30th anniversary of “Operation Blue Star”; a military attack at the Sikh holy temple, Harmandir Sahib (the Golden Temple) in Amritsar, Punjab. Indian cinema marked the anniversary with the release of the film ‘Punjab 1984’. The film opens with police framing their arbitrary killing of the protagonist’s father as legitimate in the context of fighting terrorism. It ends with the victims of police brutality holding pictures of lost family members. Sandwiched in-between is the fictional story of a proud, young, Sikh terrorist on the rampage, training for suicide bombings in Pakistan and attempting to implement them in India. The movie was directed by Anurag Singh who claimed that his movie was “not-political”.[i] This insistence on the apolitical is bizarre. The previous Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh (who governed from 2004 – 2014) similarly asserted his lack of interest in Punjabi politics, which was interpreted as denoting his lack of interest in seeking accountability for human rights abuses in Punjab. The Indian state has successfully won a war to suppress the culture of resistance that previously emanated from Punjab.
In the summer of 1984, many Sikhs gathered at the Golden Temple to mark the martyrdom of a Sikh teacher and leader (Guru Arjan Dev Ji). At the time, Punjabi state politics were in flux. The Green Revolution had introduced high yielding wheat to Punjab, and eventually GM crops. However, farmers were not reaping the rewards of increased production. In fact, the central government (led by Indira Gandhi of the Congress party) toyed with state boundaries reducing the amount of irrigation and therefore sustainable water resources available in Punjab. Punjab means ‘the land of five rivers’. The violent partition of British India in 1947 carved-out much of historic Punjab in order to create Pakistan. Three rivers, and most of the industrialized areas of Punjab, became part of Pakistan overnight in August 1947. The repercussions of partition continued to be felt in the 1980s. In 1982, peaceful protests were held. Thousands of individuals (men and women) were arrested for their participation.
Under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (the only child of the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru):
– protestors and union and other work-place organizers were imprisoned (anywhere from “a few thousand [to] fifty thousand”[ii]);
– freedom of the press curtailed and opposition parties banned;
– slums were demolished without warning; and
– forced sterilization of “lower-caste” people in slums was enforced.
Many Punjabi’s in India saw the Congress government as simply implementing a form of internal-colonization from New Delhi, the capital of India.
The charasmatic Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale leader of the Damdami Taksal (a Sikh religious group) and political revolutionary illustrated the complex trends of the Punjabi movement of the time:
If hard-earned income of the people, or the natural resources of any nation or region are forcibly plundered; the goods produced by them are paid at arbitrarily determined prices while the goods bought by them are sold at high prices and in order to carry this process of economic exploitation to a logical conclusion, the human rights of the people or of a nation are crushed, then those are the indices of slavery of that nation or region or people. Today the Sikhs are shackled by the chains of slavery. This type of slavery thrust upon the states and 80% of India’s population of poor people and minorities [Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Dalits etc.]. To smash these chains of slavery, Sikhs, on a large scale, by resorting to reasoning and by using force and by carrying along with them these 80% of India have to defeat the communal Brahma-Bania combine that controls the Delhi durbar. [iii]
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale worked with other mainstream political parties towards the Anandpur Declaration which made demands based on the Sikh ideals of;
a) justice and egalitarianism (explicitly against the concentration of economic and political power);
b) dignity of work; and
c) spirituality and meditation.
The Anandpur Declaration was seen by some as calling for an independent Sikh country ‘Khalistan’, while others insisted that it was a document with concrete demands for reform, for example, in relation to water and irrigation, which would enable minorities to live with dignity alongside the Hindi majority of India.
In failing to meet even the most basic of demands, many in Punjab became increasingly radicalised. Operation Blue Star was the Indian military’s response to this radicalization. In February 2014, released British documents revealed that Prime Minister Thatcher’s British government advised the Indian government on the operation.[iv] Operation Blue Star saw the Indian military raid into the Sikh sacred site, The Golden Temple, with tanks, artillery, helicopters, armored vehicles, and other weapons.
The military killed at least 574 people, some put the number at 3,000. Historical artefacts were seized and the Sikh Museum containing many hand-written manuscripts of Sikh Gurus destroyed. Students and sites of student organizing were targeted. On 3 June 1984, the Indian government imposed a 36-hour curfew on the state of Punjab with all methods of communication and public travel suspended. Electricity supplies were also interrupted, creating a total blackout and cutting off the state from the rest of India and the world. Complete censorship was enforced on news media. Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards retaliated by assassinating her on 31 October 1984. Riots ensued. Sikh families – as far as in New Delhi, Kanpur (1000+ km away) and other cities – hid in the basement of Hindu friends’ homes.
