A year on from the Delhi riots, our story attempts to understand how riot-affected children rebuild their lives as adults, speaking to numerous survivors, social workers, psychiatrists and researchers. Impacts need not be permanent, we found, as both studies and survivors pointed to coping mechanisms and healing processes.
As part of an ongoing project,
Databaaz, the video arm of
IndiaSpend, is speaking to the families of victims in the Delhi riots to understand the impact that the violence had on children. We present a few in the photo essay below:
Trauma, psychological distress
Children affected by riots might experience a cluster of physical and mental symptoms, including unexplained pain, sleeplessness, nightmares, listlessness, loss of appetite and fear of sounds in the aftermath, according to several studies and experts. “Death is visible, a broken building is visible, but mental health issues are not always visible,” Harish Shetty, a Mumbai-based psychiatrist who wo
One January day in 1993, 14-year-old Abdul Wahid Shaikh was out shopping when the police opened fire in Vikhroli, a suburb in north-east Bombay (now Mumbai). A bullet grazed the teenager, who dropped his bags and raced towards the mosque nearby for cover. He sheltered there for a few hours, then crept back home when he felt it was safe. Shaikh had seen little violence in his short life until then; he had Hindu friends and a happy childhood. Then, following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, on December 6, 1992, violence erupted in Vikhroli Parksite and elsewhere in the city, lasting into January 1993. Night after night, Shaikh s family barricaded themselves inside their home, alert for sounds of yelling and gunfire. He was even deputed to stand guard at his sister s house during the tense times. I had to grow up suddenly, he told IndiaSpend. I was no longer a child.
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