Publisher's Synopsis
Rivers on Fire: Khalistan Struggle tells the story of the militant struggle in Punjab that was triggered by the events in 1978 and took the lives of about 50000 people during the period of about a decade and a half. The spectre of its revival continues to haunt the political and security establishment in India. The job of the journalist is to tell the story on the basis of available facts. This book is the first such attempt to tell the people as to waht sparked this struggle, who were the people in the beginning and how this discource shaped up as fight for a separate Sikh state. This story of Punjab is based upon the interaction with the people who were part of that struggle. The effort has been to cross-check the information that forms the basis of the narrative. The dynamics of the involvement of pakistan has been revealed by talking to the people who had stayed there for long. Historically, the Sikh religio-political discourse is synergy of both the peaceful and the militant struggles from the earlier days. Besides going to the roots of the present militant struggle, this book also details the peaceful struggle of which the Shiromani Gurdwaara Parbandhak Committee is the outcome. What is common in the peaceful as well as the militant religio-political discourse is the brutal state repression. Only selective militant actions have been taken up. These were the incidents that shaped the discource at crucial moments. This book shatters several myths about the struggle and the players involved.
