From The Ashes of 1947 Reimagining Punjab
From The Ashes of 1947 Reimagining Punjab
From The Ashes of 1947 Reimagining Punjab
This book revisits the partition of the Punjab, its attendant violence and, as a
consequence, the divided and dislocated Punjabi lives. Navigating nostalgia
and trauma, dreams and laments, identity(s) and homeland(s), it explores the
partition of the very idea of Punjabiyat.
It was Punjab (along with Bengal) that was divided to create the new nations
of India and Pakistan and that inherited a communalised and fractured self. In
subsequent years, religious and linguistic sub-divisions followed – arguably,
no other region of the subcontinent has had its linguistic and ethnic history
submerged within respective national and religious identity(s) and none paid
the price of partition like the pluralistic, pre-partition Punjab.
This book is about the dissonance, distortion and dilution which details
the past of the region. It describes ‘people’s history’ through diverse oral
narratives, literary traditions and popular accounts. In terms of space, it
documents the experience of partition in the two prosperous localities of
Ludhiana and Lyallpur (now Faisalabad), with a focus on migration; and in
the Muslim princely state of Malerkotla, with a focus on its escape from the
violence of 1947. In terms of groups, it especially attends to women and their
experiences, beyond the symbolic prism of ‘honour’. Critically examining
existing accounts, discussing the differential impact of partition, and partaking
in the ever democratising discourse on it, this book attempts to illustrate the
lack of closure associated with 1947.
Pippa Virdee teaches Modern South Asian History at De Montfort University,
Leicester. She has been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Governance and
Policy (Information Technology University), Lahore. She is the author of
Coming to Coventry: Stories from the South Asian Pioneers (2006) and has
co-edited Refugees and the End of Empire (2011). Her academic interests
include British colonial history, the history of Punjab and Partition Studies.
From the Ashes of 1947
Reimagining Punjab
Pippa Virdee
UC.AMBRIDGE
� UNIVERSITY PRESS
Table of Contents
List of Photographs vi
List of Maps and Tables vii
List of Excerpts viii
List of Abbreviations ix
Glossary x
Acknowledgements xiii
Preface: Memories Create History xv
5. Sacred Malerkotla 77
Tables
Table 2.1: Development of Punjab during British Colonisation 28
Table 3.1: Religious Composition of Population in East and
West Punjab 1941–51 38
Table 4.1: Evacuation Figures – Total upto 22 November 1947 66
Table 7.1: Number of Factories that Wanted to Relocate
Businesses 145
Table 7.2: Background of Entrepreneurs – 1951 148
Table 7.3: Proportion of Muhajirs in West Punjab 151
Table 7.4: Composition of Population in Lyallpur Town 1941–61 151
Table 8.1: Summary for the Period Ending 30 June 1957 182
List of Excerpts
untainted with the influences of (Arabic) Urdu and (Sanskrit) Hindi in modern
Pakistan and India. Yet there is immediately a connection with each other, a
sense of lost kinship, which is awakened and so the conversation continues to
reminisce about lost homes, friends and childhoods abruptly dislocated. The
past is unadulterated, pure and happy until the great halla, batwara, takseem, or
wand (partition) came to shatter the illusion. The new imagined homelands of
India and Pakistan are then put under the microscope: Was it worth it? There
is a question mark over whether it was worth the loss and why Punjab had to
pay such a heavy price. This is why individuals like Latif and Khan still lament
the politicians and choices they made. The population exchange and territorial
division cannot be undone but the greater tragedy is the loss of homelands that
people can no longer visit. The strict visa controls mean that the ordinary people
still suffer the most because they are unable to visit the ‘other’ side. Why are we
still separated? This is the question many migrants ask.
Indeed, the strained relation between India and Pakistan for the past seventy
years has further embedded this trauma. Although there is still much nostalgia
about ‘my city, my street’, as testified by Abdul Haq,1 the hard border between
the two countries has made it impossible for these forced migrants to re-visit
their homelands. Instead, memories of that lost youth and place have ‘served to
reinforce displacement, loss, and anger’,2 even though some people delayed this
process for as long as possible. However, it is Sarwan Singh who captures the
essence of the issues that have really torn the people that were dislocated. This
was also one of the first interviews I did as a PhD student and the gentle sardar,
sitting there cross-legged in his fabric shop in Malerkotla, with tears in his eyes,
left an emotional impression on me. Poignantly, he talks about his village in
Pakistan and his yearning to visit his ‘home’ again, which will remain unfulfilled:
The thing that has affected me the most, which I still yearn for is the need
to go back to my village and have a look but I am unable to do this. The
law does not allow me to go back there to see my ancestral village and
meet my friends and others there. This thing I feel I will be unable to
complete in my life…Work is good but what happened at that time, the
things we saw and experienced, and now when I see trouble taking place
then it upsets me. We are settled now everything is fine but like I said it
can never compensate for that time and what is in my heart. The thing
that I yearn for, to see my house and my friends.3
Many of the people I interviewed vividly remember their homes. They can
describe their homes in such detail as if an image has been permanently
preserved in their memory. As someone who grew in Nakuru, Kenya, and had
to leave as a child, I can relate to those feelings of wanting to see that home
once again, just the way I imagine it in my head, but I chose not to, partly
because I want to preserve that picture just the way it was, untainted. While
the people I interviewed have moved on and they have settled down and
created new lives, a part of them still yearns for those childhood memories.
Exploring Partition
In 2001,when I started my PhD,I was a student of history with limited knowledge
of partition. Despite being closely connected to that land, I tried to remain an
outsider in order to maintain some objectivity. The process of completing the
thesis and now revisiting it, I realise now, has left an indelible impression on me
and has shaped much of my understanding and growing intellectual interest
in the idea of Punjabiyat. Punjab was divided to create the new nations of
India and Pakistan but the lingering legacy has been one of a communalised
and fractured Punjabi identity. The Punjabi Muslim has been absorbed in
the Pakistan project and thus hardly speaks his mother tongue, especially the
younger generations; the Indian Punjabi has been sub-divided into the Sikh
and the Hindu. The Sikh and Punjabi identity has become synonymous to
create a Punjabi-speaking state and the Hindu Punjabi is marginalised out and
has been absorbed in the Hindutva project. Punjabis as an ethnic group have
therefore been divided (and sub-divided) along religious and then linguistic
lines. Punjabi as a language is now almost exclusively associated with the Sikh
community, yet it is the mother tongue of most Pakistanis who have adopted
Urdu as their national language and thereby created a new mother language.
The Hindu Punjabis, on the other hand, associate themselves with Hindi; this
was of course made easier by linguistic reorganisation of East Punjab 1966.
These are simplified stereotypes of the divided people but, more broadly, they
are symptomatic of the communalised politics of the sub-continent, and more
specifically, they are much more peculiar to the Punjab region. It is difficult to
think of another region in the sub-continent that has shunned its own linguistic
Picture 2: The Indian Border Security Force in full swing during the
daily lowering of the flag ceremony, at the Attari-Wagah border. It
attracts many people and is packed with the euphoric patriotism and
excessive nationalism.
xx Preface
in both India and Pakistan was a privilege which not many people have. Relations
between India and Pakistan often follow a roller-coaster ride where there is little
certainty of the highs and lows. When I set out to do my research, I was not even
sure that I would be able to get a visa for Pakistan since I was born in India. Having
overcome that first hurdle, my first visit to Pakistan was filled with trepidation of
the unknown land. Mysterious, because of how my own community’s history is
shaped by the Muslim/Sikh conflict going back to Mughal India. However, I was
determined to visit regardless of the fears, but once I got there, all this vanished.
The people I met were so generous and warm, that it almost immediately felt
familiar and like home. The shared culture and heritage of the two Punjabs was
only too apparent; however, there were clearly differences in the way West Punjab
and East Punjab have developed over the past seventy years.
While trying to document that transformation of the land and people, I
focused on two localities, Ludhiana in India and Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) in
Pakistan because both had prospered economically in the post-1947 period. I
wanted to examine to what extent partition migration had an impact on the
two cities. I also use another case study, Malerkotla, a Muslim princely state
surrounded by Sikh states. This was a very interesting area, because there was
hardly any violence in this state during those partition days and in fact it
became a safe haven for Muslims fleeing the surrounding areas. In addition, I
also focus on women and their experiences because they are often forgotten for
their contributions in the making of modern India and Pakistan. Although they
have become symbolic of the nation’s ‘honour’, their experiences and impact go
beyond that and continue to shape our understanding of South Asian society.
The first aim of this book is to critically examine existing accounts of
partition and its aftermath, focusing specifically on the Punjab region. Second
is to analyse the diverse historical experiences of partition and its aftermath
with the use of localised case studies and personal accounts. The final one is
to utilise case studies to bring about a new understanding of the differential
impact of partition and its aftermath on the Punjab region. An attempt is
made to consider, first, the localised patterns of political authority and how
culture impacted on the differential experience of partition-related violence
and second, how far the experience of partition and dislocation was a process
rather than an event confined to August 1947. For many of the victims, it took
many years for the physical process of refugee rehabilitation to be completed.
Within this story, it is important to understand the extent to which the input
of refugee capital and labour were locally significant in the region’s post-
partition urban economic development.
Preface xxi
Throughout this study, part of the objective has been to chart this change
and shift taking place in Partition Studies, the move from high politics to politics
from below, a move that has been made possible in part because of this shift in
wider history which has begun to envelop social causes and move beyond just
the archival record. At the same time, this process has at least democratised the
discourse, with a greater diversity of voices emerging and being represented in the
history books. But in moving towards a people’s history, technology has played
an important role – the way recording and sharing devices have transformed our
understanding of partition history. A history without hard borders is crucial in
providing a new kind of history, a kinder history I hope.
In the past ten years, there has been a plethora of material emerging in
Partition Studies. Some of this work is concerned with this new approach,
others have continued with the focus on the politics. Yet one aspect is clear:
There is still an appetite for material and research on partition. This of course
begs the following questions: Why should this be so? Why, after seventy
years of this bittersweet experience of partition and independence, should the
people be talking about their memories? The answer partly lies in the lack of
closure and understanding of why ordinary people paid such a high price. The
history books talk of an organised process, controlled by the ‘great men’, yet few
expected the great upheaval, mass dislocation and the violent response to the
drawing up of the boundaries. While both India and Pakistan have engaged
in projecting a ‘nationalist’, and thereby, providing the aam log (ordinary folk)
with a rationale for why this was necessary, neither country can truly come to
accept its responsibility and liability in bringing about such carnage and forced
migration of millions of people who were uprooted from their homes.
Note on permissions
Every effort has been made to establish contact with the original publishers
for works/excerpts for obtaining permission. I would like to acknowledge the
following publishers for providing permission to use material/excerpts which
have appeared in earlier versions. Taylor and Francis: ‘Dreams, Memories
and Legacies: Partitioning India’, In Knut A. Jacobsen (ed) Routledge
Handbook of Contemporary India (Routledge, 2015); ‘‘No-mans Land’ and the
Creation of Partitioned Histories’ In India/Pakistan’, In Remembering Genocide,
eds Nigel Eltringham and Pam Maclean (Routledge, 2014) and ‘Negotiating
the Past: Journey through Muslim Women’s Experience of Partition and
Resettlement’ Cultural and Social History, 2009, Volume 6, Issue 4, pp. 467–
484. The Oral History Society: ‘Remembering Partition: Women, Oral Histories
and the Partition of 1947’ Oral History, 2013, Volume 41, Issue 2, pp. 49-61.
Palgrave Macmillian for: ‘‘No Home but in Memory’: The Legacies of Colonial
Rule in the Punjab’, In Panikos Panayi and Pippa Virdee (eds) Refugees and
the End of Empire: Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration during the Twentieth
Century (Palgrave, 2011). Oxford University Press, Karachi: ‘Partition and the
Absence of Communal Violence in Malerkotla’, In Ian Talbot (ed.) The Deadly
Embrace: Religion, Politics and Violence in the Indian Subcontinent 1947-2002
(OUP, 2007). Finally, I would like to thank the Journal of Punjab Studies for
kindly providing permission to use excerpts of poetry from Volume 13, 2006,
which was a special issue dedicated to Punjabi poetry.
Any errors or omissions in this book are of course mine.
Quote by Catherine Hall
‘For the most part, however, in all sectors of higher education we remain on
the margins. But the margins can be a very productive terrain – a space from
which both to challenge establishments and develop our own perspectives,
build our own organisations, confirm our own collectivities. The hopes for
feminist history in the 1990s cannot be the same as they were in the 1970s
for we are living in a very different political world, and some of the harsh
lessons we have learned about both exclusivity and marginality must inform
our practice in the future. The dream remains – a kind of history that excites
and engages, that retains its critical edge, is open to new voices, and always in
a dynamic relation to the political world in which we live.’1
1 Catherine Hall, White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and
History (Oxford: Polity Press, 1992), 34.
Partitioned Lands, Partitioned Histories 3
and lands. Sadly, even today, families bear the physical and psychological scars of
this forced migration that was accompanied by reprehensible violence and crimes
that, as a society, we have not been able to fathom.
4 See further, P. N. Chopra, ed., Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for
Independence in India, 1937 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986); P. S. Gupta,
ed., Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1942-
1944 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
5 H. V. Hodson, The Great Divide: Britain-India-Pakistan (Hutchinson, 1969).
6 S. Settar and I. B. Gupta, eds., Pangs of Partition, Vol. II: The Human Dimension
(Delhi: Manohar, 2002), 12.
4 From the Ashes of 1947
which combines insights from ‘high politics’ with what would now be termed
a ‘history from beneath’ approach.14
The main protagonists of independence and mainstay of those focusing on
the ‘high politics’ have also increasingly questioned the role of the leadership. Jalal’s
‘revisionist’ approach examining Jinnah’s role has already been mentioned, but
ironically, this radical history is now increasingly considered an ‘orthodox’ account
on Jinnah. Mountbatten has also been the subject of debate and controversy.
This has arisen from his alleged interference in the partition plan. His influence,
which led to the princely state of Kashmir (a Muslim majority state) acceding to
India, has also received much attention.15 Mountbatten’s rushed approach to exit
India, his bias towards Nehru and his apparent dislike of Jinnah have also been
debated.16 While his supporters see him as someone who was able to overcome
constitutional deadlock and oversee the swift transfer of power, his critics hold
him responsible for the Punjab massacres.17 Increasingly over the past seventy
years, Indian writers are now much more critical of the founding fathers, Gandhi
and Nehru, and more broadly of the Indian independence movement. Following
the emergence and the increasing legitimacy of Hindutva ideology, Nehru is now
openly held responsible for Partition. Writers such as Sucheta Mahajan, however,
are more sympathetic and defend Gandhi’s and Nehru’s position in terms of the
limited options that they faced in 1947.18
The opening up of the archives was paved by the release of the twelve-
volume series, The Transfer of Power, which was pivotal for historians to
understand the closing chapter of the British in India. The British Prime
Minister appointed Nicholas Mansergh the editor-in-chief to oversee the
documents from the India Office pertaining to the constitutional transfer of
power in India; the twelve volumes remain a treasure of ‘high politics’.19 The
availability of Governors’ fortnightly reports further encouraged academic
attention to shift from the all-India to the provincial level of politics. This
coincided with the emergence of the so-called Cambridge School of Indian
historiography. They focused on material interests rather than ideas as driving
forward politics. Mobilisation was understood in terms of patron–client
relations.20 At the forefront of this shift towards regional politics in the case of
Punjab were historians such as Ian Talbot and David Gilmartin.21 Talbot has
highlighted the transformation in the Punjab Muslim League’s fortunes in the
period from the 1937 to the 1946 provincial elections.22 This breakthrough
was essential for the creation of Pakistan. Other writers more recently, such
as Sarah Ansari, have provided valuable insights into political developments
in other Muslim majority provinces, in her case Sind, while Joya Chatterji,
H. Bhattacharyya, and Taj-ul-Islam Hashmi provide a Bengali perspective.23
Writing Fiction
The glaring omission of ordinary voices was filled with the imagination of
literature and film. It was fiction that, very early on, provided an outlet to
express and share those emotive, traumatic and religiously sensitive subjects
that Jalal labels as ‘the pity of partition’, but too peripheral for mainstream
history. Yet, it was the ideal medium for capturing the ambiguities and
the shades of grey that could not fit into the overly nationalistic tones.
Writers such as Intizar Hussain, Bhisham Sahni, Saadat Hasan Manto,
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Balraj Sahni, Khushwant Singh and Amrita Pritam were
writing from their own personal experiences of dislocation and captured the
human drama of partition. Manto never shied away from writing about the
true depravity of people and he fully exposed the sexual violence associated
with partition. As Kamla Bhasin and Ritu Menon argue, ‘Partition fiction
(and some non-fiction) is almost the only social history we have of this
time…it is in fiction, rather than any other genre, that we find an attempt
to assimilate the full impact of what Partition meant’.28 Moreover, they
suggest that ‘nowhere in the thousands of pages of fiction and poetry do
we find even a glimmer of endorsement for the price paid for freedom, or
admission that his “qurbani” (sacrifice) was necessary for the birth of two
nations.’29
Although much of fictional writing was done in months and years
following partition, it was limited largely within literary circles until writers
such as Alok Bhalla published the anthology of partition stories.30 Bhalla’s
three-volume anthology has remarkably gathered short stories on partition,
27 Mushirul Hasan, ed., India’s Partition: Process, Strategy, Mobilisation (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1993), 42–3.
28 Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition,
(New Jersey: Rutger University Press, 1998), 22.
29 Bhasin and Menon, Borders and Boundaries, 7.
30 Alok Bhalla, ed., Stories about the Partition of India, Volume I–III (Delhi: Indus,
HarperCollins, 1994).
10 From the Ashes of 1947
31 See further, Jason Francisco and Alok Bhalla, ‘“Stories on the Partition of India”
– A Review Essay,’ Annual of Urdu Studies X (1995): 208–17.
32 To read further see, for example, Ian Talbot, ‘Literature and the Human Drama
of the 1947 Partition,’ in Freedom, Trauma, Continuities: Northern India and
Independence, eds. D. A. Low and Howard Brasted (Delhi: Sage Publications,
1998), 39–55.
33 Nirupuma Dutt, ed. and translation, Stories of the Soil: Classic Punjabi Stories
(India: Penguin, 2010).
34 Sudha Tiwari, ‘Memories of Partition: Revisiting Saadat Hasan Manto,’ Economic
and Political Weekly XLVIII, no 25 (2013): 50–1.
35 Ranajit Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies 1: Writings on South Asian History and Society
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982).
Partitioned Lands, Partitioned Histories 11
nationalist struggle that was being depicted.36 They highlighted the role played
by popular peasant movements in contrast to the nationalist struggle, which they
argued touched only the middle classes and those with political influence. The
Subaltern School historians essentially sought to redress the imbalance present
in nationalist historiography. Their attempts represented a return to the grass
roots and the depiction of politics of the people, who were neither distinguished
public figures nor acclaimed freedom fighters, but who did, nevertheless, make
a contribution to the nationalist struggle. Most of this writing, however, was
limited to the 1920s and 1930s and was criticised for its reliance on the same
‘colonialist’ sources as those deployed by the ‘elitist’ nationalist accounts.
By the early 1990s, the impact of this approach started to permeate
Partition Studies and resulted in a shift away from the ‘great men of history’
approach towards a ‘history from below’; Regional Studies had already shifted
the focus from national to regional politics.37 Crucially, this approach towards
cities has disrupted the concern with the centrality of the nation-state. Works
such as Zamindar’s,38 which bring together through personal narratives the
story of families divided by partition in Delhi and Karachi, or Talbot’s work
on the divided twin cities of Amritsar and Lahore travel across and bypass
the territorial borders. Similarly, Ravinder Kaur’s work on Delhi, my work on
Ludhiana and Lyallpur, and Ilyas Chattha’s work on Gujranwala and Sialkot
36 The term ‘subaltern’ has been adapted by post-colonial studies from the work
originally done by Antonio Gramsci. The Subaltern Studies group were interested
in exploring themes such as class, caste and gender. The group was started by
Ranajit Guha and at inception included other historians such as Shahid Amin,
Gyanendra Pandey, David Arnold, David Hardiman and Partha Chatterjee.
Several influential volumes emerged during the 1980s covering inter-disciplinary
themes. The following is a small selection of subaltern literature: Ranajit Guha,
ed., Subaltern Studies (5 vols.) (New Delhi: Oxford University Press); Shahid
Amin, Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992 (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1995); David Arnold, ‘Gramsci and Peasant
Subalternity in India,’ Journal of Peasant Studies 11, no. 4 (1984): 155-77; David
Hardiman, ‘‘‘Subaltern Studies” at Crossroads,’ Economic and Political Weekly, 15
February 1986, 288–90; and Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey, eds.,
Subaltern Studies VII (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992).
37 For example, see Ian Talbot, Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore
and Amritsar 1947-1957 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
38 Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern
South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories (India: Penguin, 2007).
12 From the Ashes of 1947
Interestingly, in Europe at the same time was the ongoing debate about
ethnic cleansing, genocide and war crimes against women in Bosnia. In
this case, ‘feminist activists made a concerted effort to affect the statute
establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,
the rules of evidence under which rape and other crimes of sexual violence
would be prosecuted…’.44 There was now a wider discussion about the use
of mass rape against women in conflicts; indeed Menon and Bhasin note
the similarities of the accounts of violence against women in Bosnia and
Herzegovina with the partition violence.45 In both these cases, women are
the upholders of community honour and are then tainted by the ‘other’ and
forced to take on the burden of dishonouring the community. Writers such
as Menon, Bhasin,46 Butalia47 and Das48 have all led the way in opening
the discussion in India about communal violence and its relationship with
women and in doing so have made significant contributions to this new
history of partition.
Significantly, they have sought to foreground the ‘victims’ of partition
and provide them with a ‘voice’ by utilising oral narratives as a means of
communicating their histories. Surprisingly, personal accounts and experiences
of people who witnessed partition first-hand have hardly featured, except from
the one-sided accounts by Khosla and Khan.49 More empathetic and broader
experiences have only emerged in the past twenty years which have been far
more critical and introspective in understanding the human plight.
What is distinctly noticeable in the ‘new history’ of partition is that it is
largely, though not exclusively, female writers and scholars who have embraced
this agenda, particularly through the use of oral history.50 It is perhaps the
sensitive and emotive nature of the subject and the attempt to capture life stories
and the human dimension that lends itself more easily to the female gaze. More
importantly, it has been an active assertion by a new generation of writers to
re-orientate our focus and understanding of partition. The feminist embrace
of oral history emerged from the neglect of women’s voices in traditional
sources; oral history has therefore provided an opportunity to integrate ‘women
into historical scholarship, even contesting the reigning definitions of social,
economic and political importance that obscured women’s lives’.51 The centrality
of gendered accounts in historical discourse is an important development in
recognising and challenging the dominant tendencies in the discipline. In
this way, the new developments have brought a welcome shift. More broadly,
these accounts have challenged the conventional histories, which marginalised
women and other subaltern groups, although as Butalia has argued many of
the proponents of the Subaltern Studies saw her as an ‘interloper’ within the
discipline.52 Paola Bacchetta goes further and suggests that these accounts
‘reflect a different kind of subaltern writing that inadvertently challenges almost-
established subaltern writing, which…continues to marginalise women’.53
Sheila Rowbotham’s contention is that women’s experiences in historical
discourse were often ‘hidden’ and new methodologies, such as personal
testimonies, allow us to challenge ‘historical interpretations based upon the
lives and documentation of men’.54 Feminist interpretations that have focused
on the plight of women and other marginalised groups, often on the periphery
of Indian society, have enabled this reappraisal in partition discourse. It has
brought the experiences of women during this traumatic time to the fore and
50 For recent example, see Devika Chawla, Home Uprooted: Oral Histories of India’s
Partition (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014); and Anam Zakaria, The
Footprints of Partition (India: HarperCollins, 2015).
51 Joan Sangster, ‘Telling Our Stories: Feminist Debates and the Use of Oral
History,’ in The Oral History Reader, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson
(London: Routledge, 1998), 87.
52 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in conversation with Sanjay Subrahmanyam and
Urvashi Butalia. Rewriting History – Writers of India, accessed 13 June 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjwEujsZyOk.
53 Paola Bacchetta, ‘Reinterrogating Partition Violence: Voices of Women/Children/
Dalits in India’s Partition,’ Feminist Studies 26, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 567-85.
54 Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden from History (London: Pluto, 1973). Also see
Sangster, ‘Telling Our Stories,’ 87–100.
Partitioned Lands, Partitioned Histories 15
begun to expose the harsh realities of sensitive and taboo subjects such as
abduction, rape and violence against women in a predominately patriarchal
state and society. Until recently, these subjects remained hidden from public
discourse. Although wider feminist discourse has been well developed in pre-
partition India, and then also in independent India and Pakistan, partition-
related violence against women has remained largely in the shadows of
nationalist and political discourse. It has been triumphant and, what I would
argue, masculine in its approach rather than dealing with the realities that
exposed the brutal, patronising and domineering nature of the state.
