Das - Official Narratives, Rumour, and The Social Production of Hate PDF

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Social Identities
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Specificities: Official Narratives, Rumour, and the Social
Production of Hate
Veena Das
Online Publication Date: 01 February 1998

To cite this Article: Das, Veena (1998) 'Specificities: Official Narratives, Rumour, and
the Social Production of Hate', Social Identities, 4:1, 109 - 130
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O f® cia l N arra tive s, R u m ou r,

a n d th e S oc ia l P rod u ction of H ate
V E EN A D A S 1
U niversity of D elhi
This paper is not about discourses of gen ocide as the term is understood in its
curren t avatara in interna tional ins truments and covenants. It is about the social
production of hate: it exam ines the m ovem en t of images betw een emergen t
discourses of militancy and the diffused und ers tanding s of even ts in rum ours
circulated durin g crises. I argue that such m ovem en ts create the conditions
under w hich social groups becom e pitted against each other in fear and m utual
hatred , constructing images of self and other from w hich the subjectivity of
experien ce has been evacuated. In this social production and circulation of
hate, the im ages of perpetrator and victim are frequently rev ersed , depen ding
upon the persp ective from w hich the mem ories of traumatic even ts and of
every day violen ce are seen and re-liv ed. Th is exchang e of im ages does not
m ean that w e cannot recogn ise those w ho suffered durin g traum atic even ts. It
does sugg est, how ever, that w e need to bear in mind that in the phen omenol-
ogy of panic, aggress ors can experien ce themselves as if they w ere victims.
The events I examine here occurred in India durin g the 1980s, w hen the
m ilitant movemen t in the Punjab and the related counter-insurgenc y opera-
tions of the state gen erated considerab le anim osity betw een the H indus and the
Sikh s. The result w as violen t confrontations that obliterated the solid arities of
every day life. I focus on an especially grievou s event Ð the brutal violen ce
again st Sikhs in the resettlement colonies in Delh i in 1984, follow ing the
assassination of then -Prim e M inister Indira G andhi. The discursive form ations
and the enunciative modalities that emerged w ere prem ised on a particular
feature of language, viz, its perlocutionary force, to w rest open the un® nish ed
stories of the past and to give shape to the present.
The events that anchor my argumen t are, by any de® nition, extrem e.
H ow ever, the discourses gen erated during this period bear a relation to
stereotypes in every day life such as the fanaticism of the Sikh s or the effeminate
character of the H indus. H ow and und er w hat conditions these stereoty pes
cam e to acquire the leth al quality that I describe here is the m atter of enq uiry.
It is im portant to understand both the processes through w hich every day life
gets transformed and the processes through w hich trust (at least a minim al
trust) is re-es tablish ed am ong com munities at one time torn apart by hate.
I begin w ith a description of the militant discourse gen erated by the
1350-4630/98/010109-22 $7.00 Ó 1998 C arfax Publish ing L td
110 V eena D as
m ovemen t for a separate homeland (Khalistan) for the Sikhs. Then , I trace how
the im ages from that discourse travelled to other sites and crystallised into
stereoty pes that fed the rumours that led to violence against the Sikh s in 1984.
This ordering of even ts is not meant to af® rm a causal conn ection betw een the
earlier even ts and the later ones; nor is it intend ed to cast the Sikh militant
m ovemen t as responsible in any w ay for the violen ce against the Sikh s after the
assassination of M rs Gand hi. In tellin g a story, the order of events never
corresp onds exactly to their unfolding in pure durational time. N o m atter at
w hat point one chooses to beg in a story, there is alw ays a prior story w aitin g
to be activated, one that has been lyin g in ert or circulating w ithin only lim ited
zones. Thus, the w ay different social groups recount their mem ories of the
events discussed here is strong ly in¯ uen ced by their social location, but it is not
completely determ ined by it. This play of forces is w hat I hope to capture in
this article.
T he D iscou rse of M ilitancy
Kapur (1987) provid es an excellent, compreh en sive account of the em ergence of

a militant movemen t among the Sikhs in India and among emigrant Sikh s.
Betw een 1981 and the end of 1984, Sikh leaders led a series of m ass civil
disob edien ce campaigns agains t the Indian govern ment in hopes of pres surin g
the state to ful® ll several dem ands such as a separate person al law for the
Sikh s, and greater ® nancial autonom y for Punjab. A t the same time, these
leaders also en couraged the use of violen ce to achieve the m ovemen t’ s end s.
The process of formulating these demands had unanticipated consequ en ces: it
contributed to the developmen t of new stereotypical images of H ind us and
Sikh s in the publish ed literature of the militants, on posters, and in oral
discourses. The sim ultaneous grow th of an intolerant militancy among H indu
fundamen talist groups produced m any of the same kinds of stereotypes,
especially w ith regard to the `w eak’ and èmasculated’ H indu (see D as, 1995,
1996b; Kakar, 1995; N andy, 1994; Pand ey, 1993, 1994).
In the Sikh militant discourse, the im age of the self w as that of the martyr
w hose past sacri® ces had sustained and en erg ised the com munity. H indus, in
contrast, w ere represen ted as w eak and effeminate, or as cunnin g and sly. In
eith er case, though they w ere repres en ted as historically depend ent on the
protection offered by the Sikh s, they w ere also seen as not averse to betrayin g
their erstw hile protectors.
In the w ritten and oral discourses of Sikh m ilitancy, the H ind u `character’
w as env isaged in term s of the dang ers it posed to the m asculinity of the Sikh s.
There w as a move to establish that the history of the Sikhs Ð ins crib ed on the
body of the m artyr Ð w as a re¯ ection of the masculin e Sikh character, w hile
the fem inine H ind u character is w hat has been inscribed on the history of the
Ind ian nation. Thus, masculin ity became the de® ning feature of the Sikh
community; and the H ind u community w as unders tood to be characterised by
an emasculated feminin ity. O verlapping imagery blurred the bound aries be-
tw een the H indu character and the character of the nation as a w hole, so that
over time, the character of each cam e to stand for the other.
O f® cial N arratives, Rum our, and the Social Production of H ate 111
C om m unity, K in and M asculinity
A nd erson (1983, p. 131) points out that the style of thought in w hich large
collectivities (such as the nation) are inv ested w ith the status of a `natural’
en tity often incorporates the use of kinsh ip term s as m etaphors for de® ning the
relations hip betw een individ ual and collectivity. The story is incom plete,
how ever, if w e look only at m etaphors of `true kin ship ’, for simultaneously
there is a repudiation of `false kinsh ip’ , through w hich previous intim acies
betw een com munities are disavow ed. This complex interplay betw een them es
of true kinsh ip and false kin ship offers some caveats to A nd ers on’ s assum ption
that kin sh ip categories bestow the nation w ith the status of a `natural’ en tity.
Both for purposes of inclusion and exclusion, the metaphors of kinsh ip and
in tim acy provide framew orks for though t and hen ce create intense feelin gs of
love and hate, ® delity and betrayal.
The oral discourse of the m ilitants relied extensively on m etaphors of male
relatedn ess to create a sens e of community among the Sikhs. Kin sh ip ties w ere
used in tw o differen t sens es. O ne w as the true tie of father-son relations to be
acknow led ged and celebrated; the other w as created from a negative sk ew ing
of an earlier ® lial relationsh ip betw een H indus and Sikh s, that of a parent
religion (H induism ) and its descen dant (Sikhism ). In a novel articulation this
relations hip w as imaged as a m etaphor that implied illeg itim acy. C lear exam -
ples of these images are present in the follow ing excerpt from a speech
2
Bhind ranw ale m ade w hen addressin g a congregation.
Khalsa ji [you, w ho are the pure ones], the Sikh s are the son of the true
king Guru Gobind Singh ji. N ow you know that a son must resem ble his
father. If the son does not resem ble his father, then you know the term
used for him [i.e., bastard]. If a son does not behave like his father, then
people beg in to view him w ith suspicion. They [the H indus] say the
Sikhs are the descend ants of H indus. Are they pointing a ® nger at our
pure ancestry Ð how can a Sikh bear to be called any one els e’ s son?
This concern w ith establish ing `pure ancestry’ and the doubts about illeg it-
imacy and true patern ity are obviously m ale doubts: they point to the extent to
w hich the imagined hom eland of the Sikhs w as conceived as a masculin e
nation. This view of the group as bein g w orthy of having a nation, of being
able to lay claim s to a homeland, moves on the axis of being the deservin g sons
of a valiant father. This claim, in turn, is articulated through the motif of
m artyrd om Ð being capable of making sacri® ces, bearin g pain and hard sh ip.
To grasp the full m eaning of this imagery in the Sikh discourse, it is
important to kn ow that in the H indu im agery of the nation, the homeland w as
a m otherland ; and though the nation w as conceived as masculin e, it w as made
up of the sons of a mother. The im agery in the nationalist discourse durin g the
strugg le against British colonialism represen ted the nation as a mother w ho
had been sh ackled by the ties of a foreig n rule and had to be rescued by her
valiant sons. Thus, although a concern w ith m asculinity marks both the H indu
and Sikh militant discourses, the differen tial genea logy (sons of a father, or
sons of a m other?) sh aped the notion s of self and other in diverse w ays.
112 V eena D as
Furth er complicating matters is the fact that Gandh i, in his non-violent

