Punjabi writer Ajeet Cour recalls the Black November of 1984

Those were black days, bloody days, full of a strange fear of death. A choking sensation rose from the earth to the sky, like a black cloth smothering all. It was November 1984. The city had been in shock, stunned, since 31 October. The woman who had ruled the country for so many years, the woman who had launched an attack on Harimandir Sahib at Amritsar, that most exalted empress had been assassinated.

Of course assassination is deplorable. Reprehensible. Particularly of that woman who had several sensitive layers in her soul too! The woman with large eyes which seemed to announce that she was in control of the universe, the stunningly beautiful and intelligent woman who made friends with Castro and any American President with equal ease.

But in this country, it has not been uncommon for kings or queens to be assassinated.

Here a king often imprisoned his own father, murdered him, chopped up his own brothers, and then proceeded to rule the country.

In the Black November, people were being killed openly in the streets. Hordes of people, instigated and guided by their leaders, roamed the streets, shouting slogans... hunting for men of a particular community

This country also saw the assassination of the man who was popularly known as the Father of the Nation, a secular nation.

But after any such assassinations, death did not hover over the defenceless and innocent citizens.

This time, in the Black November of 1984, people were being killed openly in the streets. Hordes of people, instigated and guided by their leaders, roamed the streets and bylanes of the city, shouting slogans. Hordes of people hunting for men of a particular community.

All this had happened before too. When the father of this empress had agreed that this country be partitioned, cut into two.

Today, thirty-seven years later, the same thing was happening all over again.

I had closed all the doors and windows of the house and sat inside with my daughter, Arpana.

Our neighbours destroyed the nameplate hanging on the gate downstairs. “Don’t worry. We are here to protect you.”

We could not remain holed up, cowering inside, while people were being killed on the streets, their heads bashed with iron rods, drenched in petrol and set on fire, alive. Being burnt with kerosene-filled rubber tubes and tyres around their necks. When women were being smoked out of burning homes and sexually assaulted right there, next to the bodies of their sons and husbands.

In the midst of this murderous outrage, to think only of our own safety was immoral. Unethical. On the TV and the radio, there was a constant replay of the last words of the slain empress: “ ...Every drop of my blood... Blood!...”

We, my daughter Aparna and I, set out from the house. The driver was a bold neighbour, Manoj, a Hindu. We decided to take some food with us — packets of tea, sacks of sugar, milk powder, and some blankets. We saw a large mob shouting in frenzy. The slogan they were raising was: “Khoon ka badla khoon!” — a numbing fear that my daughter, sitting beside me, could be dragged out by the hooligans...

We crossed the bridge across the Jamuna. We saw no soldiers, nor any police. No military, no police! Proceeding slowly, we reached the Gandhi Nagar school. A police truck was parked outside the gate, and there were two or three policemen relaxing in it, drinking tea.

Inside the gate there was a flood of humanity. So many people! All of them huddled in the school building! It seems someone deep in the crowd recognised me. He raised both his arms, and in a tearful trembling voice said with a heartrending wail: “Bibiji! Not puddles of blood! Now there are wells filled with blood.”

Perhaps he had read my article after the attack on the Golden Temple — ‘Puddles of Blood’.

“There is one Kishenlalji. Morning and evening he brings sacks full of daal and atta. All the shops are closed. But they say he begs or borrows, or just breaks open the locks of shops and brings the stuff, and there must easily be ten or fifteen thousand people here!”

Human beings were being slaughtered, but humanity still survived. In the playground field at the back, some fifteen or twenty badly wounded persons, mostly with burn injuries, were lying on the bare, dusty earth.

In the morning, these people had been taken to a hospital in the police truck but the hospital authorities had refused to admit them, saying, “Those hooligans will burn our hospital down.”

