Smt. Nayantara Sehagal is the daughter of Smt. Vijay Lakshami Pandit forms U.N General Assembly and first cousin of late Indira Gandhi.
YOUVE heard the story before but let’s go over it again so that it stays crystal clear in our minds as it should; as Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Bhopal disaster should and all the other barbarities and insanities for which we have heard no explanation worth the name Recalling them ritually is the least we can do in atonement for those who have been savaged mutilated or wiped out and those others who have survived and wish they hadn’t. For they live in a world where no help is in sight and they must bear the sears and stigma till they die for what happened to them on one of the days or nights when death dealing merrymakers frolicked into their homes and alleys.
I am talking about the first three days of November last year when areas in and around Delhi were turned into slaughterhouse and more than 2000 Sikhs were butchered like goats. The female of the species was kept alive. What earthly use is a dead woman to a festive frolic that features rape as one of its major attractions? Let’s remember these survivors in particular old and young women pregnant women and little girls of eight nine and ten who have been assaulted in two ways; sexually by the merrymakers and through the revulsion and recoil of their kith and kin (if any are alive) who now consider them worthless.
There is no official explanation for the holocaust nor even an admission of its extent and we have been told there will be no judicial enquiry. It is what we have come to expect of governments that are afraid of what an enquiry might reveal. Fortunately investigations by three citizens groups have given us some facts and the central fact is that this was no outburst of spontaneous or any other kind of grief. Spontaneous grief does not arrive with iron rods and firearms and a seemingly endless supply of petrol in tempo vans scooters motor cycles trucks and DTC buses. Men in mourning do not take up strategic positions block escape routes and embark on loot rape and murder with the cool confidence of those who have plenty of time knowing that the police would not disturb them No killer plunderer or rapist ever had it so good.
The survivors will remember it as a carnival of celebration no holds barred conducted in the passive presence or with the active cooperation of the very sentinels who they thought had been trained and pledged to uphold laws and protect lives. It was unique in other ways too It was instigated and blessed by politicians and workers of the ruling party and carried out by squads of their own loyal constituents from the resettlement colonies. So that’s what the beautification of Delhi was all about What do you suppose these minions wanted that political patronage over the years had not already provided? The answer I suppose must be “More of it”. More loot but above all the excitement of sheer power on the rampage.
Now why would anyone want to let loose an orgy the like of which has never been seen no not even during the Partition? Those were communal riots. Both sexes were indiscriminately slain. This time the men were slaughtered and the women kept alive for the slaughterers. A very different proposition from communal or any other sort of frenzy. This was no frenzy. As to why it was conceived Tam not in the business of psychoanalysis which is obviously what the stars of the political firmament who masterminded the whole monstrosity are in need of. All I can say is they must have wanted rather desperately to win the coming election. The prospects never mind what the surveys told the psychologists looked exceedingly bleak. A good stiff dose of bloodletting made to look like a people’s wrath and revenge might just about do the trick as indeed it did and if it is not quite as simple as that we can hardly be blamed for thinking so when we examine the facts in our possession.
The dead are dead axed or knifed or burnt to cinders. The Politicians have been elected with thumping majorities. But a few survivors who have lost every single male relative and thus will not disgrace the family name by giving evidence have told their tales. The following examples are from Manushis account of the pillage of Trilok puri Gurdip Kaur 45 tells her son who is hungry that she does not feel like lighting a fire that day November 1 because “Indira mata who was our mother too is dead”. Just then the celebrators arrive “They tore my clothes and stripped me naked in front of my son they raped me right here in front of my son”
Indira Bais story: “After they had murdered all the men they could get hold of in our block they asked the women to come out of the houses. We women all huddled together and they offered us some water. As we were drinking water they began dragging off whichever girl they liked. Each girl was taken away by a gang of 10 or 12 boys many of them in their teens They would take her to the nearby masjid gang rape her and send her back after a few hours. Some never returned. One young girl says 15 men had climbed on her ….”
Manchi Devi 55 recalls: “When I tried to intervene to save the children several of those men grabbed me … I don’t know how many men there were. The whole house was full of them. About a dozen raped me after that they caught hold of some young girls outside.” Most rapes took place while the bodies of husband’s sons or brothers were still burning.
Baby Bai 20 says: “My husband vas first beaten and then burnt to death. I was sitting and crying when a big group of men came and dragged me away. They took me to the nearby huts in front of Block 32and raped me they tore off all my clothes They took me at about 10 p.m. and released me at about 3 a.m. When I came back I was absolutely naked!
Rape cases have to be referred to a hospital as the law requires medical evidence but apparently the government doctor at Farash Bazar camp took no such step. Gurdip Kaur relates that most of the women who wanted to register their cases with the camp administration were young and unmarried “Four of them were sent into the doctors room I was asked to wait outside The women who went inside were intimidated by those in charge and were warned not to undergo the medical examination. They were told that hands would be shoved up their vaginas and much else would be done to them.” They were too afraid to insist on being examined.
Delhi’s new widows have been hurried out of camp shelters back to the charred remains of their homes. Delhi has to stay beautiful. In some ravaged colonies they take refuge in Gurdwaras at nightfall. Those who are too old or ill to move herd together for safety. The merrymakers the petrol and kerosene suppliers the deaf and dumb police are at large. Compensation if any bears no relation to the continuing nightmare.
Courtesy: Express Magazine.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 19, 1986
