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September 6 is observed as disappearance day of Jaswant Singh Khalra. How strange as well as well difficult it is to mark someone’s disappearance anniversary! 30 years ago, on this day (in 1995), Mr Khalra was “disappeared” from his house in Amritsar. One, who fought against ‘disappearing’ of young men from Punjab, then one day, he too was ‘disappeared’.

Sikhs too, like any other community, around the globe have experienced both the benefits and the burdens of modernity and its processes. They bore the brunt of these changes during the 1980s and 1990s, which witnessed severe human rights violations amidst militancy and counterinsurgency operations. Under the pretext of combating militancy, thousands of young Sikh men were arrested, disappeared, or killed in fake encounters. In one of Punjab's darkest periods, a beacon of hope emerged in the form of human rights activist Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalra, often referred to as “Manukhta Da Rakha/Protector of Humanity”. As the General Secretary of the Human Rights Wing of the Shiromani Akali Dal, Khalra took it upon himself to expose these extrajudicial killings.

Mr. Khalra’s work also aligns with the principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -  UDHR, 1948, which India have also adopted. While his philosophy and that of the UDHR share the same foundation, certain articles in the declaration specifically highlight the significance of his efforts. Article 5 of the UDHR states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” and Article 9 declares, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile.” Khalra’s work directly addressed these critical issues.

First started political career as leader of Punjab Students Union and Naujawan Bharat Sabha, the organisations affiliated to ultra-left in Punjab in that time, and then joining to Akali and Sikh politics, Khalra’s ground-breaking investigations revealed that thousands of individuals had been abducted by the Punjab police, falsely labelled as militants, and killed in staged encounters. These victims’ bodies were cremated without identification, leaving families without closure. Khalra’s findings shook the nation and brought international attention to the rampant human rights violations carried out under the guise of counterterrorism.

As mentioned in Ram Narayan Kumar and Amreek Singh in their work - Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab, 2003, in the middle of 1994, the police illegally arrested Dara Singh, the director of a cooperative bank in Amritsar district who was also a personal friend of Khalra. Dara Singh was interrogated under torture and later killed as an unidentified militant in a fake encounter. Jaswant Singh followed the case very closely and found out that the police had cremated his body at Durgiana Mandir cremation ground by labelling it as “unidentified and unclaimed”. The discovery made him investigate and he was able to peruse the records of cremations carried out by the police officials at Durgiana Mandir cremation ground in 1992.

Khalra, along with Jaspal Singh Dhillon had released a press note in January 1995, about their report about disappearances and unknown dead bodies at cremation grounds of Patti and Amritsar. They alleged that 400 such bodies are there in Patti municipality cremation ground and 2000 such bodies at cremation ground near Durgiana Mandir, Amritsar. The report also claimed that 188 bodies out of 300 arrived at Durgiana Mandir cremation ground were declared as unidentified and no post-mortem was conducted. These bodies were brough during the 1st year of tenure of Congress CM Beant Singh and 41 bodies had bullet injuries, report alleged it was police encounters. 

As mentioned by Kumar and Singh, 2003, Khalra suggested that most of these cremations were of those people picked up illegally by the Punjab police for interrogation about their links with the separatist movement that had plagued the state from 1984 to 1994. The evidence produced by him to substantiate these charges consisted of entries made in the firewood purchase registers maintained at three crematoria in Amritsar district when the police officials came with the bodies and purchased 300 kilograms of wood required to burn a single body.

It has been mentioned in Mallika Kaur’s work Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflicts: The Wheat Field Still Whisper, 2020 that in April 2012, the mass cremations case was declared complete. Compensation was ordered in 1,513 cases: 1,245 of the 2,097 identified by the National Human Rights Commission plus 143 of the remaining identified by its subcommission in 2007, and another 125 by a subsequent and final sub-commission in 2008. There were no criminal convictions for the thousands to whom Jaswant Khalra had married his own fate. They remained murdererless murders.

