A riot memoir: Anxiety, privilege and Molotov cocktails
A Delhi-based journalist recounts the anxiety he experienced during the anti-CAA protests and Delhi riots, highlighting the mental health impact of such events
Part One: Fire In Daryaganj
“The Internet’s out!” announced a colleague in the newsroom on a cold December afternoon. I froze. I got up from my chair, took the exit, walked towards the pantry and called up Mom.
“News dekhi aapne? (Did you see the news?)”
“Nahi, kya hua? (Why, what happened?)”
A couple of months before the Delhi riots in February 2020, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests caused mayhem. The protestors objected to the proposal of a National Register of Citizens (NRC). On December 19, 2019, police banned protests in several places including parts of New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka with the imposition of Section 144, which prohibits the gathering of more than four individuals in a public space.
Mom was fast asleep that afternoon. I informed her that the anti-CAA protests were possibly turning violent. Commuting daily to Noida Film City from my house in Delhi was a challenge in itself, given Noida’s traffic and crowded metro coaches. Long-distance travel, as anyone with even mild anxiety would corroborate, is a nightmare. More so when it is during a time of unrest.
I panicked. As someone who lives in Delhi with his single mother and has no acquaintances in Noida, I had to figure out how to get back home safely. In hindsight, perhaps it wasn’t that big a deal. But in that moment, for my anxious mind, which often thinks of the worst possible outcome in every situation, it was a nightmare.
I took a deep breath and glanced at the network bars on my phone. The 4G mark had disappeared. Until that moment, I hadn’t known just how paranoid an Internet shutdown could make me. My heart raced as I got back to my seat. I was pretending that the news didn’t bother me, that I wasn’t worried at all. Were my colleagues worried about getting back home safely? I don’t know. I was too caught up in my own head to ask.
The shutdown happened at 2 pm and my shift was to end at 6.30 PM. Every minute in the office felt like an hour. I desperately wanted to leave. I went to the cafeteria for lunch and met a colleague on her way out of the office. “Why aren’t they letting you go home? It is unsafe to stay here today”, she said. She was part of the advertising team and could go home early.
That’s the thing with news. The show must go on. TVs cannot show a black screen; websites have live blogs to run; reporters have stories to break; editorial heads have UV (unique visitor) and PV (pages per view) targets to achieve. Working from home during troubled times is a privilege few in a busy newsroom can afford.
When the ban on public gatherings was imposed in parts of Delhi on December 19, 20 metro stations were closed to prevent movement. At least 700 flights were delayed and more than 20 were cancelled due to traffic jams caused by police closing roads to stifle protests. Delhi was in chaos and the law-and-order situation was worsening by the hour.
At 5 pm, I was filing copies at lightning speed. “One more hour, Deepansh. You will make it,” I told myself as televisions in the newsroom replayed images of arson in Daryaganj. The rioters threw Molotov cocktails at public property, causing fires and injuries to bystanders. The trouble was no longer limited to northeast Delhi. It had spread to other parts, some of which were on my route as per Google Maps. According to a report in The Hindu, police and rioters, who had set a car on fire, clashed in Daryaganj and water cannons were brought out.
My heart skipped a beat. I thought of Sanjay Suri’s memoir, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After, which recounts his experience of covering the pogrom after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. I am no Sanjay Suri — I worked on the entertainment desk where the most monumental newsbreak was to come seven months later in June 2020 with the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. I was no braveheart risking my life to cover riots. I only wanted to make it back home safely to my cosy 2 BHK in Delhi. That alone was a heroic act for me.
“You’ll have to take the metro,” Mom said on the phone. Taking a cab was too risky, she said. What if rioters attacked the cab? It was a highly likely scenario.
The clock struck 6.30 pm. I stepped out of the office building, my heart pounding in my chest. I took an auto to the nearest metro station. As I entered the last coach of the Dwarka-bound train, my hands were shivering. The metro was safe, there wasn’t a reason to worry, I told myself. After all, the CRPF checks all passengers and weeds out any explosives they might find.
