Wound, Waste, History Re-reading 1984 Kaur, Ravinder

Published in: Economic and Political Weekly

Publication date: 2014

Document version Early version, also known as pre-print

Citation for published version (APA): Kaur, R. (2014). Wound, Waste, History: Re-reading 1984. Economic and Political Weekly, XLIX(43-44). http://www.epw.in/search/apachesolr_search/Wound%2C%20Waste%2C%20History

Download date: 27. sep.. 2021 PERSPECTIVES

jump over the small wall. SHO Bhatia Wound, Waste, History was fi ring from the front from the road. My sons were hit by bullets, were Rereading 1984 gasping. Then at about 7-8 am on 2nd November, they came and dragged my sons to a place near Satbir’s house. Ravinder Kaur They were burnt with kerosene. When I ran towards my sons, Nathu Pradhan, Wounds are expected to heal. Our Testimonies Gupta Brahmanand and Ramesh strip- very conception of victims and ped me and raped me. They made me I run naked on the road. Nobody from my victimhood is based on this n 1 November 1984, I went to street gave me a dupatta. I went to A-2 hopeful axiom. But not all serve tea to my father-in-law block to my older sister. I stayed the wounds heal, some remain in a OSardar Moti Singh who resided night there. The military arrived on 3rd constant state of decay, in B-2. I saw that a meeting was being November and evacuated all of us. held in B-2 park. About 150-200 persons – Prem Kaur, widow of late Sardar degenerate, and ultimately risk of our mohalla had gathered there. Four Roshan Singh, Sultanpuri, Block A-41 turning into waste too. It is this females and rest were males. Shri Sajjan possibility of waste that this Kumar was delivering a lecture…at about II article explores. The 1984 1.50 pm, the gurudwara was set on By afternoon, there were many thousands fi re. We all of our ‘biradari” came out of of people in the mob. Groups of many violence is one of those historical our houses. Asla Ram Gujarati, Peeria hundred entered the house of each Sikh wounds that has neither faded and Nathu Pradhan broke the Nishan family, broke the doors and roofs and from public memory nor fully Sahib (the fl ag) and Jamadars had lit dragged out each Sardar and beat them healed. At the heart of this the fi re and were standing outside. with sticks and rods, and stabbed them They had brought the oil drum into the knives, swords and throw them down. unhealing wound is the question street. Brahmanand Gupta and his three Then they would set fi re to them there of justice that has long been brothers had brought the oil drum. At itself. All three of our houses (extended denied to the victims. The judicial that time SHO Bhatia of Sultanpuri, family) were destroyed. All the goods affi davits prepared in early 1985 Jai Chand Havaldar, Rajinder Sepoy, from the three houses were looted. Sukhbir Thanedar – these all said, you My husband’s elder brother was not only narrate the violence that all sardars go to your house, otherwise caught fi rst. He begged them with folded unfolded systematically, but three I will open fi re. hands but the mob’s reply to him was decades later testify to the We went to our houses. The doors “Saala haath jodta hai” (the bastard is inability of the state apparatus to of my house were closed from outside. folding hands). The mob killed him with Bhatia and Jaichand closed the doors. a “basoola” and threw him down. help heal its wounded citizens. Gun fi re was heard from outside. Police Somehow I took my children and hid was fi ring. The police were sitting in in a neighbour’s hut. After some time my Sita’s house and fi ring. Then sitting in husband fell down. I tried to hide him Brahmanand’s house, Ugjal and Islan but 10-12 people were chasing him. fi red which hit the house of Gudoli Kaur. These people cut down my husband with This went on the whole night. At about their swords. I took his head on my lap 2.00 am in the night, the rear wall of our and wept the whole night. He was still house was being broken. Behind our alive. After some time, these people house is the house of the owner of Satbir came back and dragged my husband out Hotel. He was trying to enter from the putting their ears to his chest to listen. rear. He set my house on fi re. I even Then they said, “he is still alive”. They pleaded with folded hands. Brahmanand then attacked him with swords. I saved and his three brothers poured oil into my life by giving them Rs 4,000/- and a Ravinder Kaur ([email protected]) teaches Modern South Asian Studies at the University my house and set it on fi re. gold amulet. of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is the author of Ugjal was fi ring from top. When the Nearby was the house of Shabnam Since 1947: Partition Narratives among fi re spread, then my Sardar and my two alias Kacchoom. My husband’s younger Partition Migrants of , 2007, Oxford sons tried to run away. My Sardar was brother Dalip Singh and another relative University Press. hit by a bullet whilst he was trying to Kripal Singh were hiding there. Shabnam

34 november 1, 2014 vol xlix nos 43 & 44 EPW Economic & Political Weekly PERSPECTIVES said that he would help us. But he him- them with iron rods, set the sobbing the ladies of that house, my husband was self brought a mob of 300-400 people persons alive on fi re there and then. dragged out from his hiding place under and was in fact right at the front. He said When they cried in pain, the mob felt the bed, hit on the head with an iron rod, that Dilip and Kripal are hiding. They happy and danced. pushed him to the road and burnt alive both pleaded with folded hands and said The women folk of the mohalla were there. While I was watching this horri- you are getting us killed though you are made to sit in the Block 32 park. They ble scene, I heard a crashing noise. The a friend. And they (Dilip and Kripal) started having a look at the women folk mob had entered the house breaking all were killed before my eyes. and forcibly took away the young ladies. the doors. I saw my son seriously wound- Similarly Rampal Saroj betrayed us During this period, the ladies started ed. I stood in front of my son to save him. and caused the murder of my father-in- running helter- skelter. We, the women, In this time, my nephew rang up my sis- law. “Call us husband, we are your men. pleaded with them with folded hands, ter-in-law Mrs Vasant and told him of Now we shall parade you. Where has addressing them as brothers as to why this tragedy being enacted at Patel your great Guru gone, now say the true they were harassing us in this way, and Nagar. Seeing this, immediately after name you bitches. Don’t even speak of abusing us, and that they had already having witnessed my husband’s being Trilokpuri, don’t ever come back. Go to killed husbands. To this they replied burnt alive I fainted. Chilla village, go down in the canal.” “don’t call us brothers, we are not your – Harbans Kaur, widow of Kartar The mob stood with sticks and rods brothers, we will not spare the ladies.” Singh, Patel Nagar4 and chased us and our children away Even at this time, the police did not come from there. to our rescue. The Work of Affi davits – Janaki Bai, widow of late Hukum The women then pleaded with the The box fi lled with hundreds of hurriedly Singh, Trilokpuri, Block 322 leader, Ram Pal Saroj, as to what all this typed A4 pages lay together with books was being done. “Save us, already our and documents assembled over a decade. III husbands have been killed.” Ram Pal I reopened the archive this summer The mob dragged the out of their replied that nothing was in his control when we moved homes. The typed pag- houses and started beating them. They and that “they should suffer for all that has es I was holding again after a long time fi rst beat the Sikhs after dragging them out been done by the Sikhs”. In the morning, belong to a distinct variety of documents of their houses. Iron rods and lathis were all the ladies went to Chilla village. From called “affi davits” that are intricately used for beating them and they were then there we went to Pandav Nagar on foot. woven into the life of the Indian judicial burnt alive after sprinkling kerosene on We spent the night of 2nd November system. The ubiquity of affi davits in pub- them. The dead bodies of the Sikhs were there. At that time, my four children lic life is well known by anyone who has seen lying in the street outside. were with me. On 3rd morning, we came had to deal with the state in one way or Bedi and his brothers and Kishori and to Kalyan Puri police station. There I another. The affi davits are simply sworn his brothers started abusing the women- met my other children also. Thereafter oaths, testimonials furnished in the pres- folk in an obscene and immodest manner. we were taken to the camps by the Army. ence of a recognised public authority, Police personnel never came to the spot. – Gopi Kaur, widow of Phool Singh, and authenticated by authorised judicial But if at all, they appeared, it was not Trilokpuri, Block 323 agents to be true. These documents were to save the Sikhs but to point out and not FIRs, or fi rst information reports, instigate the mob to kill the Sikhs. This IV which detail the crime as a fi rst step to- process of killing men folk lasted till On Saturday, 3 November, I and my wards police investigation and due judi- 9-10 in the night. The electric wires were husband were watching on TV the funer- cial process. The affi davits were fi led cut off. It was dark around. They climbed al of Smt. Indira Gandhi, the late prime half a year after the subject had failed to on your rooftop. The mob started beat- minister of India. My sons and nephews activate the regular justice system. ing and throwing down Sikhs who were were on the terrace. We suddenly heard To reread these affi davits is to recon- hiding on the rooftops. The persons a brick falling in the outer compound. sider the kind of work such documents b elow started setting them on fi re alive. My nephew came racing down from the perform in public life generally, and Bedi, Kishori and many other persons terrace as if he had seen something more specifi cally, in relation to violent were amongst the mob present there in terrifying. We heard a lot of turmoil on the events that have been in the public eye, the night at 10-11 clock. They abused us, roof. Suddenly brick bating (sic) started yet never been fully addressed. The affi - turned the women folk and children out from the rear of the house. My husband davits I invoke here are testimonials of of houses and started beating the men left from the front door and sought shelter victims who were also eyewitnesses to folk who were later set on fi re. My in the next door neighbour’s house. one of the fi rst large-scale pogroms, brothers and husband pleaded with Unfortunately he was seen by someone organised in the heart of the capital city them with folded hands as to what was in the violent crowd entering the next of postcolonial India in 1984. The year their fault and why were they being house. He hid himself under a bed. 1984 in Indian political lexicon has beaten. They, however, did not pay any The violent crowd entered the next b ecome shorthand by now; it not only heed to their pleadings and after hitting door and in spite of forceful pleadings of stands for organised violence – to avenge

Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 1, 2014 vol xlix nos 43 & 44 35 PERSPECTIVES the assassination of Indira Gandhi by the state and its citizens – home itself The testimonials amassed in 1984 and her Sikh bodyguards – resulting in an es- was the theatre of violence now. 1985, nevertheless, constitute a vast, timated 3,500-5,000 deaths on an Harcharan Singh Phoolka, the Delhi- largely untouched archive in its raw form all-India scale in a span of few days, it based advocate who has worked tirelessly – raw not in the sense of being unproc- also signifi es the impunity with which to get justice for the victims, gave me essed, but for presenting the bruta lity of the state denied justice to its affected the copies of the affi davits, meticulously violence unadorned by either legal or citizens in the long run. Three decades numbered according to colonies and zones journalistic prose. What makes these tes- later, these affi davits, in various ways, in Delhi. The testimonials are diverse in timonials moving is not just the brutality speak of this doubled-up tragedy – fi rst, many ways. Some are translations from described therein, but also the fact that a the brutality of violence, and then, Punjabi, Hindi or Urdu, while others are large majority of the crimes described denial of justice. composed in fl uent English. Some are here have still not been brought to jus- My own relationship to these docu- machine-typed by professional steno- tice. Three decades later, the political ments precedes the moment they were graphers of the court, while others are leaders and functionaries who appeared produced in courtrooms in collaboration handwritten by the d eponents themselves. in the testimonials largely remain with lawyers and judicial experts. The The documents often bear signatures, beyond the proverbial “long arm” of jus- accounts presented here had already but, more often, they bear thumb im- tice. The affi davits, worn-out and bat- been circulated orally – especially among pressions that verify the contents. The tered, now carry an extra burden – not those who had survived the violence – as diversity in terms of class and caste is only do they describe the suffering of occasions for mourning, and as dangerous well visible in these statements, and so is the victims at the hands of an organised, scripts of what could have happened had the extent and type of loss, and the ability sponsored mob, they also document the the army not intervened, or had some to overcome it evident in the testimonials. depth of impunity through which the kind neighbour not given shelter at that Without doubt, the ones who suffered state can deny justice to its own citizens. particular moment, or any other miracle the most in terms of loss of life and Central to this story is the role of the that separates one from a possible disaster. meagre material posses sions were also police that has not always been the key That the questions of death, rape and the ones who were the most vulnerable focus of investigations. In many acco- material destruction were distinct possi- in terms of both class and caste. unts, some named police offi cials appear bilities, and not just located in the realm directing the victims indoors while as- of our fearful imagination, was what the A Story of Complicity suring them of safety and protection, affi davits stood for. Most of the affi davits were generated a and then directing the mob to attack It was not until more than a decade few months after the violence, which them. In some cases, the policemen ago that the actual copies of these affi - peaked between 31 October and 3 No- themselves participated in the violence davits came my way while engaged in vember 1984. The testimonials were by shooting at the victims. In others, my research on Partition history. During assembled for the Justice Ranganath they disarmed the victims so that they my fi eldwork, I often witnessed how the Misra Judicial Commission that was set could no longer protect themselves from residents of Partition resettlement up half a year later to launch an enquiry the mob. A well-known account is of a colonies – from Amar Colony in Lajpat into the pogrom. As is well known, the Sikh family that possessed a licensed Nagar to in Kingsway Misra Commission was fl awed in its very gun, and which kept the mob at bay for Camp – the ex-refugees and their de- methodology that allowed the powerful almost 24 hours. They were safe until scendants, would speak of 1984 as “our accused private hearings, whereas the the police arrived and arrested them for Partition” as a way of making me victims, often poor and vulnerable, were possessing arms. The attack in that quar- understand the kind of loss and destruc- not given that privilege. The testimonies ter took place as the police left with the tion they had witnessed. But Partition, of the accused were never subjected to gun and the arrested Sikh men. The they would sometimes try to rationalise, cross-examination, and on the basis of affi davit details how the police beat up was a bit different because the events of this skewed enquiry, the Misra Commis- the men for having defi ed the mob, and boundary-making, expulsion and loss sion absolved Rajiv Gandhi of executive one of the men in police custody died of was supposed to lead to their proper responsibility. The irony is that even this fatal injuries a few days later. These “homeland”. On the other hand, 1984 had feeble report was not allowed by the accounts of police complicity, or, more precisely happened in the safe zone of government to be tabled before Parlia- often not, non-action, have never been that homeland where security of life and ment in 1987 for a discussion. Since fully investigated. possessions was supposedly guaranteed then, 1984 has been the subject of at The affi davits also speak of sexual vio- by the state to all its constituents. Parti- least 10 judicial enquiry commissions, a lence – sometimes unambiguously, and tion and 1984 were intricately connected process that has sometimes appeared at other times in the form of hints that in these narratives, one unfolding into a lmost to be a farce where enquiry point more subtly towards its possibility. another to create a sense of enduring commissions would recommend the The word “rape” does not fi gure always, loss. Yet, it was 1984 that stood for that creation of more commissions to under- but is alluded to in different ways. For ultimate breakdown of trust between take further enquiry. instance, the perpetrators presenting

