Punjab Crisis Research Articles

Environmental Crisis in Punjab in Context of Agriculture: Role of the State and Central Government

Punjab holds an important position in India. The green revolution has resulted in remarkable growth rates in agricultural productivity and output in the state of Punjab. However, Punjab has to cope with the issue of declining soil health, rapidly growing micronutrient deficiencies, and alarming water table depletion as a result of the adoption of intensive technologies. In the state, the green revolution brought about a number of issues that have now come to light. The major deleterious effects have been on our environment, as a result of which the natural balance has been disrupted. Excessive use of chemical fertilizers resulted in degradation of soil health. Similarly, the overuse of pesticides is responsible for contamination of air and water bodies. Burning of paddy stubble also a serious issue in the state. The present paper examines the environmental crisis related to agriculture in the state. The role of central and state government to deal with this issue is also analysed.

Making Sense, Making Choices: How Civilians Choose Survival Strategies during Violence

How do ordinary people choose survival strategies during intense, surprising political violence? Why do some flee violence, while others fight back, adapt, or hide? Individual decision-making during violence has vast political consequences, but remains poorly understood. I develop a decision-making theory focused on individual appraisals of how controllable and predictable violent environments are. I apply my theory, situational appraisal theory, to explain the choices of Indian Sikhs during the 1980s–1990s Punjab crisis and 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms. In original interviews plus qualitative and machine learning analysis of 509 oral histories, I show that control and predictability appraisals influence strategy selection. People who perceive “low” control over threats often avoid threats rather than approach them. People who perceive “low” predictability in threat evolution prefer more-disruptive strategies over moderate, risk-monitoring options. Appraisals explain behavior variation even after accounting for individual demographics and conflict characteristics, and also account for survival strategy changes over time.

Growing pains in the field of Sikh Studies in the Western Academy

ABSTRACT The field of Sikh Studies has arrived in the Western Academy along with a rich experience of growing pains during the last three decades. The vocal opposition of ultra-conservative fringe groups in the Sikh diaspora frequently managed to gain a dominant voice in community media effectively trolling, harassing, and marginalizing progressive scholarly voices. There is an urgent need to understand this phenomenon in the context of the Punjab crisis.

Forensic Chemical Profiling of Hazardous Additives and Contaminants alongwith their harmful Effects & Source discrimination of seized Moonshine samples: A study on New Emerging Crisis in Punjab

Moonshine an illegally produced alcoholic beverage has caused several times "hooch tragedies" in various states of India. Punjab which is already facing Drug addiction hitch, has also not been untouched by hooch tragedies since 2020 when 120 people in Punjab died due to consumption of hooch. To curb hooch tragedies, Govt. of Punjab showed the very urgency for the inclusion of death penalty in Punjab & Excise Act, 1914. However, owing to shortfalls in quality control norms and non-availability of a reliable facility to identify additives & contaminants in moonshine, avaricious manufacturers are still intentionally adding large number of hazardous additives and ignoring contaminants while manufacturing moonshine to make the brew strong and aromatic. More surprisingly, at present people are still considering methanol a root cause of hooch tragedies. Investigating agencies are more inquisitive to know the presence of methanol in seized samples to qualify them as 'unfit for drink'. It is crystal clear that merely the presence of methanol in any sample does not prove it lethal as it has also been studied that many alcoholic beverages contain methanol naturally at low level without causing harm. At present, a study on hazardous additives and contaminants in moonshine along with their harmful effects & source discrimination has not yet been reported. Henceforth, a forensic attempt is made to secure public health by chemically profiling various hazardous additives and contaminants detected in seized moonshine samples along with enlightening their harmful effects on body so as to make public aware of the hidden health hazards of moonshine. In this study, 31 samples of moonshine seized by Punjab Police from various districts of Punjab were extracted, sonicated and analyzed by GCMS technique for the detection of hazardous additives and contaminants. For comparison & discrimination of source of these samples, grouping of detected chemicals was done using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) a cluster analysis method. Our research outcome led to successful chemical profiling of 187 detected chemicals and among these 187 chemical compounds, 73 chemical compounds were found How to cite this article: Deepak Middha, Archna Negi, Meenu Kushwaha/ Forensic Chemical Profiling of Hazardous Additives and Contaminants along with their harmful Effects & Source discrimination of seized Moonshine samples: A study on New Emerging Crisis in Punjab/J Forensic Chemistry Toxicol. 2023; 9(1):19–45. Hazardous as these can cause severe health problems viz. eye, nose & throat irritation, inflammation to monocytes, birth defects, CNS disorder, cancer & death. Hence through this research an effort is made to secure public health and to alert govt. agencies regarding these health hazardous additives and contaminants.

