Sikh Memorials for 1984

Abstract

There are a large number of Sikh memorials and museums built in India after independence, however, the traumatic events of 1984 found little mention in them. It is only recently that public monuments remembering Operation Bluestar of June 1984 and the anti-Sikh violence of November 1984 have been established by the Sikhs: Gurdwara Yaadgaar Shaheedan in the Golden Temple, Amritsar (2013) and the Wall of Truth: Sikh Genocide Memorial in Gurdwara Rakabganj, New Delhi (2017). I discuss the ways in which these two memorials present a challenge to the Indian state’s version of history by (a) remembering events and people which do not find a place in ‘national’ memory, and (b) holding the Indian state responsible for Sikh ‘genocide’. At the same time, both these memorials commemorate 1984 in dramatically different ways, which indicate an uneven relationship between Sikh identity and history and Indian identity/history. I will also comment on the relevance of the Sikh case in the wider landscape of heritage and commemorative politics in contemporary India and the state’s response to these (not only through built spaces but also in popular culture; the most recent examples being two films, Emergency and Punjab ‘95).