Living History 1984 started as youth who wanted to understand better the events in 1984. The idea was to create a database of people telling their personal stories so that history could be preserved. It is said that people who forget history are bound to repeat it. Certainly this is not a history anyone wishes to repeat.
The narrator in the video says:
The years and decades following 1984 saw a spirited reorganization around the violence and survivors, especially those in Delhi where the worst kind of violence had been best recorded. Education campaigns, internal annex journal, vigils, protests, art and litigation against severe odds all helped slowly change the understanding and rhetoric around what happened in India's capitol from a "riot" to a "pogrom".
Further evolution and understanding in speaking about 1984 requires listening to everyday stories. The living history project was born out of the belief that every Sikh alive in 1984 has a story to tell. These stories together tell a larger story. Not all consistent, not all in line with the prevalent narrative. All the more reason to spend this month learning and re-learning
The video exhibits testimonies from people in the following themes:
-Beyond Delhi
-Planned Elimination
-Calculated Inflictions
-Resilience
The final testimony states:
"From a social engineering perspective, if 1984 had not happened, we would have remained a very ordinary community moving along steadily. We do well wherever we go. We are nation builders, but it would have been a steady improvement in the graph. The fact that 1984 happened, the fact that we had to deal with these massive challenges, made us a better community, a bigger community and a more successful community."
Watch the entire video below: