My own encounter with the book has been a unique reader-experience, writes Aparajita Krishna. A one-of-a-kind in my reading of books, Harinder Baweja’s They Will Shoot You, Madam is an astoundingly outstanding narrative of courage and conflict.

Harinder Baweja’s They Will Shoot You, Madam: My Life Through Conflict (Roli Books) is an extraordinary memoir chronicling over four decades of fearless journalism through Punjab, Kashmir, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. A deeply personal yet rigorously factual account, it reveals the moral courage and grit of one of India’s most respected journalists. This book will resonate with readers of political history, women in journalism, and those seeking the truth beyond the headlines.

A Reporter Who Lived Her Story

12th October 2025, I received the copy of the above-mentioned book, via online ordering, as gift from niece Anubha Sawhney. I promptly started my read and on Oct 16, 2025—4.31 pm—finished reading the book. It’s a Roli Books offering.
Herein I’m attempting to give you a feel of the book with a most audacious title. I am expressing my post-read sentiments, evaluation, not as a reviewer in the strictest sense of the term, but as a reader who has travelled the book. You do not necessarily have to be a socio-political scientist to be its reader. It is a very reader-friendly book despite its serious subject-matter. The attempt in this piece is to give you beyond the written-text a picture-glimpse and sound of the book and urge you to get your copy and experience it. The reviews of the book, detailed assessments are in the public domain. I am also sharing some specially communicated inputs to me from the author.

Let me gloat a bit with borrowed feathers and inform you that Harinder Baweja, also Shammy Baweja to me-likes, was my college-mate at Jesus & Mary College, New Delhi from 1978 to 1981. We graduated in English Honours. We have kept in-touch. (My smiling emojis). 

Most fittingly she has been honoured for her most distinctive body of work and has won the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for excellence in Journalism, the Prabha Dutt Prize, and the Haldighati Award. She has been the author of A Soldier’s Diary: Kargil the Inside Story, and has edited and contributed to various anthologies, including, 26/11: Mumbai Attacked and Most Wanted: Profiles of Terror.

Pramod Kapoor (Indian writer, publisher, who in 1978 founded Roli Books, the publishing house) is quoted saying “Few journalists I know have lived their profession with such fearless intensity as my dear friend of nearly four decades, Shammy Harinder Baweja. Her new book, They Will Shoot You Madam: My Life Through Conflict, is as unputdownable as the life she has led.

For Shammy, the story always comes first. No matter how dangerous the trouble spot or how high the flames, her grit, determination, and perhaps sheer luck have carried her through fireballs unscathed, to bring the world the truth from within them. This book is history told in the voice of courage and honesty. I couldn’t be prouder that it is being published by Roli Books.”

Walking Through Fire, Reporting Truths

I am in no ‘Conflict’ with myself in declaring that award-winning journalist Harinder Baweja’s latest book will for time to come remain a most important reference point on the subject matter.

It is an account from a journalist of a generation that ‘walked the talk’. Her reporting journey began in 1984. She has been reporting on current affairs, with a particular emphasis on conflict, for over four decades. Her journey, her calling as a writer, has taken her through the battlefield of Punjab and onwards to insurgency-ridden Jammu and Kashmir and further still she has mapped various crises in Pakistan and was in Afghanistan when the Taliban first rode into Kabul in 1996.

The book covers an audacious, most researched, lived, adventured, experienced account of her journey and investigative combats as a noted investigative-political Indian journalist. In a very balanced manner, the author gives us a first-person account of the many conflict zones, chapters, spread across the Indian landscape as well as across the Indian borders and across many countries. It also emerges from a journalist who has in person been at the conflict-zones; physically, psychologically and emotionally.

A very brave book of reportage. Most meticulously informed and preciously truthful, liberal, progressive.

In her personal communication with me Harinder Baweja tells me: “What a great time we had in Jesus & Mary College! Thanks for wanting to write about my book. I actually stumbled into journalism. We were young idealists when we graduated from college in 1981 and the only writing I had done was for the college magazine. Since we had spent three years doing English Honours, I frankly mostly thought of either pursuing advertising or journalism and since I didn't quite know which one to choose, I did a diploma course in both. I chose journalism and realised quickly that it is not something one learns in a classroom. The kind of journalism I've practised comes from gruelling field work and now when I look back at my career that spans over four decades, I strongly feel that I found my calling because I like digging facts and getting to the truth. Journalism is a part of my bloodstream and to be honest, I realise that I am not just a 'danger junkie', I am a danger addict. I have spent over four decades covering different conflicts and my endeavour always has been to get to the reasons for why conflict takes root. I have focused on the sociology and psychology of violence and tried to hold a mirror to reality. My journey through conflict has helped me understand that while conflict itself is murky, it is made murkier by the political players, who are now driven more by ideology than by a national security doctrine aimed at delivering peace. To my mind, two years in contemporary history stand out for being catastrophic flashpoints. First 1984, the year in which prime minister Indira Gandhi signed off on a costly mission to clear the Golden Temple, the most sacred Sikh shrine. The Golden Temple complex, had been converted into a fortress by the self-styled zealot Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and in the end, the Army used tanks to get to Bhindranwale. The damage inflicted on the complex cost Mrs Gandhi her life and also lead to the worst anti-Sikh carnage. The wounds of 1984 are still to heal. The second year, 1992, stands out for the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent violence against the minority community. The Hindu-Muslim fault-line created in 1992 still festers in 2025. I hope the readers of my book will get a better understanding of why conflict takes birth, how political fuel is added to the fire and how the road to peace is a difficult one to walk. My personal experiences, be they with the terrorists, the politicians, the separatists or the military, make for a powerful read.” 