m ovemen t, transform ed the notions of m asculinity and fem ininity. H e advo-
cated strategies of passive res istance, such as fasting , or submittin g one’s body
to the violence perpetrated by the British colonial regim e, rather than the more
3
m asculine strategies of violent resistance.
In the w ritten and oral discourse of Sikh militancy, it w as repeatedly stated
that the Sikh s could not belon g to a nation that claim ed a feminin e ® gure such
as M ahatm a Gand hi for its `father’ (bapu Ð the affectionate title given to
G andhi by the genera l populace). The de® ning prin ciple of the Indian national-
ist struggle, non -violence, w as said to be `passive’ and `w omanly’. A nxiety
about such fem ininity became palpable in the oral discourse, for it seem ed to
threaten the inherita nce of a manly w ay of confrontin g evil, an inh eritance
w hich w as further characterised as the natural birthrig ht of the Sikh . Gandhi’ s
non-violen t movem en t, it w as said, w as appropriate only for the feminised
H in dus. In one of his speeches, Bhin dranw ale propounded the idea that it w as
an ins ult for the Sikhs to be included in a nation that consid ered M ahatma
G andhi to be its father, for his techniques of ® gh ting w ere quintessen tially
feminine. H e (Gandhi) w as sym bolised by a charkha, the spinning w heel, w hich
w as a sym bol of w om en . Bhindranw ale asked his listener s,
Can those w ho are the sons of the valiant guru, w hose sy mbol is the
sw ord, ever accept a w oman like M ahatma as their father? Those are the
techniques of the w eak, not of a race that has never bow ed its head
before any injustice Ð a race w hose history is w ritten in the blood of
martyrs.
Thus the construction of the past in term s of a genealogy of father/son

relations w as also a construction of the self and the other. To be able to claim
4
true descent from the proud G urus (the ten acknow led ged founders of the Sikh
religion ), it w as argued, all corruption that had seeped into the Sikh character
because of the closeness to the H indus must be exorcised. Through the
narrative w eb of Sikh history as a history of martyrd om, a Sikh character w as
sought w hose neg ative counterpart w as the H indu character. A `H ind u’ history
represen ted a dual danger: it den ied Sikh s their righ tful place in history; and ,
as many authors stated, it w as a conspiracy to make the m artial Sikh s into a
w eak race.
The Sikh s have been softened and conditioned durin g the last ® fty years
to bear and put up w ith insults to their religion and all forms of other
oppress ion, patien tly and w ithout dem ur, und er the sin ister preaching
and spell of the narcotic cult of non-violence, much against the clear
directiv e of their G urus, their Prophets, not to turn the other cheek
before a tyrant, not to take lying dow n any insu lt to their relig ion, their
5
self-resp ect, and their human dignity.
A s seen in this discourse, the danger issued not from a heroic confrontation
w ith a m asculine other, but from a feminine other w ho w ould completely
dissolve the masculine self of the Sikh . `W ith such an en emy’, one w arn ing
pred icted, èven your story w ill be w iped out from the face of the earth ’ .
Given this articulation of com munity as m eanin g a com munity of m en (and

further, as a comm unity of sons descend ed from the father in w hose ancestry
all signs of the m other have been obliterated), it is not surprisin g that the oral
discourse contain s direct exhortations to the Sikhs to sh ed their fem ininity.
Sin ce the most visible sign of the masculin ity among Sikhs is the sw ord many
speeches sim ply exhort `Shastradhari how o’ , that is, that the listen er become the
bearer of w eapons. In m ost of his speeches, Bhindranw ale asked Sikh house-
holds to collect w eapons Ð especially Kalashn ikov guns Ð so that they could
protect the hon our of the community w hen the tim e came.
In addition to the external and historical sign of Sikh masculin ity embodied
in the sw ord, a Sikh ’s masculin ity is also said to be visib le in his beard.
Bhind raw ale chastised the Sikhs,
If you do not w ant beard s then you should urge the w omen to become
men and you should become w omen. O r else, ask nature that it should
stop this grow th on your faces. Then there w ill be no need to exhort you
to w ear long beard s. Then there w ill be no need for me to preach
[prachar karna], no need to break m y head on this [m atha khap ai karna].
6
A nother leader, a functionary of the A kali D al, ins isted that the ¯ ow ing beard
of the Sikh m an w as a direct challen ge to the authority of the state. W hen a
threat to the Sikh comm unity w as articulated, it w as often stated that `they’
have their eyes on `your’ sw ord, on `your’ beard [òna di nazar tw adi kirpan te
hai Ð ona di nazar tw adi dadi te hai’].
Thus, w e see the importance of the theme of the fem inine other destroying
the com munity by robbing it of its masculinity and bestow ing a feminine
character on it. The production of comm unal hate in this case w as not based
upon a long history of hostility betw een H in dus and Sikh s. Instead, hate
seem ed to be the sh ears destined to ren t a sh ared history and a social ecology
of connectedness.
A m aster narrative of Sikh history, cast as a series of sys tematic dualism s
separating the Sikh self from the H ind u other, could not have been w oven
w ithout a sy stem atic `forgetting’ of the close relations betw een H ind us and
Sikh s in every day life, especially the bonds of language, common mythology ,
shared w orsh ip, and the comm unity created through exchanges. In fact, even
the participation of the Sikh s in the comm unal riots against the M uslim s,
w hich, in addition to bein g documented in history textbooks, could still be
veri® ed by living people, w as no longer acknow led ged . Projecting all the
darker aspects of the past onto the H indus purged the Sikhs of mem ories they
7
could no longer afford to ow n. As one example of this kind of `forgetting’ ,
in ciden ts of com munal tens ions from the 1920s w ere discussed prim arily in
term s of H ind u-Muslim con¯ icts, as if the Sikh s had not ® gured in these
con¯ icts at all. U nd er the subheading of Ìt H appened Before’ , the SG PC’ s
W hite Paper en titled They M assacre Sikhs stated the follow ing :
This phenom en on in w hich Sikh religious sensib ility is calculatedly

outraged and their human dignity cruelly injured , has its historical
antecedents in this part of the w orld . It w as in the late tw en ties of this
114 V eena D as
century that a cultural ancestor of the pres en t anti-Sikh H ind u urb an

