Abstract
This chapter highlights how Bains, Kaur, and Jaijee did not outright reject violence in the violent Gandhian India, but did call out wrongs by all combatants. They also avoided speaking for experiences that were not their own.
The chapter builds up to one of the most famed nonviolent acts of defiance by a Sikh militant, Mr. Dhami, at a 1994 police press conference in Chandigarh. Mrs. Kulbir Kaur Dhami, who was kept in a secret torture camp with Mr. Dhami and their five-year-old son, exposes the project of impunity. Her story challenges prevalent narratives simplifying Sikh women as hapless bystanders of the militancy as well as of Sikh men as simple-minded aggressors. The chapter follows the interlocutors’ lead in respecting victim-survivors and not doubting their alternating needs for silence and breaking the silence.
The chapter then segues to the earlier history of Punjab, particularly the various indigenous Sikh movements of the 1920s that sparked an anticolonial frenzy, and closes in 1935, when Punjab was becoming a beacon of inspiration for the subcontinent, as well as a growing threat to majoritarian forces.
Thus, during those nineteen years of torture and slavery,
did this soul rise and fall at the same time.
Light entered on the one side, and darkness on the other.
:Victor Hugo:
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Notes
- 1.
See, Swanee Hunt and Cristina Posa, “Women Waging Peace,” Foreign Policy, 124 (May/June 2001): 38–47.
- 2.
See, Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi’s Last Battle (New Delhi: Rupa, 1985), 52–72; Iqbal Singh, Punjab Under Siege: A Critical Analysis (New York: Allen, McMillan, and Enderson, 1986); Subash Kirparkar, “Operation Bluestar: An Eyewitness Account,” in The Punjab Story: Reissued on the 20th Anniversary of Operation Bluestar (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2004), 104–07.
- 3.
See generally, Chap. 10.
- 4.
While fewer accounts of sexual violence made it to the media and human rights reports (e.g. Punjab Human Rights Organization, “The Rape of Punjab: Indian State’s Indignities on Sikh Women and Children” (1989); Jaijee, Politics of Genocide, 200–03), such accounts are well-known among Sikhs of Punjab. The stories are often told with pseudonyms, and without details or after extracting promises of confidentiality, on verifying the strength of the interviewer’s solidarity. Indeed, generally, euphemisms abound in describing incidents of sexual violence, and as a protective measure most people speak of cases they have “heard of,” generally “in another village,” far enough from their village or villages where their own daughters may be married. See also, Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, “The Princess and the Lion,” in Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 213–34. The punishing process in the exceptional cases where women did report rape, and then doggedly pursue their rapists, further confirmed for the community the futility of entering systems that would only revictimize. See, Roxanna Altholz, Angana Chatterji, Laurel Fletcher, Mallika Kaur, “Access to Justice for Women: India’s Response to Sexual Violence in Conflict and Social Upheaval” (Berkeley: International Human Rights Law Clinic, 2015) (“In Punjab, [the victim] filed her initial complaint in 1989 and, the court issued the convictions in 1997—eight years later. During those eight years, [the victim] attended more than 80 court hearings and lived in hiding for fear of retribution while officers allegedly tortured her family members and burned her home.” The report notes, “While the three officers were convicted of rape, the process was lengthy, onerous, and dangerous for the victim and her family. The police department failed to properly investigate the incident or discipline the officers. Additionally, there is no evidence available that the acts of intimidation or torture suffered by the victim’s family were investigated and those responsible punished.”)
- 5.
For her wise exposition on “Choice,” Joan Williams, Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
- 6.
The few accounts of these women militants quickly ascribe to them male-like tendencies, reinforcing the hypermasculinization of the Sikh movement. See, for example, Laurent Gayer, “‘Princesses’ among the ‘Lions’: The Militant Careers of Sikh Female Fighters,” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory 8, no. 1 (2012): 1–19.
- 7.
Khushwant Singh, History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839–2004 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 161–62. An overwhelming number of those hanged for the failed Ghadr were army mutineers. In the frequent retelling of the Ghadr, perhaps because this is done in Punjab almost exclusively by today’s leftists, there is hardly any mention of these (almost exclusively Sikh) hangings of mutineers.
- 8.
K.S. Sarkaria, “Sohn Lal s/o Vaso Mall,” March 21, 2015, citing from “List of persons killed in the Jhallianwala Bagh on 13th April 1919,” compiled in November 1919.
- 9.
See, Rajmohan Gandhi, Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten (New Delhi, India: Aleph Book Company, 2013), 285–86.
- 10.
Meghnad Desai, The Rediscovery of India (New Delhi, India: Penguin, 2009), 139.
- 11.
See, Gandhi, Punjab, 286.
- 12.
Khushwant Singh, History of the Sikhs, Volume II, 197.
- 13.
Khushwant Singh, History of the Sikhs, Volume II, 203–04.
- 14.
Paul Wallace, “Religious and Secular Politics in Punjab: The Sikh Dilemma in Competing Political Systems,” in Political Dynamics and Crisis in Punjab, Paul Wallace and Surendra Chopra, eds. (Amritsar: Guru Nanak Dev University, 1988), 12.
