This book explores a traumatic event known throughout India as Operation Bluestar. During the Operation, the Indian army entered one of Sikhism’s most sacred shrines, the Darbar Sahib in the city of Amritsar, to dislodge militants who had taken shelter within. Among the many who died during Operation Bluestar was the militant leader, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who is now remembered and commemorated as a martyr. Sikhs revere their martyrs. Images and religious souvenirs of martyrs share space with posters and portraiture of the ten Sikh Gurus. The visual idiom is a key form of remembering the modern martyrs of Operation Bluestar. Despite the emotive imagery, a tension exists between the need to forget the violence of militancy and remembrance of martyrs. It is this tension that shapes accounts of “what happened” in the city of Amritsar in 1984 before and after Operation Bluestar. But “what happened” is an account that changes over time and between storytellers. Each account might have a little omission, a small part that is overlooked, ignored, or sometimes laid to rest. Memory has the quality of bringing the past into the present, but with deletions that suit the storyteller and audience. This book traverses the terrain of memory, hollowed out by little bits of forgetting.

This is a fictional account which is based upon the real events of June 1984. All of the characters are fictitious, but all the places referred to in the narrative are real, including Ladha Kothi detention centre

In 1984 the Indian Government attacked the holiest shrine of the Sikhs in Amritsar, commonly known as the Golden Temple (Harmander Sahib) on the pre-text of flushing out terrorists. 30 years later this attack on the faith & nationhood of the Sikhs still brings up painful memories of murder, terrorism and genocide. In light of newly disclosed documents by the British Government, many questions remain unanswered for the Sikh community about the events prior to and after Operation Blue Star (the Indian Army s attack on the Sikh s holiest shrine in Amritsar). The aim of the book is to explore the events leading up to 1984 and to analyse the pursuit of truth, justice and liberty, for Sikhs in India and the diaspora. The book follows a narrative which is historical and topical, bringing current issues of Sikhs and Punjabi's into the discussion. There is also a focus on Sikhs in the diaspora and current Sikh agitations for justice.

6 June 1984: The Indian Army storms the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Called Operation Bluestar, the historic and unprecedented event ended the growing spectre of terrorism perpetrated by the extremist Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers once and for all. But it left in its wake unsolved political questions that continued to threaten Punjab's stability for years to come. How, in a brief span of three years, did India's dynamic frontier state become a national problem? Who was to blame: the central government for allowing the crisis to drift despite warnings, or the long-drawn-out Akali agitation, or the notorious gang of militants who transformed a holy shrine into a sanctuary for terrorists? First published two months after Operation Bluestar, The Punjab Story pieces together the complex Punjab jigsaw through the eyes of some of India's most eminent public figures and journalists. Writing with the passion and conviction of those who were involved with the drama, they present a wide-ranging perspective on the past, present and future of the Punjab tangle; and the truth of many of their'conclusions having been borne out by time.

A chilling eyewitness account of the anti-Sikh violence Sanjay Suri was a young crime reporter with The Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards on 31 October 1984. He was among the few journalists to experience the full horror of the anti-Sikh violence that followed and carried on unchecked for the next couple of days, while the police looked the other way.He saw a Congress MP demanding the release of party workers who had been arrested for loot. He had a narrow escape from a gang of killers while out reporting. He later filed affidavits that included eyewitness accounts relating to two Congress MPs, and confronted former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at an election rally. Suri also testified before several commissions of inquiry set up to investigate the massacres---though very little came of these.In this book, he brings together a wealth of fresh revelations, arising from his own experiences, and from extensive interviews with police officers then in the front line of facing the violence. Humane but chilling, Suri's account is backed by a thorough examination of existing records and the provisions of the Indian legal system.Taking a close look at the question of the Congress hand behind the brutalities and why the survivors continue to wait for justice even thirty years later, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After remains urgent even today. It combines expert reportage with gripping recollections to tell a riveting story, leaving us disturbed and moved in equal measure.