They looked and looked for answers. 42 years later, they got a postmortem

Indian Express

5 hours ago

The postmortem report describes a 'well-built dead body', dressed in a green shirt, yellow salwar and red dupatta, leather juttis on her feet, and a white metal kada (bracelet) each on her two wrists, with two additional glass bangles on the right. It also mentions a fracture in the skull, left by a metallic bullet.
That is all that the family of Chanderwati has to go on as to what happened to the 30-year-old mother of four when police, trying to rein in protests against the Indira Gandhi government's forced sterilisation drive, surrounded their village Pipli in Sonipat district of Haryana on December 2, 1976.
For 42 years, the family didn't have even that, or any other record of Chanderwati's death, only acquiring the autopsy report in 2018 after running pillar to post.
Says Chanderwati's nephew Surender Singh, 38: 'We had to make several rounds of Chandigarh, put multiple complaints on the Chief Minister's portal, and keep pushing.'
Chanderwati's name still doesn't figure in any official government record, which means the family has not got any relief that was offered to people who died in similar circumstances in that period.
As per the Justice Shah Commission that inquired into the events leading up to the Emergency and what happened during those 21 months when democratic rights were suspended, 74,300 was initially set as the sterilisation target for Haryana for the fiscal year 1975-76. The authorities got this reduced to 45,000 calling the earlier target 'unfeasible'. Eventually, 57,492 sterilisations were carried out that fiscal year.
By the end of the campaign, that number as per the commission stood at 2,22,000 vasectomy operations. It found that of the people sterilised, 105 were unmarried and 179 were over the age of 55, the cut-off date. For protesting against the move, 428 were arrested under the stringent Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) in Haryana.
Chanderwati's husband died before the family got her postmortem report. Their son Krishan Saini, who was 18-months-old in 1976, sells tea and snacks from a cart to make a living.
The end of 'secrecy' about the postmortem report ended just one fight for justice, says Saini, pointing out that the FIR into the incident only names unknown persons, as there was a crowd.
In 1980, the family moved to Kharkoda, about 4 km away.
Former BJP minister Ram Bilas Sharma (74), who was among those jailed during the Emergency, says it was 'a dark time'. 'I was lodged in Rohtak and then Gaya jail.'
On whether there should be a probe into deaths such as of Chanderwati, Sharma says: 'It is our government, and though 50 years have passed, we will see what more is done to ensure justice for those who were affected then.'
Balwant Singh, 64, says his father, now deceased, was among those 'forcibly sterilised' at Pipli. 'I was not home,' he recalls. 'My father told me that Indira Gandhi had put a lot of pressure on the Block Development Officer (to meet the sterilisation target).'
About December 2, 1976, Balwant says: 'At the time people did not have toilets at home, so they would go to the fields to relieve themselves. Then, they had to go there to hide. The first day (December 1), the BDO picked up around a dozen people and got them sterilised. As the people got to know, the men fled. The next day women protested when police surrounded the area.'
He adds that the angry mob got hold of one policeman and started assaulting him. 'He got into the pond to hide, but people spotted him, and kept beating him, till he succumbed.'
Raghbir Singh, who puts his age at nearly 100, is still angry about what happened that day, but feels helpless. 'They came and lifted our boys and men into trucks. What else is there to say now? It was 50 years ago.'
Surender Singh says the sugarcane fields, with their tall, dense stalks, offered the perfect cover for the men to hide.
Many of the fields have given way to private industries since. Sonipat is now part of the National Capital Region, and air-conditioners and piped gas connections are common in Pipli. Most homes also have CCTV cameras.
So when he tells his children and grandchildren about the Emergency, Balwant says, he ensures they realise the anxiety of those times. 'Yes, the administration was more efficient,' he says, referring to the one defence offered of the Emergency, 'but it was a dictatorship. No one could be sure he or she was safe.'
Chandenwari's case is an example, her nephew Surender says. 'Gumnaam andhere mein chipa diya, koi wajood hi nahin hai. Hum rukenge nyay ke liye (They made her disappear into a nameless darkness, wiped away her existence. We will wait for justice).'