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Widows of the '84 Riots |
| The Widows of the '84 Riots On 31st October, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards. What followed was chaos, looting, destruction, and the murder of 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi alone. Twenty-five years later, in a forgotten corner of teh city, survivors live in what is known as the "widow colony." Mridu Khullar mets them. 31st October, 1984. Harbans Kaur didn't know she was pregnant. Married for just six months, the then 18-year-old hadn't realized yet that she had conceived a month earlier, and would, in eight months, give birth to a gorgeous baby girl. The Congress supporter wept when she heard rumors that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had been shot dead: This was, she knew, a huge loss for the country. Soon the news would be confirmed, there would be a media blackout, rioting would begin on the streets of Delhi, and she would hear from friends and neighbors, telling her to stay indoors. Crazed groups were killing Sikh men, and it was dangerous to go out. On 2nd November, Harbans Kaur was inside her Mongolpur home with her new husband, feeling safe and sheltered from the events that were tearing apart her city. That's when the mob of armed men broke in. They pushed her aside, dragged her husband out, and killed him while she screamed. He was one of more than 3,000 who would be murdered in those three days. "We didn't know they were capable of this, that they could drag us out from our homes and kill us in this way," she says. "Indira Gandhi, wasn't she ours too?" "I felt like a Jew in Nazi Germany" On the morning of 31st October, Mrs Indira Gandhi had been walking in the garden of the Prime Minister's Residence, when two of her Sikh bodyguards-- Satwant Singh and Beant Singh-- shot her. She was immediately rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and was declared dead an hour and a half later. The Indian cabinet started an emergency meeting to choose a successor. Within hours, Rajiv Gandhi was the new Prime Minister of India. That evening, the carnage started. Eyewitnesses have repeatedly recounted that not only did the police not do anything, but actually encouraged the rioting Hindus to kill. Homes of Sikhs were marked out clearly, some with large red crosses. Mobs held in their possession voter identification lists that spelled out which homes belonged to Sikh families and men armed with machetes, clubs, and even swords roamed the streets freely, shouting, "Khoon ka badla khoon [blood for blood]." "Think about it for a minute," says Jaswant Singh, 35, who lives next to the Widow Colony. "All these people ready to kill-- where did they come from? You can't immediately have hundreds of people all ready for a blood-bath. Where did they get the arms? The petrol?" "They called it rioting," says Harbans Kaur. "What happened was not rioting. It was murder in cold blood, it was rape and destruction. It was an anti-Sikh pogrom. And for what? What was our fault? Did we go and kill Indira Gandhi?" "Not one person has been executed," she continues. "Three thousand people dead, and they couldn't find one person who was responsible?" Prominent novelist and journalist Khuswant Singh shared the same sentiment in May 2001, deposing before the Nanavati Commission, the 10th commission set up to look into what happened in those three days. "I felt like a refugee in my own country," he said. "In fact, I felt like a Jew in Nazi Germany." "How could Mummy save them?" As homes were burned down and the city blazed, Sikh men and women rushed with their children to look for refuge-- at neighbor' homes, police stations, and eventually, the riot camps that would be set up. Inside the camps, the stories of death and destruction were only just beginning to emerge. People had lost five, 10, as many as 20 family members. Seven-year-old Nirmal Kaur had always been scolded for not wearing her slippers when playing outside. "That day, our parents left us barefoot in camps covered with sharp and thorny objects." Nirmal Kaur is now 32 years old and lives in the C-block of Tilak Vihar, commonly known as the Widow Colony, because of the large number of widows from the Sikh riots who were given homes here. Her mother-in-law is one of them. In the camps, the young children cried out for food and water; the women went numb with grief. "They even killed small children," says 52-year-old Gurdeep Kaur. "I dressed up my boy in a dress, opened his hair and made ponytails, but they patted him down to check if he really was a girl, and found that he wasn't." The water supply was cut off, she says. Even the pump was destroyed. "The children were screaming for water. We had to urinate and give them that to drink. We did it because there was nothing else we could do." The women, she says, didn't cry. They had no tears left. "The heartbreak set inside of them. Watching helplessly while their loved ones were torched. The half-burned children crying, 'Mummy, save us, save us!' How could Mummy save them?" Residents who lived through the ordeal say the area resembled a war zone. There were bodies piled up into trucks and taken to mass funerals. Some were completely unrecognizable. "Until today, we don't know where those bodies went," says Jaswant Singh, 35, who lost his father and 10 other family members in the riots. But many people were good to them, he insists. At the camps, people from all religions and castes brought food, water, and medical supplies. There just weren't enough resources. "There were four or five people fighting over one chapati," he says. "When a mighty tree falls . . . the earth around it does shake" On 19th