Amritsar 1984: A City Remembers

128 Pages·2018·1.459 MB·English

by  Radhika Chopra

Amritsar 1984
.d
e
vre
se
r sth
g
ir llA
.sko
o
B
n
o
tg
n
ixe
L
.8
1
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
Amritsar 1984
A City Remembers
Radhika Chopra
.d
e
vre
se
r sth
g
ir llA
.sko
o
B
n
o
tg
n
ixe
L
.8
1
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.
Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
.d
e www.rowman.com
vre
se
r sth Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB
g
ir llA Copyright © 2018 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
.sko
oB British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
n
o
tg
nixe Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
L
.8 ISBN 978-1-4985-7105-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1
0
2 ISBN 978-1-4985-7106-7 (electronic)
©
th
giryp ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
oC National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.
To my parents, Pran and Sarojine Chopra
.d
e
vre
se
r sth
g
ir llA
.sko
o
B
n
o
tg
n
ixe
L
.8
1
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Pasts We Cannot Forget xiii
1 Portrait of a Martyr 1
2 Seeing Off the Dead 27
3 Bazaar Divinity 47
4 Curating the Sacred 67
Bibliography 91
.d Index 97
e
vre
se About the Author 107
r sth
g
ir llA
.sko
o
B
n
o
tg
n
ixe
L
.8
1
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
vii
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.
Preface
There’s a word in Punjabi which means disturbance or noise—raula. It’s also
metaphorically used to denote periods of trouble. The partition of India and
the division of Punjab in 1947 are specifically spoken of as Raula: The Parti-
tion Disturbances. Today, when we speak of partition, we know it as more
than a single event, nested in myriad memories. Looking back has expanded
the semantic range of raula. Extended to June 1984, when the Indian army
occupied the Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, raula indexes the troubles that pre-
ceded and followed the army occupation of the sacred shrine. Over the course
of time, 1984 has also been fleshed out as more and more people recount their
memories of what happened.
For many years, I remembered June 1984 as the year my parents made the
journey down from the small hill town of Dalhousie that abuts Punjab. In the
period immediately preceding their harrowing journey, the state of Punjab
.d was under curfew. News and mobility were severely restricted, if not prohib-
e
vre ited altogether. Rumors about militants hiding out in the hills of Dalhousie
se
r sth tore through the little hill town. Entry to and exit from Dalhousie were bar-
g
ir llA ricaded by the army. Supplies were scarce, and people were scared. Staying
.sko on in Dalhousie was not considered a “safe” option. For me, June 1984 was
oB about the heart-in-the-mouth fear that, in my mother’s words, felt dreadfully
n
otg close to her family’s flight from Lahore to Amritsar in 1947. Ironically, in
n
ixe 1984, it was Amritsar that was the danger zone.
L
.8 Later that same year, I was a volunteer with Nagrik Ekta Manch, a citizen’s
1
0
2 © initiative that came together to protest against the state sponsored riots in
thg Delhi against Sikhs, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and to pro-
irypo vide relief to the traumatized Sikhs of Delhi. In fact, the riots were not con-
C
fined to Delhi. Like the Partition, the violence spread over territory and time.
But what remains deeply etched in my memories of 1984 is my mother’s
ix
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.
x Preface
descriptions of their June journey and what happened in Delhi between Octo-
ber and November 1984.
To write about Amritsar, the center of so much violence, was a slow-grow-
ing idea. As I was researching and writing about political asylum seekers
who fled Punjab, settling in migrant neighborhoods that gave them sanctuary,
the question “what happened in Amritsar?” took root. Never having lived in
Amritsar and with feeble connections to place in my family biography (my
maternal grandfather’s mother’s family were traders in the city) I had little
knowledge of the city. Despite my ignorance, it was clear to me that the
momentous events of 1984 could never really be properly explored without
mapping Amritsar and what people of Amritsar remembered of 1984.
Starting in 2005, I began my own journey into the past of a city dense with
memory. Some residents of the city referred to the army action in the Darbar
Sahib in 1984 as raula; some referred to the actions of militants in the period
leading up to Operation Bluestar as raula. By 2015, raula denoted the unfold-
ing politics of the pardon of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, head of a dera
(establishment) accused of blasphemy. The pardon was fiercely condemned,
followed by physical clashes within the Darbar Sahib. Once again, residents
of Amritsar witnessed security forces around the shrine and the surrounding
bazaar. Shopkeepers said it looked and felt just like 1984. Links with the past
emerged in the use of the term raula for all these events. Through language,
