Punjab was the arena of one of the first major armed conflicts of post-colonial India. During
its deadliest decade as many as 250 000 people were killed. This book makes an urgent
intervention in the history of the conflict which to date has been characterized by a fixation
on sensational violence-or ignored altogether. Mallika Kaur unearths the stories of three
people who found themselves at the center of Punjab's human rights movement: Baljit Kaur who
armed herself with a video camera to record essential evidence of the conflict Justice Ajit
Singh Bains who became a beloved people's judge and Inderjit Singh Jaijee who returned to
Punjab to document abuses even as other elites were fleeing. Together they are credited with
saving countless lives. Braiding oral histories personal snapshots and primary documents
recovered from at-risk archives Kaur shows that when entire conflicts are marginalized we
miss essential stories: stories of faith feminist action and the power of citizen-activists.
