The document summarizes efforts of civil society leaders in Punjab, India to support survivors of the 1984-1995 conflict. It describes various organizations and individuals working for justice, including student groups providing community support, families seeking truth for loved ones killed, and activists documenting human rights abuses such as secret cremations of thousands of victims. Despite challenges like poverty and drug abuse exacerbated by the conflict, civil society has played a key role in sustaining efforts for peace, reconciliation and memorialization.

1. Punjab: Civil Society and Conflict Transformation
A look at efforts to support the survivors of the 1984-1995 conflict in Punjab.
By Armed Conflict Resolution and People’s Rights Project
Armed Conflict Resolution and People’s Rights Project, University of California at Berkeley’s Center for
Nonprofit and Public Leadership-Haas School of Business. Text by Project Co-chairs Angana Chatterji and
Shashi Buluswar and Director of Programs Mallika Kaur. Images by Robert Nickelsberg, except where
noted.

2. The conflict from 1984 to 1995 had devastating consequences for the villages and towns of
Punjab. Civil society leaders across the state have been working for justice and the social and
economic conditions that might enable a sustainable peace…The Diplomat, October 14, 2014.
LINK: http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/punjab-civil-society-and-conflict-transformation/

3. Student-led efforts at Guru Nanak Dev University Gurdwara (a Sikh place of worship) offer a
space for community building, and welcome young women and men of all backgrounds. In the
late 1980s students organized to start the campus Gurdwara. Today it is entirely student-managed
and serves meals prepared by students, without charge, to attendees.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

4. Chaman Lal is a 97-year old public leader of
Hindu Punjabi descent. Following the death
of his son, Gulshan Kumar – a vegetable
vendor – while in the custody of the police,
who had picked him up three days before
his wedding in 1993, Chaman Lal’s quest
for justice to clear his son’s name became
the primary focus of his life. Gulshan
Kumar’s case is pending judgment at the
Supreme Court of India. Recently Lal
supported a sit-in by some victims of the
November 1984 violence who had
relocated from Delhi to Punjab, and were
protesting their displacement by Punjab’s
local leaders from the very lands allocated
to them for “riot relief.”
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

5. Baljit Kaur, a distinguished civil society leader of Sikh Punjabi descent, undertook fact-finding
work during the conflict. Kaur’s work narrates a complex story of the protracted conflict and of
the gendered and sexualized violence that took place in Punjab’s countryside, and has served as
the mainstay of numerous reports.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

6. Nonagenarian Justice Ajit Singh Bains is known as
the “People’s Judge” for his principled service on
a government committee investigating the
arrests following Operation Blue Star. Bains, who
had retired from a judgeship at the Punjab and
Haryana High Court in 1984, was subsequently
arrested in 1992 on charges of seditious speech.
He spent five months in jail amidst widespread
international condemnation and protests by local
bar associations in India. His son and human
rights lawyer Rajvinder Singh Bains has argued
several conflict-related cases, including the case
of the human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

7. Jaswant Singh Khalra, a human rights
defender, uncovered the clandestine and
mass cremations that were undertaken in
Punjab during the conflict. In the early 1990s,
he estimated that more than 25,000 such
cremations had taken place across the state.
In 1995, following an international trip to
create awareness around the issue, Khalra
was murdered, as noted in the Summary
Judgment in the Khalra Case on November
18, 2005. Paramjit Kaur Khalra, his wife and
formerly a librarian, founded the Khalra
Mission Organization. In 2013, India’s Central
Bureau of Investigation validated 2,097
secret cremations that Mr. Khalra had
discovered. The government’s inquiries were
limited to three crematoria in Amritsar and
bound to the timeframe of 1984-94.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

8. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak (Management) Committee Office is located in Teja Singh
Samundari Hall, a key landmark in Amritsar. Here, the largest tally of civilian deaths occurred in
June 1984, during the army’s operations on the Harmandir Sahib Gurdwara, “Golden Temple,”
Complex, where this office is situated. Its walls still bear bullet marks from the incident.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

9. Agricultural Fields are a mainstay across
Punjab, home to a number of “green
revolution” initiatives. Today, within what is
widely viewed as a vibrant economy, more
than 34 percent of marginal farmers live below
the poverty line in Punjab, accounting for 78
percent of famers who have committed suicide
in the past decade, creating female-led
households and placing an even greater
burden on women. Over 200,000 agricultural
workers and small farmers gave up farming in
Punjab between 1991 and 2005. The conflict
magnified existing disputes around land use
and ownership, diminishing the ability of
marginalized farming families to produce
enough to hold onto their land and the
security it offers. This, and various other
socioeconomic factors, has led to a prevalence
of alcohol and drug abuse throughout urban
and rural Punjab. Sources reportedly claim
that Punjab may be the second highest state
with respect to drug abuse in India. More than
5,000 persons reportedly undergo
rehabilitation each year for addiction to
opium, cocaine, and other drugs.
Image Credit: Mallika Kaur

10. Harmandir Sahib Gurdwara, “Golden Temple,” Complex.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

11. Social and personal counter-memory
can take the form of
a story and circulate across
the cultural landscape. In
local mythos, for example,
some of the marble inlays
with red patches located at
the center of the Harmandir
Sahib Gurdwara, “Golden
Temple,” Complex in
Amritsar are stained with the
blood of those who died
there in 1984.
Image Credit: Angana Chatterji

12. Sandeep Kaur, a public figure, set up a
Charitable Trust in 2002 to shelter
homeless children from affected
families and provide for their
education. She was 12-years-old in
1984. Shortly after, she sought out the
company of militants training to
combat the army and later spent four
years in jail. She witnessed episodes of
sexual violence in prison, leading to her
resolve to work for the survivors of
conflict, especially girls. Eighty
homeless children – along with older
girls and women – live in the
headquarters of the trust in Sultanwind
Village, which itself witnessed
approximately 50 deaths during the
Punjab conflict.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

13. The Nishan Sahib, a Sikh symbolic insignia or flag used all over Punjab, is regularly raised atop
Gurdwaras, monuments, and other spaces of significance. During the conflict years, villagers
erected Nishan Sahibs in memory of the dead and disappeared. In one village, the Nishan Sahib
was bulldozed at one point in time; in another, the orange cloth was stolen. Once erected against
odds, today, Nishan Sahibs are preserved by a multitude of villages.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

14. Nishan Sahib, Harmandir Sahib
Gurdwara, “Golden Temple,”
Complex.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

15. Women community leaders.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

16. Paramjit Kaur Khalra of the Khalra Mission Organization and Human Rights Lawyer Rajvinder Singh Bains with
Angana Chatterji and Mallika Kaur.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg

17. Documents chronicling local efforts at restitution.
Image Credit: Robert Nickelsberg