Those Seventy-Two Hours

Those Seventy-Two Hours

I was brushing my brown suede loafers to leave for the shop when All India Radio announced the assassination of the Prime Minister. She was killed by her own bodyguards who avenged the cold blooded killings of hundreds of innocent lives at the sacrosanct shrine of the Sikhs. I developed cold feet on hearing the news but mustered up courage and reached the doorsteps of Jagjit uncle's house. I rang the doorbell and started fidgeting with my shop keys in my perturbed state of mind. He was famous for tying his turban so neatly that people would come to take turban-tying classes from him. Time had taken its toll on his physical appearance but his spirit remained unfazed. His cheeks had developed small hollows and the deep, sunken eyes gave a mystical quality to his personality. He opened the door and raised his sparse eyebrows to express his discomposure and shock.

"Have you heard...?" I asked in a stammering voice.

He muttered as I entered the drawing room, "What she did was not right, but what has happened today will also lead to mayhem. She would have tasted the fruit of her deeds one day."

"Nothing will happen, uncle. She has met the fate that she deserved. Hadn't she herself sown these seeds?" I said.

Jagjit uncle's face wore a grim, morose look. He was not much audible when he said, "Beta Harish, you do not know what becomes of people when time changes even if they have lived together like brothers all their lives. Roshi and I had witnessed it together..."

I did not want him to, yet again, begin the tale of his friendship with my father Roshan Lal and the hardships they had to undergo while crossing the borders after the partition of the country in 1947; so I interrupted him and said, "Uncle, leave this. What difference does it make to us? She did wrong and someone has paid her back. This is the mathematics of life. Let's go and open our shops."

He reluctantly got up, lifted the keys of his shop and we left for our respective shops in the shopping arcade in adjoining Tilak Nagar. Uncle sat tightlipped on the backseat of the scooter. The usual anecdotes from Gurbani (spiritual renderings from the Sikh scripture) that he used to share with me everyday were missing. I tried to normalise him, "So what did Bhai Darshan Singh explain in the katha (discourse) you listened to on the cassette player today?" He murmured something but I could perceive that he was distraught, probably by seeing the unseen with his sixth sense.

Those were the days when Hindus and the Sikhs used to live like a family. There were mixed families with one of the sons sporting a turban and another with shorn hair. People used to visit a temple in the morning and a gurdwara in the evening. Despite being Hindus, it was a custom for our family to visit the gurdwara every day. My father was a staunch believer in Gurbani and most of his time was spent discussing Gurbani with Jagjit uncle. After my father passed away, Jagjit uncle had been a father figure to me. Even after crossing the age of seventy, he was very active. He still woke up at 4 o'clock. He would have a bath, do his Nitnem and then go alone for a long stroll. He lived in the lane behind my house in Tilak Vihar. Since the death of my father eight years ago, it had become customary for him to accompany me to the shop. He used to ride pillion on my scooter. His shop of readymade garments was next to my bookshop. My father and Jagjit uncle were neighbours and childhood friends from Pakpatan and had together endured the turmoil of the partition. They had to abandon their ancestral homes in Pakistan when the communal flames started engulfing masses on both sides of the newly formed border. From big houses and several acres of land, they were reduced to rags. They crossed the border with whatever little they could manage to steal from their own houses. They endured many hardships when they reached Delhi. After a lot of hard work, they succeeded in buying space for two adjoining shops of modest size.