crust w rote and publish ed a sm all book, purportin g to be a research
paper in history und er the title of R angila Rasul: M oham m ad, the Pleasure
Loving Prophet ¼ The en tire M uslim w orld of Ind ia w rith ed in anguish
at this gross insult to and attack on the M uslim comm unity but they
w ere laugh ed at and chided by the citi® ed H indu press of Lahore ¼ But
the process of even ts that led to bloody comm unal riots in various parts
of India til the creation of India and Pakis tan and the partition of the
country itself, w ith tragic losses in men , m oney and property, is directly
and righ tly traceable to a section of the majority community exempli® ed
in the matter of R ang ila R asul ¼ (pp. 29± 30)
The ® rst act of w ilful forgetting, then , inv olved purgin g the comm unity of
evil by tracing all w rongd oing to a sin gle source, `the citi® ed H ind u majority ’.
The second act of forgetting w as to construe all acts of violen ce, both those
w ithin the Sikh com munity (in institu tionally sanctioned practices such as
feuding) and those directed outw ard , as the violen ce of martyrd om. Finally,
there w as the assumption that the Ind ian state w as an external institution, in fact
a H in du institu tion, that had been imposed upon the Sikh comm unity rather
than one created through practices prev alent in the Punjab region itself. This
view allow ed the Sikh community both to absolve itself of all blame for corrupt
in stitutional practices on the part of the state by sh ifting the burd en to the
H in du comm unity, and to create a discourse of betrayal.
T he B etraye d Lov er
O ne of the metaphors that occurred repeatedly in the militant discourse w as

that of the Sikh s as the betrayed lovers of the Ind ian state. The militant
literature stated that it w as their sacri® ces that had brought India freed om , but
the Sikh s w ere denied their righ tful place in the new con® guration of nations.
Bhind ranw ale made this analogy durin g a speech in w hich he asserted that
w hile M uslim s got Pakistan, and H ind us became the de facto rulers of India, the
nishan sahib (i.e., the ¯ ag that w ould be the sign of the Sikh nation) w as not
allow ed to ¯ y over the country . O n another occasion, he stated that an
agreem en t had been reached that the saffron colour that is the sym bol of Sikh
m artyrd om w ould ¯ y over and above the other tw o colours Ð green for the
M uslim s and w hite for the H ind us because it had alw ays been a Sikh w ho led
the procession of satyagrahis (Gandhi’ s term for the non-violen t protesters,
literally sig nify ing the adherenc e to truth), as H indus w ere too coward ly to do
so. Obviously, this is not the of® cial interpretation of the colour scheme of the
national ¯ ag. But the story Bhin dranw ale told anchored a ¯ oating truth w ith
the stamp of authen ticity.
In other exam ples of metaphor in militant discourse, the character of the
H in du w as com pared w ith the character of the snake. O ne poster declared, À
H in du never kills a sn ake. H e asks the M uslim to kill the snake. If the sn ake
dies the H ind u is happy; if the M uslim dies the H indu is happy’ . The poster
concluded w ith this w arnin g: Ìn confrontation w ith such a comm unity even
your nam e w ill be w iped out from the annals of history’. The them e of the
untrustw orthiness of the H indus w as further elaborated through reference to
the feminised character of its rulers . Thus, the leader Ind ira Gand hi w as said
to be a w idow , one born in the househ old of Pandits, the Brahm in caste w hich
w as alw ays subservien t to the ruler classes. The implication w as that only a
H in du could accept bein g ruled by a w om an.
The superim position of the images of femininity and masculin ity over the
images of H indu and Sikh assum ed the state as an overarching presen ce, and
one that provid ed a speci® c context for the contests betw een the tw o groups.
O ne could go further and say that it is this overarching presen ce that tore the
H in dus’ and Sikh s’ mutual creation of images from its anchors in everyd ay life.
Each group turned to public spaces, and each vied w ith the other for control
over those spaces. The repertoire of the negative and hateful images of self and
other slow ly seeped into the understand ings of m any people, forming the
unconscious grammar through w hich the griev ous even ts of Operation Blue
8
Star (discussed later in this article), the assassination of Indira G andhi, and the
collective violen ce again st the Sikhs in Delh i in 1984 w ere partially produced
and interp reted .
T he Phenom enology of R um ou r
I turn now to tracing the w ays in w hich the diffused understandings of Sikh
and H indu character found expression in the phenom en ology of rumour. To do
so, I examine the speci® c context of the societal crisis surrounding the assassin -
ation of Indira Gandhi. The key characteristics of this crisis w ere as follow s: a
m ounting panic w hich sig nalled the breakd ow n of social communication; the
anim ation of a societal m em ory composed of in complete or interrupted social
9
stories; and the appearance of panic-laden rumour, in the form of a voice
w hich w as unattrib uted, unassign ed and yet anchored to the images of self and
other that had been circulating in the discourses of militancy. The w ithd raw al
of trust from norm ally functioning w ords constituted a special vulnerability to
the signi® er w hich in turn led to w ays of acting that seem ed both out of control
and uncontrollable. It w as in these moments that images gen erated in the
speeches of a `Sant’ Bhin dranw ale or a `Sadhavi’ Rith am bra found a place in
the collective repertoire of social groups, displacing the subjectivity of every-
day life w ith a subjectivity more appropriate to a form of death rather than a
form of life.
M y emphasis on rumour’s displacemen t of the subjectivity of every day life
places the functioning of rumour in a som ew hat different, even negative, ligh t
compared to many other form ulations. A brief detour to sketch the contours of
this difference may be useful, especially to indicate the social contexts in w hich
rumour m ay perform a critical function, as w ell as those in w hich it creates
conditions for the circulation of hate. At the very least, my view of the function
of rumour sugg ests that a satisfactory theory of rumour ind epend ent of the
forms of life (or form s of death) w ithin w hich it is embedded is not possible.
One w ell-kn ow n analysis of the pow er of rumour is George RudeÂ ’s (1959,
1964) classic study of rumour’s role in m obilising crow ds durin g the Fren ch
116 V eena D as
10
revolution. A s I have indicated elsew here (Das, 1990a), many scholars have
view ed this mobilisin g pow er of rumour positively, seein g crow ds as agen ts of
collective action, concern ed w ith red ressa l of moral w rongs. E. P. Thompson,
for exam ple, observed , `The food riot in the eigh teen th century w as a highly
complex form of direct popular action, disciplin ed and w ith clear objectives’
(1971, p. 78).
In Indian historiography, Ranajit Guha (1983) has secured an analytical
place for rumour as important trig ger and mobilis er, à necessary instrum en t of
rebel transmission ’ in popular peasant uprisin gs (p. 256). Guha iden ti® es
several other characteris tics of rum our as important elem ents upon w hich to
construct a theory : the anonym ity of the source of rumour, its capacity to build
solidarity, and the overw helm ing urge it prompts in listen ers to pass it on to
others . H e draw s repeated attention to rum our as an important m eans of
m obilisin g the peasantry. H e sees this function as one w hich w as `speci® c to a
pre-literate culture’ (pp. 226, 251), re¯ ecting à code of political think ing w hich
w as in conformity w ith the sem i-feudal conditions of the peasant’s existen ce’
(pp. 264± 65). Of® cials view ed the peasant insurgen cies fuelled by rum our as
in stances of peasant irrationality. For the peasant insu rgents , these w ere m eans
of spreading the m essage of revolt.
Bhabha (1995) deftly isolates tw o aspects of rum our from Guha’s analysis
that he (Bh abha) consid ers important for building a general theory of rum our.
The ® rst is the rumour’ s en unciative aspect, and the second the perform ative
aspect. `The in determ inacy of rumour’, he says, `constitutes its im portance as
a social discourse. Its intersubjective, communal adhesiven ess lies in its en un-
ciative aspect. Its performative pow er of circulation results in its contiguous
spreadin g, an alm ost uncontrollable impulse to pass it on to another perso n’
(p. 201). H e concludes that psy chic affect and social fantasy are potent forms of
potential iden ti® cation and agen cy for guerrilla w arfare and hen ce rum ours
play a m ajor role in m obilisation for such w arfare.
Other view s of rum our, especially those deriv ed from mass psy chology,
have traced it to the em otional, capricious, tem peram en tal, and ¯ igh ty nature
of crow ds. Le Bon (1952) declared that crow ds are everyw here distin guish ed by
feminine characteristics. Some of this denigra tion of crow ds may be easy to
understand in term s of Guha’ s formulation of elite prejudice against the
subaltern forms of communication. Still, it is dif® cult to ign ore the fact that the
tw entieth century has also seen the spectacular politics of crow ds in the N azi
regim e and nearer hom e in the com munal riots. In these cases, too, there w ere
certain moral prem ises (in term s of the participants’ ow n understand ing of
events) upon w hich the crow ds acted (Das, 1990a, 1996a) but the unconscious
exchange of images drew upon a repertoire that cannot be schematised w ithin
G uha’s fram ew ork of subaltern politics.
In his analysis of N azi crow ds, M uscovici (1985) suggests that crow ds come
to be spoken of in fem inine term s sim ply to mask the exchange of hom osexual
images betw een an àctive’ leader and a `feminine’ crow d. I have elsew here
sugges ted (D as, 1990a) that themes of rev en ge dominate in the im agery in
w hich a crow d is m obilised around the im age of a raped w om an, or a dead
child. M oreover, the imagery of a com munity that has been emasculated and
that seeks to recover its m asculinity through crow d action plays on the registe r
of gen der in various w ays. W hat is comm on in these situations w here rum ours
are deployed is the perlocutionary force of w ords; their capacity to do some-
11
thing by saying som ething. In this w ay, w ords com e to be transform ed from
a m edium of comm unication to an instrument of force.