As the train glided along, I could feel a panic attack coming on. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the coach had run out of air. I called my mother frantically. “Please stay on the call. I am not okay; do not disconnect,” I begged. Then, the metro went underground and the call signal dropped. I couldn’t hear her voice anymore. I stood frozen in the middle of a crowded coach, struggling to breathe.
I decided that I’d get off at Rajiv Chowk station and take a breather. The station is always crowded but for someone with anxiety, it’s a place that, strangely, allows me to breathe. Its coffee shops and spacious eateries offer some comfort. The train arrived at Rajiv Chowk but, to my horror, it didn’t stop. Everyone was whispering and some were as confused as I was.
In came an alert from the DMRC’s official Twitter handle: “Entry and exit to the following metro stations are now closed due to security concerns…” At this point, the lower half of my body went numb. I couldn’t feel anything below my waist; it felt as if my legs didn’t have nerve endings. A concerned passenger made me sit down.
I called my mother. “Please pick me up from the metro station, you have to,” I cried. Then, it struck me that it wasn’t safe for her to venture out either. I told her to wait for me to get back.
Once outside, I begged rickshaw drivers to drop me home; all of them asked for an exorbitant amount for the 2 km ride. A Sikh driver, seeing me panicking, agreed to drop me home. I asked him to drive as fast as he could.
Mom was standing at the main gate. I ran into her arms and wept; I wept loud enough for people around to notice and stare. The auto driver too was concerned. He hadn’t expected to see a fully-grown 24-year-old bearded man weep in his mother’s arms. Mom picked up my bag, helped me upstairs and tucked me in bed.
I spent the next two hours sobbing as the numbness in my legs persisted. Living with debilitating anxiety is tough enough without riots in the city. I wondered if there are others like me, people who struggle to live a fully-functional life with crippling mental illness. How do they survive?
I wonder why the discourse around intersectionality doesn’t acknowledge the interconnectedness of politics and mental health. For some of us, poor mental health is a direct consequence of hatred sown by divisive politics. I had to go to work the next day and do it all over again. Taking a mental health break is a privilege few can afford.
Part Two: 5 Star Rating
“This pink gown looks so pretty on her,” said my mother who was awestruck by Melania Trump’s wardrobe. “It’s even better than the off-white dress she wore for the Taj Mahal visit.” In February 2020, then United States President Donald Trump was on his Namaste Trump visit to India. The rally of the same name held in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, as a response to the Howdy Modi event held in Houston, Texas, in September 2019, was the highlight of the tour.
The Motera Stadium (now known as Narendra Modi Stadium) hosted Trump and his family along with the Prime Minister. The twice-impeached US President made hilarious verbal gaffes at the rally, remixes of which went viral on social media. I was scrolling through the TikToks of remixes (the app wasn’t banned then) as my mother watched the banquet. She gushed over Melania’s pink gown as the former First Lady made her way to Rashtrapati Bhavan for the ceremonial dinner. The live images showed a decked-up Rashtrapati Bhavan against the Delhi skyline.
A few kilometres away, in northeast Delhi, the Capital’s most intense communal clashes since 1984 were underway. Riots broke out on 23 February 2020, a day before Trump’s arrival, and continued until 29 February, four days after his departure. 53 people died in a span of six days.
Little did I know that I was in for a life-altering experience. I stepped out of the office building at 3 pm on that pleasant February afternoon. It was sunny and windy, my favourite weather — neither too hot nor too cold. I wasn’t anxious — the riots were limited to east Delhi and this time, I had carefully vetted my entire route via Google Maps to ensure that it didn’t coincide with riot-struck areas — Shiv Vihar, Maujpur and Jaffrabad, among others.
I got into the cab, gave the driver the OTP, and we drove off. The best part about working morning shifts is getting to go home early, avoiding the evening rush. I immersed myself in music and enjoyed the golden sun on my face. I was almost asleep in the passenger seat when the driver made a sudden anxious movement.
“Sab theek hain yahan (Everything is fine here),” he murmured into his phone. He looked agitated and instantly disconnected the call when he realized I was looking at him. The journey continued. When we reached the AIIMS flyover, he received another call. “Mummy, kuch nahi hai yahan. Aap tension mat lo (Mom, chill. There’s nothing to worry about here)”.
