Sikh Riots – Terror in a Delhi School (1984)

Guru Harkrishan Public School is a very noticeable building on New Delhi’s Outer Ring Road. It is located in Vasant Vihar, which is a posh South Delhi colony, and borders the neighboring colony of Munirka, which consists of a village along with residential flats (apartments). Guru Harkrishan Public School, being a Sikh school, was about 95% Sikh. The total population of the school must have been over 1000 staff and students.
I still vividly remember the day Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards. Our school was closed early and we were sent home. I will not deny that a few of us Sikh students caught up in the anger of the times were elated by the assassination and some students were shouting cries of victory. In hindsight, I now see that we were wrong in doing this. But the truth must be told and accepted if we wish to attain closure.
Guru Harkrishan Public School was considered a “rich kids” school. Most of the students were from well-off Sikh business families of Delhi. These Sikhs were basically part of the Delhi “Puppy” culture – as the Punjabi version of “Yuppy” was then popularly termed. We were the first school in those days to have a computer. It also had premier facilities that left most other schools behind. The image associated with the school thereby made it a prime target during the days that were to come.
The school also had staff quarters at the rear of the campus which bordered Munirka. There were two buildings. One building consisted of apartments for senior staff. The other building was for junior staff and other school employees. In the front, on the other side of the playground, was the Principal’s bungalow. The Principal at the time was Dr. H.S. Singha. On the night of the assassination, rioting broke out in the neighboring Munirka area. There was a prominent Sikh shop in Munirka called Sardar Wool Shop. The shop was gutted along with other minor Sikh shops in the area.
Munirka was at that time home to a prominent and powerful family called Tokas. Mahesh Chandra Tokas was the Congress Party councilor for the Munirka region of Delhi. The second Congress party bigwig of the area was Arjun Das, also based in Munirka. The Tokas family was a family that depended upon their muscle power. They were the known “goondas” – thugs – of the area and very few people messed with them. They had several businesses; primary amongst them was transportation. They possessed a fleet of buses with the family name “Tokas” painted on either side.
On the morning following the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi, my friend Jasjit, who was the son of Mr. Sethi, the school engineer who had been hired to complete a swimming pool project on the campus and lived in the junior staff quarters, and some other friends who also resided in the school premises, were spending the morning sitting and chatting in the school playground that was in front of their residential quarters.
They noticed about fifty men armed with bamboo sticks come into the school campus. The guards of the campus had fled. As Jasjit and my other friends on the scene later told me, the mob was armed with petrol bombs. They threw these bombs into one of the school buses that was parked in the campus. The bus exploded into flames.
Everybody was taken by surprise. Nobody ever thought that anybody could have the audacity to do this. Mr. Sukhdeep Singh, who was the school Sports teacher, came out onto the field. He rounded up all the young boys, which included my friend Jasjit, Vishal, son of Mrs. Reita Singh (a school teacher) and Manpreet, son of school headmaster Mr. Grewal. There were about eight of them. They charged the mob of fifty with no weapons in their hands, just screaming at the top of their voices. The mob of fifty, which severely outnumbered them, ran off without a fight.
This all was followed by total chaos. Mr. Sethi, the school engineer, and father of Jasjit, was terrified for his son. All the families had come out of the residential buildings and were scared about what would happen next. Mr. Sethi went running to Mr. Sukhdeep Singh and the other boys who had chased the mob away. He ordered them back to the residential area where everybody else had gathered. They all listened to him. Mr. Sethi was of somewhat ill health and he walked back slowly.
Behind the school in the area that bordered Munirka, there was an open drain, beyond which was Munirka, where some of the residential flats were visible. Next to the school was a small slum where about fifty families lived in mud huts. It seems that these people got a sniff that there was going to be a looting and rioting opportunity. Maybe they had received direct orders. They entered the school from the rear by cutting the barbed wire that was along the school perimeter. M.r Sethi was still slowly walking back when they attacked him from the rear. He was hit on the head with a bamboo stick. They left him for dead, as he fell unconscious and was bleeding profusely from a head wound.