We opened the shops and sat under the sun to feel the warmth. There was a more than usual crowd at the teashop facing us. How could there be any other discussion that day? Everyone was talking about this one incident. Jagjit uncle sat doing his routine reading of Sukhmani Sahib (a recital from Gurbani) and I indulged in chitchat with the shopkeepers in the neighbourhood. I overheard from a group of people, who were sipping tea, that they were told to gather at the residence of the local MLA and that there were some instructions from the son of the deceased Prime Minister who was yet to return from his visit to West Bengal. I had not seen many of those in the crowd ever before in the locality. One of the party workers present there was a student of Jagjit uncle's son Surjan Singh in the college and was president of the student body backed by the party. He had seen me a number of times with Surjan. When I waved to him, he avoided eye contact with me and on the pretext of something urgent, left along with other of the dispersing crowd. I did not feel like going home for lunch and instead had tea, one cup after another. I got some dal and a few chapatis packed from a nearby dhaba (cheap restaurant) and served it to Jagjit uncle. He had some of it half-heartedly. By evening, the air was thick with tension and I, too, sensed that there was something murky. Gatherings hollering slogans in the name of the deceased Prime Minister and equating her with Mother India were charging the air with eeriness. I pulled down shutters of both the shops and we hurried back home even before the clock struck six. As I was heading home after dropping Jagjit uncle, Babu Lal stood saying, "Keep pulling the weight of these sardars (Sikhs). They are distributing laddoos (sweets). " I asked him who was distributing laddoos, and he said he had heard so. Some neighbours who had telephones in their houses received unidentified calls claiming to be from the municipal corporation spreading a rumour that Sikhs had mixed something toxic in the tanks of the waterworks, and therefore, water should not be drunk from the municipal taps. They were directed to share the news with all in their neighbourhood. The Station House Officer of the area came knocking at the doors, instructing us not to send our children out as Sikhs were moving about to kidnap them. "This is bullshit. Why are you doing this?" I had got enraged. The SHO pulled me and said in a disingenuous voice, "Cool down, Lalaji, we are here to save our people." The commoners who had been chewing over it as a sad event were being given monocles to perceive the incident with an angle designed for them by those in power. Many of those who were not stirred by the news that Sikhs were celebrating the death of 'their leader,' were deterred by what they thought had been announced by the government bodies for their well-being.

Despite the fact that I was anxious, I had little idea of what was going to happen. I would have sheltered the whole family of Jagjit uncle, had I known that the local politicians were given a task to identify and mark the houses and businesses of the Sikhs on the basis of lists which were prepared through the information collected from government schools and depots meant to disburse subsidised monthly rations, and that the Gujjars and the Jats (sub-castes) living on the outskirts of the city had been loaded into trucks for committing arson of the most horrendous kind from the next morning. Three days were given to the perpetrators for spreading freehand, incessant violence against the Sikhs.

Next morning, the national capital woke up in response to the words of the deceased PM's son, who was elected the new Prime Minister of the country, "When a big tree falls, the earth trembles", and the way was paved for the earth to shake even before the mosques had given the azan, the bells in the temples had started ringing, and the sound of the vaak (hymn) had emerged from the gurdwaras (Sikh temple).

I got ready for the shop without a clue of what was happening outside. All of a sudden there were shouts, "Khoon ka badla khoon; blood for blood." I came out of the house to witness hooligans ruling over the streets. I was taken aback by the sight of the carnage happening live under my very eyes. The wails of men and women and shrieks of children were shaking the streets of Delhi. The mobs were wielding lathis (wooden sticks), iron rods and bricks. There were carts with old, worn out tyres and cans of kerosene, and petrol was being acquired from the vehicles plying on the roads. The model of violence had been designed on that of Nazi Germany and a systematic, organised method had been maneuvered to teach a lesson to the 'traitors' of the country.