Power of Millets- Critical for addressing Ecological, Agrarian, and Emerging health crisis in Punjab

The state of Punjab is facing a major threat of ecological, agrarian as well as emerging health crisis. Continuously depleting water tables due to unregulated use of irrigation water and increased cultivation of water-thirsty, varieties of rice are posing major threat to water availability in the state. Indiscriminate use of chemicals in farming leading to soil infertility, polluted surface waters and air pollution are contributing to ecological catastrophe and eventually leading to many health problems in the population. Hence there is need to focus on environmentally friendly, economically viable and health benefitting solutions. Millets as climate change compliant crops score highly over other grains in terms of marginal growing conditions and high nutritional value are proposed as a solution for emerging challenges in Punjab.

Can Crop Diversification be Widely Adopted to Solve The Water Crisis in Punjab?

Can Crop Diversification be Widely Adopted to Solve The Water Crisis in Punjab?

Farmers’ Suicides and the Agrarian Crisis in Punjab: Some Sociological Observations

Farmers’ suicides have been a serious issue over the last three decades in Punjab and also in other states. Much debate has concentrated on the economic factors, especially debt. This article makes sociological observations of Durkheim in the context of Punjab’s society and culture that may help us see the other side of the problem. It argues that debt per se is not the cause of suicide always but that of the agrarian crisis, following the liberal theory of economic and social development. The culture of consumerism is like fuel to the fire.

Betting on Potatoes: Accumulation in Times of Agrarian Crisis in Punjab, India

ABSTRACTDespite the widespread consensus that neoliberal India is reeling under an overarching agrarian crisis, this article argues that at least some capitalist farmers are continuing to accumulate and are thereby contributing to the process of class differentiation. Through a study of potato‐growing capitalist farmers in Punjab, the archetypal Green Revolution state of India, the author shows that such farmers can navigate complex production and market processes to make profits. However, risks of volatile prices and land and credit markets have made capital accumulation more uncertain. While potato is a minor crop in Punjab and the case cannot be generalized, it brings into focus both under‐explored non‐state actors and processes in the state, and important tendencies of change since the plateauing of Green Revolution technologies. The analysis also highlights the agency of such farmers in negotiating a transformed political economy context, including the presence of corporate agribusinesses.

Modern Sikh Warriors: Militants, Soldiers, Citizens

ABSTRACTCentral to the mainstream Sikh identity is the concept of ethically-justified force, used as a last resort. There is no place for absolute pacifism in this conception of ethical living. Fighters and martyrs occupy an important place in the Khalsa narrative, and Sikhs are constantly reminded of the sacrifices and heroism of their co-religionists of the past. This article explores how the Sikh warrior identity is manifested in the contemporary world. It examines the Sikhs who, in the 1980s and 1990s, were involved on both sides of the Punjab crisis: those militants who fought for a Sikh homeland (“Khalistan”) and those Sikhs in the Indian army who suppressed the insurgency. The article also looks beyond the militants and soldiers to Sikhs employed in modern security-related professions, the broader issue of Sikh symbols relating to the use of force, and violence within the Sikh diaspora. An examination of the Sikhs in various parts of the world reveals additional uses and consequences of ideology, whether in enlistment in the armed forces of the states in which they live, or in the support of the militancy in India, particularly in the 1980s. The conclusion is that the modern Sikh warrior is a nuanced actor behaving in various ways, some overt and some subtle: the warrior is willing to physically fight those perceived to be tyrannous, but most initiatives have shifted to pursuing justice through non-violent means, such as legal struggles for civil rights. Although armed Sikh militancy against the Indian government is in the past, there are strong residual resentments still requiring redress. All of this is of great relevance to understanding the ethics of armed force within modern Sikhism.

Writing Dalit women in political economy of agrarian crisis and resistance in Punjab

In recent years, Punjab has witnessed significant political mobilisation of small-marginal peasants and agricultural labour in several parts of the state. The participation and leadership of Dalit women in these mobilisations is even more noteworthy. Punjab has been a centre of peasant struggles but these have been in the past the bastion of male farmers. Today this is changing in a significant way. In the recent agrarian mobilisations in Punjab, women, landless Dalit and marginalised farmers have been an integral part. These mobilisations are around issues of the rights of Dalits over village commons, their right to live in the villages even when the distribution of resources is such that it leaves them no ownership of the land they live on and till, the recognition that Punjab's agrarian crisis – evident in the suicides of peasants – is being borne also by the landless and, above all for ending impunity for sexual violence which women, and Dalit women in particular, endure as caste and patriarchal oppression. The coming together in these movements of labouring Dalit women and men and the immiserised small and marginal peasantry, including their women, are opening the possibility of building new solidarities and political alliances of the oppressed. These movements also return us to some of the long-standing questions in feminist politics and understanding around political alliances with movements which are presenting a critique of the contemporary mode of production and distribution and which, at the same time, are trying to grapple with caste and gender questions.

