1984

1984 & I:
The Raagi's Wife

by SHOBHITA NAITHANI

 

This year, 2009, marks the 25th Anniversary of 1984, when horrendous crimes were committed against the Sikhs in the very land of their origin. To commemorate this sad milestone, we at sikhchic.com have asked our regular columnists, as well as our contributors and readers, to share with us the impact 1984 has had on their lives. We have requested personal stories and anecdotes, as well as an attempt to capture their inner thoughts and deepest ruminations on what 1984 means to each one of them and their loved ones - without going into a litany of facts and figures or a listing of the injustices to date, all of which will invariably be covered with due diligence elsewhere. We intend to present these personal perspectives to you throughout the twelve months of 2009. The following is the 24th in the series entitled "1984 & I".   

 

A toe curls in subconscious revulsion. She wipes a clammy palm against a crushed hankie, clears a choked throat and speaks:

"I was 18 years old, a mother of a five-month-old daughter, and two months pregnant with my second child when they killed my husband."

On November 1, 1984, a mob surrounded Badal Singh, stabbed him, put a tire around his neck, doused him in kerosene, and set him ablaze.

[The Hindu mob, led by identifiable politicians, proceeded with obvious immunity from the police and the authorities.]

Twenty-five years later, his widow, Lakhwinder Kaur, still shudders when she thinks of that morning.

"I was told my husband screamed in agony as he died."

Bhai Badal Singh, a raagi (devotional singer) at Gurdwara Pulbangash, was one among several thousand innocent Sikhs murdered [in broad daylight in the streets of India's capital, New Delhi] in just three days in November 1984.

Lakhwinder was at her village when she heard the news. She collapsed, gaining consciousness only intermittently over the next two weeks.

Twenty days later, Lakhwinder returned to Delhi with her daughter, vacated their old home, and went from house to house, taking shelter with relatives and friends for three months, until she moved into a one-room tenement.

Sewing, her only skill, allowed her to survive.

"My aim everyday was just to be able to buy milk for my baby daughter," she says.

Her parents urged her to remarry, but the 18-year-old would not budge. Her life now belonged to her children. "I didn't think I could get anyone more handsome than my husband," she says, breaking into a smile.

In 1987, Lakhwinder was allotted a two-room house in west Delhi's Tilak Nagar and employed as a peon in a government organization.

"I lived like a queen before the 1984 riots," she says. "Now, I live like a servant."

When a movement seeking justice for 1984 began, Lakhwinder joined it, convinced that the guilty would be brought to book.

"I want to know how Tytler's wife will feel if he is untraceable for a month," she says. "It seemed easy for [former Prime Minister] Rajiv Gandhi to say, 'When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes.' Our trees were felled and we can still feel the tremors."

 

[Courtesy: Tehelka]

May 15, 2009

 

 

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