There are two distinct features about this ‘new history’ of partition. First, it
has a predominately Indian-centric approach and comparatively little has been
written about women in Pakistan (and Bengal). Nighat Said Khan, a Lahore-
based activist, conducted some interviews with women, largely in Sindh, but
the interviews remain unpublished.55 More recently, my research has attempted
to bridge this significant gap in documenting the experiences of partition and
resettlement of women in Pakistani Punjab, especially in terms of how this is
recorded in public and private spaces.56 Second, most of the work so far has
attempted to document the plight of Punjabis (including this work). Although
the region, it can be argued, suffered the worst of the atrocities, within wider
partition historiography, the research is geographically limited. There is of course
more work emerging on Bengal and Yasmin Saikia has also been exploring the
impact of the 1972 war in Bangladesh on women.57 But in addition to these
accounts, there remain many unexplored histories of lesser known experiences
of the upheaval caused by partition and independence. Even Ishtiaq Ahmed’s
claim at producing the most comprehensive volume on partition largely neglects
the new feminist agenda that has re-orientated recent discourse.58
Living Histories
The use of oral history in the study of partition has been embraced in recent
scholarly work because it has enabled us to understand the impact partition
55 N. S. Khan, R. Saigol and A. S. Zia, Locating the Self: Perspectives on Women and
Multiple Identities (Lahore: ASR, 1994).
56 Pippa Virdee, ‘Negotiating the Past: Journey through Muslim Women’s Experience
of Partition and Resettlement,’ Cultural and Social History 6, no. 4 (2009).
57 Yasmin Saikia, Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011).
58 Ishtiaq Ahmed, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 2012).
16 From the Ashes of 1947
had on everyday life;59 this is absent in the official records and provides an
alternative through which the lived experience can be understood. The use of
oral testimonies thus becomes an important source of information as well as
allowing us to understand the perceptions and lived experiences of ordinary
people. Moreover, as women’s voices are often peripheral, oral history has
become even more important as it can empower those muted voices that
would otherwise remain undocumented.
However, documenting, recording and recounting these stories also
presents the researcher with ethical dilemmas. In a recent discussion with
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Butalia noted how she went into the research on
partition as a feminist and wanted to liberate these women and their silences,
but in the process realised the importance of silences. There was thus a great
burden in terms of the ethics and responsibility of doing this work.60 Das also
very powerfully questions the complexity and moral dilemma in conducting
such research, particularly when we look at them in isolation without
understanding the evolutionary discourse that has taken place:
Furthermore, this interaction and the interview process itself also create
a new historical document ‘by the agency of both the interviewer and the
interviewee’.62 The interview process is therefore much more complex, one
in which the interviewer has an agenda to document an untold story and
the interviewees share their particular experience or story. Bornat argues that
‘for the oral historians the interview is always more than the recorded and
59 Ian Talbot and Darshan Singh Tatla, Epicentre of Violence (Delhi: Permanent
Black, 2006); Kaur, Since 1947; and Ahmed, The Punjab Bloodied.
60 Spivak, Rewriting History.
61 Das, Life and Words, 57.
62 Sangster, ‘Telling Our Stories,’ 92.
Partitioned Lands, Partitioned Histories 17
[What made you write about the partition of Punjab?] For me it is different
because I am the one who keeps on recalling, keep on thinking about it, keep
on questioning everyone I meet and keep on shaking the Punjabi minds
about what happened. Why did it happen? Keeping aside the question of
‘what happened’, more important is that ‘why did it come about’. Why did
they let it happen? Who did that? Who let it happen? There is no end to my
questions, no end. I have seen three generations and this third generation
63 Joanna Bornat, Leroi Henry and Parvati Raghuram, ‘“Don’t Mix Race with the
Speciality”: Interviewing South Asian Overseas-Trained Geriatricians,’ Oral
History 37, no. 1 (2009): 82.
64 Joanna Bornat, ‘Oral History as a Social Movement: Reminiscence and Older
People,’ in Perks and Thompson, 1998, 190.
65 Sangster, ‘Telling Our Stories,’ 92.
18 From the Ashes of 1947
is going towards its end. It was the first generation before mine that got
hit directly, second generation was the young ones of that time which was
hit badly as well, the child of that age got shattered, what is left is ‘we
people’. In that way, I have seen three generations suffering, crying, sighing,
dying, bleeding, getting lost in memories and feeling homeless. Krishan
Chandar was the first to announce ‘I have no land’ and being disowned by
my country, now I am an international citizen. I had been conversing with
different people as and when I get any opportunity but nobody has any root
cause for the division. I gathered different opinions, amongst them one is
from a major intelligentsia that it simply happened because Punjab did not
have any leadership. Right, we understand, that means whenever we do
not have the leadership we can be exploited at any time by anyone in any
way, only for the reason that we do not have any mouth piece to express
our point of view. Then what were the causes for not having leadership in
Punjab whereas all the major movements, resistance movement, progressive
movement, revolutionary and independence movement, were going on.
They had deep roots in this soil.66
1 Firoz Din ‘Sharaf ’, Joganh (1932), Trans. Ami P. Shah, Journal of Punjab Studies
13, nos. 1 and 2 (2006): 5.
2 Spinning wheel.
3 The insertion of the poet’s signature (takhallas) is a common feature of Indian
poetry.
4 The five rivers of Punjab.
The Treasure within the Five Rivers 21
route to the Indus plains. Consequently, the people of Punjab are mainly
descendants of Aryan tribes that invaded India from the north-west.4 This
led to an assimilation of different tribes and many of the great Punjabi
castes such as the Jats and Rajputs are a product of the movements and
amalgamation of Iranians, Turks, Afghans, Arabs and the indigenous
population. As Malcolm Darling observed while travelling through Punjab
just prior to independence:
In crossing the Chenab we entered the central Punjab, where Muslim and
Sikh are as intermingled as barley and wheat when sown together, where
too the Muslim is for the most part a converted Hindu. There are many
villages where Muslim and Sikh are of the same tribe, and both of Hindu
ancestry, with still some customs in common…The Naib-Tehsildar, a
Hindu, joining in, said: ‘The zaildar and I are of the same tribe. He is a
Bhatti, and I am a Bhatia; our origin is the same.’5
Muslims, Christians and Sikhs trace their ancestry back to a Hindu lineage;
indeed conversions were necessary for new religions to take root in the land.
Language was a crucial factor in this heritage; it has been a key feature that
has helped to connect people. Punjabi writers such as Waris Shah and Sufi
poets like Bulleh Shah and Baba Farid,7 have managed to transcend religious
boundaries.8 The mystical experience of Sufism, Surinder Singh and Ishwar
Dayal Gaur suggest, is due to Punjab’s ‘frontier location and a long tradition
of non-conformism’ which has made the region ‘a fertile cultural soil’ that
embraced Islamic mysticism.9 Further, the folk music of Punjab is another
7 This is the expression of mysticism within Islam. The Sufi believe in a mystical
union between the individual soul and the Supreme Being. Sufi poetry is often the
expression of divine love and mystical union directly between the individual and God.
8 Ian Talbot, Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and Partition of India
(London: Curzon, 1996), 5.
9 Surinder Singh and Ishwar Dayal Gaur, eds., Sufism in Punjab: Mystics, Literature
and Shrines (Delhi: Aakar Books, 2009), 1.
24 From the Ashes of 1947
Gateway to India
For thousands of years, the region of Punjab has been the route of many invasions
and has been the site of numerous empires. That history is represented in the
diversity of people and influences that have come to shape this land of five rivers.
...this is the original home of the Gypsies, Ods and Sadhs, the Gurjars,
Ahirs and Khatris; here came Skylax, Alexander, Huen Tsang and Fa Hien.
Here we saw past the pageant of Aryanism, Zoroastrianism, Hellenism,
Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism. How did this land fare under each contact,
under each cataclysm, under each fresh revolution in thought and deed?
How in its blood and brain it received and integrated something of Greece,
Persia, China and Tibet, Arabia, Egypt, Central and Western India?11
The Aryans came via the Hindu Kush, perhaps from Central Asia, as semi-
nomadic pastoralists living mainly on the produce of cattle. They spoke an
earlier common version language belonging to Indo-European family. Romila
Thapar views their coming as a backward step, as the Harappan culture had
been more advanced, while the Aryan’s were pre-urban.12 The ancient Indus
Valley Civilisation (or Harappa) developed in the Punjab region c. 2300 bc
while the Aryans who arrived in the region c. 1500 bc introduced the Vedic
religion and Sanskrit.13 The Rig Veda and the Upanishads, which belonged
to the Vedic religion, were a precursor of Hinduism, both of which were
composed in Punjab. The great Hindu epic of Ramayana was also believed
to be composed near the city of Amritsar. At Kurukshetra, in present-day
Haryana, Lord Krishna gave his famous message from the Bhagavad Gita to
Arjuna before the great battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.14 The
region thus possesses an association with some of the most defining periods
in ancient Indian history.
As North India became increasingly identified with foreign conquests,
it strengthened the links with Central Asia, not only bringing trade benefits
but increasingly bringing the people closer together. Running like an artery
through Punjab, the Grand Trunk Road lay at the heart of this trade and
conquest.15 Rudyard Kipling describes it as ‘the Great Road which is the
backbone of all Hind’. He writes:
All castes and kinds of men move here. Look! Brahmins and chumars,
bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims and potters – all the
world going and coming. It is to me as a river from which I am withdrawn
like a log after a flood. And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful
spectacle. It runs straight, bearing without crowding India’s traffic for fifteen
hundred miles – such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world.16
The Mughals used the Grand Trunk route of the Khyber Pass and into the
mountainous Hindu Kush taking them into the vast empire that reigned over
India from the sixteenth century onwards until the exile of Bahadur Shah Zafar
by the British following the mutiny in 1857. Islam, however, first arrived in Sind
in ad 711, when Muhammad bin Qasim took several towns and an Arab army
arrived via Afghanistan. Later Mahmud of Ghazni subjected Punjab to regular
raids and defeats for twenty-five years, often destroying local Hindu states and
14 The central theme in the Mahabharata revolves around a power between two
families: the Kauravas and their blood relatives the Pandavas. The most important
piece within the Mahabharata is the Bhagavad Gita (Sanskrit poem, considered
to be the most important religious text by Hindus) which is a dialogue between
Lord Krishna and Arjuna. The conversation takes place before the famous battle
at Kurukshetra and is centred around the meaning of life. The Mahabharata was
composed around 300 bc and forms an essential part of Hinduism.
15 Irna Qureshi and Tim Smith, The Grand Trunk Road: From Delhi to the Khyber Pass
(Stockport: Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2011), provide an interesting photo-journal
look at the Grand Trunk Road, which incidentally also covers the areas from
which the majority of South Asian diaspora originate from. Also see Anthony
Weller, Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road (New York: Marlowe & Co,
1997).
16 Rudyard Kim, Kim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 57.
26 From the Ashes of 1947
converting people. But it was not until the Mughals established their power
that Islam really took root in the region.17 Babur, a descendant of Timur and
Genghis Khan, came first with his march across Punjab to take Lahore in 1524.
Two years later, the Battle of Panipat,18 in present-day Haryana, confirmed
Mughal control of India. This resulted in nearly 200 years of Mughal rule in
Punjab ending with Aurangzeb in 1707. During this period the Punjab region
changed considerably, including the advent of a new religion.19
Guru Nanak (1469–1538), born in Talwandi and died in Kartarpur, both
in present-day West Punjab, preached a new type of religion. It was partly
born out of the Bhakti movement,20 and essentially rejected the rigidity and
compartmentalisation that both Islam and Hinduism preached. It found
resonance with people and thus established a following, which eventually
developed into Sikhism. The growth of the Sikh faith was set in the backdrop
of the rise of the Mughal Empire. The increasing intolerance preached by the
last great emperor Aurangzeb is intrinsically linked to the move towards violent
confrontation between the Sikhs and Muslims. It culminated with the battles
between the last Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708), and Aurangzeb
(1618–1707) in the seventeenth century. During the chaotic and confused period
that followed the death of Aurangzeb, Punjab witnessed the decline of Mughal
influence and the rise of the Sikhs as strong contenders for political dominance.
17 To read further about the Mughal period, see Satish Chandra, Essays on Medieval
India History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003); and M. Athar Ali,
Mughal India: Studies in Polity, Ideas, Society, and Culture (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2006).
18 Panipat is 85 km north-west of Delhi and is close to the area where the great war
in the Mahabharata took place. Babur also defeated the forces of Ibrahim Lodi at
Panipat.
19 For good understanding of medieval Punjab, read Ishwar Dayal Gaur, Society,
Religion and Patriarchy: Exploring Medieval Punjab through Hir Waris (Delhi:
Manohar, 2009).
20 The Bhakti movement spread throughout the subcontinent from c. sixth to
sixteenth centuries. There were many strands to it, but saints such as Nanak and
Kabir were critical of the dominance of Brahmanical ritualism, formality and
exclusivity. There are two main perspectives on Sikhism: first the ‘Syncretic’ view,
which sees Sikhism being influenced by external factors such as Arabic, Farsi and
Guru Nanak’s contemporaries such as Kabir and Namdev. Second, there are those
who view Sikhism as an independent and separate religion with little in common
with either Hinduism or Islam.
The Treasure within the Five Rivers 27
Though the Sikh religion had grown considerably since the days of Guru
Nanak, it was still a minority community. Under the leadership of Guru
Gobind Singh, it had acquired a more militant and aggressive character. This
was to inject a sense of heroic pride in the small community that later led to the
emergence of the young leader, Ranjit Singh (1780–1839), in 1801.21 Under his
reign the Kingdom of Punjab flourished, which gradually extended to include
parts of Afghanistan and Kashmir. Ranjit Singh had ruled in the name of the
Khalsa22 and was personally a devout Sikh, yet tolerant and encompassing of
the ground realities.23 His death in 1839, however, created a power vacuum,
and the factionalism among the Sikh chieftains and the omnipresence of the
expansionist British power led to the two Anglo-Sikh Wars of 1845–46 and
1848–49. Finally, the kingdom of Ranjit Singh collapsed and independent
Punjab was annexed by the British in 1849.
Importantly, Punjab was the last region of the Indian subcontinent to fall
to the British Empire. Equally interesting is that the British did not come
into the region in the traditional fashion of invading from the north-west via
Afghanistan. Instead, they gradually made way into the country from their
modest beginnings as traders in Bengal. The Sikhs had an established army,
whose strength was clearly visible during the two Sikh wars with the British.24
The Battle of Chillianwala (district Mandi Bahauddin in Pakistan) was fought
during the Second Anglo-Sikh War and proved to be one of the bloodiest. The
British East India Company suffered a considerable blow, both in numbers
and in the long term to its prestige as a superior force. At the time, both
armies claimed victory but ultimately the British army reigned over Punjab.
Shortly afterwards, the Sikh army was utilised when irregular Muslim and
Sikh forces assisted the British in suppressing the uprising in 1857, when
the sepoys of Bengal army revolted. After the mutiny, the British government
assumed direct control of India from the East India Company; it was to mark
a new stage in formal empire in India.
The mutiny was a watershed in many respects; and for the Punjabis, this meant
a greater role in the British administration and significantly, in the British Indian
Army. Punjab was important not just because it was a frontier state, adjoining
Afghanistan, but also due to the potential economic benefits that it presented.
The heavy investment in building up the infrastructure, such as roads, rail links
and the postal and telegraph system, was vital for linking markets, transport
and communications, which eventually led Punjab to become the ‘granary
of India’ during colonial rule. We can see from Table 2.1 the developments in
infrastructure and the fiscal benefits of that investment. Beginning in the 1870s
right through to the 1930, Punjab underwent vast socio-economic change, made
possible largely due to this investment in the infrastructure.
Table 2.1: Development of Punjab during British Colonisation
Year Railway Canal Miles of Cultivated Land Revenue
Mileage Mileage Metalled Area (millions (Rs., in lakhs)
roads of acres)
1872–73 410 2,744 1,036 18.8 201
1882–83 600 4,583 1,467 23.4 206
1892–93 1,725 12,368 2,142 26.7 223
1912–13 4,000 16,935 2,614 29 360
1932–33 5,500 19,601 3,904 30.9 428
Source: M. S. Randhawa, Out of the Ashes – An Account of the Rehabilitation of Refugees from West Pakistan
in Rural Areas of East Punjab (Chandigarh, 1954), 35.
The Grand Trunk Road, as the main artery, continued to play an important
part in this process of making India British. The colonial power was now in
control of the majority of the road, which stretched from Calcutta to Khyber
Pass; the construction of Garrison towns along the road is intrinsically linked
to the securing of the empire in the wake of the mutiny. This is also the route
of recruiting soldiers for the British Indian Army. Muslim Rajputs, along with
Sikh Jats, had also aptly demonstrated their loyalty to the British by supporting
them during the mutiny and were also rewarded for this loyalty.25 Consequently,
army recruitment became a significant feature of Punjab under the British.
This was enshrined in what became known as the martial races ideology.26 On
the eve of World War One, Punjabi martial races formed 54 per cent of the
entire British Indian Army. Though the Sikhs were a minority community, they
featured prominently in the Indian Army;27 most were Jat Sikhs who belonged
to the Manjha areas of Punjab.28 The Jat Sikhs were traditionally agriculturalists,
but due to the unreliable income from agriculture, the army increasingly became
an attractive profession into which they could venture. This trend, to some extent,
had already started under Maharaja Ranjit Singh; due to the liquidation of the
Khalsa Army, unemployment was rife, and ‘the only alternative left to them was
to exchange the sword for plough’.29 Punjabi Muslims from the agriculturally
poor areas of Rawalpindi, Jhelum and Shahpur also featured heavily in the
Indian Army. They traditionally came from Rajput families. Tan Tai Yong also
makes the point that recruitment in Punjab was based not on just class but also
on locality. The most prominent areas for recruitment were Amritsar and Lahore
for Jat Sikhs; the Salt Range, mainly Jhelum and Rawalpindi, for aristocratic
Muslim tribes; a smaller number of Hindu and Muslim Jats from south-eastern
districts of Rohtak and Hissar; and from Kangra mostly Dogras.30
From the mid-1880s, the Punjab province experienced rapid growth on
the back of an elaborate irrigation project which saw the development of the
canal colonies. Vast areas of uncultivated lands in the doabs of south-west
Punjab were transformed into the richest farming tracts in British India. This
included places like Lyallpur, Montgomery and Jhang, which are now in West
Punjab. Malcolm Darling, a retired British official, writing about his travels on
the eve of independence notes:
I hate plains, as I hate bores – one cannot get away from either. But
the Punjab plain is not boring. It has the most virile peasantry in India,
and perhaps the most prosperous in Asia, and it has the finest irrigation
system in the world, fed by its five rivers. Fifty years ago this end of the
plain was a semi-dessert…31
27 See further, Rajit K. Mazumder, The Indian Army and the Making of Punjab (Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2003).
28 This is the region in central Punjab between Beas and Ravi Rivers, covering the
region roughly from Amritsar to Kasur and from Lahore to Bhairowal.
29 Prem Vati Ghai, The Partition of the Punjab, 1849–1947 (New Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal Publishers, 1986), 18.
30 See further, Tan Tai Yong, The Garrison State (New Delhi: Sage, 2005), 74–5.
31 Darling, At Freedom’s Door, 59.
30 From the Ashes of 1947
By the time the British had finished with this semi-dessert wasteland, the
canal colonies made up about one-third of the Punjab region. Irrigation projects
that were completed between 1860 and 1920 brought close to ten million acres
of land under cultivation.32 These developments in the province turned it into
a major exporter of grains and cotton, confirming the emphasis by the colonial
power on agricultural rather than industrial growth;33 however, the project was
also seen as a form of ‘social engineering’ and an artificial construct that lacked
homogeneity in terms of language, geography and economy.
Seeds of Nationalism
Although the Indian mutiny of 1857 never reached deep into Indian society, it
was one of the strongest challenges to the British presence in India. Nationalist
writers, such as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, like to view it as the ‘first war of
independence,’34 but the official view portrayed by the colonial power was more
dismissive and viewed it as a mere revolt by disgruntled sepoys. Changes in style
and emphasis followed. First, the British crown assumed direct control. There
was also a growing realisation that the transformation of Indian society, which
was desired by Evangelicals and Utilitarians alike, was politically dangerous.
The colonial state sought to strengthen its hold in the strategically important
Punjab region by establishing ‘collaborative’ links with the dominant castes and
representatives of the landholding communities. Nevertheless, earlier Christian
missionary activity in the region, along with the wider modernising influences of
colonial rule, had created a religious ferment in the towns. As elsewhere in India,
these also were the focus of the growth in associational life that culminated in
the emergence of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885. Early Congress
delegates, however, generally welcomed colonial rule and the enlightenment
that it brought. Their criticism was centred more on the lack of professional
opportunities they possessed in comparison with their British counterparts.
It was only by the 1920s that the mass of the Indian population was being
drawn towards what became the nationalist struggle. Mahatma Gandhi35 led the
Congress into a new era, giving it the national cohesion required to form a credible
challenge. Punjab, for its part, played an important role in the nationalist struggle.The
Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in 1919 raised the stakes by providing Gandhi
with the moral authority and a national platform through which a truly nationalist
struggle could emerge. It produced many opponents of colonial rule in India,
including Lala Lajpat Rai, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh.
34 Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence, 1857 (New Delhi:
Rajdhani Granthnagar, 1970) [first published 1908]. Savarkar is also considered
the ideological inspiration for right-wing organisations in India such as the
Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
35 Under Gandhi, the INC in 1920 adopted a new Constitution that enabled the
INC to reach rural areas. By expanding its base into village India and reducing
membership fees, the INC increased its membership from two million in 1921
to nearly five million in 1942. Francis Robinson, ‘The Indian National Congress,’
History Today, no. 32 (1982): 32–40.
32 From the Ashes of 1947
The Namdhari sect,36 located in Baini Sahib near Ludhiana, viewed themselves
as the first group to challenge British presence in Punjab. They claim to be the
torchbearers of India’s freedom struggle in challenging the British and evoking
nationalist feeling among ordinary people at the end of the nineteenth century.
They used methods of non-cooperation and boycott of British goods to challenge
British legitimacy while encouraging social reform to rid society of inequality,
especially towards women. They often raided butcher shops, slaughterhouses and
liquor stores in their efforts to cleanse the faith but the colonial authorities were
alarmed at their activities and deemed them as anti-British rebels. Consequently,
their leader Ram Singh was exiled to Rangoon in March 1872.
While the nationalist struggle took shape and turned into a formidable
challenge, the relationship between Hindus and Muslims began to deteriorate.
The increasing divergence in politics was both a representation and a result of
communalised identities. The foundation of the Hindu Mahasabha in 1915,
and its precursors like the Hindu Sabha that existed in Lahore since 1882,
was a testament to growing disparity in communal politics. Furthermore, the
communal representation in the form of separate electorates was embedded and
institutionalised in 1909 following the Morley–Minto reforms. The creation of
a separate Muslim state based on the ‘two-nation theory’ was not, however, an
inevitable outcome following the formation of the All-India Muslim League
in 1906.37 Support for the Muslim League was largely concentrated in the
United Provinces, where the famous Aligarh University provided its ideological
heartland, but in Punjab, it was relatively weak and had little impact. The Muslim
League’s marginalisation in Punjab is evident in the 1937 provincial elections,38
36 The Namdhari sect was founded by Baba Balak Singh’s disciple Ram Singh in 1857.
Popularly known as Kukas, they are particularly noticeable due to their uniform
white clothes and round turbans, similar to Guru Nanak. Although they are
considered as unorthodox by the mainstream Sikh bodies, they view themselves as
reviving Sikh orthodoxy. John Bowker, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 679; Namdhari pamphlet, Namdharis The
Freedom Fighter (Sri Bhaini Sahib, Ludhiana: Kuku Martyrs Memorial Trust, N.D.).
37 The AIML has over the years been shortened and referred to often as the Muslim
League. However, there is an important and political distinction between the two.
The AIML does significantly imply that this was a party representing Muslims
all over India and not just in the Muslim heartland. To read further on the AIML
see, The Sole Spokesman.
38 Following the Government of India Act 1935, provincial elections were held in the
Punjab in 1937. This gave the INC a chance of governing at the provincial level.
The Treasure within the Five Rivers 33
in which it captured just two seats. The results confirmed the dominance of the
INC nationally, but in Punjab it was the Unionist Party that prospered. The
Muslim League, with the exception of Bengal, performed poorly in the other
major Muslim centres. It is, therefore, remarkable that within ten years the call
for a separate Muslim state became a realistic possibility.
The Unionist Party39 ruled in Punjab under Sikander Hayat Khan40 and
then under the leadership of Khizr Tiwana.41 By the time Khizr had taken over
in 1942 the Muslim League was beginning to make an impact nationally. In
Punjab, the League confirmed its strength in the 1946 election results when it
won 74 out of 175 seats, making it the single largest party.42 This was a crucial
victory as the electoral success in Punjab made the idea of a separate homeland a
reality and provided the legitimacy needed by the Muslim League; Jinnah termed
Punjab as the ‘cornerstone’ of Pakistan. Neeti Nair argues that contrary to popular
perception, some high-profile Hindus also preferred the partition option in the
decades preceding independence. There is, she argues, a convergence taking place
of communalised politics and anti-colonialism in Punjab during this period.43
Khizr’s Unionist Party, in coalition with other parties, still held the balance of
power but was under immense pressure from the League, which felt cheated, as
it was the single biggest party. Khizr had previously been successful in countering
the influence of the League and its demand for a Pakistan; he had managed to
put forward his own vision of a united Punjab within a federal India.44 However,
Khizr found the pressure of public disorder arising from the League’s direct
action campaign overbearing and was forced to resign on 3 March 1947. The
Unionist Party, which had dominated Punjabi politics for the past twenty years,
managed to block the League’s attempts to form a ministry due to the fragile
balance of votes. But tensions were mounting outside the legislature as communal
organisations in the region all laid claim to the historic land. This eventually led
to governor’s rule in the province at arguably the most crucial time in its history.
39 The Unionist Party first emerged in 1923 under the leadership of Fazl-i-Hussain.
The party drew support from all three communities in the Punjab and its support
base cut across class differences, drawing support from both landowners and
peasant proprietors. Talbot, Khizr Tiwana, 51.
