Navjot Kaur

Finally the telegram came from Punjab and young Navjot Kaur’s aunt informed her that their family was alright. Except, Navjot was then living on an army base, where adult conversations signaled things were far from right.

Listen to experience how a fourth-grader felt the fear that set in the mind of her Aunty, the sole Sikh teacher working in an Army Cantt, as the news about the attack travelled outside of Punjab, 10 to 15 days later, and Sikhs everywhere felt attacked. To their shock, they realized the soldiers of that very Cantt were sent to kill the Sikh army men who had spontaneously mutinied from various battalions to march towards Amritsar after hearing of the attack. These men were dealt with most harshly. (Read here for another glance into this pivotal point in the June 84 story: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/12/world/574-sikh-deserters-reportedly-held-by-indian-forces.html)

And Navjot remembers the harshness about taunts her Aunty faced, as misinformation campaigns about “Bluestar”—including the suggestion that naked women were rescued from inside Darbar Sahib complex—began to be spread. For some, it’s taken 30 years for the misinformation to be understood as such; for a child, it was much clearer.