1984 ANTI-SIKH RIOTS- A MEMOIR
WE ARE GUILTY AS A SOCIETY
It was the morning of 31st October in 1984. I was eleven and studied in class 6.
My father, an Air Force Personnel, was posted at Delhi and we lived in a rather plebeian locality in Trans- Trans-Yamuna area.
The dawn of the last day of October had a special significance for all of us at home. It was the marriage anniversary. We all woke up to a mood of celebration. My father went to work. We went to school on a promise of a glorious evening and agreeing to go as it was a half-day.
In the evening, when we’re preparing to go out, my father was watching the news on Doordarshan. Salma Sultan, the well-known newsreader broke the shocking news of the death of the prime minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Her security guards had shot her at her residence in the morning. The immediate effect of the gravity of the news was that my father cancelled going out.
In the morning of 31st October 1984, at 9:20 AM, when Indira Gandhi was on her way to her office at 1, Akbar Road from Prime-minister’s residence at No. 1 Safdarjung Road in New Delhi, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, her bodyguards, opened fire on her.
Salma Sultan gave the first news of the assassination of Indira Gandhi on Doordarshan's evening news more than 10 hours after she was shot.
We’re shocked but for a short while. The news had spoiled a rare convivial evening. The loss overshadowed the national grief. Quite natural for the age we siblings were in.
The national television showed a continuous broadcast of the footage of the slain prime-minister’s body, surrounded by the crowd, frantically shouting anti-Sikh slogans. “Khoon ka badla khoon” – on and on it went, repeated over and over again. Father was glued to his chair in front of our Black and White Television.
The next morning was dreadful, chaotic and frightening. The assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi had triggered violence against the community the killers belonged to. It was the same community of Sikhs, whose valour, kindness and benevolence India always felt proud of. Schools and offices were closed.
Rumour was rife; trains were arriving from Punjab with the Hindu passengers having all been killed by the Sikhs on board; Sikhs were celebrating and distributing sweets; Sikhs had poisoned the water supply of Delhi. That was just to justify the massacre and instigate people to assault the Sikhs.
The main gate of our small house was an iron gate that hardly hid anything. The frenzied mob with bamboo sticks, axes, rods, kerosene canisters ruled the streets of our colony. They flaunted swords and daggers openly. We heard them boasting of killing ‘Sardars’, beating 'Sikhnis' and children, looting and then setting their houses on fire.
We knew those faces but never thought they could kill innocent people. We knew those too, who were being killed mercilessly, and trusted that they could not kill anybody.
Because of the rumours, simple Hindus were afraid too. The construction of our house was incomplete. There were no stairs to go on the roof. My father sent us to the roof from the adjacent neighbour’s house.
We heard that Sikhs were being killed in large number. We saw fires raging in the distance. There was hue and cry. Men were patrolling the streets. Women and children were on roofs. We ate there, slept there and relieved ourselves there only.
I still shiver whenever my mind brings back the evening of 1st Nov. It was about 6 in the evening. Dusk was sliding down and the sky had begun to wrap the blanket of darkness. My mother had just gone downstairs to make dinner. Suddenly, somebody ran across our lane, shouting ‘Sardar aa gaye, Sardar aa gaye’ (Sikhs have come, Sikhs have come). My dad asked my mom to climb the wall to go upstairs. She could not. We reached for her hand and tried to pull her up. She was asthmatic and was breathless when we managed to get her with the help of our neighbour Mrs. Verma, and her kids. She had bruises all over her body.
Sardars never came. They didn’t kill any Hindu. The pogrom against them went on for four days. More than 8000 Sikhs were killed in North India, with more than 3,000 in Delhi. People looted the shops bringing home new suitcases, sacks of dry-fruits, clothes, Televisions, VCRs and what not.
Three Gurudwaras in our locality were burnt. A Sikh family, who were our friends, had lost all men. We heard the mother and other women recounting their killing. The mob surrounded their house and shouted for all the men to come out. They had two grown up boys whom we called ‘Vir ji’ two young boys, a year or two older than me and their fathers, the two brothers.
The brothers stepped out. They pleaded mercy. The mob beat them ruthlessly. Then they were doused with kerosene and were set on fire alive. The two young men, sons of the elder brother, on seeing their father and uncle being killed, ran out with ceremonious four feet long but blunt swords. They were too, beaten to death. As if killing four people was not enough, the lynch mob barged into their house. They raped the women, killed the young boys and looted. Nobody stopped them. Nobody could stop them.
A Sikh carpenter, ‘Lal Singh’, a simpleton and very innocent man, had worked in our house. He regarded my father much and my father too loved him for his simplicity and craftsmanship. He lived in a nearby shop and visited us daily. On 31st October, he was working somewhere. People wanted to burgle his shop, but my father intervened. Some of them suggested him to keep away and threatened of serious consequences otherwise. My father saved Lal Singh’s shop, hoping that he would be safe somewhere. However, he never returned.
My maternal uncle lived three lanes away. A Sikh, Mr. Gandhi lived in the opposite house. Young boys were made to wear girl-clothes; their hairs were done into braids to save them from the unjustified ire of the insane dregs of the society. A young boy hid in the attic. When the crowd asked for them, my uncle lied to have any knowledge of them but the boy in the attic sneezed and was killed. People beat my uncle too. Gandhi’s house was set ablaze. Nobody saw them after that.
More than thirty-one years have passed. I have heard and read about many riots but never had I witnessed a riot as closely as that took place in 1984.
I have worked in a Sikh institution for than five years. Never did I feel a twitch of anger in their behaviour against me being a non-Sikh. I can vouch for their philanthropy, the large-heartedness, spirituality, and love for mankind. What they had to undergo was unfortunate. The hard-workers and fighter they are, they never looked back. They earned back everything they lost except lives, humiliation and bloody repugnance in their own country. Also, they have not changed. They have not altered their ways to help the mankind. They have not closed their Gurudwaras for the non-Sikhs, who shamelessly go there to feast on the ‘lungers’ and devour the delicacies during ‘Nagar Kirtans’. They don’t complain, don’t deny, and don’t discriminate.
Justice is still awaited and in all probability, will always remain awaited because the politicians of this country know how to manipulate the law. They know it takes a few words and very few rotten heads to spread anarchy. Politics in this country is not about governing, it is to know how to manipulate people. A crowd has no face and no ideology. They are robots. A literate person never goes to political rallies. I never went to one. Democracy is not workable in a state plagued with illiteracy and unemployment.
As a Hindu, and a non-Sikh, I feel guilty of 1984 riots, and all the religion based riots, being a part of a society which can be beguiled easily.
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Thanks for your invaluable perception.