40 See further Iftikar H. Malik, Sikander Hayat Khan (1892–1942): A Political Biography
(Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1985).
41 See further political biography of Khizr Tiwana by Talbot.
42 Grewal, Sikhs of the Punjab, 175.
43 Neeti Nair, Changing Homelands (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2011), 257.
44 Talbot, Khizr Tiwana, 1.
W. H. Auden
Partition, 19661
Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on this land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
‘Time,’ they had briefed him in London, ‘is short. It’s too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we’ve arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.’
Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.
The next day he sailed for England, where he quickly forgot
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.
League shrewdly supported the colonial power, while the INC leadership was
in jail for opposing the decision by Britain to declare war on India’s behalf.
During the war years, Jinnah secured a much stronger position than before
and could begin bargaining for a separate homeland.1
It was only in the wake of the Unionist government’s resignation that
Punjab slid into communal violence. Until this time, the province had
escaped the communal violence that had earlier engulfed other areas in India
such as Calcutta and Noakhali in East Bengal and then spread to Bihar.2
The disturbances in Lahore and Amritsar and in the Rawalpindi division
of the province in the wake of Khizr’s resignation marked a trend towards
increased levels of violence and it being viewed as a legitimate political tool.
The demarcation of territory in response to the impending British departure,
combined with the highly militarised nature of Punjabi society, made the
situation significantly different from previous ‘communal riots’.3 In the lead-up
to the violence in March 1947, the League had been pursuing a campaign,
‘Direct Action Day’, against the incumbent Khizr ministry in Punjab.
When the ministry resigned on 2 March, it was amid growing unrest in the
district. In Rawalpindi and Lahore, there were some serious disturbances,
which resulted in the estimated death of 3,000. Swarna Aiyar suggests that
the March violence showed signs of a move towards organised violence
and the emergence of ‘private armies’ in carrying out formulated plans.4
Crucially, the March violence set the benchmark for further and more
gruesome reprisal hostility in August 1947.
The Punjab violence is also seen as a major factor in Mountbatten’s
decision to bring forward the date of departure from India. Initially planned
for June 1948, the date changed to August 1947, which effectively left no
time to prepare a smooth transfer of power and even less time to consider
1 For further information read Ian Talbot, ‘The Growth of the Muslim League
in the Punjab, 1937-46,’ in India’s Partition: Process, Strategy, Mobilisation, ed.
Mushirul Hasan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993); Francis Robinson,
Separatism among Indian Muslims (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974).
2 J. Nanda, Punjab Uprooted: A Survey of the Punjab Riots and Rehabilitation Problems
(Bombay: Hind Kitab, 1948), 16.
3 Swarna Aiyar, ‘“August Anarchy”: The Partition Massacre in Punjab 1947,’ South
Asia XVIII (1995): 13–36.
4 See further, Aiyar and Anders Bjørn Hanson, ‘The Punjab 1937-47 – A Case of
Genocide?,’ International Journal of Punjab Studies 9, no. 1 ( January–June 2002):
9–12.
Handing Over the Reigns 37
how the country would be divided. The violence in the Punjab, and elsewhere
in India, had ended the hopes of restoring the May 1946 Cabinet Mission’s
proposals for a united India. The British administration was keen to exit as
soon as possible to avoid being embroiled in a prolonged civil conflict, while
the embryonic states of India and Pakistan were too focused on the end game
to foresee the repercussions of partition, especially in terms of the forced
migration, but also the longer-term economic and psychological consequences
of this division.
The British Government put forward the 3 June Plan (Indian Indepen-
dence Act, 1947) that accepted the partition of Punjab in favour of a two-
state solution to independence. Punjab was unusual because it comprised
three main communities: Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. Even Viceroy Mount-
batten acknowledged that some special consideration was necessary for the
Sikhs.5 Table 3.1 provides an overview of the religious composition in pre-
and post-partition Punjab. While the 1941 census shows that Muslims were
the majority community, in reality this varied across the province, and areas
in central Punjab were the most mixed. For example, areas like Gurdaspur,
Nakodar, Phillaur, Jullundur and Una, all had majority Muslim populations
but went to East Punjab. Similarly, Nankana Sahib, Mandi Bahauddin, Sar-
godha, Rawalpindi, Lyallpur and so on, were all non-Muslim majority areas
but ultimately went to West Punjab. Moreover, the 1941 census is largely con-
sidered to be unreliable because it was done under wartime conditions, and it
became a source of tension when minorities put forward their claims to the
Boundary Commission.6 Historically, Punjab had a strong pluralist and com-
posite cultural tradition that statistical data and simple religious categorisation
do not reveal.7 It was also, importantly, the spiritual homeland of the small but
significant Sikh community, which added further complexity at the time of
partition. The princely states remained excluded from the Radcliffe Boundary
Commission discussions; yet they were to form an integral part of the new
nation-states and had to accede their autonomy.
5 Satya Rai, Partition of the Punjab: A Study of Its Effects on the Politics and
Administration of the Punjab 1947-56 (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1965),
50.
6 Lucy Chester, Borders and Conflict in South Asia: The Radcliffe Boundary Commission
and the Partition of Punjab (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009).
7 Meeto (Kamaljit Bhasin-Malik), In the Making: Identity Formation in South Asia
(Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective, 2007).
38 From the Ashes of 1947
8 Kirpal Singh, ed., Select Documents on Partition of Punjab-1947: India and Pakistan
(Delhi: National Book Shop, 1991), xxxiii.
9 Munir was an alumnus of the prestigious Government College, Lahore, and served
as the Chief Justice of Pakistan from 1954 to 1960. He has written several books
including From Jinnah to Zia (Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1960) and Highways and
Bye-ways of Life (Lahore: Law Publishing Company, 1978).
10 Mehr Chand Mahajan, like Munir, was also an alumnus of Government College,
Lahore; Mahajan also served as the first Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in
October 1947 and played a significant role in the state acceding to India. He then
became the third Chief Justice of India in January 1954 until his retirement at the end
of the year. Looking Back: The Autobiography (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1963).
Handing Over the Reigns 39
(Sikh). The commission chairman was the British barrister Sir Cyril Radcliffe.
During the public sittings, all the parties were allowed to present their cases
to the commission. The Muslim case largely rested on the basis that their
population majority in contested areas should be considered mainly in the
demarcation of the boundary line. The non-Muslim case rested on economic
conditions, as they contributed significantly to the economy of central Punjab.
The Sikhs also tried to claim ‘a special position’, since this was their spiritual
homeland.11 It was of course the ‘other factors’ in the mandate that raised
much controversy: To what extent would ‘other factors’ trump the population
majority of the Muslims?12 Significantly, there were differences of opinion
between the different counsels regarding the other factors and what exactly
these entailed.13
It is worth understanding some of the challenges and dilemmas that the
commission had to deal with when sifting through the complexity of the lived
realities of places. Mahajan, in his report, makes an interesting point about the
city of Lahore, which historically and at the time of partition was claimed by
all communities. The city has a rich history and was once the seat of power
under Ranjit Singh. The Justice says:
11 Singh, Select Documents, Report of Mr Justice Teja Singh, 4 August 1947, 353.
12 Singh, Select Documents, xxiv.
13 Singh, Select Documents, Report of Mr Justice Teja Singh, 4 August 1947, 347.
14 Singh, Select Documents, Report of Mr Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan, 3 August
1947, 333–4.
40 From the Ashes of 1947
formula for this; it can only work arbitrarily while leaving a trail of the
disgruntled and displaced behind.
The Sikhs, on the other hand, were the only community who claimed
the land on the basis that it was linked integrally to their faith and therefore
the very basis of their identity. The issue of Sikh shrines is an interesting
one, especially when we read into the discussions and different arguments
presented by the commission judges. Justice Teja Singh, himself a Sikh, argued
that the ten Sikh Gurus were the equivalent to Christ for Christians and
Hazrat Mohammad for the Muslims. United Punjab was naturally abundant
with historic gurdwaras that are associated with the life and times of the
ten gurus. Teja Singh goes on to state that conversely, ‘There is not a single
shrine of the Muslims in India that is founded by their prophet or which was
built to commemorate any incident in his life, for the simple reason that he
lived, worked for his whole life and died in Arabia’.15 However, Justice Din
Muhammad’s argument is worth quoting here in detail:
…Even the Muslims have their shrines in all the districts claimed by the
Sikhs and they are as much sacred to the Muslims as the Sikh shrines to
the Sikhs. Secondly, Sikh shrines will be as much needed for the Sikhs
residing in West Punjab as for those residing in East Punjab. But what
is most important to consider is that how can lifeless structures of bricks
and mortar or mud be taken into consideration as against the interests of
millions living creatures of God whose culture, whose religion and whose
very existence is jeopardised by placing them under foreign domination
and this aspect of the case gains all the more importance in view of the
present attitude of mind displayed by both the Hindus and Sikhs against
the Muslims. 16
15 Singh, Select Documents, Report of Mr Justice Teja Singh, 4 August 1947, 358.
16 Singh, Select Documents, Report of Mr Justice Din Muhammad, 5 August 1947,
390.
Handing Over the Reigns 41
The claim of the Sikhs therefore, on the ground of the location of their
shrines is wholly untenable, and we would be flagrantly departing from
our terms of reference if we attached any importance to it. As already
pointed out, if the Sikh shrines could be considered as a factor in favour
of the non-Muslim case, the claim of the Muslims on this ground could
not be ignored and would almost extend to every part of the country over
which they ruled for several centuries and which contains the shrines of
many renowned Muslim saints who spread Islam to this country where
that faith still claims ten millions of followers.19
17 Singh, Select Documents, Report of Mr Justice Teja Singh, 4 August 1947, 357.
18 Singh, Select Documents, Report by Mr Justice Muhammad Munir, 6 August
1947, 424.
19 Singh, Select Documents, Report by Mr Justice Muhammad Munir, 6 August
1947, 424.
42 From the Ashes of 1947
I enclose a map showing roughly the boundary which Sir Cyril Radcliffe
proposes to demarcate in his award, and a note by Christopher Beaumont
describing it. There will not be any great changes from this boundary,
but it will have to be accurately defined with reference to village and
zail boundaries in Lahore district. The award itself is expected within the
next 48 hours, and I will let you know later about the probable time of
announcement. Perhaps you would ring me up if H.E. the Governor has
any views on this point.20
The problem was that Sir Francis Mudie, who succeeded Jenkins as governor
of West Punjab, shared this earlier version of the map with Jinnah and ‘wanted
to prove that the original award has been changed by Lord Mountbatten and
that was the cause of the delayed announcement’.21 This has prompted many
to comment on the level of influence Mountbatten had on the boundary.
However, in a personal letter dated 2 April 1948, Lord Mountbatten wrote
to Lord Ismay:
I shall always be grateful to you for having cautioned me not to try and
bring any direct influence to bear on Radcliffe concerning the actual
award beyond expressing the following general view. So far as I remember
I said to him that Sikh attitude had become rather worse than we had
anticipated and when he was balancing the boundaries of East and West
Pakistan I sincerely hoped that he would bear the Sikh problem in mind.
I think I went so far as to say that if he was really satisfied that overall
decision both East and West was absolutely fair to both the communities
then I trusted that any generosity to Pakistan should be more in Bengal
than in Punjab since there was no Sikh problem in Bengal.22
the boundary awards for Bengal and Assam were announced earlier, the
award for Punjab was delayed until the afternoon of 16 August. A number of
factors led to this decision to delay the announcement in Punjab. The timing
of the announcement was discussed with the staff and it was remarked by
Mountbatten that he would prefer to postpone its appearance until after
independence celebrations, ‘feeling that the problem of its timing was really
one of psychology and that the controversy and the grief that are bound to
arouse on both sides should not be allowed to mar Independence Day itself ’.23
Furthermore, this was advisable due to the fact that ‘subsequent communal
riots may be dealt with by the successor Governments and responsibility for
the bloodshed should not rest with the British Government’.24 Indeed, Lord
Mountbatten said in the staff meeting on 9 August, ‘Without question, the
earlier it was published, more the British would have to bear the responsibility
for the disturbances which would undoubtedly result’.25 The British view was
clearly to exit India as soon as possible to avoid being embroiled in further
conflict and to leave with the least amount of blood on their hands.
As an individual, even Sir Cyril Radcliffe is not without controversy.
One of Radcliffe’s virtues was apparently his lack of any familiarity of Indian
politics and more importantly, any previous knowledge of the region that he
was going to divide.26 This was supposed to ensure that he dealt even-handedly
with the conflicting territorial claims. Although, Lucy Chester questions the
perceived notions that Radcliffe was ignorant about India prior to his arrival
as the chair of the boundary commission. Radcliffe, an establishment figure,
would have had some insider knowledge due to his role as director general in
the Ministry of Information during the World War Two. He also had some
personal connections via his brother who died in India in 1938. So despite
being seen as an impartial figure, he would have had some conception of
the political landscape in India, though this is not the same as actual lived
experience of the land and its people. What is interesting in Chester’s analysis
is that Radcliffe was very much an establishment figure, committed to his
sense of duty to the British government and that brings into question his role
as an impartial arbiter with regard to the boundary-making process.27
Curiously, Radcliffe’s relationship with Mountbatten also continues to
raise questions over the extent to which Mountbatten influenced the boundary
award. Mountbatten allegedly influenced the boundary lines in Gurdaspur and
Ferozepur, despite some of the tehsils having Muslim majority populations,
but it is difficult to weigh the exact level of ‘influence’ Mountbatten had on the
outcomes of the boundary commission.28 Arguably, this is one of the bitterest
legacies of the boundary, which is intertwined with the Kashmir issue as
it provides a corridor into India.29 While the controversies surrounding
Mountbatten’s role will continue, Chester does offer an interesting insight
into how Radcliffe felt when leaving India:
This is a rare insight, because the enigmatic Radcliffe was obsessive about
destroying his personal papers. Apparently, when asked by Z. H. Zaidi, the
editor-in-chief of the Quaid-i-Azam Paper Project in 1967 about his personal
papers, Radcliffe responded by suggesting that he ‘had destroyed his papers
because he wanted to maintain the validity of the Awards’.31 And so his role
is left mostly to speculation and conjecture; however, it does show his own
awareness of the repercussions in drawing the lines and perhaps he also sensed
that he would be blamed for this unpopular award. It would be impossible to
divide and create new boundaries without also creating enmities along the
way; Radcliffe’s saving grace is that the majority of those people would remain
ignorant of his existence yet their future citizenship and nationality was being
drawn by him.
You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your
mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You
may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with
the business of the State.34
return, Sir, we shall expect the rights and privileges of the minority
guaranteed in the constitution, guaranteed not only in the Constitution
but actually respected in the day to day working of the Government.36
Yet the idea was not completely inconceivable, because Jinnah had also
suggested an exchange of population as early as 10 December 1945 and
Ghazanfar Ali Khan, who was one of Jinnah’s close aides, considered an
‘exchange of population a necessary corollary’ to the establishment of a
Muslim state.37 Upon hearing the results of the award, Sardar Baldev Singh
felt that the only solution would be large-scale population transfers.38 While
the secular orientated Indian National Congress could accept a territorial
division, a division of peoples would totally negate its ideology and force it
to accept that India was indeed made up of ‘two nations’ with irreconcilable
differences.39 The colonial government alternatively was completely focused
on leaving India at this point and had neither anticipated nor planned for a
mass transfer of population as a result of its policies. Yet, the idea of planned
exchanges of populations and the so-called ‘unmixing’ of ethnic communities
was something used extensively following World War Two in Europe, so it is
surprising that it does not feature in the discussions in the exit plan for India.40
The engulfing violence in the province that forced many people to flee
their homes in turn meant more people were forced out to make space for the
incoming refugees. It was clear to the leadership that events had spiralled out
of control and it forced the leaders of India and Pakistan, Jawaharlal Nehru
and Liaquat Ali Khan, to issue a joint statement at the end of August 1947:
The Punjab was peaceful and prosperous only a short while ago. It is now
witnessing scenes of horror and destruction and men have become worse
than beasts. They have murdered their fellow beings with savage brutality
and have spared neither women nor children. They have burnt houses and
looted property. Even people fleeing in terror have been butchered. Both
Government (sic) are thus devoting all their energies to the task of restoring
peaceful conditions and protecting the life, honour and property of the
people. They are determined to rid the Punjab of the present nightmare
and make it at (sic) once again the peaceful and happy land it was.41
The full statement is aimed at restoring order and giving the impression
that the respective governments are in control of the situation. However, the
newly formed governments of India and Pakistan had also, once they realised
the scale of the migration, set up organisations like the Military Evacuation
Organisation and the Liaison Agency to deal with the movement of people
across the borders. The problem of course was that although the decision-
makers had prepared themselves for the establishment of two new states and
subsequently the division, no one had prepared themselves for the ensuing
violence and mass migration that followed this event. What followed was a
response to events that were largely out of their control. And so, when the
independence celebrations were taking place in August 1947 in New Delhi
and Karachi, the regions of Punjab and Bengal were the scenes of massive
murder and uprooting.
While it is easy to scapegoat and blame Radcliffe, the man-in-charge
of drawing up the fate of millions of people, he is not himself singularly
responsible for the debacle that followed the departure of Britain from India.
The responsibility must lie with all those who at the time were in positions of
leadership. Certainly, the colonial power must accept that the speed with which
it decided to ‘divide and quit’ India appears miscalculated. Yet, would a delay
have made things any better? Were the Indian politicians too eager to assume
power at almost any cost? Moreover, how much was their use of communalism
for political purposes responsible for the violence in the first place? And
among all these questions, no one actually asked the people of Punjab and
Bengal whether they wanted to be divided and if so, which country would they
like to accede to? And it was perhaps the Sikhs who were the most bewildered
by the outcome. Though the Sikh leaders had accepted the 3 June Plan, they
realised that they might now have to part with not only the Sikh shrines, but
also the canal colonies in West Punjab, which they had contributed so much
41 Singh, Select Documents, Joint Statement of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and
Liaquat Ali Khan to the people of East and West Punjab, 508.
Handing Over the Reigns 49
into making them fertile. This was a small, compact but significant community
in undivided Punjab, which now saw its homeland split.42
The demise of the British Empire in India is a turning point not just
in British colonial history but also in understanding the post-colonial states
of India and Pakistan. The lingering legacy of partition had enormous
repercussions for these fragile nascent nations; the long nationalist struggle
gave way to divided, fragmented but nevertheless jubilant nations. The joy of
independence for many was overshadowed by the partition of India to create
the new state of Pakistan. The process of dividing and partitioning territories
was much easier for Radcliffe on paper than it was in practice. This was not
just a physical separation but a division of people, emotions, ancestral lands
and properties; it was a partitioning of people whose primary identifier now
was their religious identity, while their caste, class, linguistic or ethnic identity
had receded, albeit temporarily.
The longer-term repercussions of this violent beginning for India and
Pakistan have overshadowed the trauma and dislocation felt by millions of
innocent people who were forced to flee their homes. Yet, only days before
in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Mr. M. A. Khuhro, representing
Sind, proudly asserted, ‘Within these 6 or 7 years, as my Honourable friend,
Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, rightly said, without any bloody war and
without any serious sacrifice of that kind, you have been able to get this
Pakistan for the Mussalmans of this part of the country’.43
A bloodless war, it saw the realisation of Jinnah’s dream and Gandhi’s
vision of Swaraj but the reality was somewhat different. So, while the process
of carving up India was pre-planned, the exchange of population was not;
though disruption and violence was expected, the ability to deal with this was
inadequate and while New Delhi and Karachi celebrated their new existence,
neither thought this would be the source of such hostility between the two
countries. Within Punjab, it was clear for the politicians that placating the Sikhs
would be difficult. Nehru was aware of the bad effects the boundary award
could have on the Sikhs.44 The legacy of decolonisation in India has therefore
had ramifications far beyond merely transferring power. While the people were
divided up, no one thought through the impact of their decisions on the people.
42 V. P. Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States (Calcutta: Orient
Longmans, 1956).
43 11 August 1947, Constituent Assembly Debates.
44 Minutes, 16 August 1947, IOR: L/P&J/10/117.
Ahmad Rahi
For Balraj Sahni1
1 Balraj Sahni, ‘Mera Pakistani Safarnama’ (1963), Trans. by Gibb Schreffler, Journal
of Punjab Studies 13, nos. 1 and 2 (2006): 93.
Handing Over the Reigns 51
2 Here the word for ‘traveler’ (rahi) doubles as the poet’s name, effectively
highlighting the poet’s own experiences because of the partition.
Violence, Migration and the Making of the Refugee 53
the violence claimed the lives of the people he grew up with. They witnessed
the mass movement of people, which saw the demographic transformation of
their neighbourhoods. They saw neighbours fleeing, either from the violence
or from the ensuing violence that was spreading and engulfing everyone. It
is difficult to fully understand how this region succumbed to the frenzy of
violence in August 1947.
2 Veena Das and Ashis Nandy, ‘Violence, Victimhood and the Language of Silence,’
in The Word and the World: Fantasy, Symbol and Record, ed. Veena Das (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1983).
3 Ian Talbot, ed., The Deadly Embrace: Religion, Violence and Politics in India and
Pakistan 1947–2002 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007); Anders B. Hansen,
Partition and Genocide: Manifestation of Violence in Punjab 1937–1947 (New Delhi:
India Research Press, 2002); Paul Brass, The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence
in Contemporary India (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003); and
Ishtiaq Ahmed, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 2012).
4 Vinay Lal, ‘Partitioned Selves, Partitioned Pasts: A Commentary on Ashis
Nandy’s, “The Death of an Empire,”’ accessed 17 July 2013, www.sscnet.ucla.
edu/southasia/History/Independent/deathofempire.html.
54 From the Ashes of 1947
5 Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan (New Delhi: Lotus Collection, Roli Books,
2006), Photographs by Margaret Bourke-White, Time Life 1947.
6 Veena Das, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 2006). E-book version.
7 Letters on Divide and Quit. Letter from Mountbatten of Burma, 2 March 1962.
Mss Eur F230/34, India Office Records and Private Papers, British Library.
Violence, Migration and the Making of the Refugee 55
My estimate has always been not more than 250,000 dead; and the fact
that your [Moon] estimate is not more than 200,000 is the first realistic
estimate I have seen. I have often wondered how the greatly inflated
figures which one still hears were first arrived at, and I think that they
were due largely to the wild guesses which were made in those emotional
days after the transfer of power. That they still persist is very clear; for
example, Mr Leonard Mosley’s latest book gives, I understand, the figure
of 600,000, and only the other day a backbench conservative MP told one
of my staff that the figures were three million!8
In 1948, G. D. Khosla, who became Chief Justice of East Punjab High Court
in 1959, led the Fact-Finding Commission by the Government of India to
refute the Pakistani charge of genocide against Muslims emerging from
United Nations debates over the Kashmir conflict.9 Although the reports
were not made public, shortly after this, Khosla wrote Stern Reckoning. In this
book he estimates the number of casualties to be around 200,000 to 250,000
non-Muslims and probably an equal number of Muslims, bringing the
total to nearly 500,000.10 The historian Patrick French contends that deaths
numbered closer to one million.11 In a recent interview, the Indo-Canadian
writer Shauna Singh Baldwin suggested the figure of five million.12 Many
of the police records were destroyed during the disturbances and due to the
lawlessness of the state at the time; the records that do exist are unreliable in
providing a comprehensive picture. Furthermore, it is difficult to calculate and
differentiate between those that died directly due to the violence and those that
died during the mass exodus through starvation, disease and other secondary
factors. The truth in reality will never be known because it is an impossible task
and, as Pandey suggests, casualty numbers are based on rumour and repetition,
which continue to reverberate.13
seize crowds can produce action which is either heroic or barbaric.18 Paul
Brass, on the other hand, refutes this idea as blame displacement, suggesting
that crowds cannot be viewed differently as Durkheim suggests.19 Donald
Horowitz, in his extensive study, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, is also critical of
Durkheim’s understanding of crowd behaviour, but suggests that crowds can
draw support from social approval.20 In this respect, the collective behaviour
of crowds may differ significantly from individual responses.
Given that some responses by individuals may be irrational, and while not
trying to displace the blame as Brass suggests, it is possible that individuals
whether in crowds or otherwise may be fuelled by their more ‘primordial
passions’. This ‘mob mentality’ may be influenced by their primordial instincts
rather than compelled by any broader political aims. Sudhir Kakar also
acknowledges that some change has to occur for the outbreak of violence;
in this case, the ‘communal identity has to swamp personal identity in a
large number of people, reviving the feelings of love connected with early
identifications with one’s own group members and the hate toward the out-
group’.21 The 1947 violence in Punjab was marked by atrocities that Horowitz
sees as evidence of the ‘spontaneous quality of riot behaviour’.22 Many of
the massacres were carried out by mobs in murderous frenzy.23 Horowitz
does go so far as to see some planning involved in the attacks, for example,
on the refugee trains. But others like Javeed Alam argue that there was ‘no
involvement of large organisations or the state as the instrument of mass
killings’.24
Anders Bjorn Hansen though is more critical and argues that the
intentions, intensity and degree of organisation of the violence by communal
groupings warrant the violence in Punjab to be understood as a manifestation
Ahmed, who has been considering this dilemma vis-à-vis partition violence,
suggests that ‘Ethnic cleansing is a generic term that covers removal of a
distinct population — on the basis of ethnic, religious, sectarian and other such
factors from a specific territory’. Ahmed argues that while genocide results in
the destruction of a nation or people in part or whole, ethnic cleansing can
lead to the same but using less severe methods. There is, however, a distinction
in ‘whether the intention was to rid unwanted people from a territory or to
destroy them physically’.32 The former was certainly evident in Punjab, which
was further exacerbated by the refugees fleeing from the fear of reprisal killings.
