Supported by Readers Like You Sunday, September 13, 2026 | 1:35 AM IST Become a Member Login
New Delhi, India28°COvercast · AQI 78
NIFTY23,398.10-0.34%SENSEX74,781.76-0.16%USD/INR95.54+0.45%
Browse Category

Punjab Files

5 Chapters 52 Articles

Read this category as an ordered editorial path. Choose a chapter, then follow the articles in sequence.

Latest articles

KPS Gill: The Supercop Who Never Surrendered

Kanwar Pal Singh Gill took charge of a Punjab in psychological collapse and broke the deadliest insurgency in independent India's history. The story of the supercop…

Chapter 1

Origins and Escalation

10 Articles
  1. 1 The Roots of the Storm: How Punjab Drifted Toward Insurgency The Roots of the Storm: How Punjab Drifted Toward Insurgency Partition trauma, the Punjabi Suba battle, river waters, the Green Revolution's restless youth, and cynical party politics: how… 4 Min Read
  2. 2 The Anandpur Sahib Resolution: Autonomy Demand or Separatist Charter The Anandpur Sahib Resolution: Autonomy Demand or Separatist Charter Adopted in 1973 and denounced for a decade, the Anandpur Sahib Resolution was read as secession by some… 4 Min Read
  3. 3 The 1978 Nirankari Clash: The Day the Fuse Was Lit The 1978 Nirankari Clash: The Day the Fuse Was Lit Thirteen Sikhs died confronting a Nirankari convention in Amritsar on Baisakhi 1978. The clash, the acquittal that followed,… 4 Min Read
  4. 4 Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale: The Preacher Who Became a Storm Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale: The Preacher Who Became a Storm Sant to some, terrorist to others, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale rose from village preacher to the armed centre of… 4 Min Read
  5. 5 The Murder of Lala Jagat Narain and the War on the Press The Murder of Lala Jagat Narain and the War on the Press The 1981 assassination of Punjab Kesari founder Lala Jagat Narain announced that the militancy would kill its critics,… 4 Min Read
  6. 6 The Khalistan Idea: Where the Demand Came From and Who Carried It The Khalistan Idea: Where the Demand Came From and Who Carried It Never endorsed by the Akalis, never victorious in an election, strongest abroad and weakest at home: the strange… 4 Min Read
  7. 7 Rivers of Discord: The SYL Canal and the Waters Dispute Rivers of Discord: The SYL Canal and the Waters Dispute The riparian principle, the 1976 allocation to Haryana, the canal launched by Indira Gandhi in 1982 and abandoned… 4 Min Read
  8. 8 The Golden Temple Becomes a Fortress: 1982 to 1984 The Golden Temple Becomes a Fortress: 1982 to 1984 From the Dharam Yudh Morcha's headquarters to Shabeg Singh's gun positions in the Akal Takht: the two year… 4 Min Read
  9. 9 Operation Blue Star: June 1984 and Its Terrible Arithmetic Operation Blue Star: June 1984 and Its Terrible Arithmetic The decision, the battle for the Akal Takht, the tanks in the parikrama, the contested count of the… 4 Min Read
  10. 10 The Assassination of Indira Gandhi and the November 1984 Carnage The Assassination of Indira Gandhi and the November 1984 Carnage The assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 was answered with three days of organised slaughter that… 4 Min Read
Chapter 1 of 5
Chapter 2

