The Octogenarians: From Partition to a pandemic
Live Mint"How old are you?” Sabita Goswami, 81, a former journalist who covered the Assam agitation as a field reporter in the 1980s, asks me over the phone as we are wrapping up our interview. “He always says ‘this is my last book’ but I know it isn’t true.” Days after Amphan, when he speaks of covid-19 over the phone, the calm voice tells tales of circumstances far worse. Singh recalls bloodshed from all sides: “The Muslims would attack the Hindus and Sikhs with their weapons, and the Sikhs and Hindus would attack the Muslims using whatever they had—kirpans, tools, anything,” he says. “Our elders decided that the youth should cut their hair so that if the rioters come in they will not be recognized and stay safe,” says Singh’s son Mohinder Singh, 53. Some years later, recalls the mother of three, her youngest daughter, Anitha, came running home one day, having heard from a student that they belonged to the Mala caste, “crying and begging that I tell her that it isn’t true, that we weren’t untouchables!” Though she spent many years in Telaprolu, a village dominated by the Reddy caste where Manjulabai’s father was a schoolteacher, the foregrounding of caste for her, personally, happened over time.
History of this topic
The Octogenarians: From Partition to a pandemic
Live Mint
From 1984 to 2020: A tale of two ‘riots’
Live Mint
Partition 70 years on: The violence that created Pakistan and India
The IndependentDiscover Related