Regardless of whether the terms ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ are
deployed, a debate still rages regarding the ‘spontaneity’ or ‘planning’ of the
violence. The role of the local state is important here. For such writers as Brass
who see links between partition and post-independence communal violence, the
complicity of the local law enforcement agencies and the political motivations
of the ‘producers’ of violence are crucial factors.33 Brass has nevertheless
termed the Punjab violence as ‘retributive genocide’ which becomes enveloped
in a ‘cycle of revenge and retribution’,34 and the boundaries between victim and
perpetrator become completely blurred. Other scholars have suggested that
this could be seen as a form of fratricide. This could include not only assaults
on the ‘other’, but also the murder of women of one’s own family to spare
them from the ‘dishonour’ associated with rape and abduction. Jason Francisco
shares this view and argues that ‘the partition stands as the archetype of what
I would call nationalist fratricide, the conflict between people of a common
cultural heritage’.35 He contends that this is distinct from ethnic conflict, or
nationalist genocide, which is characterised by state-sponsored persecution or
slaughter of cultural or religious minorities, such as the European Jews. Even
Khosla’s book, which was first published in 1949, describes the magnitude of
horrors of 1947 with the comment that ‘history has not known a fratricidal
war of such dimensions’.36 But it was women who bore the brunt of the most
37 This concept has its roots in feminist discourse, where violence is viewed as a tool
of repression and male dominance. For a discussion on this, see Jill Radford and
Diana E. H. Russell, eds., Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing (Buckingham:
Open University Press, 1992).
38 Andrew Major, ‘The Chief Sufferers: The Abduction of Women during the
Partition of the Punjab,’ South Asia XVIII (1995): 57–72.
39 Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (New
Delhi: Penguin, 1998); and Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries:
Women in India’s Partition (New Jersey: Rutger University Press, 1998).
40 Butalia, The Other Side.
Violence, Migration and the Making of the Refugee 61
Indeed, ‘the Prime Minister of Pakistan expressed the hope that, as the general
situation improved, those gathered in refugee camps would return to their
homes’.46 Many of the refugees that I have interviewed, and discussed later in
this chapter, have frequently said that once the troubles settled down, they had
hoped to return to their ancestral homes.
However, it was also beginning to dawn on the authorities that some
movement of peoples was inevitable due to the uncontrollable levels of
violence. The Defence Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, wrote to the
Governor-General of India, Mountbatten, on 28 August 1947:
From all reports conditions in Eastern Punjab are far worse than
could have been imagined. In Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Jullundur districts
and parts of Gurdaspur, Ludhiana and Ferozepore districts complete
breakdown of administration. Thousands of men, women and children
massacred and large proportion of Muslim villages burnt. Abduction on
a large scale. Reign of terror in these districts has driven hundreds of
thousands to West Punjab. Number of Muslim refugees may run upto
a million or more.47
In the telegram, the minister notes that the refugees may run into a million
or more, and of course this number escalated into many millions by the end
of 1947. He goes on to say that it appears the Sikh objective is to ‘exterminate
or drive out entire Muslim population from this area’.48 One of the bloodiest
massacres was in Sheikhupura. G. D. Khosla terms the district as a ‘by-word’,49
for murder, loot, arson and rape that took place between 17 and 31 August.50
In a statement sent to Rameshwari Nehru, the extent of the partition violence
becomes clear. The statement notes that in the space of 24 hours, 10,000 people
were killed in Sheikhupura by the ‘Muslim military and police or were burnt
46 Minutes of the sixth meeting of the Joint Defence Council held at Government
House, Lahore, 29 August 1947, in Singh, Select Documents, 505.
47 Defence minister, Pakistan, to governor-general, India, 27 August 1947. National
Documentation Centre (NDC), Disturbances in the Punjab, 1947: A Compilation
of Official Documents (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 1995), 365.
48 Defence minister, Pakistan, to governor-general, India, 27 August 1947. NDC,
Disturbances in the Punjab, 365.
49 Khosla, Stern Reckoning, 126–40.
50 Menon and Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries, recount the story of Dr. Virsa Singh,
who says that he personally killed fifty women in Sheikhupura to save their
honour.
Violence, Migration and the Making of the Refugee 63
alive in the houses’. In this case it appears that the Baloch soldiers and the local
leadership were culpable for the massacre but the statement also notes how
some people, regardless of the dangers, were compelled to save and protect
the lives of the ‘other’ community. For example, ‘the local president of the
league, Mr. Anwar had given shelter to about 65 members of the families of
his friends. One Mrs. Rafi, a wife of a police inspector saved about 70 lives’,51
highlighting that even in this extreme situation not all humanity had vanished.
Sheikhupura district included Nankana Sahib and thus was the spiritual
homeland of the Sikh community, as it is the birthplace of the founder of
Sikhism and for this reason alone many Sikhs found it difficult to believe that
it would now be in Pakistan. But like the rest of central Punjab, the district
was an amalgam of different religious communities who came to co-exist
over generations.52 Yet, now nearly 150,000 Sikhs were gathered for the mass
exodus.53 They took refuge in local schools and gurdwaras and the Sacha Sauda
camp alone had over hundred thousand people as refugees from neighbouring
areas all gathered.54 The creation of refugees by these acts of violence left people
helpless in their loss of family members and property. Some wrote to religious
organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha in desperate pleas of help:
51 Rameshwari Nehru Papers, no. 25, four-page statement about Sheikhupura sent
from Lahore, 28 August 1947. NMML, New Delhi.
52 See the chapter on ‘Composite Culture in Pre-Partition Punjab.’ Meeto (Kamaljit
Bhasin-Malik), In the Making: Identity Formation in South Asia (Gurgaon: Three
Essays Collective, 2007).
53 Sir Francis Mudie to Mr Jinnah, 5 September 1947, in Singh, Select Documents,
511.
54 Menon and Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries, 49.
55 Letter sent to the Magistrate, 17 September 1947, by Prem Nath. Hindu
Mahasabha, File C-168. NMML, New Delhi.
64 From the Ashes of 1947
Until September 1947, the governments were unable to accept the reality
that a mass transfer of population was necessary. Once the violence reached
uncontrollable levels and chaos engulfed the Punjab region, the two new
dominions had to accept that the exchange of populations was an inevitable
outcome of partition. There were fears that the ‘holocaust at Sheikhupura will
probably be repeated in many other mofussil areas in West Punjab and that 40,000
lives are in danger during next 48 hours’. It was therefore recommended that a
‘transfer of population should take place’.56 But the nature of that exchange was
not clear. Would the exchange involve repatriation or resettlement? Mahatma
Gandhi’s view on this was that ‘the migrants must eventually return to their
homes and lands that the two Dominion Governments must extend the fullest
protection of their minorities’.57 In many ways, the refugees themselves were
of the same opinion. The interview below with a migrant from Sialkot, which
resonates in many other oral accounts of refugees’ experiences, illustrates the
hope that uprooting would only be temporary. Sarwan recollects:
People just tied locks to their houses in our village. We told our neighbours
that we would be back soon. Some people who were our sympathisers said
not to go. People lost a lot, most left everything there. We had one horse
and brought along as much as we could. We didn’t know that we would
not return. We just went until things calmed down.58
When we migrated from India, many Muslims thought that they would
come back after two to three months. It was stupidity, I think. Even
56 Letter to Nehru from High Commissioner for India Camp, Lahore, 27 August
1947, in Singh, Select Documents, 502.
57 After Partition (Delhi: Publications Division, Government of India, 1948), 59.
58 Interview with Sarwan Singh, Lal Bazaar, Malerkotla, August 2001.
59 Saadat Hasan Manto and Introduction by Daniyal Mueenuddin, Mottled Dawn:
Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition (India: Penguin, 2011), 11.
Violence, Migration and the Making of the Refugee 65
feeling all this, we were not sure about migration…The riots kept on
gaining strength and ferocity and only two options were left with us to
die or to migrate. Some Muslims wanted to stay in their homeland and
die there while the rest thought about the other option because the army
of the [Sikh] States had surrounded them and they didn’t have weapons
to defend themselves. Some of our Sikh friends waited for us on the way.
At the sight of my maternal uncle, they started crying and embraced him.
They gave us some bread and few other items of necessity. They loaded
those items on a horse and handed the reins to us.60
The vast majority of people crossed the newly created border on foot,
forming snake-like kafilas which, though protected by the army, were still
attacked by the opposing communities who were themselves going in the
opposite direction. For others, the exhaustion of travelling was too much; the
weak were simply left to perish, while the dead were abandoned without any
burial rites. Foot convoys regardless of these problems remained the most
practical method of transport for the largely agricultural Punjabi community,
who could at least take some essential foodstuff, equipment and cattle with
them. The trains were the second most popular form for transporting the
refugees, yet the history of partition is replete with horrific stories of pre-
planned attacks on trains, trains filled with corpses denuded of all identity and
of burning trains arriving at platforms and motivating further reprisal killings.
Some were lucky enough to survive:
They [Sikhs] blocked the way of our train – halting our journey for three
days. It seemed that the Sikhs were preparing for a big attack. There were
four to five military men of Baloch regiment with us. With great effort
of these soldiers our train set off again. Going on a little ahead, we found
scores of Sikhs lying on the ground, who were ready to attack our train.
Our military men opened fire on them and the entrenchments of Sikhs
became their graves.72
They stopped where they were, and we stopped where we were. They
were Muslim and we were non-Muslims. And no one spoke. We went on
looking at each other. They had left their homes and friends behind, and
so had we. But there was a strange kind of kinship, this kinship of sorrow.
We were all refugees. We both had been broken on the wreck of history.74
The sentiments echo those of the poet Daman, when he says, ‘that you have lost,
as we too have lost in this divide’. In the end, approximately 7.3 million people
crossed into India, 6.5 million into Pakistan, and 0.7 million into Bangladesh.
The same figures taken as a percentage present a different story, 2.04, 20.9 and
1.66 per cent, respectively; the task for Pakistan is proportionally much more
significant.75
Upon arrival, the refugees sought refuge in any makeshift accommodation
that was available to them. Schools and colleges were closed until the end
of February 1948 so that the buildings could be used as temporary shelter.
Students were enlisted to assist the running of the camps. Other temporary
camps had to be erected to cope with the masses of refugees. While there
were camps dotted all over the Punjab, there were also so-called ‘concentration
camps’, like the Walton Camp in Lahore and the Kurukshetra Camp in
present-day Haryana, which were focal points for the movement of people.
Such camps were responsible for housing as many as 300,000 people at any
one time.76 These facilities had to be improvised rapidly to accommodate the
unanticipated tide of refugees.
Despite being in refugee camps and being stateless, the journey across
the new border marked a sense of relief for many refugees – Stephen Keller
makes the analogy with the feeling of having reached the ‘promised land’.77
In an interview with Kabir, he also recalled the sense of relief felt by everyone
upon reaching Atari, comparing it to a religious shrine which they had finally
Khaira’s account in Talbot and Tatla’s Epicentre of Violence highlights the extent
to which people became quite immune to otherwise disturbing and horrific
accounts, which was for many the only way to survive the experience.
During the movement of the convoy we used to drink water from a small
stream which ran parallel to the passage. I remember, many times when
we drank water from the stream, there were dead bodies flowing through
it, one bloated body passing, then another one coming from the distance.
This chain of dead bodies hardly stopped. People would just wait to let the
body pass before filling their glasses of water.82
and Pakistan. While the provision of clothing, food and housing was at least
something which could be calculated and catered for, the psychological impact
of this trauma is something which has received little attention. One of the
earliest studies was by Stephen Keller who spent time with Sikh and Hindu
Punjabi refugees and tried to examine the social impact of this displacement.
In his study, Keller identifies three stages in the refugee experience. The first
one, which is relatively short, is the point of arrival in which the refugee is
numbed by the experience and often overcome by grief. The second stage is
survivor’s guilt. Keller recounts a story of a man who became separated from
his mother and came to Amritsar. There was a sense of guilt because his mother
had been left behind, while he had survived. As a result of these feelings,
he became restless, anxious and incapable of settling down. The continued
inability to reconcile to this separation and the associated guilt eventually
led him to Pakistan, to search for his mother, and although he was not able
to locate her, there was at last some sort of closure for him.83 This sense of
restlessness felt by refugees and the inability to settle down resonates in many
accounts provided by refugees. The final stage, according to Keller, is marked
by aggression, not necessarily physical aggression but a stage in which the
refugee feels invincible enough to take risks; this could be risks in business or
even in the political sphere. As one of the refugees says, ‘we have gone through
so much; what more can happen to us? No one can do anything to us that can
be more terrible than has already occurred. Why should we be afraid?’84
Jinnah.90 Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan was the wife of the first Prime
Minister of Pakistan and assumed a leading role in the women’s voluntary
service. The organisation encouraged women to take up responsibilities such
as the administration of first aid, distribution of food and clothing, dealing
with health problems and epidemics but voluntary help also took the form of
providing the refugees with the much needed moral and emotional support.
Begum Shah Nawaz, a leading Muslim League figure and a member of
the Constituent Assembly, made an appeal to women in West Punjab to
come forward and work for the noble cause as she saw it. In a statement on
23 September 1947, she said:
…Their mangled bodies, their tear-filled eyes and their trembling hands
await whatever succour and hope we can give them. At this hour, it is
the duty of every Pakistani man, woman and child to do his or her duty.
My sisters, you have never failed your nation. When patriotism called,
you came forth in thousands and did not hesitate to face lathi, tear-gas
and bullets and some of you went to jail. Today your country needs you
as never before…You are the real soldiers of Pakistan. Your motherland
needs you. Your helpless sisters await your aid. You have never failed your
nation before I know that you will not fail now.91
Initially, there was a good response to this appeal and hundreds of women
had offered their voluntary services to PVS regardless of the problems with
transport and logistics which hampered the relief process. Begum Shah Nawaz,
who was a special assistant in Rehabilitation and Employment, was keen to
maintain the momentum and appealed to every woman to register her name
in the women voluntary service’s register.92 However, a week later, there was a
report in the newspaper again noting the lack of women who were willing to
come forward and volunteer:
Many women who stayed back from enrolling their names did so because
they felt they were not sufficiently educated. It will surprise them to find
that the kind of help needed in the refugee camps and hospitals is what
There are many accounts and reports of Fatima Jinnah visiting camps, not
only to boost morale but also to highlight the important work being done by
individuals on a daily basis. This served as a further incentive for more women
to become involved in the rehabilitation of refugees. On one such visit, The
Pakistan Times on 30 October 1947 reports:
to find them suitable partners.97 Lahore was the main hub of activities
where homes for destitute women such as the Sir Ganga Ram Widows’
Home and also a Girls Training College were established. Women who
were rescued from East Punjab were brought to homes such as these if no
relatives were traced.
The women who were at the forefront of these activities were predominantly
from elite backgrounds; they were articulate and able to organise and generate
support for assisting refugees. We, therefore, repeatedly see the names of
women like Fatima Jinnah, Begum Liaquat Ali Khan, Miss Macqueen and
Begum Mumtaz Shah Nawaz being reported as taking a leading role in
organising these activities. While it was essential to have this strong female
leadership, more practical and urgent assistance was also required in the form
of collecting bedding, blankets and warm clothing due to the onset of winter.
On 20 December, there was yet another public appeal: ‘Help is required from
every one especially women. I mention women, because after all they are the
managers of the household. Winter clothes help should primarily be their
concern. Let the women of Pakistan prove that they are good managers’.98
There were also recommendations for ‘every housewife’ to follow which would
greatly benefit the ‘cause of humanity’. The advice is simple:
What these newspaper reports show is the active role of women in the
rehabilitation of refugees in Pakistan. They were integral to the needs of
ensuring that the refugees had some support and assistance when they arrived
in camps. Women helped in camps, provided medical care, domestic help
and education or even just merely donated warm clothing for the refugees. It
enabled women to become active agents in the creation of the new state and
saw an increasing number of women come out of seclusion to assume a greater
role in society.
Yes, we were taunted by the term, sometimes called panahgir, more often,
refugees. Someone will say, look, ‘a refugee is here’. We would try to divert
the conversation by saying, ‘we are your brothers’ and sometimes argue
‘we are not refugees, and we have come back to our native lands’, did
not we have everything here? [sic] Some did help us, others were hostile.
‘Refugee’ was a shameful term, a tag we carried for year, [sic] whenever
the term was mentioned, we felt ashamed. It still does.100
Their common religious identity was not always enough for them to be
assimilated easily into the new landscape but they were stuck with the
language of religious labels such as panahgirs or muhajirs101 for Muslim
refugees and sharanarthis for Hindu and Sikh.102 The term muhajir has
largely become an important source of identity for Urdu-speaking partition-
related migrants and their descendants from the United Provinces living
particularly in Karachi. It is therefore mostly associated with the Urdu-
speaking people, rather than the Punjabi migrants. The terms themselves
also disguised the fact that they were now aliens in their own lands. The
label of ‘refugee’ was etched upon them permanently, a term to be associated
with the destitute, helpless, and homeless. But over time, this temporary
dislocation turned into a fragile permanence and with that a new identity
emerged. They had not chosen this necessarily at the point of departure but
there was little chance of now returning to what they had known before
their lives were ruptured.
100 Darshan Singh Tatla, ‘The Sandal Bar: Memoirs of a Jat Sikh Farmer,’ The Panjab
Past and Present 29, nos. 1 and 2 (1995): 173.
101 The word, however, had very different connotations because mohajir is an Arabic
word meaning immigrant or emigrant and is associated with the migration of the
prophet Muhammad and his companions when they left Mecca for Medina.
102 Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern
South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories (India: Penguin, 2007), 8.
Khwaja Fariduddin Masud Ganjshakar, popularly known as
Baba Farid1
Farid, if you are maltreated
Do not react with violence and projection
Visit the Other
And kiss his feet in humility and affection!
1 Harjeet Singh Gill, Sufi Rhythms: Interpreted in Free Verse (Patiala: Punjabi
University, 2007), 5, 7 and 14.
2 Sufi Poetry, accessed 8 October 2016, https://sufipoetry.wordpress.com/category/
mian-muhammad-baksh/.
78 From the Ashes of 1947
4 Sir Lepel H. Griffen, Chiefs and Families of Note in the Punjab (Lahore: Civil and
Military Gazetteer Press, 1940), 530.
5 Data based on Census of India 1941, vol. 9, Punjab.
6 Census of India, Punjab, 1941 and 1961. The 1951 Census does not provide a
religious breakdown, thus a comparison is only possible between 1941 and 1961.
The figures for 1961 represent only the rural population, but it provides a useful
guide as 83 per cent of Sangrur’s population was rural.
80 From the Ashes of 1947
7 Nawab Iftikhar Ali Khan, History of the Ruling Family of Sheikh Sadruddin Sadar-
I-Jahan of Malerkotla (Patiala: Punjabi University, 2000), 107.
8 Ian Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire 1917-1947 (New
Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
9 Copland, Princes of India, 8; and Surjit Mansingh, Historical Dictionary of India,
(New Delhi, 1998), 332–5. For example, Veja-no-ness in Kathiawar was less than
an acre broad and had a population of 184 according to the 1921 census.
10 Copland, Princes of India, 12.
11 Ian Copland, ‘The Political Geography of Religious Conflict: Towards an
Explanation of the Relative Infrequency of Communal Riots in the Indian
Princely States,’ International Journal of Punjab Studies 7, no. 1 (2000): 5.
12 Copland, ‘Political Geography,’ 1–27.
13 Copland, ‘Political Geography,’ 5.
82 From the Ashes of 1947
An important aspect of this was the fact that the princes unlike the
British were not neutral in religious matters. This lessened the scope for
disputes in which the adjudication of the rulers was sought over such issues as
cow slaughter and the control of sacred space. Copland also suggests that the
moral authority of the rulers was a factor; the princes were representatives of
an unbroken history that stretched back thousands of years and they had long
been recognised as the legitimate rulers and epitomised the tradition of cross-
communal support. According to Sir Conrad Corfield (former political advisor
to the viceroy), ‘personal rule in the States seldom had difficulty in securing
this consent [from the people]’.14 Indeed the rulers, according to him, had no
intention of giving up personal rule except under pressure, even though the
British progressed with parliamentary democracy in the rest of India. This led
to two opposing systems to develop autonomously. By the time independence
was looming, it became apparent that the viceroy’s policy towards the princes
was one of prevarication. Their options for forming states unions were unlikely
and the only way they could be admitted to the commonwealth was if they
joined up with India or Pakistan. Corfield was critical of this approach which
was a ‘gross breach of faith’.15 A new central department was set up in June
to deal with matters pertaining to the states, and their relative smooth merger
following independence is credited to Sardar Patel who oversaw the Ministry
of the States, with V. P. Menon as secretary.16 Copland has suggested that
this was indeed a ‘bloodless revolution’.17 Malerkotla, being a small Muslim
state within Punjab, quickly formed alliances after 1947 to become part of
the Punjab and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU). This united eight states
(Patiala, Jind, Nabha, Faridkot, Malerkotla, Kapurthala and two non-salute
14 Sir Conrad Corfield, The Princely India I Knew: From Reading to Mountbatten
(Madras: Indo British Historical Society, 1975), 175.
15 Memo by Corfield, 29 May 1947, Transfer of Power, vol. X, quoted in Copland,
Princes of India, 255.
16 Read Menon’s first-hand account of the integration of the states in India.
V. P. Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States (Calcutta: Orient
Longmans, 1956).
17 Ian Copland, ‘The Integration of the Princely States: A “Bloodless Revolution”?’
South Asia XVIII, Special Issue (1995). Also see Yaqoob Khan Bangash, A Princely
Affair: The Accession and Integration of the Princely States of Pakistan, 1947–1955
(Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2015) to understand the integration of the
states in Pakistan. The majority of the 565 princely states were in India with a
small number coming under Pakistan.
Sacred Malerkotla 83
states, Kalsia and Nalagarh) to form a union until 1956 when it then became
absorbed into Punjab State. Interestingly, V. P. Menon notes the lack of interest
in political affairs by the Punjab state rulers:
Managing Conflict
Evidently, princely India was not immune from external influences brought
about by British rule. It is clear from the British records that there were
increased tensions between the communities and signs of the politicisation of
communal disputes. However, there was a tradition of cross-communal support
in princely India which had developed over many centuries, espousing policies
of accommodation towards local minorities. Princes ‘used symbolic action
to demonstrate the sincerity of their personal commitment to the principle
of bi-partisanship’.19 This was done publicly by attending cross-communal
festivals or generally by paying respect at the others’ place of worship. There
was also a system of ‘managed pluralism’ whereby issues such as prayer times,
routes of religious procession and playing of music were controlled. The most
contentious issue, however, was cow slaughter. In most Hindu/Sikh-ruled
states this practice was prohibited and the Muslims invariably ended up using
alternatives to the cow as a sacrifice on the occasion of Bak’r ’id. It is worth
noting that under the British administration there were no restrictions on cow
slaughter, and that, with the growth of Hindu revivalism in the late nineteenth
century, became a major factor in destabilising communal harmony.
In Malerkotla, there were clashes over prayer times during May 1935.
These arose due to the recitation of the katha in Moti Bazaar, which
overlooked the Masjid Loharan, belonging to the more puritanical Ahl-
e-Hadith sect. The Ramayan katha was being sponsored by Peshawari Mal
and it continued for days and when it began to interfere with the isha (night)
prayers of the Muslims, there were protests.20 Both Hindus and Muslims
protested; there were public processions, hartals (closures) and unnecessary
noise being made during evening prayer times. However, after four nights
of continuous tension, the state authorities suspended both the katha and
isha prayers. The tension ultimately though continued and eventually resulted
in the attack on Lala Puran Mal, who was vice president of the Malerkotla
Hindu Sabha, by four Muslims.21 The hasty decision by the state to arrest and
execute the perpetrators created further tension. Shortly after this event, the
body of a young Muslim girl was discovered; she was clutching a copy of the
Quran.22 There was, however, a perception that these cases were being treated
differently, with protests being organised by many Muslims at the apparent
leniency shown to Hindus.
The issue over the prayer times, however, was finally resolved when
the authorities intervened and imposed different prayer times for each
community.23 But there are also signs that the community was becoming more
politicised than previously. We can see in the following letter to the Nawab of
Malerkotla that there is a perception that issues, which previously had little
impact on communal relations, were now being used to exert political pressure
on the ‘other’ community.
Second, there is a letter from the All-India Hindu Mahasabha sent to the
Nawab of Malerkotla on 2 November 1935. The letter was written in response
20 Letter to His Highness from the home minister, Zaman Khan, 19 October 1935.
Malerkotla State Records, no. 3, File 74, PSA.
21 Malerkotla Affairs, IOR: L/PS/13/1345.
22 Anna Bigelow, Sharing the Sacred: Practicing Pluralism in Muslim North India
(USA: Oxford University Press, 2010), 113.
23 Malerkotla Affairs, IOR: L/PS/13/1345.
24 Malerkotla State Records Letter to the Nawab from Prem Bhawan, Solan, 20
August 1935. Malerkotla State Records, no. 3, File 74, PSA.
Sacred Malerkotla 85
to allegations that the inspector of police had been siding with Muslims
regarding the murder of Puran Mal.
