patiala usbased scholar has stated that sikh diaspora began identifying themselves more with their community rather than region and country after the 1984 riots in india that resulted in killing of thousands of sikhs following the then prime minister indira gandhis assassination prof verne a dusnerbary who is working on sikh diapsora since 1970s said on the sidelines of a conference in punjabi university patiala that such was the impact of suffering and dishonour due to incidents of 1984 on sikhs residing abroad that it transformed widelyspread punjabi expatriates into punjabi sikhs dusnerbary professor of anthology university of hamline us who is studying dynamics of sikh diapsora said sikhs around the world come together because of the trauma of 1984 before 1984 sikhs residing in foreign countries did prefer to identify themselves as part of punjabi indian or south asian diaspora but the traumatic events of 1984 helped crystallization of the notion of sikh diaspora among them sikhs residing abroad had begun identifying themselves first as sikhs and then as punjabis indians or south asians the professor said the 1984 incidents has gelled the notion that they have something in common as sikhs and brought them together around their feelings appearance suffering and dishonour before 1984 people sikhs identified themselves in various ways however the crisis after 1984 had made them to assert as sikhs prof dusnerbary told toi in reference to operation bluestar and killings of sikhs in delhi he was here to attend the threeday 2nd punjabi diaspora conference organized by the punjabi universitys department of punjabi dusnerbary whose doctoral dissertation is on relationship between punjabi sikhs and gore english sikhs has written two books on sikhs sikhs at large religion culture and politics in global perspective and sikh diaspora philanthropy in punjab global giving for local things he however said that the current moot point was to study that whether 30 years after the 1984 incidents the notion of punjabi diaspora was again overshadowing the feeling of sikh diaspora now 30 years later the question is that is it still the way in which people are identifying themselves or they are now beginning to identify with the punjabi diapsora whether they feel that spirit of punjabi language common literature and films unite them he said