The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerrilla Violence (Politics in Contemporary Asia) [Hardcover]

Joyce J. M. Pettigrew (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1995 | ISBN-10: 1856493555 | ISBN-13: 978-1856493550

Village people in the Punjab have lived with the terror of conflict between Sikh militants and Indian security forces since the attack on the Sikh Golden Temple in 1984. This book presents a human portrait of the struggle. The author uses interviews to present the views of Punjabi farmers, Sikh militants and the police commanders responsible for containing the conflict.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Zed Books (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1856493555
• ISBN-13: 978-1856493550
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,569,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Controversial Enlightenment, April 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerilla Violence (Politics in Contemporary Asia) (Paperback)

Violence is a matter of human nature. In Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of the State and Guerrilla Violence, by Joyce Pettigrew, there is an interesting take on a much talked about world affair, national self determination. For the Punjab and its Sikhs, it is solely due to lack of respect on human rights issues. In this book, the message is clearly manifested through its gut wrenching details and any reader must prepare to wrap their minds around unbelievable concepts of war and violence. On occasion the terminology is hard to understand but it does not stand in the way of a magnificent hold on a revolutionary idea.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An unbiased view., October 10, 2005

By 

Justice (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerilla Violence (Politics in Contemporary Asia) (Paperback)

Joyce Pettigrew has done a terrific job. In an unbiased and a lucid manner she presents the affairs that rocked the state. I am a Sikh and lived in Punjab through the days of violence up until 2002. This topic has been written about by others who have either held a biased "state view" or biased "militant view". Sadly, none serves the purpose of truth.

I read the review of this gentleman Truth Seeker who sounds very hurt by what Dr. Pettigrew has written. His hurt results from his non-agreement with Dr. Pettigrew's view. He says "she never lived in Punjab as a commoner and never lost a friend or relative in vigilante violence", right he is and I hope that he understands, that this is what gives her an ability to have an unbiased view.

So hurt is the gentleman that he goes to the extreme of using strong words like "dishonest", "crude", for the writer and "dastardly" for the people that she writes about etc. etc. He goes on to question the moral reasons behind the stance of the writer and sees the funding from the "terror lobbies" as a reason for that stance. His annoyance has taken away reasonable intellectual argument and has replaced it with an emotional character assassination. The gentleman digresses from the task at hand; he writes his views about the struggle rather than write a book review, probably not the place to do so. This gentleman, who happens to stand on the "other side" of the line, is not qualitatively different from the people who stand on the other side. Such emotional thinkers, will serve the purpose of perpetuation of the differences at best.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent account of the genocide of Sikhs in India, December 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerrilla Violence (Politics in Contemporary Asia) (Hardcover)

A well written account of the events that occured in Sikh Punjab over the last 15 years. Well documented cases of the mass killing of Sikhs by India, backed up by firm evidence.

A must for all those who have an interest in the Sikhs