The Hindu subjects of your Highness have been groaning under various
disadvantages, because of their religion and their cup of misery is now full
of the brim. It is your highness, who can bring consolation and mitigate
their sorrows by acts of justice and fairness, of which Your Highness’s
subjects are despairing at the hands of your officials.25
25 Letter to Nawab Ahmad Ali Khan from general secretary, AIHM, Padamraj Jain,
2 November 1935. Malerkotla State Records, no. 3, File 74, PSA.
26 Copland, ‘Integration of the Princely States,’ 42.
27 Situation Reports on Disturbances in East Punjab and Contiguous Areas during
and after August 1947, Mudie Papers Mss. Eur. F 164, National Documentation
Centre, Disturbances in the Punjab, 1947: A Compilation of Official Documents
(Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 1995); Copland, ‘The Integration of the
Princely States,’ 42; and Copland, 2002. Ian Copland builds on the argument
which suggests that the Sikh princes colluded with the Akali Dal in hope of
establishing a Sikh state after the British departure.
86 From the Ashes of 1947
needed four days to clear all the corpses in the city.28 In Jat-dominated rural
areas of Patiala, Nabha and Faridkot states, Muslim villages were burned and
looted.29 The authorities in these Sikh states were clearly in collusion with
the perpetrators and in some instances sanctioned the violence. There was a
similar bloodletting in the West Punjab Muslim-ruled state of Bahawalpur
where Sikhs and Hindus were driven out.30 But, comparatively, Copland has
maintained that communal violence was significantly less in the princely states
than in the British-administered Punjab by the early twentieth century.31 He
argues that in the 1920s and 1930s the princely states experienced, per head
of population, far fewer communal Hindu–Muslim riots than the provinces
of British India.32 At the same time, it is acknowledged that reporting of
communal incidences was less common in princely India than British India.
But in Punjab, there was considerable violence in the princely states in 1947,33
some of which was instigated by the rulers themselves.34
While there was climate of tolerance in princely India, not all communities
were treated equally, the ruling regime’s community generally fared much
better, securing better employment and educational opportunities. By keeping
their heads down the ‘other’ community managed to co-exist and remained
free from harassment, but this did not of course mean that during partition
they would remain free from harm.
28 Copland, ‘The Master and the Maharajas: The Sikh Princes and the East Punjab
Massacres of 1947,’ Modern Asian Studies 36, no. 3 (2002), 686 ff.
29 Copland, ‘Master and the Maharaja,’ 686.
30 G. D. Khosla, Stern Reckoning: A Survey of Events Leading Up to and Following
the Partition of India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1949, reprint
1989), 212–16, 288–9.
31 Copland, ‘Political Geography,’ 1–27.
32 Copland, Political Geography,’ 16.
33 Copland, ‘Political Geography,’ 2–3.
34 Copland, ‘Integration of the Princely States’; and ‘The Master and the Maharajas’.
Sacred Malerkotla 87
There are a number of reasons given for the lack of violence in Malerkotla
and one of them perhaps has something to do with the spirit of ikatth, which
is the unity between different communities.36 Speaking with the people of
Malerkotla, many seemed to suggest that there was something different and
unique about the place. This may have something to do with the 500-year-old
principality being able to prevent violence engulfing its state during 1947 and
also subsequently in independent India, which has seen numerous episodic
clashes between Hindus and Muslims. Furthermore, Malerkotla remained
peaceful even during the militancy years of the 1980s and 1990s, which
gripped much of East Punjab. It was also quite apparent and exceptional
that communal harmony was emphasised rather than the usual propaganda
of enmity and tension among different communities. In reality, though, it is
harder to assess whether this was an image that people wished to project or
whether it accurately and genuinely reflected their experiences. Having spent
time researching in Malerkotla, some of these personal testimonies provide a
glimpse and understanding of amity in Malerkotla.
One of the most compelling interviews conducted in Malerkotla was
with Mohammed, a Kamboj Muslim. He was born in neighbouring Nabha
state and fled to Malerkotla for refuge during the partition violence. He still
remembers the events of that period vividly when he was forced to flee his
house along with his family. As he narrated his story, tears flowed, evoking the
pain and suffering inflicted.
Well, there was fighting there [ancestral village], it carried on and on, in
the end it got too much and we had to go. From Nabha there was this
place Nalla, where we stopped. We were all attacked there, everyone got
killed. There must have been 400–500 people [mostly from his village].
Yes, they all died… I covered myself within all the dead bodies. They were
putting all the bodies into trucks or vehicles… Well, I was still alive, but
they were throwing them into the river. Only about 15 people survived
this. The river where we were thrown into, there was a bridge near there
and I hid. Once they had left the place, we made our way to Nabha city,
where we had relatives.37
Those women who came from the other side [Pakistan], their gudiya
[daughters] were taken and assaulted, stripped and then taken to
Patiala…Then Patiala answered in the same way, the Muslim girls were
abused badly and sent to Pakistan in the trains. I have seen with my own
eyes and accompanied them. We were present there during the violence,
what’s the point of lying to you.40
What transpired during the interview was the lack of planning in this instance.
The following extract highlights how this was clearly also a time of chaos
when many of the men decided to take action themselves, which in this case
involved revenge attacks and therefore justified in the eyes of the perpetrators.
We just went around here and there, no one in the village really did any
work during that time… We went to their [victims] villages, we’d go and
drag them out of their houses. We’d go to one house kill them and then
go to another house and so on. Most of this happened because of izzat,
because of those trains coming here with bodies. If it weren’t for that,
none of this would have happened. It lasted for one month… it was very
intense during that month.41
wealth he acquired following this period, but his family apparently remained
oblivious as to how exactly this had been obtained.
These personal narratives are important in understanding and
contextualising that, while popular mythology suggests no violence took
place in Malerkotla, this was not the case in its immediate proximity. While
Mohammed fled Nabha to seek refuge in Malerkotla, Nirmal Singh, who only
lived 18 km away from the princely state, was involved in the violence. The
violence engulfed not only neighbouring princely states, but also the adjoining
district of Ludhiana, which was formally under British control. The Muslim
localities of Fieldgung, Abdullahpura and Kucha Khilijan and Karipura in
Ludhiana city, for example, were attacked and looted on 24 August 1947,
while outlying villages as Tehera, Modewal and Malian Bajan were raided by
Sikh jathas with considerable loss of life.42
Furthermore, the reality was that the state was ‘always a potential source
of trouble’, it was always feared that agitators from neighbouring Ludhiana
would cause trouble but joint police arrangements were in place to keep
order.43 Indeed, it was noted that ‘communal rivalries are endemic and almost
as explosive as in the Punjab proper…[but] good administration provides
the only procurable safeguard’.44 To suggest that Malerkotla completely
escaped communalism in the 1930s and 1940s would be inaccurate, but
the administration is key to understanding how the volatile situations were
managed effectively to prevent them from escalating. The fragility of the space
between peace and violence was always there.
Sacred Malerkotla
Malerkotla, through the ages, has been associated with pluralism and shared
religious space; this is most evident in the tomb of Haider Sheikh, the Sufi saint
who founded Malerkotla in 1454. A fair is held every Thursday at the dargah
of Haider Sheikh with offerings being made by devotees spanning across
religious boundaries. On the first Thursday of the month, this fair is much
larger attracting thousands of people from outside Malerkotla. It is attended
by large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs, who make offerings for wishes of a
son, wealth, prosperity and so on.45 Thus, there is certainly an important role
played by the presence of shrines which reach out to all communities, which
clearly aids in promoting inter-religious relations.
Anna Bigelow has attempted to analyse and contextualise Malerkotla’s
apparent tranquillity. Her explanations centre on religious and the pluralistic
forces that have been influential in Malerkotla.46 Bigelow has put forward a
persuasive argument in her assertions that the positive forces of spirituality and
pluralism can prevent or at least inhibit the kind of communal violence seen in
1947 and since. However, while spirituality can act as a form of social disapproval,
it cannot explain the decisions made at the state level. The role and behaviour of
the state is of vital importance; it is the state after all that is in charge.
Sufi shrines generally in India attract cross-communal devotees and it is
not unusual to find Sikhs and Hindus alongside Muslims offering prayers.
Denzil Ibbetson,47 writing in colonial India, notes how shrines such as those
of Sakhi Sarwar attracted people from all communities.48 Ron Geaves and
Catherine Geaves also note the eclectic nature of religious life in the region
and how the folk traditions within these communities are particularly blurred,
especially with respect to tombs and shrines to holy men.49 Therefore, this
explanation of shared sacred space cannot be overplayed. Furthermore, the
influence of dargahs and their pirs elsewhere in North India also did not
mitigate communal violence in 1947. A clear case in point of religious sanctity
not mitigating partition-related violence concerns Pakpattan. This prosperous
town in Montgomery district was the principal crossing point of the Sutlej
River. The dargah of the famous Chishti Sufi saint Baba Farid (1173–1265)
was located at this site.50 Baba Farid’s cross-community religious appeal is
46 Anna Bigelow, ‘Saved by the Saint: Refusing and Reversing Partition in Muslim
North India,’ Journal of Asian Studies 68 (2009). Anna Bigelow, Sharing the Sacred:
Practicing Pluralism in Muslim North India (USA: Oxford University Press, 2010).
47 Denzil Ibbetson from the Indian Civil Service carried out the census of the
Punjab province in 1881. The Census Report contains rich ethnographic material
on the Punjab.
48 Denzil Ibbetson, Edward Maclagan and Horace Arthur Rose, Glossary of the
Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North West Frontier Province (Delhi: Asian
Educational Services, 1990), 435–7.
49 Ron Geaves and Catherine Geaves, ‘The Legitimization of a Regional Folk Cult:
The Transmigration of Baba Balaknath from Rural Punjab to Urban Europe,’
available online, Centre for Applied South Asian Studies.
50 Chishti is one of the most influential of the Sufi or Islamic mystic orders
established in India. It became popular in India through Khwaja Muinuddin
Chishti of Ajmer.
92 From the Ashes of 1947
evidenced most clearly in the inclusion of his verses in Sikh Holy Scriptures.
Yet, Pakpattan was attacked on 23–24 August, the shops and businesses of its
Hindu and Sikh population were looted and the non-Muslims were forced to
leave the town.51
What is unique in Malerkotla is the story of Guru Gobind Singh’s
blessing of Malerkotla following the ruler of Malerkotla’s protest at the
execution of his two sons. It still appears to play some part in the minds of
people, whether they are Hindu, Sikh or Muslim. It is a fascinating story
that seems to have assumed mythical proportions during the passage of time.
This myth has travelled beyond the borders of Malerkotla and is now well
known in Punjabi folklore. It is worthwhile reciting some of the details of
this blessing.
During the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s reign (1658–1707), many
battles were fought between the Mughal armies and the emerging power
of the Sikhs. Prior to the onslaught on Chamkaur in 1705, the Mughal
authorities captured Guru Gobind Singh’s two younger sons. Betrayed by
their Hindu servant, Gangu, the two young boys were asked to accept Islam in
exchange for freedom in the court of Nawab Wazir Khan of Sirhind but they
refused. The Qazi (judge) had told Wazir Khan that under Islamic law the two
boys were not guilty of any crime and could not be held responsible for their
father’s crimes. The Qazi, aware that this was against Islamic law, sentenced
the two young boys to be bricked up alive; Fateh Singh was less than 6 years
old and Zorawar Singh was just over 8 when they were executed. The Nawab
of Malerkotla, Sher Mohammad Khan (ruler 1672–1712), wrote a letter of
protest to Aurangzeb, arguing that this was in violation of Islamic law, because
the enmity was with their father and not with the innocent children.52 The
protest was heard but came to no avail as the boys were bricked up alive and
consequently died of suffocation. However, when Guru Gobind Singh came
to hear of the Nawab of Malerkotla’s appeal, he apparently blessed the house
of the Nawab and Malerkotla, declaring that ‘his roots shall remain forever
green’.53 The succeeding century witnessed invasions and disturbances in
Punjab and a shifting balance of power from the declining Mughal authorities
54 This was the name of the twelve Sikh armies in the eighteenth century, each led
by a chief. The misls were associated with the leading Sikh families who controlled
specific areas.
55 Khan, History of the Ruling Family, 39.
56 This is based on my PhD research, see further unpublished thesis, ‘Partition and
Locality: Case Studies of the Impact of Partition and Its Aftermath in the Punjab
Region 1947–61’ (Coventry University, 2005).
57 For a more detailed analysis see Pippa Virdee, ‘Partition and the Absence of Violence
in Malerkotla,’ in The Deadly Embrace: Religion, Violence and Politics in India and
Pakistan 1947-2002, ed. Ian Talbot (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007).
58 Interview with Isher Singh, Ahmedgarh, Malerkotla, August 2001.
94 From the Ashes of 1947
blessing] of course it’s true. Now even books have been published, about
this ‘haa da naara’ and Sher Khan.59
It is difficult to assess completely how this tale that goes back 300 years is still
influencing people but its impact could be attributed to people wanting to believe
in something like this. Thus, the stature of the tale is elevated to something far
beyond what it means in reality, but people’s desire to believe in it suggests
that there is also some form of restraint being observed during communal
tensions. While historians such as Gyanendra Pandey may dismiss the belief in
the Guru’s blessing as ‘sentimentality’,60 its power lies in the attachment to the
notion of izzat in Sikh society and in the high status accorded to Guru Gobind
Singh, the founder of the Sikh Khalsa. The contemporary relevance and impact
of this myth is in many respects symbolic. It represents the wanted desire by
the people of Malerkotla to believe in its supernatural powers. Residents were
proudly stating that the state remained peaceful following the demolition of the
Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. Perhaps due to the small number of Muslims
living in Punjab compared to other important centres such as Uttar Pradesh
and Gujarat, they pose less of a threat and therefore relative peace is maintained.
held in veneration by his subjects and had always evinced a policy free from
prejudice… during his rule the State administration had reached a mark of
efficiency and the Chief Court was also raised to the status of a High court’.62
However, the official opinion by the British seems to differ considerably
from the above. He is described as a ‘charming gentleman of no character
or capacity… he is frightened of his own family, and seems constitutionally
incapable of understanding finance. The ruling family has an exaggerated sense
of its own importance’.63 Both the Nawab’s supporters and detractors obviously
wrote with an eye to propaganda and political self-interest. The issue of financial
indebtedness though increasingly influenced the discourse regarding his rule.
During World War One, Malerkotla placed all state troops and resources at
the disposal of the British government and contributed more than its capacity
could sustain. The heavy expenses incurred during this period significantly
added to the financial weakness of the state in the post-war period.64 By the
late 1930s, it is clear from the official records that the British had assisted
Malerkotla in obtaining substantial loans from Bahawalpur state. Financial
indebtedness was, therefore, a major source of tension for the state and became
the subject of a campaign by the English newspaper Muslim Outlook published
in Lahore. The administration was described as being bankrupt ever since the
present ruler succeeded to the throne; the result was widespread corruption
in the public services and constituted ‘gross misrule’.65 The Nawab’s financial
irresponsibility was apparently well known: The state had outstanding debts
of Rs. 6 lakhs to the Central Bank and Rs. 4.2 lakhs otherwise. The income
before World War Two was Rs. 8.5 lakhs and estimates for the post-war period
suggest an average income of Rs. 12 lakhs. Campaigns such as those by the
Muslim Outlook do suggest that some public protest was present in the princely
state, although there is little information about its circulation in Malerkotla.
Thus, the Nawab was not immune to criticism in the public domain; this is
even more significant as it originates from the same community as the Nawab’s.
The conduct of Nawab Ahmad Ali Khan, however, stands in marked
contrast to that of other rulers of the Punjab princely states in August 1947.
The Maharaja of Patiala enforced a curfew on the Muslims of the state on
British Punjab and they provided weapons and ammunition for Akali jathas
in such districts as Jullundur. Attacks on Muslims in the British districts, as
in the states, were politically motivated. It was termed by the British CID as
the Sikh Plan.70 This sought to carve out a majority Sikh homeland in central
and eastern Punjab by driving out the Muslims. The political motivation of
the violence comes out clearly in the demand made to the Muslims of Barra
in Patiala to ‘leave for Jinnah’s Pakistan as Patiala was in India and no Muslim
could live there; Khalistan was to be created throughout the East Punjab’.71
There is also evidence that members from the Nawab’s family did not share his
enthusiasm for maintaining communal harmony; Ihsan Ali Khan, who was a
staunch supporter of the Muslim League, was engaged in illicit activities.72 It
was reported that he ‘engaged scores of Muslim ironsmiths to prepare knives,
spears and other dangerous weapons openly’.73 Ihsan Ali Khan had already been
under the spotlight even during the prayer time disputes; J. C. Donaldson who
was the British investigating officer noted that the Nawab was suspicious of
his activities and could potentially stir up further conflict. However, the Nawab
was also meddling to thwart any rival branches in the family and as Ihsan was a
Shi’a, the Nawab was known to be stirring the Sunnis against Ihsan.74
Added to these local tensions were obviously the precarious financial
debts, and significantly it had a Muslim population but was surrounded by
Sikh majority areas of the Phulkian state and Ludhiana district during a
communally charged milieu. This made it a prime target for any attacks by
Sikhs and Hindus.75 The state authorities were apprehensive about trouble
70 In Note on the Sikh Plan, there are accounts of how the Sikhs were preparing
militarily to oust the Muslims from East Punjab and establish Sikh rule in the
region after partition. Ian Copland also talks about the ‘Sikh Plan’ and the plans
by the Sikh princes to establish a Sikh state after partition. He argues that the
Sikh princes colluded with the Akali Dal in the hope of establishing a Sikh state
after the British departure. See further, ‘The Master and the Maharajas’.
71 Mudie Papers in NDC, Disturbances in the Punjab, 409.
72 Ihsan Ali Khan belonged to the Nawab’s family that eventually left Malerkotla
and settled in Lahore after partition, where the family had property prior to
August 1947. As Ihsan Ali Khan was a supporter of the Muslim League, there
were undoubtedly more opportunities in Pakistan than in India.
73 Letter to The Hon. Home, States and Information Minister, 30 August 1947.
Malerkotla State, 1947, File no. 2(19) PR/47, NAI.
74 Bigelow, Sharing the Sacred, 118.
75 Malerkotla Affairs, IOR.
98 From the Ashes of 1947
along its eastern and northern borders. There had been no case of Sikh jathas
entering the state territory yet but, nonetheless, it was imperative for the swift
movement of refugees to Pakistan to avoid the state being a target.76 It is
thus clear that the Nawab of Malerkotla was extremely anxious about the
communal situation, especially with reference to the large numbers of Muslims
coming into the state, seeking temporary refuge. This would not only burden
the state financially, but also threaten the peace by inflaming communal
tensions. Brigadier Commander Stuart noted that if trouble was to spread
from outside the state, it would ‘…upset completely the present tranquillity
within the state and make its relations with adjoining States difficult’.77 It is
well documented that the arrival of refugees was a major trigger for violence
across northern India, even in localities that had previously been unaffected.
On 6 September 1947, Nawab Ahmad Ali Khan sent a telegram to Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, the deputy Prime Minister of India, to request assistance,
as the states’ resources were inadequately equipped. The state was willing to
absorb the cost if the Indian government could render the army.
There is grave danger of trouble spreading from outside, and though the State
Forces are here they are inadequate to meet such a large scale emergency...
Thousands of refugees have flocked into the State from the Ludhiana District
and Patiala and Nabha States the presence of whom has presented the State
with a major problem…Great panic prevails every where in the State.78
The role of the state was therefore crucial and this would have been impossible
without the use of the army in maintaining control and deterring external
attacks. The Nawab used his power to keep the peace in the state especially
when it might have been overwhelmed by the refugee influx. On the other
hand, the rulers of many of the Punjab princely states turned their armies and
influence to the destructive ends of ethnic cleansing. It could also be argued
that the absence of a functioning authority was a factor in allowing violence
to overwhelm the populace. It is clear from the works of such writers as Ian
Talbot that British authority in Punjab was declining from March 1947
76 Visit to Malerkotla state by Major Gurbax Singh Gill HQ5 Inf. Bde, Malerkotla
Affairs, IOR.
77 Correspondence by Brig. Comd. N. J. B. Stuart re visit to Malerkotla, 25
September 1947, Malerkotla Affairs, IOR.
78 Letter of assistance to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel from Ahmad Ali Khan, 6
September 1947, Malerkotla State, 1947, File no. 2(19) PR/47, NAI.
Sacred Malerkotla 99
79 Ian Talbot, Punjab and the Raj (New Delhi: Manohar, 1988), Chapter 10.
Ahmad Salim
1 Ahmad Salim from Kunjan Moian, translated by Ami P. Shah. Journal of Punjab
Studies 13, nos. 1 and 2 (1989; trans. 2006): 130–1.
2 Dulla Bhatti is the bandit-hero of a Punjabi legend. See Footnote 11.
3 Hero of the Punjabi story of Mirza-Sahiban.
4 Ahmad Khan Kharal (d. 1857) and Bhagat Singh (1907–31) hailed from the
Punjab and were freedom fighters who were executed by the British colonial
government.
5 The page from the past alluded to is the horror of the partition which was
witnessed again during the partition of West and East Pakistan and the creation
of Bangladesh.
Sacred Malerkotla 101
2 Dulla Bhatti was born into a family of powerful Rajput zamindars and inherited a
long tradition of resistance against the Mughal state. Bhatti was also very popular
among the lower classes and is seen to play an important role in the history of
Punjab’s culture. See further Surinder Singh, ‘Mughal Centralization and Local
Resistance in North-Western India: An Exploration in the Ballard of Dulla
Bhatti,’ in Popular Literature and Pre-Modern Societies in South Asia, eds. Surinder
Singh and Ishwar Dayal Gaur (Delhi: Pearson Longman, 2008), 89–112; and
Ishwar Dayal Gaur, Martyr as Bridegroom: A Folk Representation of Bhagat Singh
(New Delhi: Anthem Press, 2008), 33–8.
104 From the Ashes of 1947
Picture 6.1: The Clock tower dates back to 1903 and still stands strong and
forms the hub of all activities in the city. Eight roads (and eight bazaars) of
Lyallpur meet with the Clock Tower at the centre, laid out like a Union Jack
Migrating to the Promised Land: A Tale of Two Cities 105
Picture 6.2: Kaiseri Gate, outside Rail Bazaar in Lyallpur. It was built in
1897 to commemorate 60 years since Queen Victoria’s coronation
Jat farmers were especially reluctant to abandon their fertile fields; after all they
were the very people who had uprooted themselves fifty years ago to transform
this waste land. Malcolm Darling, who was in the ICS and posted in Punjab,
travelled extensively in the area during the 1920s and thought the Lyallpur
Colony was one of the richest tracts of land in India and quite possibly in the
whole of Asia.3 One of the first major incidents in the district was a mass attack
on Tandlianwala. On 26 August, a Muslim mob attacked a gurdwara situated
just outside the town. The gurdwara was packed with refugees who had sought
shelter there. A few days later the town of Tandlianwala was attacked by a
large mob. Khosla’s findings suggest that over 2,000 people died, with many
young girls being kidnapped.4 Balwant Singh Anand, who was working in
3 Malcolm Darling, The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt (Delhi: Manohar,
1977), 132.
4 The figure suggested by Khosla for this incident is alone far more than anything
that Lord Mountbatten imagined. According to him, the total number of
casualties in Lyallpur was quite low, at 500. Compared to other districts, like
Lahore and Sheikhupura where an estimated 10,000 people died, the figure for
Lyallpur is quite a conservative estimate. However, it would have been in the
106 From the Ashes of 1947
Lyallpur at the time, notes in his recollections that the attack on Tandlianwala
really frightened people and made them leave their houses. Anand suggests
that this was the beginning of people congregating in groups to seek sanctuary
in local gurdwaras and camps in Lyallpur.5
The first incident to take place in Lyallpur town was on 3 September
during a public meeting at the Clock Tower that had been organised by
the deputy commissioner (DC). He began by praising the residents for
maintaining peace and goodwill in the town.6 However, at the meeting, a
Sikh was stabbed. The proceedings were immediately suspended, but the
incident acted as a catalyst for further stabbings and lootings. This level
of violence was relatively mild compared to what was being witnessed
elsewhere in Punjab. This also in part explains why the Hindus and Sikhs
were reluctant to migrate. Their decision to leave was based on the advice
of both the Sikh leader, Master Tara Singh, and the West Punjab governor,
Sir Francis Mudie. On 5 September, Mudie wrote to Jinnah, ‘I am telling
everyone that I do not care how the Sikhs get across the border: the great
thing is to get rid of them as soon as possible. There is still little sign of the
three lakh Sikhs in Lyallpur moving, but in the end they too will have to go.’7
The following day Mudie came to Lyallpur itself and told the DC that all
non-Muslims should be evacuated.
Ratten Singh, who migrated from Lyallpur, recalls Master Tara Singh
and Giani Kartar Singh going to Samundri and asking the Sikhs to leave.
They felt compelled to follow these instructions. Ratten Singh and his family
instinctively knew they were leaving for good and took as many belongings
as they could on a gadha [horse cart]. While travelling, his niece died as she
became ill with a fever. They headed for Balloki Head from where the military
transported them to Amritsar. After staying in a camp for a week, they came
to Ludhiana because of their previous connections there.8
Lyallpur district had one of the largest populations of non-Muslim
refugees to evacuate from West Punjab. The majority travelled by foot
convoys. When the MEO took over the responsibility to evacuate non-
Muslim refugees from Western Pakistan, it was estimated that 424,000 non-
Muslim people remained in Lyallpur district.9 Most of the people awaiting
evacuation were in Lyallpur itself, with an estimated 175,000 people already
been evacuated by 28 September.10 The majority of the evacuation had taken
place by 15 November. The only people remaining were about 17,000, most
of whom were scheduled castes,11 but they were mostly cleared by the end
of November 1947.12 There were also around 5,000 bazigars,13 who had
previously refused to migrate but, due to further attacks and looting by local
Muslims, had also decided to leave.14 Bazigars are a nomadic tribe that lives
off circus-like performances. From the records, it is clear that these bazigars
were causing some problems for both the East and West Punjab governments.
