Every riot extracts its toll. Every incident of violence leaves in its wake tragic memories. For a few days every riot hits the headlines, becomes a topic of heated discussions in television studios and our drawing rooms. The media usually moves on, it is the victims who live with scars for long. However, some day, let’s not reduce the victims to mere statistics. Some day, take a little time out from the hectic pace of life in the city and go across to Trilokpuri, the downtown habitat that has been in headlines over the past few weeks for a fresh spurt of violence, this time involving the Hindu and Muslim communities. With allegations flying thick and fast about police’s high-handedness and the local MP’s attempts to fish in troubled waters, it takes one’s mind back to 1984 when a ‘tree’ infamously shook the society, leaving in its wake tales of death and deprivation, misery and mayhem.
Our then Prime Minister had been assassinated by her body guards. And the city erupted in violence with many holding the entire Sikh community responsible for the assassination. Besides places like Tilak Nagar, Shakarpur and Vishwas Nagar, Trilokpuri bore the brunt. Some were shot dead, others burnt alive. Some lives to tell the tale, many were reduced to collateral damage. Some 30 years later, despite repeated assurances of justice, of meagre compensation for lives lost, the victims, mostly women, live a life in the shadows. Any news of a fresh outburst of violence in the vicinity leaves the widows of 1984 worried about their sons and grandsons. Any police march or even a blast in some other part of the country leaves them on tenterhooks. It is a feeling of foreboding, a feeling of utter helplessness. And we as a society have failed to heal their wounds.
Now to think there are more women who have joined the fate of the 84 victims. Riot after riot, really, is there any end to it all?
