Jaswinder Singh

In this account, through a child’s eye, we find proof of how the violence was communal-ized: at its root political, and not religious or communal.

Jaswinder Singh, a 13-years-old student living in Faridkot, narrates the reaction of his village to the events of June and November 1984. Immediately after June 1984, he distinctly remembers the people of his village gathering whatever supplies they could get hands on, going to Harimander Sahib and help the Sikh cause. They were stopped a few miles later.

After getting word of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, he remembers a sense of relief at her death. After the violence in Delhi, he recalls his Sikh villagers reassuring and comforting their fellow Hindu villagers that they were going to be safe and no harm would fall on them after what had happened to Sikhs in Delhi.