The former was concerned at the way they were treated by local people even
though the bazigars had embraced Islam. The West Punjab government was
also viewed rather cynically by East Punjab, as trying to keep the bazigars
in West Punjab in order to parade them as evidence of Hindus choosing to
remain in Pakistan, even though they had converted. But both governments
indulged in these political games where people were often used as pawns. In
addition to these, there were also a number of abducted women and girls to be
recovered, who numbered around 400.15 By June 1948, however, it was clear
that there were still around 3,000 persons and 80 girls, who needed to be
evacuated from Lyallpur district.16 A year on from partition and the official
role of the MEO being effectively over, the DLO was still working to recover
people from Lyallpur.17
In the south and eastern side of Lyallpur city, the Government College
became the military headquarters and the Khalsa College had been turned
into refugee camps.18 Ayra High School was also used as a camp, housing
around 40,000 people.19 At Khalsa College, 60,000 people gathered to seek
temporary refuge before their departure towards India.20 Refugees were
squatting anywhere they could, in classrooms, on verandas and on playing
fields. Anand, who was assisting at the camp, notes that people also started
to sort themselves into professional groups. There were doctors, lawyers,
engineers, professors, journalists and some government officials,21 perhaps
desperately trying to preserve their professional and class identity in this
period of immense uncertainty in which everyone was known primarily by
their religious identity. According to the MEO, the camps in Lyallpur were
eventually cleared by 5 December.22
Khalsa College, like many other camps in the region, was enveloped by a
cholera epidemic. Illnesses like dysentery were not the only problem for the
occupants. They were also subject to attack, being a sitting target for would-be
looters and rapists. On 1 October, a foot convoy of non-Muslims was passing
through Lyallpur, when a Muslim mob attacked the convoy near Tarkabad.
People nearby at Khalsa College could hear gunshots, which lasted over an
hour. The convoy was looted, many bodies were found, others were left for
dead and girls were also abducted.23 As Khalsa College was close by, many of
the injured were brought to the camp for medical assistance. However, during
the same night, Khalsa camp itself was attacked. The Muslim troops, who were
there to protect it, were implicated. The next night, the Arya High School
Refugee Camp was attacked. The camp housed mostly Hindus and around
300 casualties were reported with 15 girls being kidnapped.24 This time the
Baluchi soldiers were implicated. When the DC arrived in the morning there
were apparently 150 bodies lying in the camp.25 Designed to provide refuge
and shelter, the camps were just as dangerous as the world from which they
were trying to escape to seek protection.
One of the largest mass movements to take place during the whole
partition process was a convoy that originated from Lyallpur. Hindus and
Sikhs numbering 400,000 set off from Lyallpur on 11 September. The first
45,000 people reached Balloki Head, near the border by Ferozepur, a week
later and the rest trickled into Indian territories gradually. The Balloki Route
was often indiscriminately closed by the Pakistan government and was also
prone to occasional Muslim attacks. The convoy was organised by colonists,
who came along with their livestock, migrating en masse once the decision had
been taken to leave Lyallpur. They came from a variety of backgrounds, which
included petty shopkeepers, artisans, village menials and once-rich landlords
and businessmen and other professionals such as lawyers and doctors. The
convoy undertook the journey of 150 miles; most of the people walked, while
others who brought their carts or tongas used them for transporting goods
and the sick and elderly travelling with them.26 Indian troops provided some
protection to the refugees but this was never a guarantee for safety. A sense of
normality prevailed in the form of rest breaks, cooking, milking cows, especially
for the infants, and tending to the sick. Music and occasional speeches by
village leaders helped to raise the refugees’ morale. The Indian government
assisted by dropping food and drugs by air. Vaccines and doctors were flown in
to assist the sick. A field ambulance was sent to Raiwind to inoculate refugees
before crossing the border, after which the refugees were taken into reception
camps.27
Not all the people left Lyallpur by foot convoy. Near Lyallpur at Risalewala
there was an airfield which was used to fly people to and from Delhi. Planes
were chartered by wealthy individuals; however, as Anand notes, people often
24 Ganda Singh, A Diary of the Partition Days 1947. Reprinted from Journal of
Indian History XXXVIII, Part II (August 1960): 243.
25 Khosla, Stern Reckoning, 170.
26 Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 8 October 1947.
27 Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 8 October 1947.
110 From the Ashes of 1947
paid inflated taxi or tonga fares to reach the airport and with no guarantee
of flights. Anand describes a conversation that took place between the flight
attendant and the prospective passengers, each bargaining and willing to
pay over inflated prices for tickets like an auction, even though some had
booked their tickets in advance.28 This was clearly a profitable business for
the transporters, but the number of people who could access this mode of
transport was very few, as noted earlier. Jaswant Singh belonged to a wealthy
family; his father owned 12 marabas of land in Sargodha. Due to their eminent
position as wealthy landlords, they were able to be more flexible about their
departure, taking the time to sell their belongings before flying to Amritsar.
As Jaswant Singh recalls:
were the desperate pleas of people who could write to people in positions
of authority and thereby afford some advantage; others, of course, were less
fortunate.
Near about the 26th [August, 1947] the shop of S. S. Din, the biggest
Muslim merchant in Ludhiana, dealer in arms and ammunition and wine,
etc. was looted. Military police stood by. They fired and then the mob
looted the shop. Then other shops in Chowra Bazar and other localities
were looted. Muslims found there were stabbed. On the next day news
was current in the village. ‘Deputy Commissioner will get shops looted. So
come to the city’. Armed gangs from villages in a radius of 12 to 15 miles
were thus mobilised to the city. Looting, arson and massacres started…
Some part of this loot was kept in D.A.V. College and distributed
amongst those who applied for it (shoes, etc.).36
Refugees’ desire both for revenge, and to ethnically cleanse local Muslims
were factors in the violence in Ludhiana as in other parts of the East Punjab.
Another eyewitness account, in A Journey to Pakistan, provides an account of
Field Ganj, in old Ludhiana. ‘On 31st [August] I passed through Ludhiana,
stayed there for a short time. I went to Feel [sic.] Ganj, a locality where,
on the one side were Muslims and on the other Sikhs. At 3.15 p.m. I saw
a dozen policemen leading a mob of about 200 attacking Muslim houses.
There was no curfew.’37 Abdul Rahman, also a refugee from Field Ganj,
informed me, ‘at the time of partition, the tension was bearable initially.
Afterwards, it changed to bloodshed and massacre when the Hindus and
Sikhs from the areas of Pakistan went there and told their people about
the way they were deserted’. He went on to inform me that the ‘bloodshed
started on a mass level when Muslims started it in some cities by listening
to the stories of Muslim migrants and vice versa’.38 Sakina Bibi from Saidon
da Mohalla, Ludhiana, who is now settled in Faisalabad, expressed similar
views.
Actually, the migrants from the areas of Pakistan flared up riots there.
While we were in camps, we met some migrants from Lyallpur. They were
regretting the loss of their properties and belongings. We were not afraid
of Hindus and Sikhs of Ludhiana but feared the migrants from Pakistan
who eventually exploited the locals against us. We were afraid of getting
killed. They attacked and hewed Muslims, looted their belongings and
raped and kidnapped their girls.39
Picture 6.3: The famous Ghanta Ghar, Clock tower in Ludhiana, built to
commemorate the silver jubilee of Queen Victoria. Construction begun in
1862 but it was inaugurated later on, in 1906
114 From the Ashes of 1947
The demand for Pakistan invoked hatred. I don’t know who was behind
those riots but gradually the enmity increased. We did not fear Hindus
at the time of partition but Sikhs. They were up to some mischief. The
reason behind the fear was the presence of mischievous organisation
amongst Muslims and the other communities. The slogan for Pakistan
was the main reason behind tension. No troublesome incidents occurred
on local level, neither were there some business quarrel or problem and
financial worries. Very few incidents of violence took place in Ludhiana
city but the rural areas were under the rage of rioters.40
Our house was at the dividing line of Madhupuri mohalla of Hindus and
the mohalla of Muslims. So we left before the riots and shifted to Jamalpur
at a two miles’ distance from our house. Our house was burnt first of all,
because we were Muslim League activists and our walls bore the painted
slogans of ‘Muslim League zindabad’ and ‘Pakistan zindabad’.41
that traces back seven generations of their family roots in the city, arriving in
1850. They are also the grandsons of the secular nationalist Maulana Habib-
ur-Rehman. As the family was close to the nationalist freedom movement,
the question of migration never arose. After partition, the family spent a brief
period in Delhi as the mosque in Field Ganj, like many others in the district,
was converted into a gurdwara. It was then restored as a mosque in 1956, due
to the strong family links with the Indian Prime Minister Pandit Nehru.43
Bibi Amir Fatima, a spiritual healer from Gill village, just on the outskirts of
the city, also remained in India. She experienced no trouble in her village and
the family did not feel it was necessary to leave.44 Her experience of communal
harmony remained intact, signified by her continued acceptance by the local
community, but this was not the experience for many people.
Like Lyallpur, the process of migration was quite slow in Ludhiana.
By 19 October, there were still many Muslims left in refugee camps in the
district. MEO figures of camp residents are 120,000 in Ludhiana; Samrala
4,000; Raikot 12,000; Jagraon 10,000; White Bein 40,000; and Sindwan Khas
75,000.45 Haji Kazim, who was born in Ludhiana, recalls leaving his home and
going to the Chhawani Camp in the city.46 The family stayed there for a day
and then left. He said people were desperate to board the trains for Pakistan.
In an attempt to get onto a train quickly, their personal belongings were left
behind at the station. But they just crammed into the train, which was going
to the Indian border city of Amritsar. He recalls their fear at the time. This
was only partly reduced by the party of Balochi soldiers who were escorting
the train. Everyone felt a huge sense of relief when they reached the border at
Wagah. At the same time, however, he remembers being saddened by the sight
of some Sikhs who were lying dead at the station and thought to himself that
‘the same thing was going on here’.47
It was three months after partition, that we left India. For two months
we stayed there and they kept a watch for our safety. The Hindus used
to stand guard, protected us while we sold milk. I was married at the
age of twelve and gave birth to Hasan at the age of 14. He was born in
the camp, during migration. When he was born the Hindus came there
to give us ghee, rice, clothes and other things. Hindus lived with us in a
very friendly manner. We came here on the train, which we took from
Ludhiana cantonment station. We stayed for eight days in a camp in
Ludhiana cantonment. On the fourth day of our stay in the camp, Hasan
was born – so our stay was extended. On the eighth day, we got on the
train and came directly to Lyallpur. We came straight to my father-in-law
who had reached here eight days prior to our arrival.48
We reached Lahore via Amritsar. There was exchange of fire between the
attackers and the military men escorting our train occurred in Amritsar,
leaving a lot of people dead. The attackers made every possible attempt
to kill the people of our train but the military shielded us. The officer was
a Muslim, while the soldiers were Dogras. On his orders, the soldiers
opened fire on the attackers and forced them to retreat. They ran away
leaving behind 20 to 30 corpses. We covered a hundred mile’s distance
in eight days; it would have taken two and a half hours without the
unnecessary delays.49
Hindus and Sikhs who crossed the killing fields of the Punjab in the opposite
direction, provide similar accounts of torturous terror-filled journeys on trains
or gruelling foot convoys across the flooded and bloodied green plains of
Punjab. There are accounts of people who were travelling on foot convoys
encountering bloated bodies, which had been left behind to rot away. Others
lost their loved ones en route, forced to abandon them without any proper
burial or cremation.
One of the biggest problems for the large numbers of refugees coming to
Ludhiana city was finding suitable accommodation. The number of residential
houses and commercial properties available to the incoming Hindus and Sikhs
was inadequate. There was not enough Muslim evacuee property to go around.
Moreover, some of the abandoned houses were in disrepair because of riot
damage. Another problem facing the refugees was that the properties left by
the Muslims were inferior to their former houses in Pakistan. Significantly, the
Hindus and Sikhs had been largely traders and professionals, while the Ludhiana
Muslims were mostly artisans, craftsmen and technical labourers in the industry.
Some Muslims were involved in the trade but this was generally as petty traders.
Houses and shops abandoned by Muslims were taken over by the
government as evacuee properties under the terms of the Administration of
Evacuee Ordinance IV of 1947. This was later amended to the Administration
of Evacuee Property Act, 1950. Evacuee property was initially allotted to
displaced people on a temporary basis. It was only in 1953–54 that permanent
settlement of evacuee properties started. The task was administered by the
Ministry of Rehabilitation.50 In reality though, ‘the unauthorised occupation
of Muslim evacuee houses by local residents and in many cases, by civil servants
meant that the supply of houses for refugees became rapidly diminished’.51
Old Muslim mohallas like Field Ganj, Islam Ganj and residential areas around
Chaura Bazaar were quickly occupied by Hindu and Sikh refugees coming
from West Punjab. This created huge problems when the task of planned
permanent resettlement finally commenced.
Refugees from all communities faced similar problems of rehabilitation.
Those who had access to influence and money used their connections. People
put in claims for compensation, but for some, it often seemed like an arbitrary
decision rather than based on verified paperwork. Satya Rai in her work
Partition of the Punjab notes that nepotism, corruption and bribery were
rampant in the administration. Money, power and influence were important
factors in the speedy evacuation of friends and family: ‘refugees could not get
equal justice or attention’.52 Some individuals took advantage of the chaos
and lack of administrative control and used the misery of others to make
money: ‘one trip with the refugees or with their kit was equal to an ordinary
months earnings’53 for the riksha wallas. ‘Some people put in claims with much
exaggeration’, Abdul Rahman told me in an interview in Faisalabad, ‘but my
father was a religious person’, he continued, ‘and he actually told the details
of his properties and settlement compensated him accordingly’.54 Refugees
frequently had to resort to bribes to get their cases heard. ‘We put in claims
after migration’, Mohammad Sadeeq recalls, ‘Our claims were compensated
after giving some bribe to the authorities’.55 Rana further reiterated this point.
52 Satya Rai, Partition of the Punjab: A Study of Its effects on the Politics and Administration
of the Punjab 1947-56 (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1965), 87.
53 East Punjab Liaison Agency Records in Rai, Partition of the Punjab, 87–8.
54 Interview with Abdul Rahman, Lyallpur Cotton Mills, Faisalabad, February
2003.
55 Interview with Mohammad Sadeeq, Katchery Bazaar, Faisalabad, February 2003.
56 Interview with Rana, Chiniot Bazaar, Faisalabad, February 2003.
120 From the Ashes of 1947
57 Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011).
58 Tribune, 13 December 1947.
59 Tribune, 13 December 1947.
60 Ian Talbot, Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar
1947–57 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 68.
61 Ilyas Chattha, ‘Competitions for Resources: Partition’s Evacuee Property and
the Sustenance of Corruption in Pakistan,’ Modern Asian Studies 46, no. 5
(2012):1182–211.
Migrating to the Promised Land: A Tale of Two Cities 121
they could. Bhagwant Kaur and her husband did not know anyone in Ludhiana
but made a decision to go there on impulse. She recalls, ‘My father-in-law was
in government service in Pakistan, he had two options for relocation, Ludhiana
or Ambala. We thought about what should we do… we were at the train station
and he said we’ll go wherever the first train comes to’.62
Similarly, Jaswant Singh says, ‘we did not have any plans to come here but
some of our friends landed here in Ludhiana and we thought why don’t we
stay here’.63 Other refugees, however, utilised pre-existing connections to ease
the painful process of resettlement. Haji Kazim migrated from Ludhiana to
Lyallpur. His phuphi [father’s sister] was living in Katchery Bazaar, Lyallpur,
and that was why he came to Lyallpur.64 Both Mai Manta and Gurnam Singh
also migrated to Ludhiana because of pre-existing family ties.
Ullah migrated from Jullundur. His father was a contractor and had a brick
kiln business, which they resumed in Lyallpur. He says:
My father and brother purchased shoes for their shops from Agra. The
owner of Chief Boot House, Sheikh Bashir Ahmad and his brothers,
Sayed also purchased stock from there. That way they became friends
of my brother and father. Sheikh Bashir invited my father and brother
many times to visit Lyallpur and my brother invited them to Ludhiana.
So my brother migrated to Lyallpur to seek help from Sheikh Bashir,
who helped him a lot. He was a Councillor of Muslims; told my brother
of many houses that were deserted by Hindu and Sikhs and asked him to
choose the one of his choice. He also provided us with rations.69
Multiple Migrations
Taking a broader look at the Punjab, the residue of colonial legacies permeates
everywhere. Particularly pertinent are the connections between the partition
migrants and the canal colonies. Both illustrate the long tradition of migration
in the region but are also important in understanding the ‘side-effects’
of colonial rule. Indeed, the Indian government was actively distributing
pamphlets in Urdu and Punjabi at non-Muslim relief camps (in both India
and Pakistan) that suggested that people who were coming from Sargodha,
Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Gujranwala and Lyallpur should settle in Ludhiana
district.70 The consequences of partition for the canal colonies were clearly
unforeseen because they were developed in the nineteenth century when the
idea of independence, let alone partition, was a remote possibility. Without
these earlier migrations and the linkages with the ‘motherland’, the later
population displacement of 1947 would have undoubtedly taken a different
form. The personal narratives used here reveal the lack of closure and self-
inflicted amnesia about their personal loss, leading to constant shifts and
movement in order to reconcile that sudden fracture.
From the mid-1880s, the Punjab province experienced rapid growth
and major social engineering based on irrigation projects.71 In this complex
system the colonial power was engaged in maintaining its hold over the
frontier Punjab province. Recruitment and retention in the army was a crucial
ingredient in colonial policy, in which army personnels were rewarded land
in the canal colonies. Agriculturalists from the overpopulated areas of central
Punjab migrated westwards to turn this sparsely populated land into what
became the ‘bread basket’ of colonial India. Although migrants to the canal
colonies also included Muslims,72 it was ultimately the Hindus and Sikhs who
would be compelled to leave this land in 1947. As Randhawa, in his account
of resettlement in India, notes:
Many of these who came from the canal colonies had their original home
in the districts of East Punjab, more especially in the Jullundur Division.
These were the colonists who had gone a generation or so ago into the
canal colonies and there, with their labour and skill, raised one of the most
flourishing systems of agriculture in the world.73
While the initial migration to the canal colonies was voluntary and organised,
the latter was forced migration often leading to complete abandonment of
personal properties. This was obviously the unintended outcome of earlier
But many people still thought that it is all nonsense. We should not
move...Then suddenly everything changed when murders came along.
Some Sikh leaders ran through our villages, including Giani Kartar
Singh and Udham Singh Nagoke. They told us to get ready for permanent
74 See further, Ali, The Punjab Under Imperialism; and Gilmartin, ‘Migration and
Modernity,’ 3–20.
75 See further, Darshan Singh Tatla, ‘The Sandal Bar: Memoirs of a Jat Sikh Farmer,’
The Panjab Past and Present 29, nos. 1 and 2 (1995).
76 Tatla, ‘Sandal Bar,’ 168.
Migrating to the Promised Land: A Tale of Two Cities 125
During my conversation with Ratten Singh, he told me how his family decided
to try their fortunes in Lyallpur following the death of many family members
due to a plague epidemic. His father decided to go to Lyallpur as they had
heard of the new canal colony. He anticipated the need for a karyana (grocers)
shop, as they were many farmers and families settled there. Once settled, other
family members joined them. Less than forty years later, partition violence
forced them to make a return journey to Ludhiana. Ratten Singh’s case history
is only one example of someone whose family originally migrated to Lyallpur
around 1910 and then returned to their ancestral home less than forty years
later.78
An interview with Malik Ludhianvi suggests that Muslims in Ludhiana
had also been influenced by stories from Hindu and Sikh migrants to the canal
colonies. Those who had ventured into the canal colonies often maintained
links with their ancestral lands (as illustrated by the accounts above) and
they often recounted stories to their friends and families of the opportunities
in the colonies. These accounts are important because they raise awareness
and bring alive places which would otherwise remain remote, distant and
unknown; instead the stories bring to life neighbourhoods that people know
of, providing a more personalised connection. It was undoubtedly these
stories, which in turn influenced Muslims fleeing from the partition violence
in places like Ludhiana to seek refuge in Lyallpur, which appeared as attractive
destinations. Malik Ludhianvi recalls that there was a rumour, ‘that Lyallpur
had been allotted to Ludhiana’. He goes on:
near Lyallpur. He had seen Lyallpur city and he liked its geographical
features and atmosphere very much. It was a new city then. It was famous
in Ludhiana that most of the people were migrating from Ludhiana to
Lyallpur and Lahore.79
The presence of pre-existing business or family links not only influenced the
destination of migration, but also assisted in the process of acceptance by
the local population. As Sarah Ansari’s work has revealed, the migration of
refugees into Sind resulted in ethnic tensions with the local population.80 The
conflict between locals and migrants in the Punjab was muted, despite the fact
that the migrant population often outnumbered the established population,
especially in cities such as Lyallpur and Ludhiana. Even when refugees did not
possess pre-existing ties, assimilation was made relatively easier because of a
common Punjabi language and cultural values.
Whether people had used their previous connections or whether they just
arrived in a new destination, resettlement for refugees was more than just
a matter of finding suitable accommodation and employment. For many, it
was a long and arduous process involving a number of relocations and taking
a number of years before they felt they were ‘resettled’. An interview with
Puran reveals this problem. When I interviewed Puran, he had his own
tailoring business in Ludhiana which he had named after his former home
town, Lyallpur Tailors. He left Lyallpur like many others in the kafilas and
arrived initially in Amritsar but, after a few weeks, he decided to go to nearby
Gurdaspur. After a few months there, he left for Ropar, near Chandigarh,
because he knew some people there. Puran then stayed in Ropar for two years,
where he commenced his work in tailoring. He eventually moved to Ludhiana
because his in-laws lived there.81 For Puran and many others like him, it took
many years to re-establish everything from scratch and often without state
support. For those who lost their businesses in 1947, it took them many years
to re-create and re-establish new customers and markets. This was the same
for some refugees whether they were in India or Pakistan. Mehr reminisces
about his father’s reluctance to settle down and start a business because he
kept thinking about his former home, even though relations between Muslims
and non-Muslims became hostile:
My father lived for 10 years after migration. During that time, he kept on
thinking about going back to Jullundur. When it came to purchasing a
shop, he hesitated because he thought that we would go back someday. It
was God’s will, that’s what I say; but, no doubt, there was an atmosphere of
brotherhood and peace amongst Muslims and other communities before
that. Our shop was in the bazaar near the city courts. Our customers, who
were very courteous to us and greeted us as ‘Mian Ji salam’, had swords in
their hands during riots.82
It took many years to settle. We started our business in 1957. That was
10 years [after partition]. Before that we did many small jobs, then my
elder brothers started a factory. But the status we had there, we could
never reproduce here. We had to stand in queues to get rations, flour, sugar
etc. We first had to get a ration card and then queue to get our rations.
This was at Jawahar Nagar camp [one of the largest camps and located
in Ludhiana]. Most of the refugees stayed there but we had a house so
we didn’t stay there. Our standard of living declined sharply. But once we
started working and started our business in 1957, things got better.84
At the time of partition, state mechanisms were unprepared for the mass
migration that resulted in approximately 14.5 million people being uprooted.
82 Interview with Mehr who migrated from Jullundur and was a small vendor at the
time of partition, Harcharan Pura, Faisalabad, December 2002.
83 Interview with Abdul Rahman, Lyallpur Cotton Mills, Faisalabad, February
2003.
84 Interview with Jaswant Singh Makkar, Industrial Area B, Ludhiana, March 2002.
128 From the Ashes of 1947
Eventually, organisation by the state came into force and a planned evacuation
could take place. When we move away from the official response to migration,
we begin to see the differential experiences of refugees. Urban refugees were
less easy to control and, while the state directed some of the refugees, others
made their own plans. Utilising personal networks, refugees were able to
migrate to places, which had an element of familiarity, whether this was in
the shape of family, friends and business links or, in the case of Ludhiana
and Lyallpur, memories and experiences that were shaped by the canal colony
migrations between the two localities. Ironically, both Ludhiana and Lyallpur
had populations in which 63 per cent belonged to the ‘other’ community. In
Lyallpur, this meant the largest transfer of population in West Punjab. Ironically,
some of these were the same people who migrated during the colonial period
to ease the tensions of overcrowding in East Punjab and to develop the canal
colonies. Without this, the tracts in West Punjab would most definitely have
been Muslim-majority areas. In a strange turn of events, it is precisely because
this migration had taken place at the close of the nineteenth century that
fifty years later these people were forced to make a return journey.
Those with access to information and those who were literate were better
prepared. Jaswant Singh’s family were able to plan their departure from Sialkot
and sell their possessions before leaving, but this was an option open only to
the elite. Meanwhile, the majority of the people were forced to abandon their
possessions and homes as the only means of safeguarding their lives. Once safely
across the border, the full realisation of the upheaval began to sink in. This was
only the beginning of that journey, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The
dislocation of partition lingered on for years to come. The uncertainty of the
strange new environment meant that many shifted around two, three or even
four times before settling down. This transitory period lasted for years rather
than months, and although at the state level refugees were quickly ‘processed’
and ‘rehabilitated’, in reality the task was a lot longer and harder.
The personal narratives of migrants in East and West Punjab, Muslims
and non-Muslims, highlight the similarities people shared at a human level.
