‘The Kaurs of 1984’*

The year 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh massacre—when at least 4,000 Sikhs were brutally killed in the national capital, in the aftermath of the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

For the past two months, ‘The Quint’, the on-line magazine, has been rigorously working on a documentary on the same. But ‘The Quint’ people have gone beyond talking about the violence that unfurled in November 1984. Trilokpuri and Palam localities were severely affected by Anti-Sikh Riot. These places still bear marks of the massacre which took place 40 years ago.

Titled ‘The Kaurs of 1984’*, this documentary focuses on the lives of the women survivors in the aftermath of the massacre. These women continue to fight back and strive for justice, forty years after the men in their families were killed in targeted attacks.

It is the story of women like Darshan Kaur who—shortly after losing 12 members of her family, including her husband—led the struggle of hundreds of other widows like her, helped them get jobs, and continued fighting the case against former Congress minister HKL Bhagat, despite several attempts on her life.

It is the story of 16-year-old Nirpreet Kaur, who saw her father being burnt alive by a mob led by MP Sajjan Kumar’s nephew BalwanKhokhar, with her own neighbours helping them.

As courts failed to deliver justice, Nirpreet, a mere college student, picked up arms and joined militants, only to be arrested days before carrying out the planned assassination of her father’s killers. She was acquitted later but not before spending almost 10 years in jail. She gave up guns and started a legal fight against the perpetrators. She found several eyewitnesses and her struggle led to the conviction of Sajjan Kumar, 34 years after 1984.

This documentary is also the story of hundreds of widows and orphaned children in Delhi’s TilakVihar, like Pappi Kaur, Bhagi Kaur, and Nirmal Kaur, who are still dying a slow death everyday since the ghastly massacre of 1984.

The breadwinners in their families killed and their homes destroyed, they had to strive to even make ends meet. It’s been four decades, but they continue to suffer trauma and poverty as a direct consequence of what happened. 

The documentary also records the experiences of those who have been closely working with them in their fight. Advocate HS Phoolka, who took up the violence cases pro-bono; Paramjeet Singh, the PUDR researcher closely working on the aftermath; and Sanam Sutirath Wazir, author of ‘The Kaurs of 1984’, the book that inspired this documentary.

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 21, Nov 17 - 23, 2024