At this point, I understood he was uneasy because of the trouble in the city. “But we aren’t taking the route that goes through east Delhi. Why is he even worried?” I wondered. The rest of the ride was smooth. Not a word or glance was exchanged between me and the young lad driving the car.
Soon, we entered the residential area next to my house. The driver suddenly panicked, almost springing up from his seat. “Don’t worry. This is a safe area. Nothing will go wrong here,” I said. He didn’t respond and just kept driving. I found that rather strange. Why was he worried when we were at least 40 kilometers away from rioters?
Regardless, I reached my house location, this time in a self-composed state. I paid and stepped out. The Uber app asked me to rate the driver. “How was your trip with Asif Khan? Rate your experience”. That’s when it hit me that Asif was anxious throughout the ride because he was Muslim. I thought then of my immense privilege as a Hindu man who doesn’t have to worry about his safety in most places in the city.
For boys like Asif, even in areas which aren’t hit by riots, there’s a risk of being attacked by religious mobs. I now understood why he hadn’t responded when I asked him to calm down. He knew I, as a Hindu, wouldn’t understand that he needed to look over his shoulder and watch out for threats.
In his memoir, Agnipariksha: An Ordeal Remembered, lawyer Hamid Kureshi documented his experience of surviving the 1969 Gujarat riots. Kureshi — a third-generation Gandhian and a non-practising Muslim married to a Hindu woman — wrote of being reduced to just his religious identity in the wake of riots in Ahmedabad. For Kureshi, the hatred directed at him because of his religious identity was incomprehensible. It was the same hatred that made Asif panic throughout the Uber ride.
A few years later, in 2023, as Haryana was hit by violence, I felt that old familiar chronic PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) creeping up on my nerves. The violent visuals of arson and stone pelting triggered unwelcome flashbacks. As I write, the news is full of images of homes and shanties belonging to Muslims being bulldozed.
It will take eons for us to fully understand the mental health ramifications of living through riots. But as I mentioned before, taking mental health breaks to heal is a privilege that few in India can afford.
Deepansh Duggal writes on art and culture. Twitter: @Deepansh75.
Part One: Fire In Daryaganj
“The Internet’s out!” announced a colleague in the newsroom on a cold December afternoon. I froze. I got up from my chair, took the exit, walked towards the pantry and called up Mom.
“News dekhi aapne? (Did you see the news?)”
“Nahi, kya hua? (Why, what happened?)”
A couple of months before the Delhi riots in February 2020, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests caused mayhem. The protestors objected to the proposal of a National Register of Citizens (NRC). On December 19, 2019, police banned protests in several places including parts of New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka with the imposition of Section 144, which prohibits the gathering of more than four individuals in a public space.
Mom was fast asleep that afternoon. I informed her that the anti-CAA protests were possibly turning violent. Commuting daily to Noida Film City from my house in Delhi was a challenge in itself, given Noida’s traffic and crowded metro coaches. Long-distance travel, as anyone with even mild anxiety would corroborate, is a nightmare. More so when it is during a time of unrest.
I panicked. As someone who lives in Delhi with his single mother and has no acquaintances in Noida, I had to figure out how to get back home safely. In hindsight, perhaps it wasn’t that big a deal. But in that moment, for my anxious mind, which often thinks of the worst possible outcome in every situation, it was a nightmare.
I took a deep breath and glanced at the network bars on my phone. The 4G mark had disappeared. Until that moment, I hadn’t known just how paranoid an Internet shutdown could make me. My heart raced as I got back to my seat. I was pretending that the news didn’t bother me, that I wasn’t worried at all. Were my colleagues worried about getting back home safely? I don’t know. I was too caught up in my own head to ask.
The shutdown happened at 2 pm and my shift was to end at 6.30 PM. Every minute in the office felt like an hour. I desperately wanted to leave. I went to the cafeteria for lunch and met a colleague on her way out of the office. “Why aren’t they letting you go home? It is unsafe to stay here today”, she said. She was part of the advertising team and could go home early.
