Amritsar

Amritsar lies between Delhi and Srinagar and a little to the west over near the Indian-Pakistani border. The problem is that you can’t just drop down to Amritsar on a return from Srinagar to Delhi. You must fly back to Delhi and then return north…and a little to the west. I suspect that the post office will not allow the pilots to carry maps in the cockpit and that they must make the flight by memory. Some pilots know the way from Delhi to Srinagar and some know their way to Amritsar. Just change the crew at Delhi and the Pakistanis will be completely confused. So am I. “Incredible India!” in Shabarat’s words and I get to sleep in a hotel room for four hours, make long runs to and from the airport made more interesting by the tour agency sending out Hindi speakers that take you to the wrong airport. Anyhow if you saw the movie Gandhi, you may guess one of my reasons for wanting to go to Amritsar. Another is that it is a border town that piqued my interest. The tour agent had given me another reason.
The beautiful site of Amritsar is the Sikh place of worship, the Golden Temple. It is surrounded by a tank and the tank is encircled by a broad walkway which is enclosed in a wall of administrative offices, a place where pilgrims are fed, and shops facing inward.
This temple was the site of a shootout between the Indian governmental forces and the Sikh separatist. The temple was damaged and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her Sikh bodyguards in retribution. Mob violence followed where about 3,000 people were killed, mostly Sikhs by lynchings.
The sun shown down on this day while barefoot, I joined the line of pilgrims and slowly made my way along a causeway and into the center of the complex. I heard music before I got to the building and remembered Tauheed criticism of the taped music playing over and over again at the Hindu temple in Srinagar. When I arrived inside the temple, I saw musicians playing and a cleric reading from a very large book. He read silently and we filed around the closed off center where this activity was in progress. On the second floor, people (men and women mixed) sat in the corners and prayed. Some read from the Korans they carried. There was a railing that kept one from falling from this mezzanine. Looking down onto the first floor, I could see the reader and the musicians. The place was alight with electric lights as well as sunlight coming through the open windows. I made my way back to the walkway beyond the tank’s edge to a cloister where you could get out of the sun and it was acceptable to lie on the marble floor. I took a rest. My guide had other business but met me at a prearranged place where I unsuccessfully tried to take a nap. Having had only about three or four hours of sleep the night before takes its toll. I sure wish the pilots had been allowed to carry those maps.
In the afternoon after “fooding” I walked into where some very bad things were done by some people to some other people. The British pushed through a bill, the Rowlatt Act, that became law which prohibited assembly. In 1919 an assembly was called to protest the law. This was done in an enclosed area of I’d guess ten acres. A General Dyer got wind of the meeting, called out the Gurkas and an armored vehicle, and marched into the only egress of the enclosure and set the Gurkas to shooting into the crowd. One source, The Lonely Planet Guide, states that 400 people were killed outright and 1500 were injured. The armored vehicle was not used in the massacre because the entrance lane was too narrow for it to join in. Some shots went high and struck a wall against which people huddled. There was a well nearby and 120 bodies were later taken from the well into which the people leapt. There are many sites in India which are historical or holy. This garden, since planted, lays claim to both aspects. The actions changed minds in both India and Great Brittan and while Independence would come almost thirty years later, this action was one, which even the staunchest advocates of the Raj could not put out of their minds.
In the evening my guide loaded me up in a taxi and off we went to the border station, Attari/Wagah. The place is known for two reasons. One, it is the only overland opening in the border between Pakistan and India. Two, there is a military exercise every evening, which after much fanfare, each country lowers its flag. It proves to be a time to both show off and to demonstrate that the two countries can live together side by side. So it is a mixture of a peace happening mixed with the posturing of a football game. Mercifully, they did away with the football. We got their after many of the Indians had gathered. I walked into the crowd with my guide behind me. One of the advantages of having over a period of years been raised drinking a swimming pool full of milk, is that I’m a little taller than most Indians. So I could see above the heads in front of me…well some of them. These border guards start at six feet and grow up from there. Just in case you don’t notice their height, they wear an accordion folded cockscomb on their turbans. That gives them another 10 inches which crowds seven feet. They are all young, nice looking men, and are athletes the likes of which are never seen in Texas. These guys can march faster than a horse trots and do high-kicks that would be the envy of any full back or cheer leader. One of them spotted my white hair and red complexion and I was ordered to go to the VIP section. I looked around for my guide and he was gone. Losing guides are about as easy as leaving a tip so I decided that he could find me, see that I got back to the hotel, or else there was the acacia tree option. I was only following my orders and found a place to sit on a step. There is something a little undemocratic about this but I paid attention to what was going on in the middle of the street and overlooked my privilege due to being born beyond the borders of India.
An impromptu dance was in progress on the pavement. This was accompanied by nationalistic shouts and slogans. About a dozen folks, mostly young people, danced to music coming through the PA system. Probably there were more Indians than any other nation but there were plenty of other nations. Later an Indian girl in her teens danced a traditional dance alone, at least for a while. She was joined by a young European woman, who had no idea about the dance movement, and the woman did cause a bit of distraction. She was asked to sit down which she did. Then the soldiers marched forth to the applause of the crowd. You could see through the barred gate marking the border so you could you could watch the Pakistanis if the program got too quiet on the Indian side. Each side waved a great national flag. What had been “people together” dance now became partisan. You can never find a football when you need one.
So with high stepping and quick stepping and back and forth to the gate, which was finally opened to the roaring cheers of both sides, the smartly uniformed six footers marched onto the border, the officers briefly shook hands, salutes exchanged, and then the soldiers lowered their nation’s flag slowly and in unison. The half-hour to forty-five minute choreography was worth the trip but I wondered whether this brought the two nations closer together or simply reestablished their rather artificial tribalism. I watched from Punjab (India) and as far as you could see to the west across the border, was all Punjab (Pakistan.) The flags were stowed away in the early dusk and the crowd broke up. This was no pro football crowd but was large enough to lose a short guide. I climbed up on a landing and let him find me.
The last and first light of day are shorter the nearer you get to the equator but as we drove back to Amritsar from the border, I had plenty of light to look at the depth of defensive military installations. For all the strut and hand-shaking and in concert flag lowering, the defenses go on and on for miles. The Indian-Pakistani paradox asks the twin questions, one, was the national division necessary, and two, could a greater India, which would have included all of Pakistan and Bangladesh, have survived the separatist movements without the threat of aggression by an outside force? The last act of the border ritual was once more closing the barred gate.
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