The specter and postmemory of 1984 in western diasporic Sikh advocacy

I examine US and Canadian Sikh diasporic politics through the lens of 1984 postmemory, or the collective memory of traumas not directly experienced but felt as such. I use interview data with US and Canadian Sikh community leaders to make the case that 1984 has been a crucial impetus for the majority of Sikh advocacy today, even that which does not directly engage the Indian state. Rather than craft a fresh political imagination, violence of the Indian state upon the Sikh body acts as a spectral force through which all continuing advocacy projects for Sikh belonging are filtered. I