A Chronicle That Reads Like Cinema

Now to come back to this book from my point-of-view, the cover-page is visually very telling! It has journalist Harinder Baweja, head covered with dupatta, with a note-pad, pen in hand, sitting amidst the Taliban men in Afghanistan.

In her acknowledgements Shammy recognises that ‘conflict as an idea for the book had been taking shape in her mind for years’. Her personal is also political. Four decades of being a journalist! She thanks all the editors she has worked with and lists her work profile at the many newspapers and news-magazines: India Today, Tehelka, Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Quint, The Sunday Observer.

Her accounts of the various conflicts spread over the chapters read like a screenplay of scenes she visited as a journalist. Her inner and outer thoughts collage in a gripping vocabulary, which had me travel along as an accompanist. While the mood of the chapters is conflict, the text is evocative and layered! In fact if I may dare (without meaning to takeaway anything from the gravitas of the content), the book is so riveting and engaging in its conflict-reportage that as a reader I had to many a times shake myself up and remind myself that ‘Hello, you are not reading a ‘Thriller’’!

I could almost hear the soundtrack in the written-words. A Bang-On researched book! (all puns intended). The words, the scene-play give you a sense of the audio-visual play of the incidents. The content of the conflicts is not in the least celebratory, but so sharp and innovative is her writing-narrative that I found myself many a times cheering the reportage.

Apart from her personally meeting and covering the political-leaderships, citizens, her ground-reporting even amidst cross-fires has been with separatists, militants.

The narrative includes transcriptions of the conversations she has had with her subjects, terrorists included. Yasin Mallik tells her ‘Mujhse dosti karogi?’

Note the irony that the Indian government’s foreign policy as of October 2025 has seen Afghanistan’s Taliban government’s foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi visit India.

The chapter-titles that I am listing will itself give you a most accurate sense of the book, summarise it for you and also explain the author’s connect with the Conflict within and around our political, historical past and present: Preface // Introduction: I Witness // The Punjab Battlefield And The Shadow Of Khalistan // The Underworld And A ‘Bhai’ // The Grand ‘Hero’ Of Kashmir’s Liberation Movement // Babri Masjid To Ram Mandir // Azad Kashmir: Inside Pakistan Occupied Kashmir // The Masters Of Muridke // Azadi, Unrest And A Furious Uprising // The Indian Army’s Rogue Army // An Article Of Faith And A Great ‘Betrayal’ // My Tryst With The Turbaned Army And Their Edicts // A War In The Barren Mountains // The Deep, Dark World Of Illegal Immigration // Epilogue // Acknowledgements // Index.

A Testament To Truth And Courage

The transcribed recorded Q&A talks over the years are a part of the book’s format.

I am sharing some quotes and takeaways from the pages. “Covering conflict is perilous. It is also heady. It also leads to a deep understanding of how states work….” (page 187). 

Within the pages 208-209 the book also probes the psyche of militancy. For the young Indian Kashmiri militants, the gun became a weapon that vested them with power and a sense of freedom. Economic, political frustrations more of the reason than Islamic fundamentalism. Many astounding revelations come out. “In conflict zones, contrary realities co-exist.” (page 255).

To be noted, especially after reading this book, that not a single Indian film or TV series, set against Kashmir conflict, over the years, has even touched the surface of the issue. They appear bachkaane/childish. Her book is a mine of lived information. Film aficionados can keep flashbacking to films like Kashmir Ki Kali.

On page 240 there is a reference to the film song ‘Deewana Hua Badal….’ She recounts her visit to the violence-festering Kashmir in the year 1995. (The Indian Army’s Rogue Arm’ - Rafi’s voice still had us spellbound when our driver suddenly braked, and Meraj and I jolted out of the mesmerizing lyrics of a song that had been once composed as an ode to Kashmir’s paradisical beauty. ‘Deewana hua badal, saavan ki ghata chhayee/ Yeh dekh ke dil jhooma, lee pyaar ne angdaai…’ // ‘Our musical journey had come to a frightening halt. We found four gunmen, one at each window of our car….

