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 look 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 heart-breaking work but the rewards, for her as for the reader who follows her on this journey, are dazzling.
English