Confronting the anger and bitterness in the aftermath of riots

On a train journey in 1984, Sushobha Barve watched in horror as two of her co-passengers were beaten up, set afire and left to die in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The nightmare of that journey led her to find ways of preventing such conflagrations and, where violence had already occurred, working towards alleviating the distress and sense of hopelessness that such events leave in their wake. It was an exploration that took her to Bhagalpur in 1989, Mumbai in 1992 and Ahmedabad in 2002, where some of the worst riots in post-Partition India had occurred.

Thrown into the middle of pitched battles and desperate attempts to save lives, she discovered a world of simmering bitterness and hatred, of lives reduced to utter despair by a few days of madness. She also discovered that her self-appointed task of preventing and alleviating distress required enormous fortitude and courage.

This account of her work with riot victims is an engrossing and topical book that addresses the reality that escapes the newspaper headlines, the suffering that continues long after the events themselves have dimmed from our memory. It is heartbreaking work but the rewards, for her as for the reader who follows her on this journey, are dazzling.In Mumbai she was among the first people to go to the riot-hit areas and meet the victims and give them solace. She witnessed first-hand the raw anger, bitterness and helplessness of people who had been cohabiting the same place seemingly in harmony for years but needing just the slightest provocation to break out in a mad frenzy to maim and kill. She explores how politicians and others instigated the riots and tried to hinder alert citizens trying to strengthen local networks against troublemakers. And describes other instances of cooperation—Hindu women masquerading as Muslims during curfew to collect shrouds from a mosque.

Barve and other volunteers addressed the immediate need which was to get the people to eschew violence. The longer-term exercise was to bring together two communities suspicious of each other but wanting to live in peace. This involved engaging the local people in building a preventive mechanism against the outbreak of violence in the future. The risks taken were many and at times they went horribly wrong as all they had to back them up was instinct and a resolve to maintain peace at all costs. But the rewards too were many and amazing friendships were formed between people who would normally not have interacted with each other.

Dwelling on the heavy price of violence and the importance of healing and reconciliation, Barve exhorts civil society to shake out of its apathy and to reach out to victims of mindless violence. For, all very often all that riot victims need is a willing and understaning ear to hear them out.