It is quite a coincidence that I am preparing a review of Radhika Chopra's Amritsar 1984 having just heard of the life sentence handed down by the Delhi High Court to former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar for his role in the November 1984 Delhi riots, in which thousands of Sikhs were targeted by mobs and killed. These riots were sparked by the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984, both of whom acted in retaliation for the Indian government's disastrous raid on the Sikh Golden Temple in June of that year, an incursion engendered in part by the rising tide of ethno-nationalist politics in the Punjab beginning in many ways with the partition of British India in 1947.
To say that the event of June 1984, known in infamy as Operation Bluestar, has haunted all Sikh politics in India and abroad since that day is surely an understatement. It began a period in the history of the Punjab that saw indiscriminate killings enacted by both police and militants that only began to ease a decade later, after the government had killed virtually every militant within the state. Chopra's text situates itself within this conflict, continuing the story to the present day in regard to the city most affected by these developments, Amritsar. In the process, she uncovers dimensions of 1984 that were little known to even seasoned scholars of Sikh history.
The city of Amritsar is home to the most sacred and well-known of Sikh sites, the Golden Temple. It is here where many of the Sikh Gurus thrived and here where its martyrs died, making sacred its precincts by both presence and blood. Indeed, it is here where many of the decisions that affect the Sikh world are made today under the direction of the jathedār of the Akal Takht, the Throne of the Immortal that sits right across from the Golden Temple proper. Although books on these topics are many, few acknowledge the living presence of Amritsar and its denizens, Sikh and non-Sikh, in the way that Chopra's book does.
The book is divided into four chapters headed by an introduction. Chapter 1 links the city intimately with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, tying in his memorialization with the recent construction of the 1984 Martyr's Memorial situated within the precincts of the Golden Temple. This chapter is most welcome, as it is possibly the first of which I am aware that makes readers privy to the discussions surrounding this controversial memorial, which contests the narrative of the event put forward by the Indian state.
Chapter 2 leads off from where the preceding chapter ended, the complex visuality of martyr portraits (Bhindranwale's in chapter 1; the innocent Sikhs killed in the crossfire of Operation Bluestar in chapter 2), many of which hang within the Golden Temple's museum. This chapter structures itself around the muh dekhṇā, literally “seeing the face” or the death ritual of seeing off the dead, and how such displays and their transformations form “a response to the political and social contexts within which rituals are enacted/performed” (p. 29).
Chapters 3 and 4 form a binary, examining a subject that focuses in large part upon the quotidian, or to put it rather crudely, the local or “bazaar religiosity” of the city. In these, Chopra notes, it is not only the sacred temple that is the locus of divinity but its surrounding areas and objects as well; indeed, it is the entire “walled city” of Amritsar (the walled city is often referred to as “medieval” Amritsar). She notes that the shop owners and their regular customers (a number of whom are not Sikhs) consider themselves the guardians of the type of religious orthodoxy that they claim was compromised by Sikh leaders, those who allowed the militants to base their operations from within the sacred precincts in the early 1980s. These residents as guardians were instrumental in preserving the frescoes within the Baba Atal Tower, which were no longer considered apropos, archiving this heritage (many times at their own expense) with the production of the janam-sakhi of Baba Atal. What I found especially fascinating in chapter 4 was the substance of Chopra's interviews—bazārī bāt-chīt (bazaar gossip)—with those shopkeepers around the Golden Temple who were forced to modify the façades of their stores to meet new standards, and the dealings that went on behind the scenes in the ultimate creation of Amritsar's modern “makeover” spearheaded by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, including both Amritsar's new international airport and the new heritage square. The subtext of this gossip was quite voluble: the changes ushered in by this modern “beautification project” have denuded the city of its once vibrant charm, transforming it into something positively saccharine.
Along with the inhabitants of the bazaar, Chopra examines its objects, such as the souvenir as the “portable sacred” or the material of her much more generous understanding of Sikh religion. These reach out and allow the devout and others to experience the sacred in intriguing ways. This chapter thus situates Sikh tradition within its popular religious environment, bringing back to the surface its deep bhakti roots shaped on the one hand by multifaceted forms of Hindu devotionalism and on the other by South Asian Islamic mysticism.
Amritsar 1984 is simply wonderful, although too short in my opinion, which is especially noticeable in the final chapter. Jallianwala Bagh, for example, which is a stone's throw away from the Golden Temple and which houses its own martyry called the śahīdī chitarśalā, barely receives a mention, as do the many little Sikh shrines and gurdwaras one only discovers by walking through the byways, lanes, and alleys that make the city such a joy to visit and a delight to inhabit. A chapter on the virtual spaces Amritsar now occupies would also have been welcome. But these complaints are minor when compared to the benefits Chopra's work has provided. Reading through her text allows one to vividly experience Amritsar second-hand and become aware of the tragic history and the various rituals enacted therein that have helped shape such a wonderful city.