These prelim inary rem arks , I hope, authorise me to conclude that the
essential gram matical feature (in W ittgen stein ’s sen se) of w hat w e call rumour
is that it is conceived to sp read. Thus w hile images of contagion and infection
are used to represen t rum our in elite discourse, this is not sim ply a matter of
their non-compreh ension of subaltern forms of comm unication. It also speaks to
the transform ation of language; namely , that ins tead of being a medium of
communication, language becomes communicable, infectious, causing thin gs to
happen alm ost as if they had occurred in nature. This speaks to the phe-
nomen ological feature of m ounting panic, as I sh all sh ow , but it also naturalises
the stereotypical distinctions betw een social groups and hides the social origin s
and production of hate.
T he A ssassination of Indira G andh i
Ind ira Gandhi w as sh ot and killed by tw o or m ore of her Sikh security guard s
on 31 O ctober 1984, at about 9 am . A lthough there w as no of® cial announce-
m en t of the religiou s iden tity of the assassins until the next morning, people
someh ow `knew ’ that sh e had been murd ered by her Sikh guard s. There w as
speculation in D elh i about the gen ealogy of this even t and its consequ en ces for
the safety of the city’s Sikh s.
M any people traced the orig in of the assassina tion back to Operation Blue
Star. Launched by the Ind ian arm y in July 1984, this und ertaking alleged ly w as
in tended to ¯ ush out the militants from the Golden Tem ple in Am ritsar; the
m ilitant leader Bhin dranw ale died durin g the arm y assault. The arm y’ s forcib le
en try into the temple w as view ed as a desecration, and many if not most Sikhs
found the even t deeply hurtful. The various constructions and counter con-
structions of this event w ill be ex am ined later in this article. H ere, let me note
only that som e Sikh s w ere alleged to have taken oaths in G urdw aras (Sikh
temples, lit. the doorw ay to the Guru) to assassin ate M rs Gandhi before the end
of October in order to aven ge the insult embodied in Operation Blue Star. Some
people said that M rs Gand hi had been w arn ed by police security that sh e
should not have Sikh bodyg uard s, but that sh e had refused to have the men
transferred. Opinion w as divid ed over w hether to regard the tw o body guard s
as m artyrs w ho had risk ed their lives to pen etrate the security sy stem of the
12
formidable Indian state, or w hether they sh ould be consid ered cow ards w ho
had sh ot a defen celess w oman Ð a w oman w ho had trusted them against the
advice of her security person nel. It is interes ting to note that the identity of the
assassins w as assumed purely on the basis of rumour. This uncanny kn ow l-
edge, I believe, can be traced to the un® nished character of Operation Blue Star.
There w as a sense at the time that the story had not en ded w ith the storm ing
of the temple and the death of Bhindranw ale; indeed , it w as w idely believed
that there w as bound to be a sequel in the form of a calam itous national even t.
118 V eena D as
The even ts of O peration Blue Star w ere them selv es the subject of contention
from the beg innin g. The governm en t ins isted that the sacred sh rin e of Am ritsar
Ð the D arbar Sahib (or the Golden Tem ple, as it is popularly know n) Ð had
becom e a sanctuary for m ilitants and terrorists, and that the shrine w as a
storage place for large quantities of illega l w eapons, w hose presenc e en dan-
gered public order and state sovereign ty. The m ilitant literature depicted the
arm y operation as a ¯ agrant violation of the rig hts of the Sikh s w ith regard to
their sacred sh rin es. The militants argued that Operation Blue Star had been a
deliberate insult to the Sikh religion and to the Sikh com munity and therefore
13
w ould not go unaven ged . M any civil rights groups also maintained that
in nocen t pilgrim s had been sh ot, among w hom w ere w omen and child ren . The
arm y contended, on the other hand , that the sold iers had gone into the temple
14
w ith their hand s tied beh ind their backs (so to speak), because the terrorists
had used inn ocent pilgrim s as human sh ield s. They claimed that the army’s
losses w ere far in excess of w hat w ould have been expected in such a
confrontation because the soldiers w ere oblig ed to protect ordinary civilians.
For each elem en t of the story, there w ere allegations and counter allegations .
The narrative’ s un® nish ed character meant that the even t lived on in different
version s in the social m em ory of different social groups.
The uncertainty introduced by the assassin ation of M rs Gandhi in the present
seem ed to many to have a lin k w ith the past in the form of the incomplete
character of the story of O peration Blue Star. M rs Gand hi’ s death appeared to
complete one seg ment of the story. It w as as if this particular turn of even ts
w as part of the larg er plot that had been unfolding sin ce O peration Blue Star.
Similarly, the uncann y kn ow led ge of the iden tity of the guards that w as passed
along in rumours seem ed part of the same seria lity through w hich even ts
unfolded on their ow n. Yet, despite the uncertainty in w hich even ts w ere
en veloped durin g the ® rst few hours, w hen rum ours that M rs Gandhi had been
shot began to spread, there w as no sens e of panic Ð even w hen the even ts
w ere ® rst con® rm ed by the of® cial media. It w as only later in the evenin g that
thing s began to take a differen t turn.
R um ou rs of C elebration: W as the State C ollapsing?
The in itial speculations and judgements about the act of assassin ation began,
tow ard the evenin g of 31 O ctober, to give w ay to uncertainty over the context
w ithin w hich to place this action. Some believed that the assassina tion should
be und erstood as the ® rst ann ouncement of m uch m ore momentous even ts to
come. In m any parts of the city, it w as rumoured that, along w ith this singular
act of daring, the Sikhs had started massive violen ce against the H indus in
Punjab. Som e people claimed to have heard that trains loaded w ith dead
bodies w ere arrivin g from Punjab There w ere rumours that Sikh militants
planned to poison D elh i’ s w ater supply. Also, it w as said that there had been
w ide-spread defection in the ranks of the arm y and the police, so that the
collapse of the state w as imm inen t. Som e people m aintained that these even ts
had alread y been announced in the G urdw aras, w hich w as w hy instea d of being
frig htened of reprisals, the Sikhs w ere celeb rating all over the country.
Other people expected that the creation of Khalistan w ould be ann ounced
in the w ake of the utter chaos that w ould surely reign in India; that negotia-
tions had already been held w ith pow erful countries. H en ce, w hile the U nited
States w ould not rush to recognise Khalistan, rumour held that it had already
pers uaded some small countries to do so. In this w ay, M rs Gandhi’ s assassin -
ation w as seen as the ® rst act in a m assive conspiracy. Th e repres en tation of the
crisis drew consid erable en erg y from exaggerated claims about the vulner-
ability of the Ind ian state and the am ount of support the m ilitants w ere likely
to receive. For example, in one of his speeches, Bhindranw ale had reported that
he had been asked by some journalists if the Sikh s w ould ® gh t on the sid e of
Ind ia if India w ere to be attacked by the Khalistani Lib eration Force located in
the U SA, C anada and Eng land (sic) and supported by the Am erican arm y. H e
had said that he told the journ alists that not one Sikh w ould lift a w eapon
again st such a holy force.
W e can see that rumour operated here in the tw ilig ht of judgem ent. C arlo
G inzburg has sugg ested to me in a personal conversation that it w ould be
useful to distin guish betw een those events w hich did happen (e.g., a train full
of dead bodies arriv ing from across the border durin g the riots in 1947) and
those events w hich w ere only alleg ed to have happened (e.g., a poisonin g of
the w ater supply by the terrorists). The dif® culty w ith draw ing sharp distin c-
tions betw een that w hich happened (the brute fact) and that w hich w as only
alleged to have happen ed (the imagined even t) is that such distinctions can be
seen w ith clarity only after the even t has occurred . The region s of the imaginary
to w hich the claims of the real become anchored vary w idely . In the case at
hand , they ranged from images seen on television, to those reported to have been
seen on television, and included, as w ell, stories heard about other times. C ontrary
to the notion that certain classes of people are protected from the m esm erising
effect of rum ours (e.g., the educated), I found that many profess ionals Ð
bureaucrats, teachers, medical doctors Ð inhabited for a time that tw iligh t zone
in w hich it w as dif® cult to kn ow w hether it w as w iser to believ e in rum ours
or in the of® cial versio ns of even ts.
W ithin tw enty- four hours, the diffused rum ours had created the sen se that
there w as a conspiracy against society; that the authorities resp onsib le for the
protection of citizens’ lives and the maintenance of public order w ould be
overw helm ed and unable to ful® ll their designated roles. Thus, instead of
creating the Sikh s as a group vulnerable to mass violence and in need of the
protection of law , the rumours now fed on images of the H indus as w eak and
vulnerable and the state as already having collapsed in the face of such a
m assive plot again st it. That this version of reality w ould com e to be accepted
Ð w ith a veng eance Ð can be traced to the frequen t claims made in the w ritten
and oral discourses of militant leaders about the emasculated character of the
Ind ian state; the exhortation to all Sikh s to carry w eapons; and the repeated
assertion s that w hen the mom en t of reckon ing came, every Sikh w ould be
ready to ® ght on beh alf of Khalistan (arm ed w ith the Kalash nikov guns
carefully stored in Sikh household s). The assassina tion of M rs Gandhi became
a kind of proof of the pow er of the Sikh s and the vulnerability of the H indus.
These ideas gained greater and greater pow er as they began to be evoked w ith
120 V eena D as
grow ing intensity by many H indu men and w omen w ho repeated the rum ours
to one another in mounting panic.
T he V ulnerability of the Sikh s

