Twenty-five years ago on October 31, Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India, was shot dead by two of her security guards. As the news started spreading — by word of mouth; there were no 24-hour television channels then — people were numb with shock. It was terrible enough that the prime minister had been killed, but Indira Gandhi was more than just the PM; she dominated the nation, the national consciousness and public discourse. She had been with us for years and she seemed indestructible.
I was working for an international news agency and was asked to rush to Delhi to cover the aftermath and the funeral. Since flights were few and far between and no seats were available, I decided to go by train; miraculously, I got a ticket on the Rajdhani for the next day (later I got to know that scores of passengers had cancelled travel plans).
The journey began normally enough, though there was still a subdued tension in the compartment. A little news of disturbances in Sikh-dominated areas in Delhi had begun to trickle through. There were two Sikh families in the bogey and everyone looked at them and each other nervously. The next morning the train moved in fits and starts, stopping in between stations. It finally came to a halt at a small station before Mathura where we heard about the rioting that had broken out in the capital and in other places.
Some concerned passengers had by then requested the four Sikhs in the compartment to cut off their hair; “that way you will be safer”. A middle-aged Sikh gentleman with two young sons agreed right away; he went into the bathroom and came out 20 minutes later, shaved and with his hair chopped. The other Sikh man, probably in his early 50s, refused.
Suddenly we heard a loud noise. Through the dusty and tinted windows of the train it was possible to make out a group of young men who were trying to break door. The windows of these trains do not break easily but eventually there was a roar and it was clear that someone had managed to do so and had then opened the door. A small mob of wild and charged youngsters trooped in, looking among the passengers. They passed by the young cowering Sikh boys but ignored them; the cut hair saved them. One of them saw me and looked at my full beard; it was a chilling moment which could have gone either way. He then moved on.
Soon enough they found the Sikh man and began dragging him out of his seat. He resisted and they rained blows on him. A few passengers tried to stop the boys but were pushed away. Slowly but surely, the man was taken out of the carriage. No one had the courage to step out; there was a funereal silence in the chair car. Periodically there were shouts and screams but the mob had by then grown large and no policemen could be seen from the window.
A few minutes later, the acrid smell of fire and smoke began to waft into the carriage. I could see a small fire. The conclusion was too shocking to contemplate. Just then the train gave a small jerk and the ticket collector came running into the carriage. “We are leaving. There is trouble outside. Please do not go on to the station.” Some of us tried to tell him that a passenger had been dragged outside and probably killed but he had moved on to the other car. The train picked up speed and left for Delhi.
At the station, there were no vehicles at all so there was no option but to walk to the office, till finally a passing car gave a few of us a lift. “The city is a ghost town; no one is coming out. There are riots everywhere in Sikh areas, many have been killed,” the driver told us.
I called home in Bombay and told them the whole story. “It was like this during the Partition,” my father said. But this is our own country, I felt like saying. We know what happened eventually. Nearly 3,000 Sikhs died, mostly in Delhi, encouraged if not led by prominent Congress leaders. For me, the memory is just too powerful to ever go away. It changed the life of those whose kin died and it is particularly shameful that full justice has not been done to them. Many of the perpetrators and leaders are still unpunished. And it is a scar on the country’s collective psyche that will not fade away for a long time.