Media framing and the myth of religious violence: The othering of sikhs in The Times of India

ABSTRACTThis article employs theories of media framing to ‘the crisis in Punjab’ in 1983 and 1984. I argue that The Times of India frames Sikhs and the crisis in such a manner as to generate a stereotype of Sikhs as inherently violent, pre-modern and dangerous to the Indian state. Such a framing, I argue, mimics stereotypes of religion and violence critiqued by William Cavanaugh [2009. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press.]. I employ Cavanaugh’s critical lens on the myth of religious violence to demonstrate that this framing of Sikhs is a tool of media and the state to justify illegitimate violence again Sikhs.

Deconstructing the Punjab crisis of 1984: Deer, hawks, and siqdārs (‘officials’) as agents of state-sponsored violence

Acts of violence or non-violence are social phenomena that take place at particular historical junctures. They cannot be described as essential features of any community. The Punjab crisis of yesteryear reflected the multidimensionality of violence. On the one hand, involvement of the agents of ‘Third Agency’ in the garb of Sikh militants in random acts of violence and guerrilla warfare was totally unwarranted and counterproductive; on the other, one cannot overlook the sheer egregious and unjust acts of state, killing in the name of order, security, and sheer power. This paper looks at this dark period in recent Sikh history through the lens of Gurū Nānak’s Malār hymn. This is an insightful composition in which the Guru employs the metaphors of deer (haraṇ), hawks (bāj) and state officials (siqdār) who act as trained agents provocateurs to push a community in a particular direction – especially on the path of self-destruction – to justify state violence.

Adoption of Happy Seeder Technology for Sustainable Agriculture and Alleviation of Agrarian Crisis in Punjab

Today's Punjab is the story of farmers ’suicide and facing second generation problems comprising goals of enhanced productivity and profitability while more efficient at using natural resources and have minimal adverse impacts on the environment. Conservation Agriculture has been identified as the immediate as well as long-term solution to achieve goals of sustaining productivity. Happy Seeder is promising technique to tackle these crises. It enables straw management without burning and its retention in the field enhances the soil fertility and crop productivity. Omitting cultivation operations of land preparation on account of zero-till reduce the cost of cultivation. Therefore, the study attempts to examine the factors effecting the adoption of Happy Seeder Technology, the resource use patterns/efficiency on resource conserving agricultural practices-Happy Seeder Technology along with the cost/benefit scenario of conservation agriculture vis-a-vis traditional farming practices in the state. The results highlighted that the usage of Happy Seeder Technology enhanced both crop productivity as well as the profitability to the farmers along with being its more environment friendly.

1984 Punjab Tragedy in Hindi Literary Archives: Images Beyond Punjab in India

This paper reviews four Hindi literary works on the Punjab crisis. Two are novels written by Sikhs while the other two are short stories authored by non-Sikhs. With dissimilar social background, religious beliefs and dwelling places, their narratives underline complexities of the Punjab crisis and their varied popular reactions. Creative imaginations were not restricted to Sikh sufferings but spacious enough to include those of non-Sikhs who reside in distant Indian locations. This paper argues how these literary representations introduce a wider space for Sikhs in recent Hindi writings and offer some fresh perspective to the Punjab scenario.

State Securitization and Internal Ethnic Conflicts in India: Re-examining the Punjab Crisis

The theory of securitization postulates the remit of post-political, military action to quell an existential threat in International Relations. Pluralist democracies like India have used armed forces to tackle internal situations of ethnic conflict and legitimized it by deeming the conflict as a threat to national security. But ongoing domestic turmoil proves that armed confrontation between the state and its aggrieved communities has only succeeded in prolonging the dynamics of the conflict, rather than their comprehensive resolution. The present article takes a cue from this reality of insecurity. It seeks to theoretically link internal ethnic conflicts (which are perceived to threaten state survival) and their securitization, in the light of an actual conflict situation. The crisis in Punjab that embroiled India for a decade and met with a heavy military response of the state forms the case study. Analyzing the state response to the Punjab ethnic crisis from the securitization prism is a hitherto unexplored theoretical enterprise. The article undertakes this task. Also, securitization lends us the theoretical props to identify certain junctures and movements in the state-factional group/ethnic community interactions in the course of the crisis. The case study provides the empirical evidence which can inform securitization theory, and test its dynamics and efficacy.