W hile rumours about the unpreparedness of the H indus to m eet the challen ge
of a Sikh attack w ere bein g freely discussed and circulated on street corners
15
and at paan sh ops, many Sikh household s feared that they w ould be attacked.
O n 31 October, the new spapers had reported that hoodlums and thugs had
gathered in various railw ay stations and that in m any places Sikhs had been
dragg ed out from the trains and beaten or killed . The absen ce of the police at
these crucial places and the fact that of® cial pronouncemen ts completely
denied any attack on Sikhs, convinced many that the anti-social elem en ts had
the support of the police. M any Sikh s saw these alleged attacks as in continuity
w ith Operation Blue Star, sin ce both w ere about teaching Sikh s a lesson . Bein g
able to interpret the rumours correctly became a matter of life and death for
m any. Let me illustrate w ith a person al example.
On the m orning of 1 N ovember, on the deserted streets in the C ivil Lines,
m y husband and I m et a distraugh t Sikh gen tlem an w aving w ild ly at us to
stop. H e w as an em ployee of the N ational D efen ce Institute w ho had been
w orking through the nigh t. H e kn ew nothing of the even ts follow ing M rs
G andhi’ s assassination, as he had been in his laboratory the previous night, but
he could sense the eerien ess of the city. N o buses w ere runn ing and in place
of the usual street sound s there w as only silen ce. C ould w e help him and drop
him at the nearest bus stop, he asked , so that he could get home. W e explained
that there had been reports of attacks on Sikh s and that therefore it migh t be
best for him to avoid the streets . Since one of our friend s lived nearb y, w e
offered to take him there, w here he could then telephon e his family . W e also
sugges ted that he could stay w ith our frien d until thing s quieten ed a bit. As w e
w ere talking, I had open ed the door of the car for him . H e got in and seated
himself in the back, m utterin g his thanks . W ithin a momen t of his settlin g
himself in the car, a group of four or ® ve men materialised , seem ing ly out of
now here. They did not look threatenin g, but they spoke in conspiratorial tones.
Further ahead, they said, there w as a m ob. The men advised us that if the
crow d saw a Sikh in our car, they w ould not only drag him out and beat him
or kill him , they w ould attack us, as w ell. I became visibly angry. The men
shook their heads sadly and said they w ere doing their best Ð w hat more
could they do, besides w arning us of w hat lay ahead? They sugg ested that it
w ould be better for the man to hide und er the seat and for us to drive the car
fast so that our passen ger w ould not be visible from far. They w ould neith er
talk directly to the man nor look at him . It w as as if they w ere discussin g a
troubles ome object rather than a person . At this point, the Sikh man panicked
visib ly. I assured him that our frien d’ s house w as only a minute’ s driv e, and
that if he w anted he could sim ply stay there, w here he w ould be safe. `N o’, the
m an objected, `W hy should you ris k your life for me?’. H e open ed the door
even as the car had beg un to move and stumbled into the road. `H e w ill not
come w ith us. H e probably fears that w e may be tryin g to trick him and deliver
him to his killers’ , my husband surm ised . I shouted to the m an that he should
not try to negotiate the roads, that he should just go back to M etcalfe H ouse
and hide there for a few days. I lost sight of him then but many m onths later
I saw him in the vicinity of M etcalfe H ouse. H e had survived .
Although many Sikh s w ere persuaded to take sh elter in the houses of