Joyce Pettigrew, an anthropologist, states that the real purpose of the invasion at the Golden Temple was “not to eliminate a political figure or a political movement but to suppress the culture of a people, to attack their heart, to strike a blow at their spirit and self-confidence.” Sikhs have historically fought for freedom, under the Moghul Empire; during the two World Wars; and were key resistors to the British Raj in India. It is this culture of resistance that the central government of India was perhaps seeking to attack.
This week, Daman Singh (daughter of India’s former prime minister, Manmohan Singh) disclosed that her father’s home in New Delhi had been attacked during the 1984 riots. This led Mr Phoolka to question Manmohan Singh’s silence over the years. Mr Phoolka represents a number of the claimants in a host of 1984-riots-related cases at the Supreme Court of India and is a member of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In Manmohan Singh’s community, mobs (most likely supported by Indian state officials) killed seven Sikhs, burnt four Sikh temples (gurdwaras) and seven shops as well as numerous vehicles and Sikh-owned factories.[v]
Operation Blue Star was followed by a brutal counter-insurgency campaign to suppress a movement calling for social change within India, demanding; rights for oppressed minorities (including those of the lower or scheduled castes); recognition of the distinctive cultural, linguistic and religious identity of Sikhs; equal rights under the law for women; a fairer distribution of wealth to reduce or eliminate poverty; fair state demarcations; irrigation; industrialization; increased democracy and state autonomy for Punjab; and guarantees of constitutional rights including the equality of citizens regardless of caste, religion or gender.[vi] The counter-insurgency (‘Operation Woodrose’) to this movement was characterized by the labeling of sympathizers, supporters, organizers, unionists and militants of this movement as ‘terrorists’ agitating for an independent nation ‘Khalistan’. This labeling enabled the Indian government to justify systematic and widespread human rights abuses, including torture, extrajudicial executions, and “disappearances.” Between 1984 and 1995 Indian security forces tortured, killed or forcibly disappeared thousands (6,000 – 40,000) of Sikhs. [vii]
Torture and disappearances were encouraged by a State system that rewarded officers for killing alleged militants. [viii] To reap rewards, police falsely reported extrajudicial executions, custodial deaths and “disappearances” as “encounters” or “escapes” from custody the vast majority of which began with illegal detention and torture.[ix] In 1995, human righs activist Jaswant Singh Khalra discovered government municipal cremation records revealing that over 6,000 secret cremations had taken place in three crematoria in Amritsar, Punjab. After he made these records public, members of the Punjab Police abducted, illegally detainedand tortured Mr.Khalra, killing him in October 1995.[x]
In spite of limited investigations (by the Indian Central Bureau of Intelligence investigation — which found more than 2,000 mass cremations — and an Indian National Human Rights Commission investigation into human rights violations in Punjab) the full extent of human rights abuses associated with the “disappearances” in the northern Indian state of Punjab remains to be investigated. None of the key architects of this counter-insurgency strategy who bear substantial responsibility for the atrocities committed in Punjab have been brought to justice. Many seeking accountability have been labeled terrorists. [xi]
As the march of impunity continues – and an apolitical stance is taken by some of the makers of social imaginations – Howard Zinn’s (the people’s historian) famous quote comes to mind “you can’t be neutral on a moving train”. Sikhs wear a kirpan (small dagger) as a constant reminder to intervene wherever injustice manifests. Prominent Punjabi politicians are wealthy landowners, keen to mark important dates with religious ceremonies – while having forgotten one of the three key tenants of Sikhism: egalitarianism. At the same time, the Hindu-radicalization that fuelled riots against Sikhs in 1984 reveals its ugly head today – normalized perhaps with the BJP in power. This month, Muslims and Sikhs have been fighting in the state of Utter Pradesh. More specifically in Sharanpur where Sikhs employ a number of the impoverished Muslim community.[xii]
The issues that the Punjab movement of the 1980s was seeking to redress remain alive today. The impact of the Green Revolution has had profound economic and social impacts. The World Development Movement noted that the increasing use of pesticides has placed an increasing financial burden on Punjabi farmers. GM crops and chemicals deplete micronutrients in the soil, and farmers have begun to see reduced crop yields, resulting in lower incomes. Farmers are also faced with higher costs due to hybrid and GM seeds needing to be repurchased every year. Previously, with conventional seeds they were able to save seeds and reuse them the following harvest. These factors place the farmer under financial strain, and since there are few legitimate finance lenders, many typically turn to loan sharks. Many who are unable to pay back their loan resort to suicide. Statistics from 2011 reveal that the rate of suicide for Punjabi farmers was 47% higher than the overall Indian population.[xiii] While important gains have been made, the situation in Punjab is very far removed from that which was envisaged in the Anandpur Declaration. Did the brutal Indian counter-insurgency of the late 1980s and early 1990s successfully annihilate the Punjabi culture of agitation and resistance?
