After Independence, and with the adoption of the Constitution, secularism became a value of civil society in India. Even though Partition was a traumatic experience for many, the co-existence of religious communities was essentially peaceful. Then in the 1984 anti-Sikh ‘riots’ (more aptly named ‘massacres’) 2,700 Sikhs were brutally killed and maimed. Eight years later, 1,800 Muslims were massacred on the streets of Bombay, and in 2002 over 2,000 Muslims were killed in the state of Gujarat. Today, communalism in India continues in epidemic proportions as evidenced by the 2007-08 Orissa riots where over 20,000 Christians were forced into refugee camps due to burning and looting of hundreds of houses, churches, convents and seminaries. The struggle for justice in all these cases continues. Against this backdrop, SLIC’s Secularism and Peace Initiative works in solidarity with the victims of communalism to bring cases to courts, and educate people about their rights and dispel myths that fuel the rise of communal unrest.