1984 and the Diasporic Politics of Aesthetics: Reconfigurations and New Constellations among Toronto’s Sikh Youth

This article explores how Sikh youth in Toronto respond—through personal narratives and performative practices—to past events of violence associated with the Indian Army’s 1984 attack on the “Golden Temple” in Amritsar, as well as the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, India. Arguably, the politics of representation around the “Punjab crisis” of 1984 have been considered crucial for conceptualizing Sikh diaspora formations. However, studying how young Sikh activists relate to these events today and redefine their own sense of diasporic citizenship a generation after the event allows us to challenge both the homogeneous framings of (religious) diaspora and the primary role attributed to trauma through which past injuries are narrated. I shall demonstrate that there is a discursive trope (or tendency) in youth accounts that, on the one hand, asserts an attachment to injury as well as the separatist and nationalist sentiments that have long been embodied in representations of 1984 and, on the other, points to identity formations yet to be defined within the context of emerging “transnational second generations.” Moreover, Sikh youth are engaged in increasingly diverse forms of social justice work and have different motivations for their participation. This research reveals involvement in an emerging grass roots movement that is globally tuned into broader social justice struggles, while maintaining local ties to place specific engagements and narratives.

Extent of Socioeconomic Crisis in Punjab: Causes and Policy Options

The agricultural sector in Punjab has witnessed substantial transformation under the impact of the Green Revolution since mid-1960s. However, the cropping pattern in Punjab has not witnessed any drastic change and has remained highly favourable towards wheat-paddy monoculture, which has produced various ecological problems in the state in the form of loss of soil fertility, water table depletion, and so forth. The present paper aims to evaluate the indicators of the current socioeconomic crisis in the state of Punjab. Looking at the deep crisis, the study suggests that there is an immediate need to diversify the overall economic base of the state, instead of attempting it only in terms of crop diversification. Furthermore, the results of the study revealed that there is a great prospect to diversify the entire economic base of Punjab.

Agrarian Crisis in Punjab and ‘Natural Farming’ as a Response

After four and a half decades of Green Revolution agrarian development, the state of Punjab is now, according to many commentators, in a state of social, economic and ecological crisis. In this paper, I interpret this crisis through a Gramscian lens as a ‘crisis of authority’, in the sense that while the dominant paradigm (the Green Revolution) can no longer provide solutions to the state's most pressing social problems, there is no clear single alternative either. This situation provides a political opportunity for non-hegemonic groups to articulate various other possibilities that address fundamental questions. This paper focuses on the work of one such group, the Kheti Virasat Mission (KVM). KVM is a civil society organisation that promotes ‘natural farming’ as a solution to the crisis in Punjab: natural farming is a chemical-free method of farming, which relies exclusively on materials available at the local level. This paper looks at KVM's methods of intervening in the crisis situation and examines the difficulties faced at the level of implementation. It argues that KVM's successes and failures highlight the uneven capacities of different classes and social groups to effectively respond to a ‘crisis of authority’.

1984 and the Diasporic Politics of Aesthetics: Reconfigurations and New Constellations among Toronto’s Sikh Youth

This article explores how Sikh youth in Toronto respond—through personal narratives and performative practices—to past events of violence associated with the Indian Army’s 1984 attack on the “Golden Temple” in Amritsar, as well as the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, India. Arguably, the politics of representation around the “Punjab crisis” of 1984 have been considered crucial for conceptualizing Sikh diaspora formations. However, studying how young Sikh activists relate to these events today and redefine their own sense of diasporic citizenship a generation after the event allows us to challenge both the homogeneous framings of (religious) diaspora and the primary role attributed to trauma through which past injuries are narrated. I shall demonstrate that there is a discursive trope (or tendency) in youth accounts that, on the one hand, asserts an attachment to injury as well as the separatist and nationalist sentiments that have long been embodied in representations of 1984 and, on the other, points to identity formations yet to be defined within the context of emerging “transnational second generations.” Moreover, Sikh youth are engaged in increasingly diverse forms of social justice work and have different motivations for their participation. This research reveals involvement in an emerging grassroots movement that is globally tuned into broader social justice struggles, while maintaining local ties to placespecific engagements and narratives

Back to the Future in 2002?: A Model of Sikh Separatism in Punjab

The existing literature on the "Punjab crisis" is largely descriptive , offering only post-hoc explanations for both its emergence and for its decline. There is a paucity of literature that offers inferential quality in terms of predicting the possible rise of future Sikh separatism in Punjab, India. How can empirically oriented scholars use qualitative methods to build such models? Furthermore, what conditions have led to separatism in the past? Are current concerns about the possible reemergence of Sikh separatism warranted? This article attempts to answer these questions. By building on an important work by Paul R. Brass, this article will systematically construct, present, and apply a predictive model of Sikh separatism. It is argued that Sikh separatism will not reemerge in the near future, but transformations in the four political conditions delineated in the model have significant predictive value and need to be closely monitored by both academics and policymakers alike.