They Will Shoot You, Madam: My life through conflict

Award-winning journalist Harinder Baweja has ventured deep into conflict zones, bringing to light stories from difficult terrains. From the bloodied streets of Punjab to the volatile battleground of Jammu and Kashmir, and onwards to Pakistan and ravaged Afghanistan, where the Taliban refused to look her in the eye, she has borne witness to the fractures that define nations and people. The book reflects her dispatches from ground zero and captures the sociology and psychology of violence and the role of religion in radicalization. It also examines how political decisions and government apathy can stoke and inflame fires and birth fresh fault lines.

Baweja’s reporting journey began in 1984, a catastrophic year that altered India and, in many ways, her own life. After covering the anti-Sikh riots that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and mapping the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, she grappled with questions of identity, humanity and the cost of conflict. These experiences not only shaped her as a journalist but also as a person who confronted the darkest chapters of contemporary India’s turbulent history.

Belonging to a generation that ‘walked the talk’, she chronicled narratives through relentless on-ground reporting, building trusted sources, braving hair-raising situations, and focussing on the non-combatants, forever caught in the brutality of violence. For Baweja, journalism was never just a profession. It was a calling – the kind that cannot be learned in a classroom. This book is a detailed account of seismic events that have shaped India’s contemporary history – a must-read for those seeking to understand the stories behind the headlines and the country’s many frissons.