The Descent

10 Articles
  1. 1 After the Fire: The Survivors of November 1984 and Their Forty Year Fight After the Fire: The Survivors of November 1984 and Their Forty Year Fight The relief camps, the Widow Colony of Tilak Vihar, ten commissions, the Sajjan Kumar conviction, and the forty… 4 Min Read
  2. 2 Operation Woodrose: The Sweep Through Rural Punjab Operation Woodrose: The Sweep Through Rural Punjab The army sweep through Punjab's villages after Blue Star detained thousands of young Sikh men, produced the notorious… 4 Min Read
  3. 3 The Rajiv Longowal Accord: The Peace That Never Arrived The Rajiv Longowal Accord: The Peace That Never Arrived Chandigarh, waters, the Sarkaria reference, compensation for 1984: the Punjab Accord of July 1985 addressed nearly every grievance… 4 Min Read
  4. 4 The Assassination of Sant Longowal: Killing the Peacemaker The Assassination of Sant Longowal: Killing the Peacemaker Twenty six days after signing the Punjab Accord, Sant Longowal was shot dead inside a gurdwara at Sherpur.… 4 Min Read
  5. 5 The Panthic Committees and the Declaration of Khalistan, 1986 The Panthic Committees and the Declaration of Khalistan, 1986 From a Sarbat Khalsa at the scarred Akal Takht, a five member Panthic Committee proclaimed Khalistan on April… 4 Min Read
  6. 6 Babbar Khalsa, KCF, KLF, BTFK: Mapping the Militant Groups Babbar Khalsa, KCF, KLF, BTFK: Mapping the Militant Groups Babbar Khalsa's doctrinaire cadres, the KCF's declared army, the KLF and BTFK second wave, the splinter gangs and… 4 Min Read
  7. 7 Operation Black Thunder: The Siege That Went Differently Operation Black Thunder: The Siege That Went Differently In May 1988 the state retook the Golden Temple complex with a siege, snipers, patience and the press… 4 Min Read
  8. 8 The Air India Kanishka Bombing: Terror Crosses the Ocean The Air India Kanishka Bombing: Terror Crosses the Ocean Flight 182 was destroyed over the Atlantic on June 23, 1985, killing 329 people, in a Babbar Khalsa… 4 Min Read
  9. 9 The Bus Massacres: When the Militancy Turned Its Guns on Passengers The Bus Massacres: When the Militancy Turned Its Guns on Passengers From Muktsar 1986 to Fatehabad 1987 to the Baddowal trains of 1991, militants stopped buses and killed passengers… 4 Min Read
  10. 10 The Killing Fields of Majha: Tarn Taran and Amritsar in the Late 1980s The Killing Fields of Majha: Tarn Taran and Amritsar in the Late 1980s The border belt of Amritsar and Tarn Taran was the insurgency's epicentre: the corridor from Pakistan, the recruiting… 4 Min Read
Chapter 2 of 5
Chapter 3

The Machinery of Violence

10 Articles
  1. 1 Julio Ribeiro and the Bullet for Bullet Years Julio Ribeiro and the Bullet for Bullet Years Sent to a collapsing force in 1986, Julio Ribeiro rebuilt Punjab Police, survived two assassination attempts, coined the… 3 Min Read
  2. 2 KPS Gill: The Supercop and the Controversy That Follows Him KPS Gill: The Supercop and the Controversy That Follows Him Saviour of Punjab to one accounting, architect of a machinery of disappearance to another: the two tenures of… 4 Min Read
  3. 3 TADA: The Law That Filled Punjab’s Jails Confessions to police, bail beyond reach, tens of thousands detained and a conviction rate near one percent: TADA… 3 Min Read
  4. 4 Encounters, Real and Staged: How Punjab Counted Its Dead Real firefights filled the honour rolls and staged executions filled the cremation registers, and the official record refused… 4 Min Read
  5. 5 The Disappeared: Enforced Disappearances and the Illegal Cremations No FIR, no custody, no body, only an entry in a cremation register reading unclaimed. How the machinery… 3 Min Read
  6. 6 Jaswant Singh Khalra: The Man Who Counted the Dead A bank director who read cremation registers as testimony, announced the disappeared by the thousands, spoke of a… 4 Min Read
  7. 7 The Extortion Economy: How Militancy and Policing Both Taxed Punjab Harvest levies and ransom from one side, paid interrogations and sold hope from the other: the double taxation… 4 Min Read
  8. 8 Journalists Under the Gun: Reporting Punjab in the Dark Years Militant press codes enforced by assassination from one side, blackouts, TADA and surveillance from the other: how Punjab's… 3 Min Read
  9. 9 Hindus of Punjab: Migration, Fear and Staying Put in the Insurgency Targeted by bus selections, bombings and hit lists meant to drive them out, Punjab's Hindus migrated from the… 4 Min Read
  10. 10 The ISI Hand: Pakistan’s Role in Punjab’s Insurgency Sanctuary in Lahore, camps and Kalashnikovs, handlers discouraging peace: Pakistan's ISI armed and prolonged Punjab's insurgency without creating… 3 Min Read
Chapter 3 of 5
Chapter 4

