Review: Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab Conflict

Pervasive and escalating sociopolitical problems widen divides between communities and sometimes push one to stand against the mighty State. In such contexts, the focus of the public and even academia is limited to two questions: could any solutions be found for the sociopolitical problems, and what means did the community adopt to go against the State. More often than not, a community is labelled terrorist and anti national when it goes against the mainstream and the State. What happens to the community’s sense of belonging, self-confidence and well being never becomes a talking point in these large strokes of any pervasive historical narrative. This is where Mallika Kaur’s book, Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper has very poignantly presented the Sikh community’s experience of collective trauma through the stories of its three Human Rights Defenders (HRDs).

Divided into 10 chapters, this book primarily focuses on the lives of Justice Ajit Singh Bains, Bibi Baljit Kaur and Sardar Inderjit Singh Jaijee. The author takes us through the lives of the three HRDs interspersed with two historical timelines — 1839 to 1984 and 1995 to 1984 — culminating at chaurasi. While reminding the readers about the crucial historical narrative of the Sikh community today, the author attempts to preserve the thrill of literary work. Her efforts to trace the multi-generational family history of the three HRDs to narrate the historic events through which the Sikh community has traversed are commendable. All the narratives and incidents recalled by the HRDs as well as by other informants, including survivors of the conflict in Punjab, are supported by the author’s scholarly analysis and by historical records thus making an important addition to the methodology of research through oral histories.

Several individuals, whose stories have been documented in the book, recall their community and Punjab’s legacy as well as its struggles as a continuum over more than 100 years. This includes the wounds of pre-Independence times, the holocaust of 1947 resulting from India and Pakistan’s Partition, the struggles for language, water and land in the 1960s and ’70s, the attack on Darbar Sahib, Amritsar, in 1984 followed by the anti-Sikh pogrom in the same year, and the conflict with the Indian State that resulted in numerous disappearances, extra-judicial killings, and the torture, detention and deaths of civilians as well as militants until the 1990s. In the absence of accountability processes and transitional justice, the rationale behind this book recognises the unacknowledged and unresolved collective trauma that the people of Punjab have been living with over multiple generations. This is how the book goes beyond the “eroticism of violence and romanticism of resistance” — binaries that have obsessed previous narratives on Punjab. In doing so, the book confers the term “Human Rights Defenders” on those who did not think of themselves in that way while they were risking their lives in the 1980s and ’90s. The term Human Rights Defenders, which was adopted by the United Nations in 1998, recognises the need to protect those individuals and groups who strive to protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of others through peaceful legal means.

Justice Ajit Singh Bains, who died, aged 99, earlier this year, retired from the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 1984. The very next year, he presided over a committee to investigate and recommend the release of thousands of civilians who were arrested in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star in 1984. Bibi Baljit Kaur and Inderjeet Singh Jaijee left their jobs in Chandigarh and Delhi respectively to join the likes of Justice Bains in documenting and intervening in cases of police harassment, illegal arrests, enforced disappearances and encounter killings. They formed a human rights group, ensured a non-partisan stance to maintain the credibility of their work, and adapted strategies like discouraging young Sikh men — who were easy targets of the police – from joining their efforts in order to protect lives, including their own, in a Punjab where State impunity was at its height. The book takes readers through several incidents and contexts in which the HRDs worked and powerfully conveys the complexity, severity and trauma involved. It also extensively documents the life, human rights work and consequent killing of Jaswant Singh Khalra. Indeed, it would have been a travesty to narrate the human rights movement of Punjab without a tribute to Khalra.

Providing insights into the ideologies, views and values that steered the work of the HRDs, the author attempts to inspire hope through true stories. These include Justice Bains’s wife’s decision to not file for bail after his arrest and to wait for the false case to be quashed; Baljit Kaur’s efforts to visit international groups to learn how to document and report human rights abuses; Inderjeet Singh’s household practices to eliminate caste differences; Jaswant Singh Khalra’s decision not to opt for asylum despite threats to his life as he did not want to abandon affected families after having assur ed them of his support; Chaman Lal, who spent three decades of his life enduring police threats and traumatically slow judicial proceedings, insisting on his death bed that he wouldn’t die until he got justice for his son’s murder; and Ginnu’s parents’ refusal to accept an apology from Bidar school authorities and instead demanding a recognition of the injustice of the killings of the young boys by a mob in complicity with the police. These stories have the potential to instill hope and courage in readers.