Much to my amazement the book chronicles (page 301) Harinder Baweja’s person to person experience, interview, with Taliban representative. The condition put forth to her was that she would not look him in the eye. “That was a difficult ask. I believe in making eye contact, an essential tool, that helps ease the equation between the interviewer and the interviewee. The Stanekzai interview was the only interview I ever did, while staring at a wall.”

The writer’s on-ground reporting from a most conflicted zone says (Pg 322—323): “While returning from the Panjshir Valley in northern Afghanistan in 1996, I had an urge I could not resist. I requested my cab driver to let me take controls of the car for a few kilometres, which appeared desolate and deserted. I rolled down the windows, pressed the accelerator and drove at high speed. The wind swept the chaddar off my head and rustled my hair. I took a deep breath. Freedoms are empowering. They are not available in Afghanistan. They come with great costs of life and liberty. There is no silver lining on the horizon. The Taliban are the police. They are the army too. The country is in the firm control of their diktats”.

(Pg 328): “The book (A Soldier’s Diary: The Inside Story) got widely read and reviewed. One day, in 2002, my phone rang, and I answered it even though I seldom respond to calls from unknown numbers. A lady introduced herself saying, ‘Hi, this is Preity Zinta….’ ‘Ya sure,’ I said hanging up, reprimanding myself for having taken the call. The phone rang again, and I answered it thinking I’d rebuke the prankster. ‘Hi, this IS Preity Zinta. I’ve just read your book on Kargil and would like to meet you,’ she said. She had been cast to play a war correspondent in the movie Lakshya. Directed by Farhan Akhtar. Set in the backdrop of the Kargil war, the movie released in 2004 and in several interviews and social posts, Zinta called it her ‘toughest film ever’. Shooting at heights of 18,000 feet was not easy and she recalled her experience as being both ‘beautiful and brutal’. Wars are brutal. Shooting a movie in the unpunishing heights is vastly different from taking on an enemy”.

(My add-on: Whatever be the lakshya of the call, sorry to say that our mainstream Hindi cinema has not risen to portray war and war-reportage as done on-ground in reality. For that you will have to experience Harinder Baweja’s textual yet visual narrative. I hope they don’t now ask her to write a film screenplay.) 

The book covers ‘Operation Sindoor’ and informs us from the field of war terrain of resource-unpreparedness at our end too, especially in relation to aid, supplies to our soldiers. These seem to have been kept away from Indian public domain.
(Pg 358): “For the sake of transparency, it is imperative that governments keep Parliament, and their citizens informed. Transparency is vital for a democracy. It cannot and should not be kept cloaked. That only adds to the fog of information as also to the fog of war”.

(Pg359, 360) In the chapter ‘THE DEEP, DARK WORLD OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS’: the author gives us an interesting sense of how in investigative journalism, sting operations, ‘wearing’ hidden spy-cameras is operative. As also how she and colleagues, in order to infiltrate the vast network of agents, posed as immigrants who wanted to illegally cross into UK from Belgium. The dangerous business of sending illegals was run mostly by South Asians.

(Pg 363-364): “As we dug ourselves into the rabbit hole of research, we came across a wide cast of characters. We also managed to unearth the modus operandi through spy cam conversations with several agents”.

The writing had me engulfed as a rapt reader-audience-listener-viewer. The journalist-author’s deep research digs deeper and deeper….

(Pg 384): Conflicts add words and phrases to its dictionary and ‘half widows’-unique to the Kashmir valley—are a group of women whose husbands have gone missing but have not been declared dead.

On page 387 the author tells us of her role model: “In the Preface, I have written about hate being the new fault line, and to return to the question of role models, I must confess that Bilkis Bano—the young pregnant mother who was gang raped during the 2002 riots that shook Gujarat—ranks high on my list”.

In a most fitting epilogue to the book the author mulls over ‘Do I despair….’ (Pg 389): “Do I despair, Priya Kapoor, the editorial director of my publishing house asked me, when she sent me feedback on my manuscript. I thought about the question and understood that yes, I was given to despair, but I am not the only one. I understood, also, that I’m a firm believer in the power of individuals, of groups and organizations who continue to wage daily battles to end civil strife; to fight for a united, pluralistic and secular India that is fundamentally enshrined in our Constitution”.

(Page 390): Mohammad Rafi’s mesmerizing voice is my ‘rational anthem.’ …Rafi’s lilting voice is soulful and the lyrics of the ‘rational anthem’ carry deep meaning.

‘Tu Hindu Banega, na Musalmaan banega…Insaan ki aulad heh…Insaan banega.’

It is from the movie, Dhool ka Phool. In the movie, the song is sung by a Muslim father who is bringing up a Hindu child. The movie was made decades ago, in 1959. That’s the ‘note’ I’d like to end on. That’s the only ‘chord’ that can take us forward.
The Last para (page 393): The timing of the book is fortuitous. It is a reminder of the many conflicts and the many fault lines we continue to negotiate. Conflict is up front and centre. It is a reality that will continue to stare us in the face.

Reader Aparajita has completed her first read of this book and is going to start her second read to get even more insights from the narrative.