H in du or M uslim friend s, it w as w ith fragm en ted pieces of inform ation that the
Sikh s w ere makin g their choices. The full im pact of the violen ce had not yet hit
home. H orren dous violen ce against the Sikh s in resettlem en t colonies in D elhi
had begun on the even ing of 31 October; more than 3,000 Sikh s died . The full
horror of this attack did not becom e know n until 1 N ovember, how ever, and
it and w as not of® cially acknow led ged until much later (see Chakravarty and
H aks ar, 1987; D as, 1990b, 1996a; Kothari and Sethi, 1985; PUDR/PUC L Report,
1984).
A N ew T urn
A s the facts about the extent and brutality of attacks against Sikhs came to be
know n through reports in new spapers , and through the w ork of several
voluntary agen cies, the rumours began to take a new turn . N ow it w as
w hispered that new s had come in from severa l places that Sikh s w ho had been
given sh elter by H indus had actually killed their hosts and stolen their goods
or raped their w omen before runnin g off in the middle of the night. N ames of
several resid en tial colonies w ere evoked w here people said they know some-
one w ho had seen acts such as these, or w ho had heard of such acts, or w ho
had kn ow n the strick en family (or families ).
This rumour soon becam e lin ked to the assassination of M rs Gand hi. If her
security guard s, w hom sh e had trusted en ough to ign ore the advice of her
security pers onn el, could betray her trust and kill her because they had been
sw orn to exact ven geance, then w hat further evid en ce w as need ed, people
ask ed each other, to sh ow that Sikh s had no loyalty high er than w hat they
ow ed to their religion ? The Sikh character w as compared to that of a sn ake,
w ho turn s round and bites the hand that feeds it m ilk. This sn ake analogy
surfaced over and over. For in stance, one man helping to run a relief camp
w en t to buy m ilk for the child ren from a gw ala (m ilk vend or). `Why do you
need so much milk?’, asked the gw ala, `Do you have a w eddin g in the family ?’ .
The m an explained that he w as getting milk for the child ren of Sikh s in the
Ludlow C astle cam p. The gw ala clearly disapproved: `You w ant to feed the
snake’ s child w ith milk Ð but w hen he grow s up, he w ill grow up to be a
snake, not a man’. H e rem inded the man about the saying, À stin ke sam p Ð
m auka pate h i das leng e (snakes nourish ed in your sh irt sleeves Ð they w ill bite
you as soon as they get a chance)’ .
The second of the strands intertw ined in this complex of rumours w as to
attribute the acts of ¯ ight on the part of terri® ed Sikh s to the preparations they
w ere makin g for rev en ge. In the earlier complex of rumours that I identi® ed,
the theme of the collapse of the state and the sim ultaneous passage of pow er
in to the hand s of the Sikh militants w as prominent. By the second day after the
assassination, it w as clear that the state w ould not fall. The new Prime Minister
122 V eena D as
had been installed . Reports of sporadic attacks on the Sikh s w ere percolating
in to Delhi and many people w ere scared to go out on the roads. They feared
that the m obs, persiste ntly described in new spapers as composed of ànti-social
elem ents ’, w ould take the opportunity to harm not only the Sikh s, but others,
too. At the same time, how ever, the rumours contin ued to construct the Sikhs
as agg ressive , angry, and w aiting to strike. W hen a large number of Sikh s took
shelter in G urdw aras, people said that the Sikhs had amassed a vast am ount of
w eapons and w ould launch an attack from these temples. In several m iddle-
class areas, resid en ts organised nigh t-tim e neigh bourh ood w atches so that they
w ould not be caught unaw ares w hen attacked by the Sikh s.
In one inciden t, a group of frig htened Sikh taxi driv ers, w ho in norm al
circumstances w ould sleep in m ake-do shelter s at the taxi stand itself, had, in
order to avoid iden ti® cation, sh aved off their beards and cut their hair on the
evenin g of 31 October, w hen they ® rst heard about the attacks on Sikh s in the
city. They w ere hid ing in the dark sh adow s of the tow ering w alls of a colleg e
for w omen w hen they w ere spotted. The rumour im mediately w en t around
that the taxi drivers had assem bled there to attack the college and rape the
w om en . After receiving telephon e calls from the college, the police came and
escorted the frig htened men to a relief cam p that had been set up near by.
Obviously, for m any, the Sikhs rem ained the aggress ors to the very en d.
This particular angle on even ts Ð w hich turned the vulnerable victim s into
agg ressors and sim ultaneously created a sen se of panic among those w ho (if
16
one w ere granted a god’ s eye view ) w ere under no special threat Ð is
extrem ely important. I w ill return to this topic later in this article.
The third and fourth strands in the rum ours through w hich Sikh character
w as constructed address the fanaticism of the Sikh s, w hich w as som etim es
deem ed to approximate `m adness’. The emphasis in the narratives som etim es
shifted , but a slippage from courage to fanaticism to madness took place as the
stories circulated. Take ® rst a relatively benign construction. During one of the
® rst visits w e made to Sultanpuri, a resettlement colony w here I w as in volved
in relief and reh abilitation w ork (see Das, 1990b, 1996a), w e w ere taken to a
street w here little physical damage seem ed to have occurred . But a group of
m en and w omen there vociferously claimed their status as victim s. One w oman
told us, `We w ere all attacked Ð our m en w ere killed in large numbers, but w e
17
say that they w ere not murd ered Ð they w ere martyred ’ . A young Punjabi
boy w ho w as in the team of studen ts help ing m e rem ark ed, `Sikh s have such
an urg e to claim martyrd om!’ . Changing the tone of his voice to m im ic a
supposed Sikh , he said, `We w ant to be m artyrs Ð you can put any place and
date on our act (asi tan ji shahid hona hai Ð jagah te tarikh tusi pa lao)’ . H e then
described stories he had heard about Sikh s refusin g to be m oved to the safety
of refugee cam ps and trying to challen ge fully arm ed m obs w ith the few
w eapons they had, inevitably dyin g in the en d. I too had heard these stories
but m y in terpretation w as not that they w ere seek ing m arty rd om , but that it
w as dif® cult in those conditions to know w hether they w ere being taken to a
refugee cam p or being entrapped into an unkn ow n situation w here death and
degradation awaited them . I have already referred to the social memory of the
partition riots, durin g w hich people w ere lured to their deaths in a sim ilar
m anner. This m em ory may have sh aped the Sikh s’ though ts as they tried to
decide on the best course of action.
The fourth strand , a more harm ful variation on the third , constru ed the
Sikh s not as misg uided marty rs but as people w hose fanaticism shaded into
m adness. In my efforts to assist in the w ork of relief and reh abilitation, I w as