The mobs started lynching the Sikhs without distinction. Men were being burnt alive with tyres sodden with petrol. The mobs raided all the marked houses, broke open the doors, pulled the male adults outside, hit them hard on the head and burnt them alive by swamping them in kerosene oil or petrol. I was horrified to see this. I was witness to Raj Kaur in my neighbourhood wailing near the charred body of her husband. Her one-year old child was crying with hunger. She requested a policeman standing there to get some milk for the child from somewhere. I would never forget what the policeman said in reply in Haryanvi accent, "The child has to die in a few hours. Why do you want to feed him?" All of a sudden, I was reminded of Jagjit uncle. With my heart skipping a beat, I hurtled towards the enflamed house. Surjan had already left for college and I thought he would be safe. When they did not find any young male member in the house, the perpetrators took turns to rape Surjan's wife. Both his sons were strangulated while trying to save their mother from the clutches of the hooligans. Jagjit uncle was smashed on his head and he had fallen unconscious. Before falling unconscious, he had hit one of the attackers on his chest with a sword. The man had bled and run away. I found Jagjit uncle bleeding fiercely on his forehead. Blood was dripping down his forehead profusely and covering his bearded face. I could not carry him to my house as the attackers wouldn't have let me cross the lane. The house was still ablaze. I requested the neighbours for help but they were themselves afraid and shut their doors. I carried the badly injured uncle behind the house with the help of his daughter-in-law. She had gone numb after what had happened to her. I heard a couple of men in the neighbourhood saying that Surjan was burnt alive outside his college by his own students. I had never felt so helpless in my life. I wanted to cry my heart out but there was still hope of saving the man who had been a father figure to me all my life.

When Sikhs started understanding what was happening, they started gathering in groups and arming themselves with swords and rods in self-defence. They visited the nearby police stations demanding protection. The policemen assured them of all the assistance and told them not to take the law into their hands. They dispossessed them of the meagre arms they were carrying and sent them back to their homes. As soon as they reached their homes, they were mercilessly lynched by armed hooligans.

Having to live in a dreadful time once is probably enough for a lifetime but Jagjit uncle and many of those who had settled in the national capital after saving themselves from the wrath of the communalism in 1947 were experiencing the predicament of this perdition for the second time. The reminiscences of the blaze of hatred and communalism that had erupted during the partition danced ruthlessly in front of their eyes again, even though what had happened in 1947 were riots involving different communities, and these were well-organised pogroms against one particular community. Jagjit uncle was a strong-willed man in his mid-thirties when the partition took place. He had a reason to run away from Pakistan as he had to save the lives of his parents, wife and children along with his own life. But now here was a man who was inching towards his last years with no other hope of life remaining. His house was burnt to ashes. His shop was destroyed with everything either gutted or looted. There was nothing left that could have made him want to live.

The attackers were told to make sporadic visits to the places they had attacked to make sure that there was no sign of life left in the attacked victims. The man who had been hit by Jagjit uncle had come back with a bare torso and a bandaged chest. I had seen this man before. He had accompanied the MLA while campaigning for his party during the last elections. His eyes were dripping the venomous embers of hatred. Brandishing a naked sword in his hand, he was hurling abuses at the victims. With uncle lying unconscious in my arms, I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. "Ten, nine, eight, seven..." My raison d're was to save Jagjit uncle's life as if by preserving the lamp of life in this septuagenarian body, I would somehow be able to reverse the impact of whatever was happening in the name of nationalism. As soon as the man left, I felt Jagjit uncle's pulse. There was no sign of life in the body. I felt miserable at my feebleness and cried my heart out. I felt as if I had lost my father eternally. This dirty power play continued incessantly for three consecutive days in the capital. It was only seventy-two hours later that the army was called to control the situation.

Humanity was mocking this naked dance of democracy. The national capital had given wounds to its innocents which would not heal easily. The involvement of the Fascist government machinery had carved on my heart the words that would never be erased. Something died inside me. I fathomed that justice would be denied to the victims and this would lead to further divisions. A Hindu who had visited a gurdwara just four days ago might never visit one in future. A Sikh would see a perpetrator in each Hindu he meets. An unseen chasm had developed between the two communities, probably deeper than the one that was created between India and Pakistan in 1947. Outside on the road, there was sound of an announcement being made in a police jeep, "The situation is under control. All the citizens are advised to stay calm and accept God's will." The life in the city had started coming back to normalcy.

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The story was originally published in Muse India's May-June 2016 edition.