The reality was that these people were not that different from each other. They
shared the human suffering of partition violence and being uprooted from
their homes. They experienced the same trauma related to partition and the
dislocation of migration. If there were differences, then they were at the level
of class and economic status. While the local population felt some anxiety
over the influx of refugees, the refugees themselves found it difficult to forget
their home. Memories of homelands are apparent and kept alive in the way
Migrating to the Promised Land: A Tale of Two Cities 129
Picture 6.5: Picture taken in Chaura Bazaar, Ludhiana, near the clock tower;
a migrant from Lyallpur
Picture 6.6: Picture taken in Lyallpur, near the clock tower; a migrant from
Ludhiana
130 From the Ashes of 1947
migrants have named their business ventures. Lyallpur Sweet Shop, Lyallpur
Tailors, and Lyall Book Depot are all shops run by refugees from Lyallpur in
Ludhiana, whereas in Lyallpur you find similar names reflecting the owners’
former homes, such as Ludhiana Sweet Shop and Ludhiana di hatti. These
are just the small ways in which the refugees have preserved their memories.
The reality of the ‘promised land’ was not completely true and though people
reconciled themselves to the new environment, thought of their home was
never far away:
A bit of normalcy had returned and the people were able to forget the
past. But where was one to find the wide and fertile fields of Sandal Bar
and the canals which supplied them water in abundance! My grandfather
and uncle did not like the new land but they had reconciled themselves to
their fate. Only my grandmother would spread a carpet beside the decayed
wall, mourn over the loss of her middle son, curse Jinnah and Nehru and
recalled her innocent grandsons and granddaughters slaughtered by the
marauders.85
85 Sukhwant Kaur Mann’s collected short stories published under the title of
Manmattian (Ludhiana: Chetna Prakashan, 2002). Quoted in Dhanwant Kaur
‘Sukhwant Kaur Mann: Preserving Cultural Memory through Fiction,’ Journal of
Punjab Studies 13 (2006): 250.
Saadat Hasan Manto
Invitation to Action1
When the neighbourhood was set on fire, everything burned down with the
exception of one shop and its sign.
It said: ‘All building and construction materials sold here’.
Our story opens with the refugee thronging the province in camps,
schools and college buildings, military barracks, temples, inns, and every
other conceivable place. The whole land was covered with them. They
were frenzied, bleeding, and in great destitution: and their immediate
rehabilitation was the most urgent question that faced the country.4
The above quotation is from the 1962 Indian publication, Punjab Industries,
that captures the mood of the subcontinent at the time of partition. It reveals
the magnitude of the task of refugee rehabilitation. This was an enormous
undertaking for the governments of India and Pakistan, both of which were
totally unprepared for this complex challenge that involved almost 15 million
people. Of the 5.5 million refugees from West Pakistan, who flooded into
India, 3.5 million were from rural areas and 2 million were urban refugees,
who had to be accommodated in the existing towns.5 While there were some
harijans among the urban migrants along with artisan castes such as lohars
and tarkhans, the bulk of the refugees were from the Hindu commercial castes
of Khatris, Aroras and Banias. They ranged from petty shopkeepers to large
merchants, bankers and industrialists. It was also from these castes that the
bulk of Punjab’s professional elite had been drawn from before partition. The
urban migrants from West Pakistan were, on the whole, better qualified and
possessed higher living standards than the Muslim East Punjab refugees. This
created a hugely skewed workforce for Punjab after partition. A considerable
part of the Hindu upper caste urban refugees, especially those from Lahore,
migrated to Delhi.6 But a significant number settled in East Punjab. In
Ludhiana district, the urban population rose by 29 per cent, while the rural
population experienced a decline of 9 per cent between 1941 and 1951.7
Impact of Partition on Industries in the Border Areas of East Punjab (Punjab: Board
of Economic Enquiry, 1949).
4 R. Dhiman, Punjab Industries (Ludhiana: Dhiman Press of India, 1962), 25.
5 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, After Partition (Delhi: Government of
India, 1948), 61.
6 See further, Dipankar Gupta, ‘The Indian Diaspora of 1947: The Political and
Economic Consequences of the Partition with Special reference to Delhi,’ in
Communalism in India: History, Politics and Culture, ed. K. N. Panikkar (New
Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1991), 80–108.
7 Census of India, Punjab District, 1941 and 1951.
134 From the Ashes of 1947
The East Punjab government was provided with Rs. 2.5 crores by New
Delhi to develop twelve townships,12 in the province and was advised to
prioritise the management of businesses that were vacated by Muslims in East
Punjab.13 Even by 1950, there were still a large number of displaced persons
in East Punjab. Records show that government still had to fulfil the following
housing requirements:14
a) 20,000 displaced persons without shelter
b) 18,600 displaced persons in tents
c) 25,000 displaced persons occupying places of worship, dharamshalas
and so on
d) 70,000 displaced persons temporarily housed in mud-huts
e) 260,000 displaced persons living in congested areas for whom
alternative accommodation is required
The situation of persons under categories a, b and c was deemed urgent
and thus required immediate action. The construction of more mud-huts was
approved by the government as a quick and easy solution to the problem
of providing accommodation for those living in tents and other temporary
dwellings.15 This was also cheaper than replacing worn-out tents. In addition
to this, the East Punjab government developed a cheap housing scheme. Ten
thousand houses were to be constructed as part of a long-term strategy, taking
12 These houses were part of a wider scheme to construct 4,000 houses in townships
of East Punjab; all were situated around half to one mile outside the parent towns.
The twelve townships were located at Jullundur, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana, Khanna,
Jagadhri, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak, Sonepat, Gurgaon, Palwal and Rewari. The
scheme consisted of building 4,000 houses in these urban centres, out which
3,873 were actually built. The estimated cost of the scheme was Rs. 23,045,557.
Note from P. N. Thapar, Rehabilitation Department, to The Assistant Secretary
to the Government of India, New Delhi, Ministry of Rehabilitation, 21 February
1950. Housing Schemes in East Punjab, RHB/1(1)/1950, NAI.
13 After Partition, 64–5.
14 Housing Schemes in East Punjab, NAI.
15 The construction of further 3,500 mud-huts was approved. Pucca roofs were added
to extend the life of these houses. The mud-huts were intended for displaced
persons currently living in tents. A further 9,000 houses were required for those
without shelter and those living in other temporary accommodation. Housing
Schemes in East Punjab, NAI.
136 From the Ashes of 1947
into account the growing population.16 The scheme was designed to meet
the needs of 50,000 people on different plots to cater for the differing needs.
There was also approval for a further construction of 18,000 mud-huts, which
were to cater for 45,000 persons, while 1,000 additional mud-huts were to be
utilised for shops, schools, dispensaries, post offices, welfare centres and other
amenities.17
To facilitate the rehabilitation of urban refugees from Pakistan, the East
Punjab government provided loans for those people who wished to pursue their
trade and professions. Sardar Ishar Singh Majhail, the East Punjab minister
for Refugees and Rehabilitation, had declared as early as December 1947 that
a sum of Rs. 50 lakhs would be set aside to help the petty shopkeepers and
owners of small-scale industries restart their enterprises.18 Generally, loans
were granted through co-operative societies and in exceptional circumstances
directly to individuals.19 The size of the loan varied according to requirements.
For example, traders, merchants and those who were interested in starting
a small-scale business could obtain up to Rs. 5,000. Doctors, dentists,
radiologists, vaids, hakims and homeopaths, and lawyers could get up to
Rs. 3,000 and for petty shop keepers and all other cases a ceiling of Rs. 500 was
set.20 A Rehabilitation Finance Administration was set up to assist with large-
scale industry and business. It could provide loans from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 10,000
to traders, shopkeepers and those interested in starting a cottage industry.21
The East Punjab government had evidently set aside large sums of money
to assist the process of urban rehabilitation. The aim, however, was not to
breed a culture of dependency, but rather to enable the refugees to become
self-sufficient as soon as possible. The process of granting loans and allocating
evacuee-abandoned property was almost inevitably open to abuse. Sardar Ishar
Singh Majhail was well aware of some of the corruption that was going on. He
is reported to have declared in December 1947 that he would take every effort
to prevent shops and factories from falling into the hands of rich people.22 This
was in response to reports of members of the Legislative Assembly attempting
migrated. Interestingly, we can see that during the same period the population
of Amritsar city declined by 17 per cent, from 391,010 to 325,747. Although
the 1951 census does not provide a detailed breakdown of religious composition,
by 1961 it is clear that the Muslim community had virtually all migrated to
Pakistan. According to 1961 Census of India, only 4,686 Muslims were
enumerated in Ludhiana district, compared to 302,482 in 1941. Of the Muslims
who remained, only 524 resided in the urban localities of the district.29 The
outgoing Muslims were replaced by Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab. Prior
to partition, Ludhiana was a Muslim-majority locality, making up 63 per cent
of the city’s 111,639 population. Hindus accounted for 31 per cent, while Sikhs
represented only 5 per cent of the population.30 Post-1947, over 67 per cent of
the district’s urban population was Hindus and 30 per cent Sikhs.31 Based on
this ratio, it is likely that Ludhiana’s population would have been similar to this.
The statistics only illustrate the demographic impact of exchanging
populations; they do not reveal that behind these people lay the fabric of
Ludhiana city. Muslim workers formed a vital part of the economy. Skilled
Muslim workers dominated employment in the flour and rice mills with
83 per cent of workers; in the hosiery sector, Muslims accounted for 61
per cent; and in the textiles industry, they accounted for 78 per cent of the
workforce.32 For many cottage industries, the result was closure; it is estimated
that in the towns of Amritsar, Ludhiana and Batala around 40 per cent of the
registered factories had to close down as a result.33 The skills that were lost
with the migration of these workers were not, in return, compensated by the
new incoming migrants. Instead, there was a mismatch of skills, and pragmatic
innovation and reinvention were key to future survival.
To meet the immediate refugee needs, a colony with 1,300 mud-huts was
set up called Jawahar Nagar Camp. Mud-huts were cheap and easy to make
and were used as a first step to providing suitable housing. However, it was
shortly realised that neither ‘Jawahar Nagar Camp nor the evacuee houses,
vacant sites, shops and industrial establishments would be sufficient to meet
the residential requirements of the vast numbers of the displaced persons’.34 A
government report on the relief and rehabilitation of refugees in Punjab shows
that in 1950 Jawahar Nagar Camp had 5,570 persons living in mud-huts. More
broadly in East Punjab, 95,463 persons were accommodated in this way at the
time.35 In response to the acute housing shortage, a number of new colonies
were established around Link Road in Ludhiana to accommodate the large
influx of people. In Model Town, 473 houses and 24 shops were constructed,
while 685 plots of land were allotted.36 The cost of the houses constructed
was expected to be around Rs. 2,627,611.37 New roads around the satellite
townships were also constructed. In New Model Town Colony a further 290
houses were constructed and 40 shops were built at Jawahar Nagar Camp.38 At
the Old Police Lines, 104 new shops and stalls were constructed to add to 143
shops and stalls already there.39 From Map 7.1, we can see that much of the
development in Ludhiana took place south of the old city, partly due to natural
northern boundary caused by Budha Nala (literally means old stream).
These new housing schemes were designed to meet the different needs of
the displaced persons coming to Ludhiana. Model Town colony was primarily
designed to meet the standards of the rich and upper middle classes, while the
cheaper colonies, including the mud-huts, were for those displaced persons
who had sought refuge in gurdwaras, dharamshalas, homes for abandoned
women and infirmaries.40 Loans for the construction of houses were provided
by the Government of India. These were given on low interest rates and were
repayable in 20 years.41 As part of the industrial development programme,
new industrial areas were developed along the GT Road. Labour colonies
began to spring up on the outskirts of the industrial areas, which provided
the proximity required by labourers to travel to their work place.42 As the
Map above illustrates, the area developed in the post-partition period was in
response to the urgent requirements of housing, and the long-term strategic
requirements were generally not the priority. Although most of this was done
on an ad hoc basis with little planning, some parts were created because of
the industrial requirements of the city.43 Gradually then the foundations were
being laid for more specialised areas to emerge, with the industrial area in the
east of city leading the way for future development.
Developing Ludhiana
The best way to describe colonial Ludhiana is that it was a small town (with
potential) and lagged behind Lahore and Amritsar. Its main economic activity
centred around trade and the hosiery industry. Its importance for trade was
seen in the number of specialised markets within the old city. There were, for
example, Chawal Bazaar (rice), Saban Bazaar (soap), Pansari Bazaar (grocery),
Gur Mandi (jaggery), Ghah Mandi (grass), Trunk Bazaar, Lakkar Bazaar
(wood),44 all of which are situated around the hub of the city, Chaura Bazaar
(see Picture 7.1). Though the wealth of the city was primarily based on the
agricultural well-being of the district, there was also a small presence of hosiery
and light engineering industry. In 1947, Ludhiana had 78 registered factories
which had increased to 95 by 1952, though this was still considerably less than
Amritsar’s 235.45 However, it was the dominance of small-scale industry in
Ludhiana, which in 1952 stood at 452 small-scale units compared to Amritsar’s
239, that enabled the city to achieve a competitive advantage over its rivals. It
is through the dominance of small-scale industry that Ludhiana has emerged
as East Punjab’s leading industrial centre,46 surpassing Amritsar and Jullundur.
The development of small-scale units was praised by India’s first Prime Minister,
Picture 7.1: Chaura Bazaar is an old market dating back to the nineteenth
century, it literally means ‘wide market’ and formed the hub of economic and
political activity in Ludhiana
phase of allocation for the units, fifteen were old businesses that shifted
from other congested areas of the city, thirty-one were new businesses and
twenty-nine units were allocated to displaced persons from West Punjab.49
Even though some commercial activity had already started, the Department
of Rehabilitation had noted that it was necessary to build additional shops
due to the shortages. As a result, 60 shops were planned for Ludhiana; this
was part of a wider plan to build a total number of 500 in East Punjab. These
shops were generally constructed in what were deemed ‘important urban areas
in suitable localities’.50 These were costly ventures, being in prime commercial
centres, and Rs. 15 lakhs in all had been diverted for the construction of these
shops.
49 The units manufactured a variety of goods including power presses, oil engines,
cycle and motor spare parts, measuring tapes, conduit pipes, chaff cutter blades,
panel pins, nail rivets, nuts and bolts and other consumer goods. Dhiman, Punjab
Industries, 33.
50 Note from M. S. Randhawa, Department of Rehabilitation, Jullundur, to The
Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Rehabilitation, 20 December
1950, Ministry of Rehabilitation, NAI.
51 Throughout this book the colonial spelling of Jullundur has been used for
consistency. Jalandhar is the contemporary spelling.
52 Gurpreet Maini, The Giant Awakens: Punjab Industry and Growth (New Delhi:
India Research Press, 2004), 63 ff.
From Refugee to Citizen 145
see places like Ludhiana and Jullundur benefiting from this decline in the
border areas.
Table 7.1: Number of Factories that Wanted to Relocate Businesses
Total Percentage
Total Relocate Outside Relocate Inside
Who Want to
Surveyed East Punjab East Punjab
Relocate (%)
Amritsar 111 45 25 63
Gurdaspur 21 3 6 43
Ferozepur 7 1 2 43
Jullundur 52 2 3 10
Ludhiana 54 4 1 9
Source: K. L. Luthra, Impact of Partition on Border Industries (Board of Economic Enquiry: Government
of Punjab, 1949), 71.
the Ramgarhia community, which played a crucial role in the modern growth
of Ludhiana’s small-scale industry. Ramgarhia Sikhs followed the traditional
village occupations of carpenters and blacksmiths. They diversified during
the colonial era. Many moved out from their central Punjab villages to
the canal colonies of West Punjab. A considerable number were employed
building the railways in East Africa. The colonial power found it cheaper to
recruit artisans such as Ramgarhias and Viswakarmis to cast and manufacture
simple parts and tools rather than import them from England. This gave
the community experience of working in a new trade and consequently
they were able to diversify further from simple tool making.54 The work
also provided surplus capital that could be used as investment in small-
scale enterprises. Ramgarhias played a pioneering role in both Ludhiana’s
famous cycle industries and the machinery sector of the hosiery industry.55
Management in the hosiery industry has, however, been traditionally the
preserve of the trading castes like the Khatris, Aroras, Agarwals and Oswals.
Indeed, in a mid-1960s’ study conducted by UNESCO, it was estimated that
in Ludhiana 84 per cent of the textile and hosiery units were managed by
members of these castes.56
During World War Two the hosiery industry was stimulated by the
demands of defence contracts. For Ludhiana, this was a crucial victory, as
its manufacturers faced competition from other big groups in Bombay. They
were able to produce cheaper goods because work was contracted out to
subcontractors who utilised small cottage-style units. In effect, this started
the move towards small-scale industry, which has dominated Ludhiana’s
growth. The hosiery sector did suffer immediately after partition, primarily
due to the loss of its skilled Muslim labour force. When Luthra conducted
his survey in 1948, he found that 61 per cent of the skilled workers in the
hosiery sector in the Ludhiana district were from the Muslim community.57
This figure represents only the thirty-nine registered factories that were
54 To see further about the artisan communities of the Punjab see Harish S. Sharma,
Artisans of the Punjab: A Study of Social Change in Historical Perspective 1849–1947
(New Delhi: Manohar, 1996).
55 Ramgarhias along with Dhimans still dominate in this sector. See M. Tewari,
‘Successful Adjustment in Indian Industry: The Case of Ludhiana’s Woollen
Knitwear Cluster,’ World Development 27, no. 9 (September 1999): 1657.
56 UNESCO, Small Industries and Social Change, Four Studies in India (Delhi: United
India Press, 1966), 21.
57 Luthra, Impact of Partition, 32.
From Refugee to Citizen 147
surveyed and out of these thirty-four were in Ludhiana. Loss of trade was
another factor; around 30 per cent of woollen hosiery from Ludhiana at the
time went to areas that were in Pakistan after partition.58 It took some time
to get things back to normal. Some manufacturers even took the opportunity
to change businesses and try other trades and ‘hosiery thus remained an
industry for those who wanted to sweat and at best earn their humble pie’.59
The cycle industry has also developed dramatically since independence
from its small beginnings during the colonial era. It is thought that a few
enterprising Ramgarhia artisans from Malerkotla laid the foundations for
the bicycle parts industry in Ludhiana.60 At the time of partition, around
twenty-five units existed in Ludhiana that specialised in the production of
cycle parts.61 The industry took off in terms of large-scale production of
cycles and related industries after partition.
Can Ludhiana’s industrial success be linked to refugees resettling in
this locality? Is it possible that the influx of refugees from West Punjab
changed the prospects of the local economy? Some research has already
looked at this relationship at an all-India and state level. Pandit’s field survey
of displaced persons showed that half the total number of entrepreneurs
in selected industrial centres came from people uprooted from West
Punjab.62 Gurpreet Bal has also maintained that industrial development
in East Punjab benefited from the ready supply of displaced persons.63
To what extent was this a significant factor in Ludhiana? Pandit’s figures
for the city are illustrated in Table 7.2. We can see from the table that
displaced persons formed nearly half of the entrepreneurs surveyed and yet
represented only 21 per cent of the district’s population, although, given
that Muslims represented over 60 per cent of the population in city, the
representation of refugees would have been higher in the city than in the
district.
industry did so with the help of rehabilitation loans and other credit loans
from public and private sources.66 India’s biggest bicycle manufacturers, such
as Avon, Atlas and Hero, are all Ludhiana businesses started by displaced
entrepreneurs. Sohan Lal Pahwa, one of the founders of Avon Cycles,67
knew about Muslims making cycle parts in Malerkotla. They had a shop in
Gill Road, Ludhiana, prior to partition and they also had business links in
Malerkotla. This was one of the reasons why the family migrated to Ludhiana
from Sialkot in Pakistan in 1947. They started with manufacturing bicycle
saddles and brakes in 1948. Soon after the Pahwa brothers started their cycle
production business in 1951 as a small-scale industry, rolling off around 250
bicycles. The company has since grown enormously and exports Avon Cycles
across the globe.68
The Ramgarhia community has undoubtedly played a crucial role in
Ludhiana’s development in the fields of mechanical and electrical engineering.
They are dominant in small sector production, which has been the hallmark of
Ludhiana’s economic development. A parallel in Pakistan is the transformation
of the artisan Lohar69 community from blacksmiths to dominant figures in
Sialkot’s burgeoning surgical instruments industry.70 During the colonial
era, Ramgarhias were being drawn to Ludhiana because of the employment
opportunities. The first factory for producing sock-knitting machines was
started by a Ramgarhia migrant from Malerkotla in 1920.71 Gurmukh Singh,
the founder of G. S. Auto, was similarly drawn to the city; the company
66 Analysis and Planning Report: Bicycle and Parts (All India), in Pandit, Industrial
Development, 121.
67 Interview with Sohan Lal Pahwa, managing director, Avon Cycles, Ludhiana,
April 2002. The Avon Cycles was founded by Pahwa brothers – Mr Han Raj
Pahwa, Mr Jagat Singh Pahwa and Mr Sohan Lal Pahwa.
68 K. N. S. Kang (chief editor), Business Families of Ludhiana (Delhi: New Century,
2003), 13–23.
69 For further information on the Lohar community see Sharma, Artisans of the
Punjab.
70 The Lohars initiated the industry and continue to dominate it, although other
communities have entered it since partition. See K. Nadvi, ‘Social Networks in
Urban Punjab: A Case Study of the Sialkot Surgical Instrument Cluster,’ in The
Post-Colonial State and Social Transformation in India and Pakistan, eds. K. Nadvi
and S. M. Naseem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 146–77.
71 Singh, The Political Economy, 72.
150 From the Ashes of 1947
Transforming Lyallpur
As a district, Lyallpur was a very attractive destination for refugee resettlement
as it was located in the most fertile area in West Punjab. Until 1947, Lyallpur
was mainly a market town and an agro-industry centre with a handful of
textile factories. After partition, manufacturing assumed a much greater role
in the so-called ‘Manchester of Pakistan’. Both the city and the district were
demographically transformed as a result of partition. Between 1941 and 1951,
Lyallpur city grew in population by 156 per cent, compared to the overall
growth of 54 per cent in the district.74 The population increase can be attributed
to the huge influx of refugees into the city, which continued to expand at
these phenomenal rates. Between 1951 and 1961, Lyallpur’s population grew
by 137 per cent. From Table 7.3 we can see how refugee resettlement in
Lyallpur district is, compared with other districts in West Punjab. It had one
of the highest concentrations of refugees. This proportion increased further in
Lyallpur city, where refugees formed 69 per cent of the population in 1951.75
The West Punjab government in February 1948 had expressed concerns over
the large number of people in camps particularly in areas like Lyallpur. It was
already a surplus area, but people chose to remain in the camps in the hope
that they would eventually be resettled in the locality.76 Crucially Lyallpur was
72 Interview with Jagat Singh, son of Gurmukh Singh, G. S. Auto, Ludhiana, March
2002. The family is very prominent in Ludhiana and are patrons of Ramgarhia
schools in the community.
73 The company turnover is Rs. 60 crores and over 45 per cent of its products are
exported. Kang, Business Families of Ludhiana, 70.
74 Government of Pakistan, Census of Pakistan 1951. Sargodha during the same
period was the second highest; the growth here was 115 per cent and Lahore was
27 per cent.
75 Government of Pakistan, Census of Pakistan 1951.
76 Note from Deputy Commissioner, Montgomery, to the Home Secretary to the
West Punjab Government, 23 February 1948. Courtesy of SARRC, Islamabad.
From Refugee to Citizen 151
considered a ‘land of opportunity’ especially by those who had come across the
canal colony, through previous stories of migration.
Table 7.3: Proportion of Muhajirs in West Punjab
District Total Muhajirs Per cent
Punjab (total) 18,828,000 4,908,000 26
Lyallpur 2,153,000 986,000 46
Lahore 1,895,000 745,000 39
Montgomery 1,816,000 713,000 39
Bahawalpur state 1,823,000 373,000 20
Bahawalpur 970,000 298,000 31
Source: Census of Pakistan, 1951
77 For further details, see Mohammad Waseem, ‘Urban Growth and Political
Change at the Local Level: The Case of Faisalabad City, 1947–75’, in Pakistan.
The Social Sciences’ Perspective, ed. A. S. Ahmed (Karachi: Oxford University Press,
1990), 207–28.
152 From the Ashes of 1947
Picture 7.2: Remnants of the past. Sita Ram Mandir in Rail Bazaar,
Lyallpur now converted into a masjid
Picture 7.3: Remnants of the past: an abandoned Khasla middle school and
gurdwara in Lyallpur, now a Model High School for boys
commercial activity, while residential, religious and other civic activities were
also catered for within the bazaar area. The influx of refugees after partition
really swamped the commercial and residential area. The development that
154 From the Ashes of 1947
78 Pasha, based on his own experience of living in Lyallpur since partition and working
in the district commissioner’s office, argues that the Faisalabad Development
Authority, Faisalabad Municipal Corporation and even the government failed to
check the uneven growth in Faisalabad, which has led to the planned modern city
becoming a big slum. M. Z. Pasha and S. A. Shahid, From Sand Dunes to Smiling
Fields: History of Lyallpur now Faisalabad (Faisalabad: Kitab Markaz, 1996), 151.