That’s the thing with news. The show must go on. TVs cannot show a black screen; websites have live blogs to run; reporters have stories to break; editorial heads have UV (unique visitor) and PV (pages per view) targets to achieve. Working from home during troubled times is a privilege few in a busy newsroom can afford.
When the ban on public gatherings was imposed in parts of Delhi on December 19, 20 metro stations were closed to prevent movement. At least 700 flights were delayed and more than 20 were cancelled due to traffic jams caused by police closing roads to stifle protests. Delhi was in chaos and the law-and-order situation was worsening by the hour.
At 5 pm, I was filing copies at lightning speed. “One more hour, Deepansh. You will make it,” I told myself as televisions in the newsroom replayed images of arson in Daryaganj. The rioters threw Molotov cocktails at public property, causing fires and injuries to bystanders. The trouble was no longer limited to northeast Delhi. It had spread to other parts, some of which were on my route as per Google Maps. According to a report in The Hindu, police and rioters, who had set a car on fire, clashed in Daryaganj and water cannons were brought out.
My heart skipped a beat. I thought of Sanjay Suri’s memoir, 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After, which recounts his experience of covering the pogrom after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. I am no Sanjay Suri — I worked on the entertainment desk where the most monumental newsbreak was to come seven months later in June 2020 with the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. I was no braveheart risking my life to cover riots. I only wanted to make it back home safely to my cosy 2 BHK in Delhi. That alone was a heroic act for me.
“You’ll have to take the metro,” Mom said on the phone. Taking a cab was too risky, she said. What if rioters attacked the cab? It was a highly likely scenario.
The clock struck 6.30 pm. I stepped out of the office building, my heart pounding in my chest. I took an auto to the nearest metro station. As I entered the last coach of the Dwarka-bound train, my hands were shivering. The metro was safe, there wasn’t a reason to worry, I told myself. After all, the CRPF checks all passengers and weeds out any explosives they might find.
As the train glided along, I could feel a panic attack coming on. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the coach had run out of air. I called my mother frantically. “Please stay on the call. I am not okay; do not disconnect,” I begged. Then, the metro went underground and the call signal dropped. I couldn’t hear her voice anymore. I stood frozen in the middle of a crowded coach, struggling to breathe.
I decided that I’d get off at Rajiv Chowk station and take a breather. The station is always crowded but for someone with anxiety, it’s a place that, strangely, allows me to breathe. Its coffee shops and spacious eateries offer some comfort. The train arrived at Rajiv Chowk but, to my horror, it didn’t stop. Everyone was whispering and some were as confused as I was.
In came an alert from the DMRC’s official Twitter handle: “Entry and exit to the following metro stations are now closed due to security concerns…” At this point, the lower half of my body went numb. I couldn’t feel anything below my waist; it felt as if my legs didn’t have nerve endings. A concerned passenger made me sit down.
I called my mother. “Please pick me up from the metro station, you have to,” I cried. Then, it struck me that it wasn’t safe for her to venture out either. I told her to wait for me to get back.
Once outside, I begged rickshaw drivers to drop me home; all of them asked for an exorbitant amount for the 2 km ride. A Sikh driver, seeing me panicking, agreed to drop me home. I asked him to drive as fast as he could.
Mom was standing at the main gate. I ran into her arms and wept; I wept loud enough for people around to notice and stare. The auto driver too was concerned. He hadn’t expected to see a fully-grown 24-year-old bearded man weep in his mother’s arms. Mom picked up my bag, helped me upstairs and tucked me in bed.
I spent the next two hours sobbing as the numbness in my legs persisted. Living with debilitating anxiety is tough enough without riots in the city. I wondered if there are others like me, people who struggle to live a fully-functional life with crippling mental illness. How do they survive?
I wonder why the discourse around intersectionality doesn’t acknowledge the interconnectedness of politics and mental health. For some of us, poor mental health is a direct consequence of hatred sown by divisive politics. I had to go to work the next day and do it all over again. Taking a mental health break is a privilege few can afford.