In the meantime, it seems that the mob had regrouped. Perhaps on the orders of their political bosses. According to eye-witnesses, some three busloads full of thugs entered the school premises. All the buses had the Tokas logo on their sides. Mr. Sethi, by some miracle, regained consciousness. He got up and started to slowly walk back to the residential area. All the school staff and their families had taken refuge in the flat of Mr. Purohit, who was the School Registrar. Mr. Purohit was a Hindu who lived in the school premises, along with his wife and their married son. Mr. Sethi was somehow able to make it to Mr. Purohit’s residence. Everybody turned to Mr. Purohit for help, as he was the only Hindu on the campus. There was also the 4th class servants, but they themselves were terrified.
Mr. Purohit and his son showed remarkable courage and poise. They took in over fifty Sikhs in their flat and assured them that they would do whatever possible to keep everyone safe. Meanwhile, the mob had started their rampage. They started looting the main school complex and attacked the Principal’s bungalow. The Principal, Dr. Singha, along with his wife and daughter, were inside the building and had locked all the doors.
The mob threw petrol bombs on the house and it caught on fire. One of the 4th class employees had already cycled to the police station which was on the other end of Vasant Vihar (in C-Block) at that time. The police dismissed him and said there was nothing they could do.
One of the school’s English teachers, Mrs. Gill, was married to an army officer, Colonel Gill. I do not know the details, but he got some indication of what was happening in GHPS. The army, which was by far secular, had already issued two armed soldiers to each Sikh officer for their protection and that of their families.
Col. Gill sent his soldiers to the school campus. They came to the Principal’s bungalow, which was burning with the Singha family trapped inside. The soldiers fired in the air and the mob withdrew. They rescued Dr. Singha and his family and took him to the Gill residence. For reasons unknown to me, no effort was made to rescue the other Sikhs hiding in Mr. Purohit’s residence. Perhaps they had given up on them.
By now, the whole school complex was filled with mobs of looters. I was told that the whole playground, which was the size of a soccer field and more, was full of a sea of rioters. Perhaps over 1000 people were armed with bamboo sticks and petrol bombs.
Mr Purohit and his son stood outside the residential quarters and were pleading with the rioters not to loot the residential complex. They risked their lives with a bunch of rioters who were out to kill. They told them that all the Sikhs had left early in the morning and that only a few Hindus were left in the complex. When the rioters tried to burn the cars and scooters that were parked nearby, Mr. Purohit claimed that they all belonged to them. I am told that the rioters kept using profuse foul language with Mr. Purohit and his son. Many times, they even threatened to kill him and his family for living with Sikhs.
But Mr. Purohit and his son stood their ground and courageously kept the mob at bay.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sethi’s condition was deteriorating. He had lost a lot of blood. His son Jasjit was adamant about getting help, even though he was being held back by others who did not want the mob to find out they were hiding. He forcefully picked up the phone and called Dr. Manekshaw, who was a well-known general practitioner in the Vasant Vihar Colony.
Dr. Manekshaw was the younger brother of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, who had led India to victory in the Bangladesh War in 1971. Dr. Manekshaw himself was a retired and decorated air force officer who had served in the medical division. He drove a distinctive foreign-made car – a blue Corsair – which could be recognized from a distance. Dr. Manekshaw did not hesitate at all when he heard of Mr. Sethi’s condition. With no regard to his own safety, he lived up to the legacy of his family and that of an officer’s duty. He drove his car into the school premises through the violent and threatening mob, to the senior staff residence in the rear of the campus.
Dr. Manekshaw was a very imposing man, with an impressive persona. He shouted at any mobster who came near him in his very distinct and brusque voice. They didn’t give him any problems. Dr.Manekshaw found his way to the Purohit residence and immediately started treating Mr. Sethi.