We came back with bottles of Dettol, bandages, tubes of antiseptic creams. And then, for the first time, I felt a revolting stench in the air as the wind changed. Obviously, all these people, having been cooped up like so many chickens, had to relieve themselves somewhere. The building was enclosed from all sides apart from the gate which was open, but no one had the courage to go out. This was a ghetto! This is how those Jews must have lived, hiding like frightened rats from the atrocities of the Nazis, and taking refuge collectively in derelict towns in Poland and elsewhere.

When it became dark, we left that place to drive straight to Khushwant Singh’s house. It was 9.30 pm. No relative or friend is allowed in Khushwant Singh’s house at this time. But this was a day of doom. This day all rules and laws had broken down. Khushwant opened the door. I don’t cry in anyone’s presence. But that night... the shock of the whole day, the helplessness, the fear, the horror, they all poured out of my whole body. I told Khushwant everything. He listened in stunned silence. I suggested to him: “Next to the Gandhi Nagar school is Shyam Lal College. All schools and colleges are closed. If you can speak to the Lieutenant Governor and ask him to get the college premises opened, these thousands of people will get some space to sit, or even stretch out.”

Khushwant said he had been trying to reach the Governor for three or four days. But these days, there was a standard response: “Sahib is not available.” The secretaries repeated like parrots: “Sahib is not available”. The whole country was caught in the eye of a storm. A swirling, black whirlwind. It was not dust that the wind whipped up, but blood.

“For two days, I took refuge at the Swedish Embassy, with my entire family... We returned home today because the government announced that the city has been put under army rule, and nothing will happen now....” Khushwant said.

The army? We didn’t see any signs of the army the whole day! Hardly a furlong away from the Gandhi Nagar school, a mob killed twelve people! We were witnesses! It was about 2.30 that night when it occurred to me that an extremely nice doctor, a top cardiologist at the Medical Institute — Harbans Singh Wasir — was the personal physician to the President of India, Giani Zail Singh. It doesn’t matter how blinded a person can be because of his rank and position, or how weak, he cannot ignore his doctor. So I called Dr Wasir. “Please tell Gianiji to at least get Shyam Lal College opened for these refugees. And, Harbans, if possible, please ask him to get fifteen or twenty temporary lavatories built. And there is a real risk of cholera breaking out. Can you send an ambulance there?”

I don’t know whether it was because of Harbans’ efforts or Khushwant’s influence, but on the third day, the rooms of Shyam Lal College were opened, temporary lavatories were built, and cleaners deputed. For the wounded, Harbans sent not only an ambulance but also a team of doctors. Some artists, social workers and theatre people came together to form a group. They would meet early in the morning in Lajpat Bhawan, which was a central collecting point for food, clothes, shoes, blankets and quilts. Arpana and I also joined them. None of these people were sentimental or emotional. They were motivated by a deep compassion for their fellow human beings. They didn’t weep or cry like me. They were like soldiers in battle.

The gates of Shyam Lal College were opened. The rooms were also unlocked. But no one was willing to go there, leaving the safe haven of the school and stepping out onto the narrow street between the school and the college. To step out onto that street was to step into the dark kingdom of death!

“Let’s break down the side wall of the Gandhi Nagar school,” I suggested. In those days the biggest danger was from the police, because every bloodthirsty mob was accompanied by a protective unit of police. In fact, in some places, the police had gone in first and collected all arms — mostly kirpans and occasionally a revolver or gun. They said that it was in the interest of keeping peace. When the people had thus been disarmed, the screaming mobs attacked... The massacres were done in the style of Ghengis Khan or Taimur, within the knowledge of the police and with their blessings. They said these were the orders they had received ‘from above’!

In the depths of my being, I felt historical memories being revived. These attacks, these murders, were like those committed by the Nazis, methodically, and in cold blood. Armed with lists of names, they used to ferret out the Jews. They pulled out people — men, women, children who hid like mice — from gutters and manholes. Six million Jews were murdered.

And today, when I write after years of the bloodbath of November 1984, hundreds of thousands of people are being killed in Bosnia, Sarajevo, Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Ukraine. It has been going on for years. And in Punjab and Kashmir, and Assam and Bihar — everywhere it is overcast with dark red clouds of blood. And the soul-shuddering memory of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Man! The supreme creation of God! In whose heart the barbaric animal is still alive, screaming for blood!

