“1984 -When the Sun did not rise” – the unique doc­u­men­tary by Mum­bai-based Teena Kaur Pas­richa cap­tures the gen­e­sis of the No­vem­ber 1984 anti-Sikh car­nage and seeks recog­ni­tion for the pogrom as “geno­cide -a crime against hu­man­ity.”

57 min­utes of tears, in­jus­tice and sad mem­o­ries. Very sim­ple, straight and pow­er­ful. In 57 min­utes Teena Kaur cap­tures the pain of 1984 and be­yond. The post-84 drug sce­nario in the Wid­ows Colony, the an­guish of Mo­han Singh, the mat­ter-of-fact man­ner in which the Sik­li­gar wid­ows view promises of politi­cians be­speaks of the still un­fold­ing tragedy. 

This 57 minute true to life doc­u­men­tary took 5 years of re­search, pain, ca­jol­ing and pa­tience for the Mum­bai-based well-re­warded doc­u­men­tal­ist. Like a sea­soned doc­u­men­tary maker, Teena Kaur raises more ques­tions than she an­swers.  

The keenly ob­ser­vant Teena Kaur has closely touched touched the fe­male vic­tims of No­vem­ber 1984. Anger en­velops me when I see im­ages of the colony which has come to be known as the Wid­ows Colony. I feel ashamed us­ing that term. It is a blot on my com­mu­nity, a blot on the soul of In­dia which does not bother and is hurt­ing to the women who live there.

The nar­ra­tive of the wid­ows is plain and di­rect. Teena Kaur en­ters their houses and asks them pointed ques­tions and they give out their heart-rend­ing sto­ries. “Some­body, some­where planned the mas­sacre” says one of the wid­ows, sum­ming up the sen­ti­ment that runs deep within the com­mu­nity that the das­tardly geno­ci­dal car­nage did not hap­pen just as re­ac­tion to the as­sas­si­na­tion of Prime Min­is­ter In­dira Gandhi.  

Funded by Bu­san In­ter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val’s Asian Net­work and Doc­u­men­tary Fund, the Leipzig In­ter­na­tional Fes­ti­val for Doc­u­men­tary and An­i­mated Film­s’s fel­low­ship ti­tled Doc Wok, this valiant ef­fort of Teena Kaur has been screened across film fes­ti­vals and has been widely ac­claimed.

How short-lived and short-sighted are our com­mu­nity ini­tia­tives to re­ha­bil­i­tate vic­tims of such tragedies can be gauged from the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing life of the young drug abuser de­picted in the doc­u­men­tary. “Mere papa hothe toh hamara yeh haal na hotha.” -”Had I fa­ther been alive, we would not have to go through this” laments the drug abuser at the loss of his fa­ther who was killed by the ma­raud­ing mobs.

The rape of Sikh women dur­ing the car­nage is an­other point that the doc­u­men­tal­ist could have raised but as she has told a sec­tion of the me­dia, “the Sikhs and women talk about it gen­er­ally but would not like to elab­o­rate on this.”  

My vis­its to var­i­ous habi­tats of Sik­li­gars reaf­firms the truth of this state of af­fairs and once again painfully pierces through my heart that we still have not fath­omed how to face head­long such tragedies and how to plan re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and pro­vide suc­cour.

While In­dia still in de­nial mode, Teena Kaur Pas­richa, through “1984 -When the Sun did not rise” calls for ac­cep­tance of the nomen­cla­ture “geno­cide -a crime against hu­man­ity” for the or­gan­ised vi­o­lence that killed 2733 as per of­fi­cial sta­tis­tics alone.

The movie “Amu”, cat­e­gorised in the adult cat­e­gory by the Cen­sor Board of Film Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ef­fec­tively drama­tised the pain and agony of a young lady in search of her Sikh par­ents and sib­lings.  Teena Kau­r’s “1984 -When the Sun did not rise” cap­tures the con­tin­u­ing agony as jus­tice eludes and politi­cians treat the tragedy as an­other op­por­tu­nity to air their po­lit­i­cal griev­ances.

“1984, When the Sun did­n’t Rise’ is Teena Kau­r’s de­but in­de­pen­dent doc­u­men­tary for which she re­ceived the ‘Best Docu Fea­ture by an Emerg­ing Film­mak­er’ award in DC Asia Pa­cific Film Fes­ti­val in 2017 and was also be­stowed with the In­dian Na­tional Award for the Best In­ves­tiga­tive Film.

Every Sikh, every sane in­di­vid­ual, seek­ing an­swers to the com­plex­ity of peo­ple-pol­i­tics re­la­tion­ship in In­dia must see the film and not wait for the sun to rise.

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This year, the mes­sage of Teena Kaur has been soul-stir­ring: “Say a prayer for the de­parted fam­i­lies, be kind and com­pas­sion­ate and keep hopes alive.”