While the three HRDs are the protagonists of the book, through her sensitive writing, the author recognises the efforts of several others including their colleagues and families, victims and survivors of violence, village residents who collectively intervened to prevent police excesses, and even the Panchayat leadership who resigned en masse as a public declaration against the death of democracy in Punjab.

In her preface, Mallika Kaur mentions that she has adopted the lens of human rights and feminism to look at the story of Punjab and its people. This is probably why she has been successful in building a narrative that goes beyond binaries. She drives home the point that, unlike what is portrayed in the mainstream media, Punjab in the 1980s and ’90s was not simply an issue of Sikh militancy or of terrorists vs the State. The conflict was larger and had its roots in various political, geographical, economical and religious issues. And in the middle of the conflict were various strands of militants — Jarnail Singh Bhindrawalan being one of them. There were also civilians, non-violent protestors, political groups, religious groups and human rights groups, who, for two long decades not only survived extreme violence but also functioned amidst it and dealt with rumours, misinformation, broken promises, opportunistic agendas and infiltrations. The author attempts to portray how Punjab resisted repression and demanded an equitable share in power and resources, and also how women asserted themselves in the face of the violence of patriarchal Punjabi society. Several subtle but important references are made to indicate gender dynamics and the cultural marginalisation of women.

When Kulbir Kaur narrates her wrenching experience of participating in the militant movement followed by her illegal and legal confinement by the State, the author, standing true to her criticism of binaries, pushes her on the tougher questions of violence by militants and the role and suffering of women. Here, the narrative is revealed in all its complexities and humanness. Elsewhere, the author does not shy away from mentioning instances of corruption within the community — how donation money collected at the Gurdwara was siphoned off by organisers.

The stories of torture in illegal detention camps and the extent of impunity which existed in those times can be triggering. The author’s family migrated from Punjab to the US in the 1980s. Through memories of her own life as well as of those who were victims or survived violence, she has tried to capture the atmosphere which prevailed in households and records several anecdotes to draw attention to the layers of trauma: How Punjabi grandparents remember August 15, 1947 as batwara and not azadi; how Punjabi women wouldn’t let their husbands open the door every time there was a knock; How, for many Sikh families, the violence orchestrated during Congress party rule in Punjab has left them with lifelong trauma that no longer allows them to view political parties through the lens of just governance and ideology.

The book makes space for individual survivors and for the community. By acknowledging that survivors may go through gas lighting, disassociation, and a loss of confidence in their own beliefs and experiences, the author has established an intimacy which may encourage the community to look towards ways of healing. The book’s recognition of pain, struggles, fears, silences and courage can provide a semblance of relief. It may also help readers understand the trauma which the Muslim community is experiencing today.

One pertinent limitation of the book, despite the author’s acknowledgment and a hesitant justification, is that the chosen protagonists all come from dominant caste and class backgrounds. The resources at their disposal allowed them to put in immense efforts. Additionally, the historical narrative of the Sikh “community” does not acknowledge and narrate the histories of different castes and sects within it. The engagement of different castes, especially the marginalised ones, with the religio-political movement that affected Punjab in the second half of the previous century remains a narrative, which is yet to be written.

Though the book does provide the context of the lives of the three HRDs and the historical narrative of Punjab, it could have added more details about the work of these HRDs. Despite this limitation, however, the book does inspire hope through the stories of its subjects who ensured the protection of lives, accountability and justice through their work.

As the book traces Punjab’s long drawn tryst with the Indian nation, through clever references to Inderjeet Singh Jaijee’s visits to the north east of the country, Mallika Kaur gently reminds the reader of how the nation came into being and that the struggles of diverse communities and regions was and is inevitable. The State and society need to adapt to acknowledge the suffering and trauma, and devise mechanisms of transitional justice.