The walls of the school and college buildings were broken. For almost a month, we — Arpana and I — stayed there from morning till midnight. On the seventh day, Mother Teresa’s missionaries brought milk powder and biscuits for the children. On the tenth day, a tent was pitched. And a short, fat man, an officer of the government, occupied it. Half a dozen policemen hovered around him. The first thing he did was to put a lock on our store room. The room in which we put the things we ourselves had bought. Like blankets and quilts, stocks of food and medicines. “Where is Sahib?” We waited for two hours for him to return. When he came, he was chewing paan and reeking of liquor. “The store will NOT be opened!” “The store will definitely be opened, and NOW!” I retorted and produced my trump card — my Press card. He had the lock opened, but said softly, “I’ll see to you later!”

In this camp there were ten to fifteen thousand people who had ten to fifteen thousand stories to tell. And there were as many stories from the camps at Trilokpuri, Uttam Nagar, Shahdara. I will tell you only three of them.

One woman sat in the corner of one room, her four children huddled around her. Whenever we urged her to go to the langar, she would simply shake her head.

Three days went by. By that time she was no longer sitting. She had sunk to the floor, lifelessly, helplessly. On the night of 2 November, the mobs had attacked her colony. “They had dragged her husband out into the street, and burnt him alive. Her eldest son remained inside, hiding behind a big tin trunk. She took the other children and ran out into the street... The neighbours pulled her and her children into their home and hid them. The mob then set fire to her house. She was frantic and tried to open the door again and again. “Where is my Sohan? Let me go! They’ll butcher him....” She had gone in the middle of the night to her house looking for Sohan, her son. There was still smoke coming from the house. In the compound, she found Sohan’s half-burnt body. She thought the dogs would find it and eat it. So she spent the rest of the night pulling down the remains of half-burnt doors and windows, and tried to burn the corpse of her son.

I’ll tell you the second story. In the verandah, there was a handsome, middle-aged man and his family. Next to him was his pretty, plump wife, and a young son whose hair was cut like grass. “The factory was burnt. The house was robbed and then burnt. The neighbours hid us. When they brought us to the camp, they begged me: ‘Bibiji, save your son’s life! Cut his hair.’ So I cut his hair with these, my cursed hands...” She wept bitterly. Then, wiping her tears with her dupatta, she continued. “The factory and the house don’t matter. The Guru bestowed them, and He has taken them back. But Kaka’s hair! Haaye! How I used to take care of them! Washing them with fresh curd! So beautiful, thick, silky. Gifted by Guru Gobind Singh.”

The third story is about a very old man who sat in one corner of the verandah. He sat there for almost a week. Sometimes he would doze off leaning against the wall, his mouth slightly open, his white beard quivering as he shivered with cold, head bare. At times though, we could hear a soft murmur, ‘Wahe Guru. Wahe Guru.’ We found out that both his sons were autorickshaw drivers. They didn’t come home. At that moment I thought of Darji, my father. If he were alive, he too might be sitting in a corner, just like this. His white beard would be trembling just like this old man’s. I thanked God that he had passed away before he could see all this! “Bapuji!” I touched him gently, “Please take this blanket. It is cold.” “No. Give it to a needy person.” “But what if you catch cold and get fever?” We tried our best but he would accept nothing, neither clothes nor the blanket.

On the seventh or eighth day, I took a white turban for him. For a minute he looked at it. Then he looked at me. I don’t know what it was about that look but I felt a searing heat. Even now, sometimes at night, I feel it shooting through me. He accepted the turban with trembling hands. Slowly, he unfolded it and, crumpling the width of it with both hands, started tying it, one fold after another. When he had finished, he looked at me again. Two tears spilled over. They trickled down the creases in his cheeks leaving a trail of wetness, and disappeared into his beard.

— Ajeet Cour wrote this piece for private circulation in 2014. It was translated by Satjit Wadva