try ing to organise medical help for the victim s. A bout ® fteen days after the
riots, I spoke w ith a group of physician s. M y prim ary contact in this group w as
a socially conscientious physician (a member of the A rya Sam aj) w ho had read
some accounts of the w ork my colleagues and I w ere doing. H e said that he
w anted to org anise his colleagues to help but found them to be so prejud iced
again st the Sikhs that it w as im possib le to get their co-operation. `Please don’ t
think that they [the physician s] are bad people’ , he pleaded, Òne of them had
w orked day and nigh t in a governm en t hospital on a voluntary basis w hen a
tornado had hit the city in 1978 and hospitals w ere ® nding them selves very
short of staff. But someh ow even he cannot be persuaded to w ork w ith the
Sikh s’ . I decided that by talking directly to this group and tellin g them of the
suffering of the victims in Sultanpuri, I migh t be able to persuade them to help.
M y descriptions, w ere met w ith sullen res istance, an attitude that I con-
strued at the tim e as a refusal to listen. O ne w oman doctor said that in her
opinion the Sikhs had brough t all this suffering upon them selves because they
w ere like m ad people. To substantiate her view , sh e told me that sh e had heard
that in the tyre m ark et near Bada H indu Rao, w here many shops w ere ow ned
by Sikhs , an angry mob had put burn ing tyres around the necks of the ow ners,
locked them insid e their shops, and let them burn to death. `N orm al’ people,
she said, w ould have sh outed and asked for m ercy or forgiven ess , but one Sikh
w as seen in the w ind ow s gesturin g threatening ly at the mob, w ith his ® sts
closed . H is actions had elicited hy sterical laugh ter from the mob.
The creation of these images did not seem to have anyth ing to do w ith the
physician s’ actual experien ce. They had not themselv es gone around burning
people or looting shops. And yet, there w as a voyeuris tic pleasure in these
rumours of Sikh m adness and extraordinary beh aviour. As the discussion
gathered mom en tum , other kin ds of evid en ce w ere offered. One person
claimed that in the Sikh tradition it w as believed that one w ho died for the
cause of the G urus did not feel any pain even under torture. This belief w as
w hy, he said, Sikh s beh aved like fanatics, takin g question s of life and death
ligh tly. This belief also explained, according to him, w hy there had alw ays been
so m uch violen ce in the Punjab. Another example of supposed outlandish Sikh
beh aviour follow ed. Sikh s in the Punjab, one member of the group asserted ,
had proudly proclaimed the story that w hen the Indian arm y had rounded up
Sikh boys w ho had been caugh t in the Golden Temple durin g Operation Blue
Star, the sold iers told the boys to sh out `Bharat m ata ki Jai (Victory to M other
Ind ia)’ . Instead, they had sh outed in unison , `Jo bole so nihal Ð bolo sri sat sriya
kal’ , the ritual proclamation of Sikh faith. The Indian arm y of® cer in charge
18
alleged ly then killed these young boys. H ow could one explain such madness ,
the physician w ondered , w ho w ould not value the life of the young? The
traged y w as that he seem ed com pletely unaw are of the iron y that w e w ere
discussin g precisely the brutal killing of the Sikhs w hen he evoked their lack of
124 V eena D as
resp ect for life as evid en ce of their madness and hen ce an exoneration of the
violence agains t them .
I could give many more examples of this overlay ing of the four strands to
create the Sikh as aggress ive, ven geful, incapable of loyalty, and m ad Ð and ,
corresp ondingly, of the H indu as vulnerable, frigh tened, and acting out of self-
defence against a pow erful enem y. But I sh all conclude this part of the
description w ith an exam ple w hich provides a sligh tly differen t angle on this
them e.
A H indu pries t told m e that on the 31 O ctober, a meetin g had been held just
on the outskirts of D elh i in a recently built temple, know n for its lavish
in teriors. The temple w as also kn ow n to be patronised by politicians and
pow erful m embers of the und erw orld . Durin g this meetin g, the priest said,
there had been a major discussion about w hether Sikh s w ere part of the H indu
community. If so, the assassin ation of M rs Gand hi w ould be properly treated
as an ind ivid ual aberration/crim e; if not, the w hole com munity w ould be
implicated. It w as agreed that for the last several years the Sikh militants and
19
terrorists had killed , terrorised , and looted H ind us in the Punjab. The sen se
of the m eetin g w as (according to the priest) that the Sikhs w ere now like a god
20
w ho beg ins to behave like a demon. Such gods, he said, do not learn through
reasoned conversations ; they have to be kicked to rid them of evil. The phrase
he used in H indi w as `laton ke devata baton se nahin m ante (the gods w ho need
kicks cann ot be paci® ed w ith w ords)’ . The common saying is `laton ke bhut Ð
baton se na hin m ante’. The w ord devata m eans god; bhut means demon. H e had
substituted the sy mbolism of dem ons w ith the sym bolism of gods (though the
term devata is used for less er gods). Thus, the lang uage of exorcism and
possession here becom es a political language through w hich the violence lin ks
21
the aggress ors and the victim s on the model of the exorcist and his patient.
These rumours on the un® nished even ts of Operation Blue Star fed into a
H in du imagin ation of society as in siege after the assassin ation of M rs Gand hi.
Let m e hasten to add that this does not mean that all H in dus believed in one
kind of construction and all Sikh s in its binary opposite. Indeed , the very
examples I have given of solidarities created across communities in these
period s of crisis is evidence that such totalisation is resiste d by mem bers of
both groups (see Kanapathipillai, 1990).
There w ere tw o important conseq uences of the rumours. First, they built a
structure of thought w ithin w hich Sikh character w as placed, and this structure
w as one w ith characteristics sim ilar to that of paranoia. Second, the rum ours
stabilised a reality that then had to be handled by the resid en ts of resettlemen t
colonies, like Sultanpuri, w hich bore the brunt of the violence. Thus, the
m ovemen t of im ages that built the stereotypes of Sikh and H indu character in
the militant discourse travelled to the H ind u constru ctions in giving form to
rumours w hich in turn m ade brutal violen ce against the Sikh s a `think able’
resp onse, even for those w ho did not directly participate in the violence.
For the Sikhs , the situation developed in a parallel but not strictly sym -
m etrical w ay. This w as because of a deep ambivalen ce tow ard M rs Gandhi’ s
assassins. N one of the militant groups w as w illin g to condemn the assassins in
unam biguous term s. Sometim es, public statem en ts from Sikh relig ious organi-
sations condemning the assassin ation w ere claimed to have been m ade and
then later w ithd raw n. For m any Sikhs w ho w ere not necess arily sy mpathetic to
the m ilitant cause, Operation Blue Star w as seen as an ins ult to the w hole
religiou s com munity. H en ce, they saw the aftermath of the assassin ation as a
further step in the politics of teaching Sikh s a les son. M any w ere offended that
in stead of being treated as an individual crim e, the assassina tion w as being
seen as an even t that put the w hole Sikh com munity in the dock. So, ins tead
of bein g treated as in divid ual citizens w ho had nothing to do w ith the alleged
crim e, Sikh s w ere being targeted as people to w hom a lesson had to be taught.
It w ould be a grave error, how ever, to assume a homogen eity of opinion and
a conseq uent totalisation of affect am ong the Sikhs. O pinions varied , from
celebrating the act in the tradition of marty rs (e.g., in the m ilitant literature) to
distancing the self from the assassin s, to outrig ht condemnation of their act.
This variation w as given no recogn ition in the stabilisation of the attrib utes
of `Sikh character’ Ð although the individ uality of person s w ho m ake up a
community w as clearly articulated in social practices. Such acts of totalisation
seem to be a normal characteristic of times of collective violen ce; they are also
apparent in the processes of ethnic and religiou s m obilisation in the service of
violence (see Das, 1990a, 1995; Kanapathipillai, 1990). W hat I w ould like to
emphasise here is the manner in w hich, for many H indus, the categories of
agg ressor and victim w ere revers ed through the application of these notions.
Differen t strands of rumour combined here to create (a) a sens e of vulner-
ability among the H indus through the creation of an imaginary w orld in w hich
the w hole social order w as seen as precarious, about to collapse as a result of
a m assive conspiracy on the part of the Sikh s, even though it w as the Sikh s on
w hom the violen ce w as bein g unleash ed; and (b) an assumption that the Sikh
w as not w orthy of bein g treated as an other w ith a face, because the imagined
Sikh character w as devoid of all human subjectivity , a creature of m adness and
demonic possess ion.
The peculiar nature of rumour Ð its lack of sign ature, the impossibility of
its bein g tethered to an individual agen t Ð gave it the sign ature of an
ènd angered collectivity’, one that led to the transform ation of the w orld into
a `fantasmagoria of sh adow s, of ¯ eeting , improvised men ’ (Lacan, 1993). It may
be said thus that many H ind us participated in the collective violence, even
though they may not themselves have eng aged in any killin g or looting . The
form of language Ð its force, its lack of sign ature, its appeals to the uncanny
Ð gave it the perlocutionary force that brough t a new form, not a form of life
but (and I shall not hesitate to say it) a form of death into existence.
C on clus ion
I w ant to conclude by sugges ting that w hat I have described is how the w orld
as it is kn ow n in every day life becomes obliterated, replaced by a w orld w hich
bears resem blance to the structure of paranoia. The social production of hate
can give birth to discourses and practices of genocide, but there are special
conditions through w hich such transform ations become possible. M y fear of the
other is transformed into the notion that the other is fearsom e. I have tried to
126 V eena D as
show further that such transform ations are bound to the conception of import-
ant past even ts as ùn® nished ’ and capable of moulding the pres en t in new and
unpred ictable w ays. It is not only the past then w hich may have an indeterm i-
nate character; the presen t too may sudden ly becom e the site in w hich
elem ents of the past that w ere rejected , in the sen se that they w ere not
in tegrated into a stable understanding of the past, can press upon the w orld
w ith the same insisten ce and obstin acy w ith w hich the real creates holes in the
sym bolic. It is in this mann er that rumour’ s adequacy to a reality w hich has
abruptly become unrecognisable m akes it the priv ileg ed m ode of com muni-
cation and constructs panic as its corres ponding affect in this altered w orld .
D oubts and uncertainties exist in everyd ay life, but the w orst is not w hat one
expects to happen every tim e. In contrast, the zones of em ergenc y are m arked
by diffused im ages of an un® nish ed past, efforts to void the other of all
subjectivity, and a w orld in creasing ly peopled w ith a fantasmagoria of sh ad-
ow s. The perlocutionary force of rumour show s how fragile the social w orld
w e inh abit may be. If in this article I take a consid erably more pessim istic view
of the role of rum our in mobilis ing hate than many others have taken , it is not
because I completely reject the possibilities of such forms of comm unication to
create critical aw aren ess but because I w ish to sh ow that rumour has a darker
side. Images of hate betw een social groups may take a volatile form w hen the
social order is threatened by a critical even t and so transform the w orld that the
w orst becom es not only possible but also probable.
V eena D as m ay be contacted at D epartm ent of A nthropology, G raduate Sch ool, N ew