36 november 1, 2014 vol xlix nos 43 & 44 EPW Economic & Political Weekly PERSPECTIVES themselves as “husbands” to the women testimonies, the demands for justice are those who fail to travel the expected path whose partners they had just killed, or seldom for themselves alone, they invar- of “becoming”: from victims to survivors. the brief narratives of abduction of iably carry the moral burden of narrat- The events of 1984, after all, have young women by the mob told by family ing the wounds infl icted on others. The been in public orbit for three decades members or neighbours. Through the historical wound of 1984, we might say, now, part of a public discourse where curtain of shame, the extent of sexual has for long been intricately tied to the the testimonies have been in circulation violence can be gauged as it appears in bodies of widows. Recall how the widow within and outside the court system. The concealed forms. In fact, sexual violence colony located in the Tilak Vihar area of question is this: how do we make sense has almost always occupied minimal West Delhi is often the place journalists, of the wound that does not heal, residual space in judicial and criminal enquiries researchers, and documentary fi lm- makers matter in a constant state of decay that of events of communal violence. visit when they want to see and show the neither regenerates nor disappears, and Neha Dixit’s (2013) reportage on rape unhealed wounds of 1984. The widows yet remains essential to the public spec- during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar violence are taken to be the living memories of tacle of woundedness even as it is was path-breaking in this respect. Her three-decade old violence. deemed “irrecoverable” in the present? investigation brought out in painstaking The centrality of the widows in the By historical waste, I am suggesting a detail the use of rape as a tool of punish- narrative of 1984 allows us to delve suspended condition where victims ment and revenge wrought collectively deeper into the nature of the wound sometimes fail to recover and do not “get upon a community. That sexual violence itself. The very description of the victims/ over” and “move on” with their lives as is a part of communal violence is well eyewitnesses primarily as “widows” sig- expected. Their utter destruction and known, but has never been focused upon nals the layered ambiguity with which failure remain in full public glare as in its own right. In this sense, Urvashi the society views them. The wound, symbols of collective woundedness, and, Butalia (1998), and Ritu Menon and here, constitutes the experiences not therefore, valued as such but with little Kamla Bhasin’s (1998) work on Partition only of suffering and loss of their loved prospect of recovery. How do we account and sexual violence stands out for direct- ones during the violence, but, I suggest, for their failure to don the mantle of ing our focus on an oft-neglected theme. also of being positioned as wasted “left- “survivor” as NGOs and social scientists Megha Kumar’s recent work on sexual overs” of men who were killed by the looking for signs of agency would have? violence and communalism in Gujarat mob. If widowhood in a patriarchal set- And what does the judicial stalemate promises to investigate this theme, but up is seen as a prolonged curse, a pun- and constantly deferred justice mean for unfortunately still remains unavailable ishment, a form of wound that never the victims’ ability to recover? These for the reading publics due to judicial ever heals, then widowed victims of questions of irrecoverability, or the fail- intervention of a different kind. communal violence symbolise the tragic ure to heal the wound, have hardly been depths of that irrecoverable loss in the addressed within the studies of violence Historical Waste public sphere. Or, put differently, the and suffering. I turn here to the “deponents” – the offi - fi gure of the widow poses a theoretical To be sure, the position of the widows cial nomenclature for those who attempt impossibility for social scientists who of 1984 is not an exception, but can be to make their voices heard within the have long claimed voice and publicity to located in a longer gendered genealogy judicial system through affi davits. The be equivalent to recovery and healing. of violence and loss. Consider the young deponents, in this instance, also happen The ability to speak, to make one’s suf- widows of the 1947 Partition who had to be the victims of deadly crimes perpe- fering heard has for long been taken to be been turned away by their extended trated against them, or eyewitnesses a sign of healing of the wound. The act of families due to family quarrels, lack of who saw murders and rapes take place remembering, and telling others aloud fi nancial resources, or, sometimes, the in front of them, and more often than what one’s bodies had borne, and eyes stigma of sexual violence or widowhood not, are both victims as well as eyewit- had seen, has been interpreted to be a itself as they were seen as embodiments nesses at the same time. A vast majority step towards closure. For Dipesh Chakra- of misfortune and ill-luck. A large part of the deponents who feature in the affi - barty, the publicity of the historical of my fi eldwork in 2000-02 and 2010 on davits are widows who were witnesses wound, or to speak in its name “is to be Partition refugees was conducted in a to murders of their husbands and chil- already on the path of recovery” (2007: “widow colony” in Lajpat Nagar estab- dren, police inaction or collaboration, 77). Given this established theoretical lished by the state in 1947 to house young and sometimes victims and/or eyewit- drift that equates publicity and recovery, widows who were not claimed by their nesses of gang rapes. The widows of the I would like to rethink the question of families for a variety of reasons. This 1984 pogrom have often been positioned recovery itself, and consider instead the group of young female refugees had as the prime embodiments of the violent “possibility of failure” to recover even been separated from “normal” refugees brutality and loss that defi nes it. They when one’s plight is public knowledge. and housed in barricaded camps, more not only have experienced suffering, but What I am proposing is to bring in the like tightly-run hostels, where the move- also bear witness to the suffering of possibility of irrecoverability into the ment of the inmates was regulated by others who are no more alive. In their frame of recovery that has little space for the state-turned-patriarch.

Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 1, 2014 vol xlix nos 43 & 44 37 PERSPECTIVES

In the 1960s, the Government of India community. These small amounts of those years ago is unsettling, for we invented a novel bureaucratic category fi nancial aid, many would assume, facil- know too well that the cry for justice called “residue”, under which the widows itates healing as one gets on with the therein has remained unaddressed. The were now governed. The offi cial category business of everyday life. In the national victims who had gathered courage to of residue was meant to indicate all frame also the widows receive sympathy, testify in the courts, and in front of a those refugees who were now deemed to yet here too they are also the reminders series of judicial commissions, somehow be beyond “recovery” by the state (Kaur of a gruesome chapter in India’s contem- remain locked in time in the wait of jus- 2014). Besides widows, this category porary history. Their stories have been tice. If there is a history these testimo- included refugees who were aged and told and heard, and their photographs nies narrate, it is the messy history of the handicapped, who seemingly offered little exhibited in public spaces. This exposure wound and its wasteful degeneration, of value to society. The English word “resi- in the global circuits of publicity, one its failure to recover and move on even due” suggests “something that remains might argue, is also a path to recovery. when faced with the deadline of a when the whole or the main part has 30-year anniversary. been taken” (Oxford Dictionary 1999), The Balm of Justice and when translated into Hindi suggests Yet, when one reads these testimo nials Notes at least two overlapping meanings – that recount events of three decades 1 Submitted to Ranganath Misra Commission on adhura (incomplete) or jhoo than (half- ago, what becomes apparent is another 7 September 1985, New Delhi. 2 See note 1. eaten, leftover, and therefore rendered meaning of recovery that has not always 3 See note 1. impure). In this offi cial discourse, the been located at the heart of the healing 4 Submitted to Ranganath Misra Commission on status of the widow (the leftover of process – the balm of justice. While 8 September 1985, New Delhi. the man) mimicked the qualities of the “communal riots” are usually attributed bureaucratic residue (the leftover of the to the work of the faceless “mob”, the references state rehabilitation programmes), where testimonials presented here clearly point Butalia, Urvashi (1998): The Other Side of Silence: able-bodied men were deemed to be out names of perpetrators – sometimes Voices from the (New Delhi: Viking Penguin). the prime agents of recovery and neighbours, local leaders, small traders Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2007): “History and the rehabilitation (Kaur 2009). with access to fuel and transport, police- Politics of Recognition” in Keith Jenkins, Sue Morgan and Alan Munslow (ed.), Manifestos for The women who were protected in men – who the victims were often famil- Historians (London: Routledge), 77-86. marital homes and other patriarchal iar with. The act of describing the Dixit, Neha (2013): “Thread Bared”, Outlook Magazine, arrangements were considered recover- crimes, and naming the names of perpe- 30 December, viewed on 10 October 