The trauma for survivors did not end with the cessation of violence. In times of major crises, hospitals and medical centres are naturally the first to open their doors to the injured. Yet so well-orchestrated was the anti-Sikh prejudice and hatred during those calamitous few days that those doors remained, more often than not, firmly shut.
Unbelievably, several hospitals allegedly refused to admit injured Sikhs. A man whose son was shot in the head claimed he was refused treatment at Orsale Hospital Parade in Kanpur died the next day.1
A widow, whose husband had just been killed, sought medical aid for her daughter-in-law who had been raped. She alleged doctors at two hospitals in Kanpur and Delhi refused to admit her, ultimately resulting in the girl being paralysed from the waist down.2
A child suffering burns was allegedly refused treatment at Hindu Rao Hospital in north Delhi. His father took him to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital, six kilometres away, where he succumbed to his injuries. The doctors it was claimed had refused to even conduct an investigation into his death.3
In hospital no one attended us during the whole night. When my son felt thirsty, I requested the doctor on duty for a glass of water and he replied, “There is no water fit for drinking as the Sikhs have poisoned the entire water supply. I managed to take my son to Deen Dayal Hospital at the rear of the Gurdwara. I was disappointed when the staff told me that there were no medical facilities for the Sardars and I should take my son back.
Affidavit of Subedar Balwant Singh submitted to the Misra Commission.4
At a Public Health Centre in south-west Delhi, Sikhs who had come for treatment were attacked, leaving eight murdered.5 A journalist related stories of several Sikhs with burn injuries were allegedly being turned away by medical staff in Delhi hospitals.
Indeed, some hospital burns units were closed exactly at a time when multiple burns were the most common cause of injuries. Several of these horribly wounded and vulnerable Sikhs would fall victim to the mobs waiting outside.6
A lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, who with his colleagues tried to help the beleaguered victims, claimed hospital authorities at the All India Institute for Medical Sciences (AIIMS) – where Mrs Gandhi was taken after being shot – refused to admit them.7 Kuldip Singh, a Sikh civil rights activist who was attacked on a train, claimed he had to wait forty-eight hours for treatment at Daltonganj Hospital in Bihar.8 He was only treated when his non-Sikh friends threatened the doctors. Another victim at the Guru Nanak hospital in Kanpur claimed he was told to cut his hair or leave the hospital.
It would be thirty years before a leading surgeon, Dr A. K. Banerji, now at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in Delhi, admitted to former trainee surgeon, Swaran Preet Singh, his shame over his staff’s refusal to treat Sikhs in Delhi’s hospitals following the massacres.9
- Jaskaran Kaur, Twenty Years of Impunity, 2006, p 39. ↩︎
- Affidavit of Amarjit Kaur, Kanpur, cited in cited in ibid, p 39. ↩︎
- Affidavit of Balwinder Singh, Sarai Rohilla, cited in ibid, p 40. ↩︎
- Affidavit of Subedar Balwant Singh submitted to the Misra Commission. ↩︎
- Kusum Lata Mittal Committee report, Government of India, 1990. ↩︎
- Jarnail Singh, I Accuse… The Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984, 2011, p 13. ↩︎
- Ram Jethmalani, New Delhi, ‘Witness statement’, Nanavati Commission ↩︎
- Jaskaran Kaur, Twenty Years of Impunity, 2006, p 39. ↩︎
- Professor Swaran Preet Singh interview with author, Pav Singh. 21 February 2015 ↩︎
Many Sikhs were denied medical help from doctors and medical staff during 1984 Sikh Genocide.
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