A Conference | 1984 Sikh Genocide: Resilience, Resistance and Reverberations Forty Years On

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Building on numerous commemorative and scholarly conferences held in India and the global Punjabi Sikh diaspora in 2024–as well as new scholarly contributions to this period of Sikh and Punjabi history–"1984 Sikh Genocide: Resilience, Resistance and Reverberations Forty Years On” is a conference that aims to commemorate forty years since 1984 and shed light on the practice of state impunity and the unanswered search for justice, accountability and healing among the Sikh community. Presentations by community organizers, researchers and scholars will critically examine existing dominant scholarly and Indian state distortions surrounding the year 1984 and its aftermaths; bring community advocacy and concerns into dialogue with scholarly discourse and vice versa, and generate discourse on new research and scholarly directions on 1984. These new directions might engage: critical religious and secularism studies; memory, genocide and trauma studies; critical feminist approaches to state militarism, counter-insurgency, securitization, and security states; majoritarian and minority relations in officially liberal democracies; Hindu nationalism and fascism; Sikh diasporic and Punjab-based racialized, gendered, classed and caste-oppressed experiences of 1984 and aftermaths (especially issues of gender-based and domestic violence); the study of militancy, martyrdom, sovereignty, community activism and transnational repression; the possibilities and limitations of human rights approaches; and collective visions for political, social and restorative justice, reparative relations and healing.

As a premier center for the study of global Sikh diasporas and transnational Punjab, UCI’s Department of Anthropology, with its focus on Sikh Studies and the anthropology of Sikhism, aims to celebrate the powerful resilience, creativity and agency of Sikh communities and their common struggles and solidarities with other marginalized and oppressed communities who continue to suffer state-based genocidal violence, persecution and prejudice. The conference features the Second Annual Sikh Studies Lecture and will honor Professor Cynthia Mahmood for her lifelong contributions to the Sikh Studies scholarly community and the global Sikh community. Professor Mahmood’s talk is entitled, “Sikhi on War and Peace: Insights from the Realm of the Gurus,” and will be followed by a reception for the general UCI community and Southern California Sikh, Punjabi and South Asian communities.

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