[i] Punjab 1984 movie – Why do I have objections to it?, Parmjeet Singh (2 July 2014) http://sikhsiyasat.net/2014/07/02/punjab-1984-movie-why-do-i-have-objections-to-it/
[ii] A New History of India, Wolpert, Stanley, Oxford University Press,26 June 2008 pg. 399
[iii] Remembering the Massacre of Sikhs in June of 1984, Simran Jeet Singh and Gunisha Kaur, State of Formation (5 June 2013) http://www.stateofformation.org/2013/06/remembering-the-massacre-of-sikhs-in-june-of-1984/; Reinventing Revolution: New Social Movements and the Socialist Tradition in India (Socialism & Social Movements), 30 September 1993, Gail Omvedt (Author), pg. 182; M.E. Sharpe (Publisher); The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics: Ecological Degradation and Political Conflict, Vandana Shiva, Zed Books Ltd, 1 October 1991, see also Anandpur Sahib Resolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandpur_Resolution
[iv] British India’s Colonial Ghosts, Preeti Kaur (10 February 2014) https://znetwork.org/zblogs/british-indias-colonial-ghosts/
[v] 1984 attack on house: Why Manmohan kept quiet?, Hindustan Times, Indo-Asian News Service New Delhi, 11 August 2014http://www.hindustantimes.com/punjab/chandigarh/1984-attack-on-house-why-manmohan-kept-quiet/article1-1250633.aspx
[vi] Ensaaf and Human Rights Watch, Protecting the Killers: A Policy of Impunity in Punjab, India (NewYork: Human Rights Watch, 2007), pg. 13; R.N.Kumar, A.Singh, A.Aggrwal and J.Kaur, Reduced to Ashes: TheInsurgency and Human Rights in Punjab (Kathmandu: South Asia Forum for Human Rights, 2003); pgs.56, 58.
[vii] Ensaaf Publications (http://www.ensaaf.org/publications/); REDRESS and Ensaaf joint submission to India’s UN Universal Periodic Review (2009) http://www.redress.org/downloads/country-reports/India_Universal%20Periodic%20Review_Ensaaf_REDRESS.pdf; Human Rights Watch 2009 Press Release (http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/11/02/india-prosecute-those-responsible-1984-massacre-sikhs); Human Rights Watch 2007 Report (http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/10/17/protecting-killers-0)
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] Human Rights Watch 2007 Report (http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/10/17/protecting-killers-0); citing State(CBI) v. Ajit Singh Sandhu & Others, Additional Sessions Judge Bhupinder Singh, Patiala, SessionNo.49‐T of9.5.1998/30.11.2001, Judgment (November 18, 2005). The Supreme Court of India recently upheld the convictions of five police officers sentenced to life imprisonment for theabduction and murder of Jaswant Singh Khalra: Prithipal Singh Etc. v . State of Punjab & Anr. Etc, Criminal Appeals No.523‐527 of 2009, Judgment(November 4, 2011) (Crim.App.Juris.,Supreme Court of India).
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] The cost of India’s Green Revolution, World Development Movement, Amarjeet Kaur, 31 July 2013, http://www.wdm.org.uk/food-and-hunger/cost-india%E2%80%99s-green-revolution#sthash.uqW6jinG.dpuf
[xiii] All you want to know about the Saharanpur riots in Uttar Pradesh, Shikhar Jiwrajka 26 July 2014; http://www.india.com/loudspeaker/exclusive-all-you-want-to-know-about-the-saharanpur-mini-riot-in-uttar-pradesh-103219/
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