Meanwhile, the Hindu residents of the Munirka enclave flats on the other side of the open drain had realized that something terrible was happening in the school. They quickly formed an action committee. This was primarily due to the efforts of one very strong willed Hindu woman named Nandita Haksar. [Mrs. Haksar is now a very well-known Indian Human Rights activist.] The action committee decided it was necessary to save the lives of the Sikhs trapped inside the campus. With no concern for their own safety, they walked across the open drain and into the school campus.
They found a very haggard and distraught Mr. Purohit who was pleading with the mobs to stay away. The “rescuers” told Mr. Purohit that they had come to help. Mr Purohit took them into his house where all the Sikhs were hiding. The action committee escorted all the Sikhs into the Munirka enclave area by taking them across the open drain and distributing them into each other’s houses for safekeeping until things cooled down.
Dr. Manekshaw had, in the meantime, laid the bleeding Mr. Sethi in the backseat of his car with the help of others. He covered him in blankets so that he was totally hidden from view. He then drove Mr. Sethi to a local Vasant Vihar hospital for further treatment, where his life was indeed saved.
The other Sikh families were now relatively safe in the houses of the Hindus of Munirka. However, this was a Tokas stronghold and his goons knew where they were hidden. They would pass these houses and shout out that they knew that Sikhs were hiding there. Fortunately, nothing happened and the Sikhs were saved.
The school, however, was rampaged and pillaged. Other locals who wanted free loot also joined in. A person I met many years after the incident told me how he got some free cricket bats. Our Physics teacher, Mr. Salamatullah Hashmi, who was a Muslim and lived in the neighboring colony of “R.K. Puram”, came the next day to find out if people were safe. He asked a policeman standing outside if everybody was okay. The policeman smilingly told him in crisp Hindi: “Sardar saare chale gaye, lekin abhi bhi bahut samaan hai. Jo kuchh laina hai, jaldi se laylo.” (All the Sikhs have gone, but there is still a lot of loot left. Take what you want, but do it quickly!)
I visited the school again, about a week after the incident. By then, belatedly, the city was under army rule and the Sikh residents had returned to whatever was left of their premises. I was shocked by what I saw. Everything I had taken for granted was gone. The place where I studied was destroyed and looted. It was a horrible sight.
In retrospect, I feel that we Sikhs have never really expressed gratitude for those who helped us. Not all people are bad. It is times that make people bad, and all of us are as guilty as others for letting our emotions be carried by the hate of the times.
Even then, in those times of hate, there are people like Mr. Purohit, Dr. Manekshaw, and the Hindu residents of Munirka, who did what was right at the risk of their own lives. Perhaps we should, at times, take a moment to reflect on some of the good things that happened during those troubled times, rather than always focusing on the negativity.
Things will not be complete if I do not tell you what happened afterward.
The government ordered that all repair work of Sikh institutions was to be carried out at government expense by the DDA (Delhi Development Authority). The school reopened after a month, but the effects and scars were still visible.
Dr. Singha remained Principal for a few more years, after which he took up the prestigious position of Chairman of CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education). He passed away a few years ago. Mr. Purohit took the position of Principal of Mother’s International School a few years later. Mr.Grewal became Principal of a school in Ludhiana, Punjab. The last I heard, Mr. Sukhdeep Singh is still the school’s Sports teacher. Mr. Sethi survived the attack but died of a heart attack a few years later. His son, and my close friend, Jasjit, is now the CEO of a global transport company in Gurgaon. Mahesh Tokas remained a Congress council person for many years. The Tokas family is still a powerful family of Munirka. Arjun Das was assassinated the following year for his role in instigating and leading the mobs during the anti-Sikh pogroms.
The families of more than three thousand Sikhs who did die in the communal carnage, have to date not received any justice from the Indian government or justice system. The guilty behind these crimes have either passed on or still roam free. Some continue to hold positions of power.
I have written all of this for posterity, in the hope that people do not forget these events, as we are all lost in the confusion and stress of our own lives. Hopefully, someday, we can get answers to our questions and find closure for the anguish and anger we feel deep inside.