the past came forward to shape the emotional landscape of the city in the
present.
In this work, I’ve primarily chosen the visual as a strand to understand
the remembrance of raula. The ocular register is by no means the only one
through which we might know raula. But the visual filled my eye and imagi-
nation, reaching out through portraiture, souvenirs, shop displays, even street
realignments that sought to reshape remembrance. Together and separately,
.d
e
vre all these objects showed me how raula as a transitive verb could map the city
ser sth and how I could understand troubles of a past that cannot be forgotten.
g
ir llA
.sko
o
B
n
o
tg
n
ixe
L
.8
1
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the help and inputs of many
different people.
In Amritsar, I would like to thank Professor Paramjit Singh Judge, Profes-
sor Gurpreet Bal, Professor Joginder Singh, Dr. Aziz Abbas, and other col-
leagues at the Guru Nanak Dev University, for the discussions that enriched
my understanding of Amritsar and its cultures. I owe a deep debt of gratitude
to Sardar Surinder Singh and Sardar Satpal Singh Danish, and members of
their extended family, for their kindness in sharing material and the enthusi-
asm with which they engaged with my work.
I take this opportunity to thank the Norway Research Council for the
generous grant under the project “Indian Cosmopolitan Alternatives” which
enabled part of the fieldwork. I would particularly like to thank Professor
Kathinka Froystad who headed the project for stimulating discussions in
.d wonderful places, laced with wine and great food. I want to thank all the
e
vre members of the project team for questions that stirred things up in the best
se
r sth possible spirit.
g
ir llA I owe a great deal to Professor Arvind-Pal Mandair at the University of
.sko Michigan and Professor Anne Murphy at the University of British Columbia
oB for their insights into Sikhism and Punjabi language and culture. I also thank
n
otg Dr. Yogesh Snehi at Ambedkar University and Professor Ravinder Kaur at
n
ixe IIT Delhi, and others in Delhi whose reflections and knowledge of Punjab
L
.8 were critical at different stages of this research.
1
0
2 © I would like to thank Dr. Rosy Hastir and Shri Ramesh Ramachandran,
thg Editor, Outlook, for permission to use some of the images published in this
irypo book.
C
My thanks to Navjit Kaur Bhambra, Kamalpreet Singh Gill, and Swati
Chawla for invaluable research assistance over these last few years.
xi
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.
xii Acknowledgments
To students interested in the study of Punjab at the Department of Sociol-
ogy, University of Delhi, whose curiosity about the subject was exciting and
deeply encouraging.
Finally my thanks to Dr. Hari Sen, as always, for his immense clarity,
invigorating discussion, refreshing skepticism, and unfailing good humor.
.d
e
vre
se
r sth
g
ir llA
.sko
o
B
n
o
tg
n
ixe
L
.8
1
0
2
©
th
g
iryp
o
C
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.
Introduction
Pasts We Cannot Forget
Remembrance is hard.1 It’s harder still when everyone’s recollections don’t
match. We all hold on to memories of the past, of people and events who
overturned or gave shape to our lives, but different people remember dif-
ferent things. “What happened” is an account that changes shape over time
and with every storyteller. An event is written and overwritten many times,
though each telling is presented as coherent and complete. At the same time,
each recounting 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 forward, but with deletions that suit the present of the narrator and the
audience.
Traumatic events are harder to remember, harder to uncover, their memo-
ries more difficult to repair. They linger in sleepless remembrance, in adjudi-
cations based on conflicting accounts, in snippets remembered by successive
.de generations. Dreadful events are sometimes deliberately remembered in
vrese commemorations of loss and in memorials that mark injury. Like memory,
r sth rituals of commemoration shift and slide across time and space, each a proxy
g
ir llA performance of the event as people want to remember it at that moment.
.sko Who remembers is germane to the process of bringing the past into the pres-
o
B ent. The politics of the present actively intervenes in shaping what the past
n
o
tg looks like at the time of its commemoration or the moment of its installation
n
ixe as memorial.
L
.81 This book is an exploration of how a traumatic event is remembered, com-
0
2
© memorated, or cautiously erased. The “event remembered” is the orchestrated
th
giryp military assault on a sacred complex, the Sri Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, by
oC the Indian army during “Operation Bluestar” in June 1984. It is most fre-
quently spoken of as a deeply traumatic event evoking intense but uneasy
remembrances. Different aspects of 1984 have been addressed by scholars,
xiii
Chopra, Radhika. Amritsar 1984 : A City Remembers, Lexington Books, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5516278.
Created from nyulibrary-ebooks on 2020-07-15 08:22:22.