Ishmeet Kaur Chaudhry

Black November: Writings on the Sikh Massacres of 1984 and the Aftermath Ishmeet Kaur Chaudhry

On the 35th anniversary of the anti-Sikh carnage of 1984, this unprecedented collection brings together the voices of survivors, writers, poets and activists to record the systematic violence, rape and trauma inflicted on a community, and its enduring after-effects.

On 31 October 1984, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, thousands of Sikh men, women and children were humiliated, beaten, burnt alive and lynched in unimaginable ways by organized, angry mobs across north and central India.

This collection of interviews, affidavits, short stories, plays and poetry recounts the horrific violence, betrayals and the ensuing injustice suffered by the survivors, who have lived with their trauma for over three and a half decades. At a time when caste and religious minorities in India are being systematically targeted and isolated yet again, this book brings to light, with empathy and unflinching honesty the blood-curdling fear and alienation of a whole community torn apart by state-abetted violence, and worn down by the subsequent slog for justice.

Black November contains interviews conducted by Nandita Haksar and Uma Chakravarti in the immediate aftermath of the riots, more recent interviews by the editor Ishmeet Kaur Chaudhry in the Tilak Vihar Widows' Colony, chilling accounts by Jarnail Singh, Manmohan Singh, Dhiren Bhagat, as well as moving short stories, plays and poetry by Harish Narang, N. S. Madhavan, Rachel Bari, Bishnu Mohapatra, Harnidh Kaur, Parvinder Mehta, Manroop Dhingra, among others.