However, his work came at a tremendous personal cost. On 6 September 1995, around 9:20 a.m., armed commandos of the Punjab police kidnapped Jaswant Singh Khalra while he was washing his car, outside his home at 8, Kabir Park, Amritsar. Four of the abductors, who came in a blue-coloured Maruti van, were wearing Punjab police uniforms and armed with automatic weapons. Rajiv Singh Randhawa, a local journalist and Khalra’s friend, was visiting Khalra that morning and witnessed the abduction. Despite numerous petitions, protests, and appeals, he was never seen again. It was later revealed that he had been tortured and killed in police custody. In 2005, CBI court had convicted six of the seven junior officers accused, which this decision was later upheld by Punjab and Haryana High Court as well as Supreme Court of India, with some corrections.

The roots of Sikh suppression date back to the 1980s under the Congress regime. The 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, in the aftermath of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, was not just a riot, but a massacre in which thousands of (only) Sikhs were killed across India, particularly in Delhi. Congress leaders, instead of quelling the violence, incited mobs to attack Sikh homes, businesses, and gurdwaras. This year, former Congress MP – Sajjan Singh was given life imprisonment in two such murders. The systematic targeting of Sikhs during this period was part of a broader effort to marginalize the community politically and socially.

The counterinsurgency operations against Sikh militants in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to mass disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and illegal cremations, as exposed by Jaswant Singh Khalra. The Congress government, through Punjab Police, carried out these atrocities with impunity. Thousands of young Sikh men were labelled as militants, abducted, tortured, and murdered by the state. The memory of these events remains unaddressed by the Indian state, with no meaningful justice served to the victims' families. As per a report by The Tribune this year, - 129 police personal, including the ranks of DIGs and SSPs to lowest rank of constable, were convicted by CBI court on the charges of their role in fake encounter during the period of 1980-1996.

While the Congress regime played a significant role in the physical suppression of Sikhs, the current BJP government, in collaboration with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has been attempting to assimilate Sikhs into the Hindutva fold. The RSS, with its long-standing agenda of establishing a Hindu Rashtra, has historically sought to dilute Sikh identity by portraying Sikhs as a subset of Hinduism. This ideological stance undermines the distinct religious and cultural identity of Sikhs, who have long fought for recognition and autonomy.

Under the current Modi government, Sikhs continue to face political and social marginalization. The Farmers' Protest 2020–2021, in which a significant portion of the protestors were Sikh farmers, was met with state hostility, media vilification, and repression. The ruling party labelled the protestors as “Khalistanis” and “anti-nationals,” invoking the old tactics of the 1980s to delegitimize the movement. The protest was not only about agricultural laws but also a larger fight for the rights and dignity of states and the Sikh farmers who have been the backbone of India’s agrarian economy. The government’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful dialogue and its subsequent crackdown on the protests highlighted its disregard for the concerns of the Sikh community.

The targeting of Sikh individuals has not been limited to political activists or farmers. Celebrities like Punjabi singer Shubh have faced harassment for expressing their views. Shubh was recently targeted during his world tour, with his shows being cancelled following accusations of being pro-Khalistan, simply for posting about the Farmers' Protest. Similarly, cricketer Arshdeep Singh was labeled a “Khalistani” on social media after dropping a catch during a cricket match, showing how easily Sikh individuals are vilified and subjected to baseless accusations. The state’s crackdown extends even to elected representatives. It is shameful that an elected MP from Punjab, Amritpal Singh is still in jail under NSA.

The recent controversy surrounding the censorship of the film “Punjab '95”, based on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, reflects the larger discomfort the Government has with confronting its history of oppression against minorities, particularly against Sikhs. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has recommended over 120 cuts, including demands to change Khalra’s name and erase significant historical references. 

The censorship of Punjab '95 is just one part of this larger pattern of suppression. The demand to remove Jaswant Singh Khalra’s name and dilute the film’s narrative is an attempt by the government to control the historical memory of the Punjab conflict. Khalra’s investigation into the illegal cremations conducted by the state remains one of the most damning pieces of evidence of the Indian state’s human rights violations. By censoring his story, the government is attempting to erase its role in these atrocities.

The suppression of Jaswant Singh Khalra’s story is a continuation of the state’s long-standing efforts to erase the memory of the atrocities committed in Punjab and suppress Sikh identity. Khalra’s life and work represent the fight for justice, human rights, and the courage to stand against state oppression. His story is not just a part of Sikh history but a part of India’s collective conscience, a reminder of the dangers of unchecked state power and the importance of accountability.

*Harinder Singh Happy is a PhD Scholar at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and can be accessed at harinderhappy.jnu@gmail.com