Part Two: 5 Star Rating
“This pink gown looks so pretty on her,” said my mother who was awestruck by Melania Trump’s wardrobe. “It’s even better than the off-white dress she wore for the Taj Mahal visit.” In February 2020, then United States President Donald Trump was on his Namaste Trump visit to India. The rally of the same name held in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, as a response to the Howdy Modi event held in Houston, Texas, in September 2019, was the highlight of the tour.
The Motera Stadium (now known as Narendra Modi Stadium) hosted Trump and his family along with the Prime Minister. The twice-impeached US President made hilarious verbal gaffes at the rally, remixes of which went viral on social media. I was scrolling through the TikToks of remixes (the app wasn’t banned then) as my mother watched the banquet. She gushed over Melania’s pink gown as the former First Lady made her way to Rashtrapati Bhavan for the ceremonial dinner. The live images showed a decked-up Rashtrapati Bhavan against the Delhi skyline.
A few kilometres away, in northeast Delhi, the Capital’s most intense communal clashes since 1984 were underway. Riots broke out on 23 February 2020, a day before Trump’s arrival, and continued until 29 February, four days after his departure. 53 people died in a span of six days.
Little did I know that I was in for a life-altering experience. I stepped out of the office building at 3 pm on that pleasant February afternoon. It was sunny and windy, my favourite weather — neither too hot nor too cold. I wasn’t anxious — the riots were limited to east Delhi and this time, I had carefully vetted my entire route via Google Maps to ensure that it didn’t coincide with riot-struck areas — Shiv Vihar, Maujpur and Jaffrabad, among others.
I got into the cab, gave the driver the OTP, and we drove off. The best part about working morning shifts is getting to go home early, avoiding the evening rush. I immersed myself in music and enjoyed the golden sun on my face. I was almost asleep in the passenger seat when the driver made a sudden anxious movement.
“Sab theek hain yahan (Everything is fine here),” he murmured into his phone. He looked agitated and instantly disconnected the call when he realized I was looking at him. The journey continued. When we reached the AIIMS flyover, he received another call. “Mummy, kuch nahi hai yahan. Aap tension mat lo (Mom, chill. There’s nothing to worry about here)”.
At this point, I understood he was uneasy because of the trouble in the city. “But we aren’t taking the route that goes through east Delhi. Why is he even worried?” I wondered. The rest of the ride was smooth. Not a word or glance was exchanged between me and the young lad driving the car.
Soon, we entered the residential area next to my house. The driver suddenly panicked, almost springing up from his seat. “Don’t worry. This is a safe area. Nothing will go wrong here,” I said. He didn’t respond and just kept driving. I found that rather strange. Why was he worried when we were at least 40 kilometers away from rioters?
Regardless, I reached my house location, this time in a self-composed state. I paid and stepped out. The Uber app asked me to rate the driver. “How was your trip with Asif Khan? Rate your experience”. That’s when it hit me that Asif was anxious throughout the ride because he was Muslim. I thought then of my immense privilege as a Hindu man who doesn’t have to worry about his safety in most places in the city.
For boys like Asif, even in areas which aren’t hit by riots, there’s a risk of being attacked by religious mobs. I now understood why he hadn’t responded when I asked him to calm down. He knew I, as a Hindu, wouldn’t understand that he needed to look over his shoulder and watch out for threats.
In his memoir, Agnipariksha: An Ordeal Remembered, lawyer Hamid Kureshi documented his experience of surviving the 1969 Gujarat riots. Kureshi — a third-generation Gandhian and a non-practising Muslim married to a Hindu woman — wrote of being reduced to just his religious identity in the wake of riots in Ahmedabad. For Kureshi, the hatred directed at him because of his religious identity was incomprehensible. It was the same hatred that made Asif panic throughout the Uber ride.
A few years later, in 2023, as Haryana was hit by violence, I felt that old familiar chronic PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) creeping up on my nerves. The violent visuals of arson and stone pelting triggered unwelcome flashbacks. As I write, the news is full of images of homes and shanties belonging to Muslims being bulldozed.
It will take eons for us to fully understand the mental health ramifications of living through riots. But as I mentioned before, taking mental health breaks to heal is a privilege that few in India can afford.
Deepansh Duggal writes on art and culture. Twitter: @Deepansh75.
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