Collapse and Endgame

10 Articles
  1. 1 The Diaspora Factor: Money, Ideology and Khalistan Abroad Treasury, propaganda arm and sanctuary for hundreds; grieving remitters and eventual rejectors in their millions. The Sikh diaspora's… 3 Min Read
  2. 2 The 1992 Elections: A Vote Held at Gunpoint Turnout under twenty four percent, an Akali boycott, militant death threats against voters and the largest security deployment… 3 Min Read
  3. 3 Beant Singh: The Chief Minister of the Endgame An unglamorous Congress veteran took a fraction of a mandate in 1992, gave the endgame its political cover,… 3 Min Read
  4. 4 The Assassination of Beant Singh, August 1995 A human bomb in police uniform killed the chief minister and sixteen others at the Chandigarh secretariat on… 3 Min Read
  5. 5 Why the Militancy Collapsed: Five Forces That Ended the Insurgency From the bloodiest year of the conflict to effective extinction in under three years: the population's turn, the… 3 Min Read
  6. 6 The Villages That Fought Back: Defence Committees and Rural Resistance Night pickets, shotgun licences and gurdwara loudspeakers turned alarm systems: the village defence committees made the population's turn… 3 Min Read
  7. 7 Women in the Insurgency Years: Widows, Mothers and the Missing Half of the Record Widowed by every side, regulated and targeted by the codes, leveraged in the interrogations, and then, in the… 3 Min Read
  8. 8 The Cost in Numbers: Counting the Dead of Punjab’s Dark Years Above twenty one thousand by the official count, a third or more higher once the disappeared are entered,… 3 Min Read
  9. 9 The Courts and the Carnage: Justice for 1984 and the Punjab Years Ten commissions and a generation for the pogrom's convictions, massacres extinguished by encounter rather than adjudicated, dozens of… 4 Min Read
  10. 10 The NHRC Cremations Case: A Reckoning Cut Short The Supreme Court's 1996 reference promised an audit of the disappearances; a quarter century later the NHRC had… 3 Min Read
Chapter 4 of 5
Chapter 5

Memory and Legacy

10 Articles
  1. 1 Truth Without Reconciliation: Punjab’s Unfinished Accounting Punjab's dark years are not unknown; they are unassembled, documented in fragments each constituency curates and no institution… 3 Min Read
  2. 2 From Ghallughara to Satluj: Cinema and the Memory of the Dark Years From Maachis through the banned biopics to the three year war over the Khalra film released as Satluj:… 3 Min Read
  3. 3 The Diaspora and the Politics of Memory Two remembered eras diverging from one record: how the diaspora's curated memory of 1984 became referendum politics, then… 3 Min Read
  4. 4 Referendum 2020 and After: The Khalistan Question Today Unaudited diaspora plebiscites, the Amritpal episode and its sympathy vote, drones and designations at the edges, and no… 3 Min Read
  5. 5 The Radicalisation Debate: Separating Grievance from Separatism Grievance is not separatism, religiosity is not radicalism, memory is not mobilisation, and the fringe is not the… 3 Min Read
  6. 6 Punjab’s Economy After the Guns: From Granary to Crisis A real war wound and a policy trap the war did not dig: the extraction and flight the… 3 Min Read
  7. 7 The Drug Shadow: Did the Insurgency Era Seed Punjab’s Epidemic The Drug Shadow: Did the Insurgency Era Seed Punjab’s Epidemic The insurgency built the smuggling road, corrupted its protection, and wounded a generation; a later economics supplied the… 3 Min Read
  8. 8 Policing After Gill: Reform, Impunity and the Long Shadow Returned to ordinary duties with the era's habits, personnel and protections aboard, never audited and never refounded: Punjab… 3 Min Read
  9. 9 What the Textbooks Skip: Teaching the Punjab Years to a New Generation A sentence on Blue Star, a clause on the riots, and nothing on the fifteen years: the curricular… 3 Min Read
  10. 10 Punjab at Peace: What Reconciliation Would Actually Require Punjab at Peace: What Reconciliation Would Actually Require The count completed in every column, the narrative assembled, consequence proportioned to what remains actionable, and the grievances… 4 Min Read