November, newly-appointed Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi made a statement that continues to sting: ". . . when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little," he said. To Harbans Kaur, that was a slap in the face. "Our people were killed in broad daylight, dragged outside and burned alive with blazing tires put around their necks," she says. "And after that, what did the government declare? A compensation of Rs 10,000. Is that the value of a human life?" The compensation has since been raised to Rs 3.5 lakh, but Gurdeep Kaur says getting it is like a child receiving pocket money. "They killed our families, they burned down our homes, and 25 years later, we still haven't received the full amount of the compensation. Are our demands unjust?" After Rajiv Gandhi's statement, Harbans Kaur says she realized that she neither belonged to this country, nor did she want to. "We are not Indians," she says. "We are Sikhs." "If this were our country, if we were true citizens of India, would anyone have allowed this to happen? It wasn't just the people who killed us. We really believe that it was our government who did it." "Our Hindu neighbors helped us" Tomorrow is 15th August, so the children are home from school early today, after a pre-Independence Day celebration. "Mera Bharat mahaan," says the 11-year-old, who wants to become a teacher. "Good salary and respect," is the reason for her choice. What is the meaning of independence when the leaders of this country can still get away with bloody murder, asks a neighbor. But Harjinder Kaur, who lost her father, her brother, her husband, and her son, disagrees. She will not breed hatred in her children for the country in which they live. When the Sikhs were being burned, it was the Hindus who wre killing them. It was also other Hindus who were saving them. "It was never a religious issue," says Harjinder Kaur. "It was a political one." And the real tragedy, she says, is that the people of India allowed their leaders to get away with this crime against humanity. Gurdeep Kaur's family was the only Sikh family in their neighborhood. When the neighbors saw that their home had been marked with a big red cross, they knew her husband and children were in danger. For three days, her Hindu neighbors hid the family; eventually, when the mobs found them anyway, it was one of the neighbor's sons who helped them escape to the police station. "The mobs took many lives," she says. "But countless others were saved by the neighbors who risked their own well-being to do so." "There should be retribution" Harjinder Kaur, now 57, was also at home in Sagarpur when tragedy struck. It was the third day, and the violence was showing no signs of abating. "They brought sticks and clubs, and started beating everyone. They tore our clothes, took our jewelry, our gold." They made her watch. One by one, they killed male members of her family-- her father, her husband, her brother, finally, her son. "One was burned, another stabbed . . . " She doesn't continue. Her sister, 65-year-old Surinder Kaur, lost a husband too. They pulled him outside, doused him with petrol from his own motorcycle and set him on fire, while she stood by helplessly and watched. "One finger, if it gets burned, see how much it hurts," she says. "It's as if a cyclone blew through our lives and left everything in shambles. When it was over, there weren't even any pieces left to pick up." The sisters eventually did gather together what was left of their scattered lives. They were given homes here in Tilak Vihar, where they live almost next door to each other. Initially, they wanted to take action. They wanted to raise their voices and fight the injustice. All they wanted was their home, their old lives back, even if it meant living in the same homes where their husbands and children lost theirs. They wanted to remain connected to their families in that way. But that didn't happen. "We were threatened," says Surinder Kaur. "They told us that if we ever set foot there again, they would kill the remaining members of our families as well." It must be worth Rs 1.5 crore now, says Harjinder Kaur. "We could have been living comfortably, instead, here we are in this hovel." But what she wants most is not the house, not the comforts. "It's not about money, it's about getting justice," she says. "Punish the perpetrators. There should be retribution for what they have done to our lives." "They call it the Widow Colony" "Everyone here has suffered," says Gurdeep Kaur, referring to this colony of widows. "Somebody's brother, somebody's child, almost everyone's husband. Some were killed, some were left to die." In the name of these widows, say residents, NGOs and gurdwara associations are bringing in money and donations not only from within India, but also abroad. Not one paisa of it, they say, ever reaches them. "What happened is done, but now the government is not even taking control of the situation," says Harbans Kaur. "The children are roaming the streets because they haven't received good education and can't find jobs. They're becoming thieves and drug addicts in large numbers. One poor mother, how much can she do?" Like the thousands of others, sisters Surinder and Harjinder Kaur gave up meat, expensive jewelry, and celebrations of festivals. Their hearts aren't in it anymore. How can they now enjoy the good things in life when every day, they have visions of the worst? Neither of them has considered remarrying. Harbans Kaur didn't remarry either. She's spent the last 25 years living in the Widow Colony, bringing up her daughter. "The government can't bring my daughter's father back," she says. "But they can give us justice." |
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