School for Social R esearch, 66 W est 12th Street, N ew York, N Y 10011, U SA , until
July 1998.
N otes
1. I am grateful to C harles Briggs for his acute com men ts on an earlier draft
of the paper. W hile I have tried to provid e details on many of the even ts
that may not be w idely kn ow n to readers outsid e the subcontinent, it is not
possible for me to w rite by displacing the Indian audience. I offer my
apologies if this makes the text less sociable or hospitable for other
audiences.
2. Record ed audio-cassettes of Bhin dranw ale’ s speeches w ere w idely circu-
lated in the Punjab and elsew here in the 1980. These do not give the dates
on w hich a particular speech w as made.
3. The question of the gend er of the nation is too complex to address here.
A lmost every conceivable im age, from seein g the nation as an all consum-
ing mother, a courtes an, a goddess, a beloved, to a sodomisin g father, has
made an appearance in the social imagery of differen t groups. (See C han-
dra, 1992; C hatterjee, 1993; C ohen , 1995; Das, 1996b; Kaviraj, 1995.)
4. The term G uru literally means teacher, w hile the term Sikh is a derivative
of shishya, meaning studen t.
5. See They M assacre Sikhs. A W hite Paper by Sikh R eligious Pa rliam ent (Shiro-
mani Gurdw ara Prabandhak C ommittee. Amritsar, no date).
6. The Akali Dal is a political party based prim arily in the Punjab among the
Sikh s. N ot all Sikh s ow e allegia nce to the Akali Dal, how ever. The C on-
gress Party has been its main rival in the State, and the latter has also had
a long history of Sikh leaders hip and Sikh support. The interface betw een
religious org anisations and political parties in the Punjab is a complicated
question ; it sh ould be borne in mind , though , that political allegian ces for
both Sikhs and H ind us cut across political parties.
7. The relation betw een memory and forgetting in constituting the com-
munity has been noted in many contexts in recent years. In a very
interes ting paper, Gross (1986) sh ow s the importance of m emory in the
res istance to totalitarianism, and of sim ultaneous forgetting for the con-
struction of comm unity as purged of its past evil in the case of Polish -Jew -
ish relations during the second w orld w ar. H e comments pow erfully on the
Polish conviction that à half w ay victory over totalitarianism ’ s attempts to
destro y social solidarity w ould still be w on if the community’s history
w ere rescued from the regim e’ s am bition to determ ine not only the
country ’s future but also its past’ . Yet the same Polish people developed
elaborate myths to conceal from them selves the nature of Polish -Jew ish
relations and the anti-Semitism in Polish society w hich led to both covert
and overt support being given to the fascist ideology of scapeg oating the
Jew .
8. O peration Blue Star refers to the arm y offensive alleg edly to ¯ ush out the
militants from the Golden Temple undertaken in July 1984 in w hich
Bhindranw ale died . There is a voluminous literature on this, but see Kapur
(1987).
9. A lthough panic seem s to be an accompanying effect of rumours in times of
trouble, I hesitate to assum e that all rumours are accompanied by panic. I
do not have the space here to deal w ith rumour in everyd ay life, but a
gen eral theory of rumour need s to come to term s w ith the different
discursiv e form s w ithin w hich rum ours function.
10. See also Lefebvre (1973, p. 74), w ho w rote, Ìndeed , w hat w as the Great
Fear if not one gigantic rumour?’ .
11. In A ustin’ s (1975) classic form ulation, illocutionary force is distin guish ed
from perlocutionary force in that in the form er case one does som ething in
sayin g something w hile in the latter case one does som ething by saying
som ething. The presen ce of the ® rst person indicative mark s out utterances
that have illocutionary force. In the case of perlocutionary force the
situation is m uch more com plicated but at least in the case of rum our w e
can say that its force w ould be lost if it w as tethered to the w ords of the
speakin g agen t; or for that m atter, if one w ere to frame a rum our by saying
that Ì am spreadin g the rum our that ¼ ’ .
12. The idea of the tw o guard s as martyrs w as to crystallise m uch later in the
militant literature of the Sikh s. Th e assassins cam e to be seen as incarn a-
tions of tw o heroic ® gures, Sukha Sing h and M ehtab Singh w ho had killed
a min or M uslim chieftain, M assarang a, in order to aveng e the dish onour he
128 V eena D as
had done to H armandar Sahib in A mrits ar in 1752. See D as (1995). To my

kn ow led ge, this interpretation w as not evoked early on. Initially , the men ’ s
action and the risk to their ow n lives w as compared to the suicide squads
of different militant groups in the M iddle East
13. For a further description of the rend erin g of this even t in militant literature,
see Das (1995).
14. In the arm y’ s view , the follow ers of Bhind ranw ale w ere `terrorists’ ; in their
ow n self-understanding, they w ere `martyrs’ , and in popular usage in the
media or in conversations , there w as frequent slippage betw een different
kin ds of term s. As Kosseleck (1985) has repeatedly pointed out, m ost social
scienti® c concepts are marked by a political plenitude. In this case w hat is
clear is that ordin ary people in the Punjab and elsew here had to bear the
burd en of much violence due to both the insu rgenc y operations of the
militants and the anti-in surg en cy operations of the police and the arm y.
Thus it w ould be a mistake to assume that the distribution of term s w as
neatly distrib uted among a populace ® gh ting for freed om or justice on the
one hand and a repres sive state apparatus on the other.
15. Paan sh ops, i.e., small road-side shops w here betel leaves and betel nuts are
sold , are typical gatherin g places for exchange of new s, gossip, and
information. These are strong ly gend ered spaces: w om en w ould not be
found standing and gossip ing around these sh ops.
16. I am tempted to say that the òbjective’ conditions did not w arrant this fear
of a plot again st the w hole of society bein g hatched by Sikh s. But the
problem in this ess ay is precisely to see a crisis by placing oneself w ithin
it and to explain how categories of people w ho are them selv es vulnera ble
com e to be attributed w ith such evil pow ers.
17. I have sh ow n in my earlier w ork that in the streets w here the violen ce
occurred , people sim ply did not use the category of martyrd om, nor did
any other ready-m ade categories seem to come very easily to them (D as,
1990b).
18. This story w as much in circulation after the Operation Blue Star and w as
cited in a letter by a sen ior police of® cial in Punjab in his resign ation letter
to the then Presid en t of India, Sard ar Zail Sin gh (see D as, 1995).
19. There w as alw ays a `forgetting’ at these points that, statistically, more Sikhs
than H ind us had died in terroris t attacks.
20. H ind u mythology is replete w ith such examples and the expression `devata
chadd ha hai (a god has possessed one)’ and `bhut chaddhaa hai (a gh ost has
possessed one)’ can both be used in seekin g to exorcise a troublesom e
spirit.
21. See Kepferer (1990) for some analogies w ith the situation in Sri Lank a,
w here the themes of possession and exorcism made an appearance in
political cartoons in relation to the Tam il militants .
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O f® cia l N arra tive s, R u m ou r,

T he D iscou rse of M ilitancy

Kapur (1987) provid es an excellent, compreh en sive account of the em ergence of

C om m unity, K in and M asculinity

Furth er complicating matters is the fact that Gandh i, in his non-violent

Thus the construction of the past in term s of a genealogy of father/son

Given this articulation of com munity as m eanin g a com munity of m en (and

This phenom en on in w hich Sikh religious sensib ility is calculatedly

century that a cultural ancestor of the pres en t anti-Sikh H ind u urb an

O ne of the metaphors that occurred repeatedly in the militant discourse w as

a m edium of comm unication to an instrument of force.

T he A ssassination of Indira G andh i

R um ou rs of C elebration: W as the State C ollapsing?

T he V ulnerability of the Sikh s

Although many Sikh s w ere persuaded to take sh elter in the houses of

m adness. In my efforts to assist in the w ork of relief and reh abilitation, I w as

V eena D as m ay be contacted at D epartm ent of A nthropology, G raduate Sch ool, N ew

had done to H armandar Sahib in A mrits ar in 1752. See D as (1995). To my

London: Arm and C olin.

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