Baljeet Kaur works as a Mitigation Investigator with Project 39A, National Law University Delhi. Views expressed are personal

Pervasive and escalating sociopolitical problems widen divides between communities and sometimes push one to stand against the mighty State. In such contexts, the focus of the public and even academia is limited to two questions: could any solutions be found for the sociopolitical problems, and what means did the community adopt to go against the State. More often than not, a community is labelled terrorist and anti national when it goes against the mainstream and the State. What happens to the community’s sense of belonging, self-confidence and well being never becomes a talking point in these large strokes of any pervasive historical narrative. This is where Mallika Kaur’s book, Faith, Gender and Activism in the Punjab conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper has very poignantly presented the Sikh community’s experience of collective trauma through the stories of its three Human Rights Defenders (HRDs).

Divided into 10 chapters, this book primarily focuses on the lives of Justice Ajit Singh Bains, Bibi Baljit Kaur and Sardar Inderjit Singh Jaijee. The author takes us through the lives of the three HRDs interspersed with two historical timelines — 1839 to 1984 and 1995 to 1984 — culminating at chaurasi. While reminding the readers about the crucial historical narrative of the Sikh community today, the author attempts to preserve the thrill of literary work. Her efforts to trace the multi-generational family history of the three HRDs to narrate the historic events through which the Sikh community has traversed are commendable. All the narratives and incidents recalled by the HRDs as well as by other informants, including survivors of the conflict in Punjab, are supported by the author’s scholarly analysis and by historical records thus making an important addition to the methodology of research through oral histories.

Several individuals, whose stories have been documented in the book, recall their community and Punjab’s legacy as well as its struggles as a continuum over more than 100 years. This includes the wounds of pre-Independence times, the holocaust of 1947 resulting from India and Pakistan’s Partition, the struggles for language, water and land in the 1960s and ’70s, the attack on Darbar Sahib, Amritsar, in 1984 followed by the anti-Sikh pogrom in the same year, and the conflict with the Indian State that resulted in numerous disappearances, extra-judicial killings, and the torture, detention and deaths of civilians as well as militants until the 1990s. In the absence of accountability processes and transitional justice, the rationale behind this book recognises the unacknowledged and unresolved collective trauma that the people of Punjab have been living with over multiple generations. This is how the book goes beyond the “eroticism of violence and romanticism of resistance” — binaries that have obsessed previous narratives on Punjab. In doing so, the book confers the term “Human Rights Defenders” on those who did not think of themselves in that way while they were risking their lives in the 1980s and ’90s. The term Human Rights Defenders, which was adopted by the United Nations in 1998, recognises the need to protect those individuals and groups who strive to protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of others through peaceful legal means.

Justice Ajit Singh Bains, who died, aged 99, earlier this year, retired from the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 1984. The very next year, he presided over a committee to investigate and recommend the release of thousands of civilians who were arrested in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star in 1984. Bibi Baljit Kaur and Inderjeet Singh Jaijee left their jobs in Chandigarh and Delhi respectively to join the likes of Justice Bains in documenting and intervening in cases of police harassment, illegal arrests, enforced disappearances and encounter killings. They formed a human rights group, ensured a non-partisan stance to maintain the credibility of their work, and adapted strategies like discouraging young Sikh men — who were easy targets of the police – from joining their efforts in order to protect lives, including their own, in a Punjab where State impunity was at its height. The book takes readers through several incidents and contexts in which the HRDs worked and powerfully conveys the complexity, severity and trauma involved. It also extensively documents the life, human rights work and consequent killing of Jaswant Singh Khalra. Indeed, it would have been a travesty to narrate the human rights movement of Punjab without a tribute to Khalra.

Providing insights into the ideologies, views and values that steered the work of the HRDs, the author attempts to inspire hope through true stories. These include Justice Bains’s wife’s decision to not file for bail after his arrest and to wait for the false case to be quashed; Baljit Kaur’s efforts to visit international groups to learn how to document and report human rights abuses; Inderjeet Singh’s household practices to eliminate caste differences; Jaswant Singh Khalra’s decision not to opt for asylum despite threats to his life as he did not want to abandon affected families after having assur ed them of his support; Chaman Lal, who spent three decades of his life enduring police threats and traumatically slow judicial proceedings, insisting on his death bed that he wouldn’t die until he got justice for his son’s murder; and Ginnu’s parents’ refusal to accept an apology from Bidar school authorities and instead demanding a recognition of the injustice of the killings of the young boys by a mob in complicity with the police. These stories have the potential to instill hope and courage in readers.

