Slow violence in post-1984 Punjab: Remembering, forgetting and refusals

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we examine the afterlives of insurgent and counterinsurgent violence in Punjab and the US. We explore how the period of the 1980s and 1990s came to have effects that linger into the present, and how violence is remembered by ordinary people, especially non-elite women. We argue that memories unfold in relation to the slow and structural violence that has manifested through years of Punjabis living with the after-effects of insurgency and counterinsurgency. Our research on remembering and forgetting shows that the period of violence of the 1980s and 1990s remains alive and formative in contemporary forms of community, gender, and identity across Punjab and its diasporas.

KEYWORDS:

• Slow violence
• structural violence
• gender
• politics of memory

Acknowledgements

There are many colleagues, friends, and audiences that have helped us to think through this project. We received welcome feedback from the Sikh Studies conference at University of California, Riverside, the Gender and Punjab conference at Yale University, and the AAS-in-Asia community. We are also grateful to Arvind-Pal Mandair for his thoughtful attention to our paper. In particular we would like to thank Dipin Kaur and Ashish Koul who made our Yale Punjab Studies reading group come to life.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The historian, J.S. Grewal mentions these differences in his account of the period, rejecting the premise that the idea of Khalistan as a sovereign separate nation was accepted by all political parties in Punjab or that Bhindranwale was always advocating for secession from India (see Grewal 1998). Grewal thus disagrees with arguments that the militancy was religious in nature, though he does consider how the SGPC has long been involved with politics. Birinder Pal Singh (in the same volume) argues that many of the militant groups (including Bhindranwale) did advocate for a separate Khalistan (see also Singh 2002). Few scholars would argue that these leaders and militant groups were able to unite all Sikhs in one cause, though it is clear that a broader unity emerged after the Indian army attacks on the Golden Temple and the Sikh pogrom in Delhi and elsewhere after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

2 The U.S. diaspora includes refugees from that period and is heterogeneous in terms of its transnational formation.

3 Bhindranwale was not just concerned about women, but also about men and his focus was also on Sikh men abstaining from alcohol and drugs, as well as becoming more observant Sikhs (see Grewal 1998, 65–103).