Review of Sanam Sutirath Wazir’s The Kaurs of 1984 — The Untold, Unheard Stories of Sikh Women: Displaced and forgotten

Review of Sanam Sutirath Wazir’s The Kaurs of 1984 — The Untold, Unheard Stories of Sikh Women. Forty years later, giving voice to invisible victims post the 1984 anti-Sikh riots

In 2018, the Delhi High Court quoted an Amrita Pritam poem that invokes the Heer-Ranjha poet Waris Shah — both notable figures in Punjabi literature — to describe the unruly state of Punjab and Delhi in 1984, as it convicted Sajjan Kumar, a former Congress leader, for his role in the anti-Sikh riots: “Seeds of hatred have grown high, bloodshed is everywhere/ Poisoned breeze in forest turned bamboo flutes into snakes/ Their venom has turned the bright and rosy Punjab all blue”.

But the 2018 judgment does not come close to the justice that the victims of the 1984 violence deserve, as human rights activist Sanam Sutirath Wazir highlights in his new book, The Kaurs of 1984: The Untold, Unheard Stories of Sikh Women.

He traces the rise of militancy in Punjab of the 1970-1980s, the Khalistan movement, the government retaliation in the form of Operation Blue Star, Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards, and the violence against the Sikh community. But most importantly, he gives a voice to the invisible victims and survivors of the tragic event: its women — beaten, bereaved, displaced and silenced: the ‘Kaurs’ of 1984.

“I’m a man. Do you think I can justify their pain?” Wazir, disturbed by the graphic details of the stories he had recorded, asks his mother. The reply was sharp: “no one can,” she says, but a voice must be given to the victims of vicious and gendered violence of the past.

Thus, emerged the stories of women who witnessed the horrors that took place in the winter of 1984. Women who helplessly watched their homes, their gurdwaras, their men — fathers, brothers, husbands and sons — being burnt by mobs; women who were lined up, looted, assaulted and raped, irrespective of their physical state or age; women who were abandoned by the state, to grieve and fend for themselves. Many of the women would later either do odd jobs; some would pick up arms, become “Khalistani brides” and choose rebellion over submission, no matter how painful the consequences. These are the stories from Block-32 of Trilokpuri in Delhi, the ‘widow colony’ that emerged henceforth as the women were rehabilitated. These are the stories of the ‘Kaurs’ – Darshan, Satwant, Nirpreet, Kulbir, and many more like them.

Police and state agents would emerge either indifferent or worse, complicit — both at the peak of the violence, and later, when dealing with possible suspects associated with the Khalistani cause. Leaders like H.K.L. Bhagat and Sajjan Kumar would make appearances, not to offer respite, but to bask in the glory (and support) of the rioters, and further their political careers. Although Sajjan Kumar remains in jail after the 2018 conviction, he was acquitted in another case related to the 1984 violence, in 2023.

Numerous commissions and committees set up over the years to investigate the violence have fallen short in their commitments. Wazir is sympathetic to the Kaurs’ condition. “Forty years after the violence, the Kaurs’ lives remain profoundly unsettled. Despite the passage of time, they continue to grapple with deep grief and trauma, compounded by staggering delays in justice and ongoing impunity,” he says. Conviction and later the life-sentencing of Sajjan Kumar by the Delhi High Court is a far cry from the justice the Kaurs deserve; “[It] does little to ease their enduring suffering,” notes Wazir. “Although they have sought new purpose and healing, the scars of the violence persist as a constant presence in their lives... The Kaurs navigate their lives amid this relentless grief, seeking what the state refers to as ‘closure’.”