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 Amritdhari circular, and drove a generation across the border into ISI camps. The insurgency's least documented chapter.
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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 year legal fight: what happened to the survivors of November 1984 after the fires went out.
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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 killed thousands of Sikhs. The evidence, the impunity, and what the pogrom did to Punjab.
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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 dead, and the shockwave that led to an assassination and an insurgency: Operation Blue Star examined in full.
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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 drift by which the Darbar Sahib became a fortress, and the failures on every side that made June 1984 possible.
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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 after its engineers were assassinated: how the SYL waters dispute quietly powered Punjab's insurgency.
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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 history of the Khalistan demand, and how 1984 turned an emigre idea into a fighting faith.
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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, opened a decade long war on the press, and led to the arrest and release that made Bhindranwale untouchable.
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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 Sikh politics in six years. His rise, his patrons, his violence and his afterlife.
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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, and the cycle of assassination it began made this the true starting point of Punjab's dark years.
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