2014, http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Thread able and valuable insofar as recreating trators is done with a singular purpose -Bared/288907 the familiar social order and honour. The of pursuing justice for themselves and Kaur, Ravinder (2009): “Distinctive Citizenship: Refugees, Subjects and Post-colonial State in young widows, in contrast, assembled in their dead ones. The pursuit of justice is India’s Partition”, Cultural and Social History, state-sponsored exclusive refugee camps not only about narrating to others what 6(4): 429-46. and protected homes, embodied the vio- had happened, but also to gain an affi r- – (2014): “Bodies of Partition: Of Widows, Resi- due and Other Historical Waste” in Steffen lent fractures that had produced such mation that others do believe in their ac- Jensen and Henrik Rønsbo (ed.), Histories of exceptional spaces. They were, at once, counts. The desire to see the guilty pun- Victimhood (Philadelphia: University of Penn- sylvania Press), 44-63. objects of state pity and derision – ironi- ished by knocking loudly at the doors of Menon, Ritu and Kamla Bhasin (1998): Borders and cally, their value lay primarily in their law is not about vengefulness, it is about Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition (New Delhi: Kali for Women). ability to embody the collective suffering restoring some order to one’s own life Oxford Dictionary (1999): “Residue” (New Delhi: of Partition. The relationship between that was violently torn apart. If the Oxford University Press). recovery and publicity appears to be less breakdown of law and order signals the straightforward in this case. breakdown of the moral universe, the EPW Index I want to return here to the widows/ quest for justice is a desperate plea to re- victims of the 1984 violence who have new one’s faith in the state apparatus to An author-title index for EPW has been been in a state of judicial suspension for restore, even if partially, that fractured prepared for the years from 1968 to 2012. the past three decades. The space they universe. And, it is precisely on this The PDFs of the Index have been uploaded, year-wise, on the EPW website. Visitors can occupy within the Indian nation as well count that the victims have been failed download the Index for all the years from as the Sikh community as such is a by the state and the judicial system. the site. (The Index for a few years is yet strange one in relation to what recovery What makes these testimonies dis- to be prepared and will be uploaded might mean for them. Within the Sikh turbing reading after three decades is when ready.) community, they have been the objects not just the original wounds infl icted EPW would like to acknowledge the help of of sympathy, and their widowhood seen upon the victims, but the subsequent the staff of the library of the Indira Gandhi as a direct consequence and a constant wound of the denial of justice that has Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, reminder of the anti-Sikh violence. Thus, never allowed the healing process to in preparing the index under a project they have for long been recipients of fully set in. To read these affi davits supported by the RD Tata Trust. small-scale fi nancial help from the prepared for a judicial commission all

38 november 1, 2014 vol xlix nos 43 & 44 EPW Economic & Political Weekly