Book tells real, imagined stories of 1984 riots

A new anthology seeks to examine all aspects of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots by combining non-fiction pieces with fictional stories.
"1984: In Memory and Imagination - Personal Essays and Stories on the 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots", edited by Vikram Kapur and brought out by Amaryllis Publishing House, examines the human narrative of 1984 with stories, both real and imagined, of men and women whose lives were altered by that tragic chain of events and who continue to live with them to this day.
"While nonfiction probes the changing psyche of society by scrutinising the factual history of the times, fiction catches the horror of what happened by giving the human story a number of unforgettable faces," says Kapur.

"There are pieces that zero in on that moment in history. Others remind us of how it continues to fester in the lives of several people to this day. And still others view it in terms of its ramifications for Indian politics and society," he says.
In his essay "1984: An Overview 3", the then Punjab DGP Kirpal Dhillon says the events of 1984 epitomise the conceptual and functional make-up of an autocratic and oppressive state.
"The cumulative after-effects of the grievous events of 1984 in India would last for decades and the ensuing frictions and fissures in social and political terms would continue to seriously damage the institutions of governance and their dynamism," he writes.

He says his appointment as Punjab police chief on July 3, 1984 placed him at a vantage point where he was both a close observer of a series of very disturbing events, pursuant to the Army intervention in the state, and an active participant in helping resolve some very grave issues that arose therefrom.

According to well-known Punjabi fiction writer Ajeet Cour, the fear, like a vulture, had hovered, and circled over the cities and the villages.
"I had closed all the doors and windows of the house, and sat inside with my daughter, Arpana, on 31 October, and the first three days of November. But when thousands were being murdered in the colonies across the Yamuna, it was not possible to remain locked up, like cowards, in the house. "In the midst of this murderous outrage, to think only of our own safety was immoral. Unethical," she writes in "November 1984".

Literary agent Preeti Gill regards 1984 and what happened in the three days following the assassination of the prime minister as a traumatic moment in the history of India.
"A moment that witnessed the birth of a minority and tore communities apart, in somewhat the same way as Partition had done. The hatred and bloodletting that engulfed the nation in those three days of November 1984 left close to 3000 Sikhs dead in Delhi alone and some 50,000 were people forced to take shelter in relief camps, because their homes had been destroyed.
"It is apparent that this would have far-reaching consequences, that things would never be the same. I wonder whether the Sikh community has even now come to grips with the fact of the 1984 killings and how totally unexpected, horrific and intense they were," she writes in her piece "A Question of Identity".

Among other write-ups is Delhi-based writer, columnist Humra Quraishi's "Why Not A Collective Cry For Justice!" in which she recalls details of the riots, overtaken by nostalgia.
One of her friends, she says, asked her to be careful while going out because "you look like a sardarni".
According to her, one of the offshoots of the riots was that they brought the Sikhs and Muslims closer.
"Perhaps, for the first time since Partition, the gap began to shrink between the two communities. Several Sikh friends told me that after experiencing the harsh reality of the anti-Sikh riots, they could understand what the Muslim community goes through each time riots are made to occur in Muslim-populated areas.