- 15.
See, J.S. Grewal, “Sikh Identity, the Akalis and Khalistan,” in Punjab in Prosperity & Violence: Administration, Politics and Social Change 1947–1997, J. S. Grewal and Indu Banga, eds. (New York: K.K. Publishers: 1998), 89–91.
- 16.
See, for example, G.K.C. Reddy, ed., Army Action in Punjab: Prelude and Aftermath (New Delhi: Samata Era, 1984), 75.
- 17.
Gurtej Singh, Chakravyuh: Web of Indian Secularism (Chandigarh, India: Institute of Sikh Studies, 2000), 38.
- 18.
Bhagat Singh, Letter to the Punjab Governor, available at http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org/index.asp?link=bhagat_petition.
- 19.
See, Karamjit Singh Aujla, Ankhile Sardar Di Gaurav Gathaa (Ludhiana, India: Seva Lehar Parkashan, 2011), 128.
- 20.
From Dhamis, Sachaai ki Hai? (What Is the Truth?), compiled letters from 1993 to 1994. On file with author.
- 21.
Satwant Singh Manak v. State of Punjab, Judgment in matter of C.M. No. 20940 of 2007 & Civil Writ Petition No. 14941 of 1994, April 1, 2008.
- 22.
On Gill, also see, for example, “I wondered afterward whether it becomes easier or more difficult to do what Gill does—round up the angry young men, supervise the interrogations and torture and killings, take the war to the enemy—if you think like this. Gill seemed to find some solace in it, or else in his whisky. To me, this sort of nihilism was more chilling even than the purposeful, visible state murder in the Sri Lankan jungles.” Steve Coll, On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey into South Asia (New York: Random House, 1994), 172.
- 23.
Sants and Babas [holy men] and their deras [centers] had been around since much before. “[T]he phenomenon of deras is … as old as the Sikh faith. During the period of the historic gurus, different deras of udasis, minas, dhirmalias, ramraiyas, handali, and that of massandis cropped up. All these earlier deras were primarily the outcome of the disgruntled and unsuccessful attempts of the ‘fake’ claimants to the title of guru [internal citations omitted]. Apart from these, there were many more deras that came up at different intervals on the long and tortuous consolidation of the Sikh religion.” Ronki Ram, “Social Exclusion, Resistance and Deras: Exploring the Myth of Casteless Sikh Society in Punjab,” Economic and Political Weekly 42, no. 4 (2007): 4066–74, 4067. However, dera’s resources, political party-backing, and related clout and significance to electoral politics grew through the conflict years. Today, many of the estimated 10,000 deras in Punjab are all the more significant to electoral politics because they have become centers of Dalit organizing and thus sway prominent voter banks; of all Indian states, Punjab today has the highest population proportion of Dalits. Favor to one dera over another is not simply along caste lines either. Some deras remain politically inconvenient, particularly when they challenge powerful elites. For example, hundreds of followers of a Kabirpanthi dera, led by one Baba Rampal—who fell foul it seems of overwhelmingly Arya Samaji activists—have recently been jailed and even charged for “sedition.” See, for example, “Sant Rampal: All You Need to Know About the Kabir Panth Leader Accused of Murder, Sedition,” India Today, August 29, 2017.
- 24.
Ramesh Vinayak and Harinder Baweja, “Pay-off Secrets,” India Today magazine, Special Report, February 15, 1995.
- 25.
See, Jaijee, Politics of Genocide, 124.
- 26.
See, Praveen Swami, “Grandsons on the Rampage,” The Week, September 25, 1994, 36.
- 27.
See, for example, “Grandsons on the Rampage,” 37.
- 28.
Amnesty International, International Secretariat, India: Human Rights Violations in the Punjab: Use and Abuse of the Law (Amnesty International, 1991), 34–35.
- 29.
See Lawless Roads, A Report on TADA: 1985–1993 (Delhi, India: People’s Union for Democratic Rights, September 1993); Ujjwal Kumar Singh, The State, Democracy and Anti-Terror Laws in India (New Delhi, India: SAGE Publications India), 2007.
- 30.
See, for example, Anju Agnihotri Chaba, “We Pleaded a Lot to Court, Said He Couldn’t Look After Himself,” Indian Express, October 18, 2015.
- 31.
Jaijee, Politics of Genocide, 341.
- 32.
See, Gurharpal Singh, “India’s Akali-BJP Alliance: The 1997 Legislative Assembly Elections,” Asian Survey 38, no. 4 (April 1998): 398–409, 402.
- 33.
See, for example, “Punjab Police: Fabricating Terrorism Through Illegal Detention and Torture: June 2005-August 2005,” Ensaaf, October 5, 2005.
- 34.
“Punjab Police Recover 15 kg RDX, ammunition,” IANS, August 1, 2010.
- 35.
See, “Jail Inmate Succumbs to Burns,” The Tribune, February 15, 2012; “SAD for CBI Probe into KCF Ultra’s Death in Custody,” Zeenews, March 16, 2011.
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Kaur, M. (2019). Monu’s Mummy. In: Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24674-7_3
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