While the three HRDs are the protagonists of the book, through her sensitive writing, the author recognises the efforts of several others including their colleagues and families, victims and survivors of violence, village residents who collectively intervened to prevent police excesses, and even the Panchayat leadership who resigned en masse as a public declaration against the death of democracy in Punjab.

In her preface, Mallika Kaur mentions that she has adopted the lens of human rights and feminism to look at the story of Punjab and its people. This is probably why she has been successful in building a narrative that goes beyond binaries. She drives home the point that, unlike what is portrayed in the mainstream media, Punjab in the 1980s and ’90s was not simply an issue of Sikh militancy or of terrorists vs the State. The conflict was larger and had its roots in various political, geographical, economical and religious issues. And in the middle of the conflict were various strands of militants — Jarnail Singh Bhindrawalan being one of them. There were also civilians, non-violent protestors, political groups, religious groups and human rights groups, who, for two long decades not only survived extreme violence but also functioned amidst it and dealt with rumours, misinformation, broken promises, opportunistic agendas and infiltrations. The author attempts to portray how Punjab resisted repression and demanded an equitable share in power and resources, and also how women asserted themselves in the face of the violence of patriarchal Punjabi society. Several subtle but important references are made to indicate gender dynamics and the cultural marginalisation of women.

When Kulbir Kaur narrates her wrenching experience of participating in the militant movement followed by her illegal and legal confinement by the State, the author, standing true to her criticism of binaries, pushes her on the tougher questions of violence by militants and the role and suffering of women. Here, the narrative is revealed in all its complexities and humanness. Elsewhere, the author does not shy away from mentioning instances of corruption within the community — how donation money collected at the Gurdwara was siphoned off by organisers.

The stories of torture in illegal detention camps and the extent of impunity which existed in those times can be triggering. The author’s family migrated from Punjab to the US in the 1980s. Through memories of her own life as well as of those who were victims or survived violence, she has tried to capture the atmosphere which prevailed in households and records several anecdotes to draw attention to the layers of trauma: How Punjabi grandparents remember August 15, 1947 as batwara and not azadi; how Punjabi women wouldn’t let their husbands open the door every time there was a knock; How, for many Sikh families, the violence orchestrated during Congress party rule in Punjab has left them with lifelong trauma that no longer allows them to view political parties through the lens of just governance and ideology.

The book makes space for individual survivors and for the community. By acknowledging that survivors may go through gas lighting, disassociation, and a loss of confidence in their own beliefs and experiences, the author has established an intimacy which may encourage the community to look towards ways of healing. The book’s recognition of pain, struggles, fears, silences and courage can provide a semblance of relief. It may also help readers understand the trauma which the Muslim community is experiencing today.

One pertinent limitation of the book, despite the author’s acknowledgment and a hesitant justification, is that the chosen protagonists all come from dominant caste and class backgrounds. The resources at their disposal allowed them to put in immense efforts. Additionally, the historical narrative of the Sikh “community” does not acknowledge and narrate the histories of different castes and sects within it. The engagement of different castes, especially the marginalised ones, with the religio-political movement that affected Punjab in the second half of the previous century remains a narrative, which is yet to be written.

Though the book does provide the context of the lives of the three HRDs and the historical narrative of Punjab, it could have added more details about the work of these HRDs. Despite this limitation, however, the book does inspire hope through the stories of its subjects who ensured the protection of lives, accountability and justice through their work.

As the book traces Punjab’s long drawn tryst with the Indian nation, through clever references to Inderjeet Singh Jaijee’s visits to the north east of the country, Mallika Kaur gently reminds the reader of how the nation came into being and that the struggles of diverse communities and regions was and is inevitable. The State and society need to adapt to acknowledge the suffering and trauma, and devise mechanisms of transitional justice.

Baljeet Kaur works as a Mitigation Investigator with Project 39A, National Law University Delhi. Views expressed are personal