Amritsar: At half an hour’s drive from Punjab’s Amritsar city lie Makhan Windi and Jethuwal villages. Located close together, both have much in common, including proximity to the international border with Pakistan.
Residents of both villages were also witness to last week’s dogfight in the sky between India and Pakistan, involving armed drones and loitering ammunition.
When I first reached Amritsar Friday morning, these villages were being spoken about by officials and reporters alike as areas where wreckage was falling. By that time, locals in villages around Khasa Cantt had also heard booming sounds.
Early Friday morning, the first assignment was to reach these villages and get accounts of events. How scared were the locals on account of the drones and ammunition flying over their heads and homes?
Riding his modified tractor from a field adjacent to his plush house in Makhan Windi village, Jagjeet Singh, 35, recalled discussing with his neighbour the sound of blasts in the area over the last two days. Moreover, he was informed that a portion of a weapon had also landed in a field near his house.
He didn’t seem bothered, though. “I got to know about the wreckage falling in the village. Saw some lads encircling the area and playing with the pieces before the police took them away,” he told me, sitting atop his tractor.
He was not the only one with the “I am not scared at all” attitude in this part of India.
Nearer to the international border in the same region, Manjinder Singh was part of a congregation at the village gurudwara in Khasa village. While the meeting was originally meant to discuss the renovation of the shrine, two sounds of blasts early Friday dominated the conversation.
Residents of these villages in Amritsar had started getting used to the sound of blasts. In fact, they were expecting a heated military confrontation between India and Pakistan.
The region, residents said, was relatively calmer Thursday night and early Friday morning compared to other border districts of Punjab, although there was no end to the tension.
While there has been no official confirmation on what the wreckage falling from the sky was, a statement by the Ministry of Defence Thursday gave an indication—the wreckage was portions of artillery launched by Pakistan in the border districts of Punjab.
‘We pay the price first’
Recalling events in the early hours of Friday, Manjinder Singh said he heard two sounds of very high intensity around 4.30 am and then 5 am.
“There was a complete blackout in our village. While the move to cut off electricity was announced, villagers were briefed on the steps to be taken at such times. A lot more could have been specified, though. A mock drill happened last night, and immediately after the action started,” he told me.
Another resident from the village, Jeevan Singh, said the Friday morning blast came after a similar sound was heard Thursday morning.
I was all ears listening first-hand these accounts of civilians directly in the line of fire between two nuclear-armed nations. They had already heard of massive casualties from their own community in parts of Jammu due to shelling from Pakistan—and here they were, stoic and strong.
Many of them laughed off questions about living near the border amid the escalation of hostilities between India and Pakistan. No one raised fears over an uncertain immediate future and all seemed clear in their minds that fleeing their homes was not an option.
There was a hint of anguish, though.
Not very vocally, but Manjinder Singh made this point to me. “Whoever starts the war and wherever it accelerates, it’s Punjab and the Sikhs who pay the price first, and the heaviest of it all,” he told me at the village gurdwara.
A similar sentiment was echoed by Sawinder Singh at Amritsar’s Wadala Bhitewadh village, where wreckage from a suspected drone landed on a cattle pen in the village centre. The owners of the house, Jagbir Singh Jaggi and his family, were not at the site as it fell early morning Saturday.
Sawinder Singh asked me why Punjab has to bear all the attacks the moment anything goes wrong. “Why are we only attacked in this? Why does the attack not affect other states the way it affects us?” he asked.
On Saturday evening, US President Donald Trump informed the world about a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. As reports trickled in with scant details of the understanding between the two countries to halt hostilities, I rushed to the area around Sri Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar to know the feelings of the local populace.
Known popularly as the Golden Temple to the outside world, the place is arguably the identity of Amritsar city. Notably, lights were switched off at this holiest shrine of the Sikh community to prevent it from coming under attack.
Amritsar was limping back to normalcy and I could only find local businessmen who all shared one sentiment—“Why Punjab?”
While I had no answer to their question right away, it struck me that the people of Punjab have either had enough of such turbulence in their lives over the decades, or their awareness of India-Pakistan hostilities is very different from that of people of other states.
After a brief period of “normalcy” Saturday evening, the city was once again under effective and well-communicated security measures like a blackout and overall red alert amid reports of the ceasefire being broken. The majority of people left the streets to take shelter indoors.
The following Sunday afternoon which, in general, witnesses a mad rush of people and tourists to the Golden Temple, saw another lull. The handful of people who had come to bow their heads before the holy place were either from Amritsar itself or from other districts of Punjab. There was an eerie sense of calm.
The Deputy Commissioner Sakshi Sawhney-led district administration finally announced resumption of regular activities as the ceasefire between India and Pakistan holds, paving the way for the holy city to return to normalcy. However, the city continued to be on high alert on the night of Monday and Tuesday as drones were sighted in the area near the international airport in the city.
The speed of return to normalcy will determine the level of impact the latest India-Pakistan clash had on the people of the state and tourism in Amritsar.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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