1984: In Memory and Imagination — Personal Essays and Stories on the 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots, edited by Vikram Kapur, examines the human narrative of 1984 with stories, both real and imagined, of men and women whose lives were altered by that tragic chain of events and who continue to live with them to this day.
“While nonfiction probes the changing psyche of society by scrutinising the factual history of the times, fiction catches the horror of what happened by giving the human story a number of unforgettable faces,” says Kapur.
“There are pieces that zero in on that moment in history. Others remind us of how it continues to fester in the lives of several people to this day. And still others view it in terms of its ramifications for Indian politics and society,” he says.
In his essay ‘1984: An Overview 3’, the then Punjab DGP Kirpal Dhillon says the events of 1984 epitomise the conceptual and functional make-up of an autocratic and oppressive state.
“The cumulative after-effects of the grievous events of 1984 in India would last for decades and the ensuing frictions and fissures in social and political terms would continue to seriously damage the institutions of governance and their dynamism,” he writes.
According to well-known Punjabi fiction writer Ajeet Cour, the fear, like a vulture, had hovered, and circled over the cities and the villages.