From Refugee to Citizen 155
Rawalpindi, Sargodha and Gujranwala;79 Rs. 8 crores was earmarked for this
purpose.80 The Punjab chief minister, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, was accorded
an enthusiastic reception in Lyallpur in late April 1951 when he outlined
plans for the construction of ‘modern’ towns with such amenities as street
lighting, underground sewerage and 80 to 40 feet wide roads.81 A further
year elapsed before the completion of the initial scheme on the cattle fair
ground at Lyallpur at the cost of Rs. 14 lakhs. This scheme, with its secondary
and primary schools, post office, dispensary and recreational open spaces,
was designed to provide accommodation for 550 families and included
provisions for refugee officers to draw funds of up to Rs. 200 per month for the
construction of houses.82 Early in July 1952, the West Punjab Rehabilitation
and Colonies minister, Sheikh Fazal Ilahi, witnessed the public auction of
its residential and commercial plots,83 which had been constructed privately,
following government planning support. Daultana was once more in Lyallpur,
in September 1952, to open the Rahman Charitable Hospital and Maternity
Centre at Ghulam Muhammadabad. He declared that when the satellite
towns were completed, they would greatly help in relieving the congestion
experienced by people living in Lyallpur.84
A further sum of Rs. 20 lakhs was spent by the West Punjab government
for the construction of 800 houses. Of this 360 were to be built in the Ghulam
Muhammadabad Colony for low-income refugee families, at a cost of
Rs. 9 lakhs, 240 in the Industrial Labour Colony costing Rs. 6 lakhs and 200
in the People’s Colony at Rs. 5 lakhs.85 While the city had undergone extensive
development to meet the needs of the large number of refugees, it seemed
that the provincial government constantly had to make new arrangements.
In 1956, the Lyallpur Improvement Trust put forward plans to meet the
shortage of housing in the town. It envisaged plans for the construction of
1,500 bungalows and other houses to accommodate 2,000 families in the
Civil Lines, Race Course and Jail Road areas,86 keeping in mind that it was
now fast approaching ten years since Pakistan was created, and localities such
as Lyallpur were still struggling with the basic needs of its inhabitants. The
challenges were substantial.
Like Ludhiana, many of these new ‘model towns’ catered for the needs
and requirements of the middle class. Working class refugees and labourers
lived in the old part of the city, around the Clock Tower. Once industrial
activity had taken off in Lyallpur, labourers, again as in Ludhiana, lived close
to the industrial area in kachi abadies like Mai di Juggi, which were essentially
slum areas. These were usually located around the big industrial mills for ease
of access.
cloth and hosiery. There are similarities in the factors behind Lyallpur’s and
Ludhiana’s post-partition economic growth, namely, colonial infrastructural
and economic inheritances and the impact of refugee labour and entrepreneurial
enterprise. The main difference is the role of the state as a result of the Pakistan
government’s much greater commitment to the rapid industrialisation of the
locality.
Lyallpur owed its existence to the colonial state’s development of the canal
colony schemes. It emerged as an administrative centre on the Lower Chenab
canal and as a market for the agricultural produce of the region, in particular
its cotton and wheat. Lyallpur’s planning as a modern city ensured that it
was served with good road and rail communications. These have continued
to play an important part in its post-independence development. Indeed,
much of the city’s industrial development has grown up along the link roads
to Sheikhupura and Sargodha. The extensive railroad network linking the
countryside with Lyallpur led to the emergence of markets for manufactured
goods of the local industry.92
By the late colonial era, there were the beginnings of industrial development
utilising the abundant raw materials of the district’s commercialised agricultural
produce. Post-partition industrial growth has centred around the processing
of these agricultural products such as sugar, vegetable oil, rice and grain. Most
importantly locally grown cotton has provided the staple raw material in textile
manufacturing. The colonial era’s inheritance of agricultural commercialisation
and good communications thus forms an important backdrop to the city’s
post-independence success. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that it would have
experienced its remarkable industrial expansion without the political and
demographic changes resulting from partition.
The establishment in 1948 and 1950 of the Koh-i-Noor and Crescent
Textile Mills by the Seghal and Chinioti families, respectively, provides the
clearest example of refugee involvement in Lyallpur’s industrial development.
They had developed big export-orientated industrial houses in Delhi and
Calcutta before partition, although they both originated from West Punjab.93
The families competed for political influence in Lyallpur, utilising patron–
client networks and the muscle power of their goondas.94 The absence of
traditional feudal elites in the city also gave them such opportunities, although
annually.100 The advantage Lyallpur had was that it was able to tap into the
skilled base that migrated en masse into the city which led to rapid prosperity;
the process would have been slower, had it been dependent on importing the
required skills.
Bashiran Bibi spoke of her husband (they were married before partition)
setting up one hand loom, and within a year he had progressed to forty hand
looms. She talked about how hard they both worked: they washed and dyed
the cotton thread themselves as well. With the hard work paying off, they were
soon able to purchase a shop of their own. She recalls how they pioneered
cotton spinning in the area:
Yes, we were the pioneers of cotton spinning. Other people also learned
it from my husband. He had many trainees. He sold cloth and cotton as
far as Dacca, East Pakistan. When East Pakistan was separated, we lost
an investment of Rs. 150,000 in that area. He set up a single handloom
from the money his father gave him. I brought some money from my
father with which cotton thread was purchased. From one handloom, he
progressed to forty in a year.101
I set up silk textile mills in 1953 with the name of Chaudhari Textiles. By
God’s grace, I prospered to 50 silk looms, 20 towel looms and my export
revenue reached millions. I have been an exporter for twenty to twenty-
two years and have been to about 8 to 10 countries in this connection. My
big brother and I ran a small hosiery factory in Ludhiana and my father
just looked after the property. I had experience of hosiery business prior
to Partition but loom enterprise was entirely new to me. In the early days
of Pakistan, there wasn’t much competition and manufacturer could easily
get through. Those times, business opportunities were in excess because
the country was newly created.102
100 Karim Hosiery, Ayub Colony, Jhang Road, Faisalabad, accessed 2004, www.
golsocks.com/profile.html. The link is no longer available but previously this
information was available on their profile.
101 Interview with Bashiran Bibi, Harcharan Pura, Faisalabad, February 2003.
102 Interview with Mohammad Sadeeq, Katchery Bazaar, Faisalabad, February 2003.
160 From the Ashes of 1947
Sadeeq had not worked with silk power looms in Ludhiana. But he brought with
him the experience of running a factory. It was this background that enabled
him to branch out and grasp the new manufacturing opportunities in Lyallpur.
The pride in his community’s earlier achievements in Ludhiana, revealed in the
extract below, was a crucial factor in the enterprise he displayed after migration.
Yousaf Ludhianvi further highlights the role of the Ludhiana hosiery industry.
He worked in the handloom business before partition in Ludhiana.
Ludhiana was famous not only in Punjab but all over the India for its
industries. Hosiery and cloth industry of Ludhiana was very famous.
Ansari, Teli, Julahe, Mochi and nearly all other artisans lived in Ludhiana.
The days we started handloom business in Lyallpur, it was difficult to get
raw material. I left that business and started working in the cotton mills at
the age of 17 to 18 in 1949. I used to operate power loom in the mills of
Makhan in Ludhiana so it was easy for me to work in the cotton mills.
The handloom business was not a new enterprise for us because we were
into same trade before the partition. We knew about Tarkhans as they
were also present in Ludhiana. We gave 12 to 14 rupees to a Tarkhan who
made us a handloom. That cloth was not so fine in quality but because of
the shortage of cloth, it was sold easily and nobody objected it.104
My father washed hosiery items for the knitting factories of Hindus and
Sikhs. I worked with my father. I was 20 years old at the time. We had
105 Interview with Hajji Mohammad Shafi, Harcharan Bazaar, Faisalabad, December
2002.
106 See, for example, M. Monshipouri and A. Samuel, ‘Development and Democracy
in Pakistan: Tenuous or Plausible Nexus?,’ Asian Survey 35, no. 11 (1995): 973–89.
Also see Markus Daechsel, The Politics of Self-Expression: The Urdu Middleclass
Milieu in Mid-Twentieth Century India and Pakistan (London: Routledge, 2006).
107 Waseem, ‘Urban Growth,’ 211.
108 Waseem, ‘Urban Growth,’ 212.
109 Pakistan Times (Lahore), 12 October 1947.
162 From the Ashes of 1947
Lyallpur was declared an industrial zone with attendant incentives for investors.
The following year, the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation was
created. This had the responsibility for the development of bigger industries
when private capital and enterprise was inadequate.110
The Pakistan government took steps to allocate evacuee factories
throughout the Lyallpur district. It also allocated business premises within
the city. In October 1948, financial support of Rs. 50 lakhs was sanctioned for
cotton ginning factories and at the same time plans were approved for a textile
handloom weavers’ colony.111 It was hardly surprising that government attention
was directed towards the cotton textiles industry. Before independence, the main
cotton and textile industries were located in places like Bombay and Allahabad.
At the time of partition, there were only four textile mills in West Punjab, and
only two of them were in partial working order – Lyallpur Cotton Mills and The
Punjab Textile Mills in Lahore. Lala Murli Dhar Shad, the Hindu owner of the
Lyallpur factories, stayed on after independence and relocated his family from
Delhi.112 The mills, however, were the scene of a major strike in June 1949 over
the issue of the employment of Hindu staff from India to fill technical and non-
technical posts.113 The disjuncture in the available skills base was clearly an issue,
which then manifested itself through a communal lens. Due to the disruption
caused by partition and the strained relations between India and Pakistan, the
import of cloth from these cities was impracticable. The handloom and hosiery
factories were unable to resume work because there was a shortage of yarn,
which had to be imported from India.114 The government’s Textile Advisory
Committee reported in 1951 that Pakistan required an additional 350,000
spindles and 6,562 looms by 1957 to meet demand. It was estimated that 37
crores yards of cloth were needed in the West Punjab alone.115
As early as February 1948, the West Punjab government planned the
establishment of eight new cotton mills.116 It simultaneously planned the
110 Jafer Mehdi, ‘Private Enterprise and Industrial Development,’ in Anon, Industrial
Development in Pakistan 1947–1975 (Lahore: Progressive Research Council,
1976), 10.
111 Pakistan Times (Lahore), 21 October 1948.
112 Pakistan Times (Lahore), 14 June 1949.
113 Pakistan Times (Lahore), 21 June 1949.
114 Note by B. A. Kureshi, Rehabilitation Commissioner, Industries, West Punjab.
Courtesy of SARRC, Islamabad.
115 Government of Punjab, Five-Year Industrial Development Programme, 51.
116 Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 19 February 1948.
From Refugee to Citizen 163
1 Ramanand Sagar, ‘Pimps,’ in India Partitioned: The Other Face of Freedom Vol 1, ed.
Mushirul Hasan (New Delhi: Lotus Collection Roli Books, 1997), 192.
2 Saadat Hasan Manto and Introduction by Daniyal Mueenuddin, Mottled Dawn:
Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition (India: Penguin, 2011), 162.
Cleansing Hearts and Minds 167
We do not hesitate to admit that the Sikhs and the Hindus have also
been guilty of the most shameful attacks upon women and children in the
communal warfare, which is still continuing…We know Sikhs stooped to
these low depths only in retaliation for what was done by the Muslims.
But this is no justification for the Sikhs, who have falsified tradition…
We tried our best and we are trying our best to prevent our brethren from
falling into these low tactics. But it appears that most of the Muslims,
Hindus and Sikhs have gone mad. Crime, then retaliation and retaliation
again continued and there is no end to it…If we do not desire friendship
of the Muslims and we may never befriend them, we may have to fight
again, but we shall fight a clean fight - man killing man. This killing of
women and children and of those who seek asylum must cease at once.
We ask you to do so chiefly in the interests of your own communities’
reputation, character and tradition and not to save the Muslims…5
What is interesting about the appeal above, is that while condemning the
violence or communal warfare, there is at the same time a justification in
the form of it being retaliation; it is ‘mad’ but necessary appears to be the
contradictory message. Further, the idea of a ‘clean fight’ (between men) is
acceptable but the killing of women and children is unacceptable. The tone
of the appeal is, therefore, hardly conciliatory and harbours undertones
of justifying the conflict between Sikhs and Muslims. The reality was that
communal violence in August 1947 started much earlier and so did the
discourse around abducted women and children. Events leading up to partition
saw ever-increasing communal violence in Calcutta and Bihar, travelling west
towards Punjab. One of the first times this is mentioned officially is in the
The Congress views with pain, horror and anxiety the tragedies of
Calcutta, in East Bengal, in Bihar and in some parts of Meerut district.
The acts of brutality committed on men, women and children fill every
decent person with shame and humiliation. These new developments on
communal strife are different from any previous disturbances and have
involved murders on a mass scale as also mass conversions enforced at
the point of a dagger, abduction and violation of women and forcible
marriage.6
Clearly, there is a recognition that the nature of violence has changed and
has now become broader; mass killings, which now also target women and
children. It then goes on to elaborate on the nature of assistance that should be
provided for these women, and so we see the beginning of the state adopting
a paternalistic role in how to deal with these women.
This resolution put forward by Prasad was adopted in November 1946, much
before the events of August 1947, when the situation deteriorated even
further. The discussion is also centred around the issue and importance of not
recognising the conversions that had taken place. Importantly, the discourse
here is around forcible conversions and not voluntary ones which, though
there is no official count, many did convert to retain their ancestral lands or
to avoid forced migration. Significantly, there is much ambiguity surrounding
6 Veena Das, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 2006). E-book version, 22.
7 Das, Life and Words, 22. Taken from the proceedings of the Indian National
Congress 1946–47.
Cleansing Hearts and Minds 169
the circumstances under which some of these women converted. The Congress
proceedings continue:
A year later, there are echoes of this in the speeches delivered by Mahatma
Gandhi.
The Hindu and Sikh women carried away by force should be restored
to their families. Similarly the Muslim women taken away should be
restored to theirs. This task should not be left to the families of the
women. It should be our charge…It is my belief that the police cannot
do this. The army cannot do this…This is a task for the Governments to
tackle…There is only one way of saving these women and that is that the
Governments should even now wake up to their responsibility, give this
task the first priority and all their time and accomplish it even at the cost
of their lives. Only thus can these women be rescued. Of course we should
help the Government if it requires help.9
8 Das, Life and Words, 22. Taken from the proceedings of the Indian National
Congress 1946–47.
9 Post-Prayer Meeting Speech by Mahatma Gandhi in Hindi, 7 December 1947.
Annotation from Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 90, no. 163, 191,
accessed 20 June 2016, https://archive.org/details/Swaraj-Gandhi-1947-12-
07Post Prayer Speech 1947-12-07.
10 Debali Mookerjea-Leonard, ‘To Be Pure Or Not To Be: Gandhi, Women, and
the Partition of India,’ Feminist Review 94 (2010): 42.
170 From the Ashes of 1947
I have heard that many women who did not want to lose their honour
chose to die. Many men killed their own wives. I think that is really great,
because I know that such things make India brave. After all, life and death
is a transitory game. Whoever might have died are dead and gone; but at
least they have gone with courage. They have not sold away their honour.
Not that their life was not dear to them, but they felt it was better to die
than to be forcibly converted to Islam by the Muslims and allow them
to assault their bodies. And so those women died. They were not just a
handful, but quite a few. When I hear all these things I dance with joy
that there are such brave women in India.11
living with a Muslim in the Punjab since the disturbances, was recovered
and sent to India.13
A Muslim girl named Shafium Nisa, who had been abducted during the
riots after the partition and taken to Singapore, was recovered from the
custody of a Sikh and handed over to her father who had come over to
Pakistan from India for this purpose.14
The documentation process finishes once the women have been recovered. But
why would the state be concerned with anything more than knowing a woman
has been recovered? It is enough that she has been relocated but what happens
to them when they returned to their families and indeed, there is a question
mark over how many were actually accepted back into their families. These
issues were not dealt with and thus remain unrecorded and do not form part
of the official history of partition and its true cost. Through other accounts
by social workers, first-hand accounts of women, we know this process was
not as seamless and as successful as both governments would have liked to
show. The newspapers to some extent provide more detailed accounts of the
circumstances under which they were abducted and/or rescued. Certainly, The
Pakistan Times, which is supportive of the initiative taken by the government,
provides more details on some of the cases.
Still another case related to the recovery of seven girls who had persisted
in remaining there and has been married to some forcibly converted men.
The parents and other men folk of these girls had been killed during the
disturbances. They had declined to go back to their aged grandmother,
but for the help of the State officials, these women as well as the forcibly
converted men could not have been rescued.15
The first time the Governments of India and Pakistan decided to formally
address the issue of women was on 6 December 1947, nearly four months
after independence. Although there was evidence of abductions and rapes
taking place, it only gradually became apparent that large numbers of women
and children had been left behind on either side. At the Inter-Dominion
Conference on 6 December, it was decided that the ‘work of rescuing these
women and children and also evacuating converts from “pockets” should be
carried out in right earnest’.16 The treaty signed by India and Pakistan detailed
and echoed much of what had previously been said by Gandhi and Prasad:
1. Every effort must be made to recover and restore abducted women and
children within the shortest time possible.
2. Conversion by persons abducted after 1 March 1947 will not be recognised,
and all such persons must be restored to their respective dominions.
The wishes of the persons concerned are irrelevant. Consequently, no
statements of such persons should be recorded before magistrates.
3. The primary responsibility for recovery of abducted persons will rest with
the local police who must put full efforts in this matter. Good work done
by police officers in this respect will be rewarded by promotion or grant of
cash awards.
4. MEOs will render every assistance by providing guards in the transit
camps and escort for the transport of recovered persons from transit
camps to their respective dominions.
5. Social workers will be associated with the scheme. They will look after
camp arrangements and receive the abducted persons in their own
dominions. They will also collect full information regarding abducted
persons to be recovered, and supply it to the inspector general of police
and the local superintendent of police.
6. The DLOs will set up transit camps in consultation with the local deputy
commissioners and public workers and supply information regarding
abducted persons to be recovered.
7. Co-ordination between different agencies working in the district will be
secured by a weekly conference between the superintendent of police,
the local MEO Officer, the DLO and the deputy commissioner. At this
meeting, progress achieved will be reviewed, and every effort will be made
to solve any difficulties experienced.17
Following this meeting, an agreement was reached with the Government
of India for the promulgation of an ordinance to simplify the work of the
recovery of abducted persons. The Government of India had put forward the
16 Taken from a report on the work done by the Ministry and the Pakistan-Punjab
Refugees Council by W. V. Grigson, secretary, MR&R, 27 April 1948, NDC.
17 Kirpal Singh, Select Documents on Partition of Punjab-1947: India and Pakistan
(Delhi: National Book Shop, 1991), 572–3.
Cleansing Hearts and Minds 173
The newspaper article raises a number of issues that were the impetus
behind this appeal and the need by both India and Pakistan to rescue and
return abducted women and children. First, the issue of women’s sanctity is
highlighted in the article. This denotes that women are viewed as something
more than ordinary individuals; they symbolise something that is sacred to the
people. The idea of a woman’s honour is inextricably linked with this concept.
It was of vital importance that every effort had to be made in order to address
and resolve this issue of abducted women. Second, the article highlights the
need for firm resolve in rescuing and returning these women to their rightful
homes. Why was it so important? Part of the answer clearly lies in the previous
point, regarding the sanctity attached to women in what was at the time and
still is a predominantly patriarchal society. In order to legitimatise the newly
acquired freedom, there was a need for the state to assert its authority and one
way it does this is by assuming the paternalistic role. This protective shield is
only extended to those considered weak and vulnerable (women and children
in this case) and thereby also reinforcing the masculine nature of the state.
Third, there is an acknowledgement that these women may not be accepted
back, but it was the duty of every citizen to accept them back. This presented a
huge dilemma for the state, on the one hand it had to assert its authority and
take a stance on this issue, but at the same time it was also compelled to deal
with ‘dishonoured’ women. This worked well in principle; however, the work
of the Recovery Ministry extended to ten years, during the course of which
circumstances for many of the affected families changed.
More importantly, it is interesting that the need to close the chapter on
this tragic event rests with the rescue and return of women. Again, we can go
back to the point of the sanctity of women and what they symbolised. A few
days prior, on 17 December, this drive to recover abducted women was the
subject of reporting in the press once again:
In order to ensure that the peace, which is slowly but surely returning,
be made permanent, it is imperative that these unfortunate women be
restored forthwith to their own people. As long as this is not done, real
peace cannot return. We can reconcile ourselves to the loss of everything
except honour and when our womenfolk are forcibly taken away from us,
not only do they lose their honour, but we also, to whom they are related,
lose it. Therefore it is but natural that we harbour ill-will towards the
abductors. For the sake of good relations between Pakistan and India,
this can be done by the restoration of abducted women. Let them make
amends, as far as possible, for their past misdeeds.25
It is being said that the families of the abducted women no longer want to
receive them back. It would be a barbarian husband or a barbarian parent
who would say that he would not take back his wife or daughter. I do not
think the women concerned had done anything wrong. They had been
subjected to violence. To put a blot on them and to say that they are no
longer fit to be accepted in society is unjust. At least this does not happen
among Muslims. At least Islam is liberal in this respect, so this is a matter
that the Governments should take up. The Governments should trace all
these women. They should be traced and restored to their families.30
The idea that these women would be welcomed with open arms was rather
optimistic of the governments, given the strong notions of izzat and family
honour in Punjabi society. But it was clear that rehabilitation of women also
included the rehabilitation of society: educating them and promoting this
28 Kamla Patel, Torn from the Roots: A Partition Memoir (New Delhi: Women
Unlimited, 2005), 139.
29 Patel, Torn from the Roots, 173.
30 Post-Prayer Meeting Speech by Mahatma Gandhi in Hindi, 7 December 1947.
Annotation from Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 90, no. 163, 191,
accessed 20 June 2016, https://archive.org/details/Swaraj-Gandhi-1947-12-07
Post Prayer Speech 1947-12-07.
178 From the Ashes of 1947
‘good’ deed as a form of cleansing and purification for past misdeeds. Later in
December, Gandhi again addresses this issue:
Today we are in such an unfortunate situation that some girls say that
they do not want to come back, for they know that if they return they
will only face disgrace and humiliation. The parents will tell them to go
away, so will the husbands. I have suggested that a sort of home should
be established for such girls which should take up the responsibility for
their food and shelter and education, so that they can stand on their
own feet. These girls are innocent. We must return all the abducted girls
without any preconditions. If we want to retain our freedom we must
learn decency of conduct. 31
Even Nehru encouraged ‘Hindu men to accept the women who were recovered
and to not punish them for the sins of their abductors’.32
Their friends and relatives should welcome them back and give them
all comfort and solace after their harrowing experience. I am told that
sometimes there is an unwillingness on the part of their relatives to accept
the girls back in their homes. This is a most objectionable and wrong
attitude for anyone to take and any social custom that supports this
attitude must be condemned. These girls require our loving and tender
care and their relatives should be proud to take them back.33
The underlying assumption was of course that once this great deed has been
completed, the process of cleansing the nation of its violent and brutal past
could be reconciled. What is quite intriguing about the first quote by Gandhi
and even Nehru’s appeal to ‘Hindu men’ is the way in which pain, abduction
of women and reconciliation have been communalised. It has been given a
religion, yet the crime remains the same and the wide-reaching impact this
has on society also remains the same. This distinction between Hindus and
Muslims is even more apparent in the speech by Gandhi:
I have received a long list of girls abducted from Patiala. Some of them
come from very well-to-do Muslim families. When they are recovered it
will not be difficult for them to be returned to their parents. As regards
Hindu girls it is still doubtful whether they will be accepted by their
families… And yet Hindu society does not look upon such a girl with
respect any more. The mistake is ours, not the girl’s.34
The task though was not simply of finding the girls and convincing families to
take them back. What happens to them as a consequence of this ‘recovery’? The
violations which they experienced in many ways continued as they are subjected
to more personal invasive checks, disempowered because they have no choice in
the matter, and institutionalised until they are claimed by their families.35 And
if not claimed, they are then left in women’s ashrams to dwell on their past. The
humiliation, therefore, continues in the name of national honour.
Urvashi Butalia also makes the point that Muslim families were more
willing to take Muslim women back than Hindu families, in part it seems
due to different notions of purity and pollution.36 Bhasin and Menon in their
research make this assertion and suggest that ‘recovery there [Pakistan] was
neither so charged with significance nor as zealous in its effort to restore moral
order’. The pressure to recover these women was from India rather than social
or public compulsions.37 ‘It was women’s groups which had to take the initiative
to prod a callous and unresponsive government to do something about the
plight of abducted women’.38 However, it is difficult to make this assertion too
strongly because these notions of izzat were prevalent in all Punjabi society
and indeed they are still prevalent today, on both sides of the border. In fact,
if we look through the discourse projected in The Pakistan Times, it appears
that the need to recover women there was no less vigorous than in India.
There were many appeals made to expedite the recovery process, reports on
missing women and their recovery. Sheikh Sadiq Hasan, who was a member
of the West Punjab Assembly, was rather critical of Mr Ghazanfar Ali Khan,
minister for Refugees, that the programme of recovery under him had not
been very effective. He goes on to say:
I appeal to the Press and the public men in Pakistan particularly in West
Punjab, to create public opinion for a vigorous campaign for the recovery
of the abducted women, while I would urge that non-Muslim women still
stranded in West Punjab should be immediately restored to their people
in the Indian Union.39
The need to recover these women was not significantly subdued or any less
significant in Pakistan, compared to India, but certainly India had more of
an obsession with the morality and the sanctity of women’s bodies. There
are signs of how women in Pakistan were welcomed and received back by
families. From the reporting at the Refugee Women’s Home in Lahore, we
can see a reasonably good repatriation rate, ‘at present the total number of
women in the Home is 375 out of which only about 35 cases are of more than
two months’ duration, which is seen as a good indicator of how the abducted
women are being received back into society by their relatives’.40 Politically,
both the Muslim League and the All Pakistan Women’s Association were
active in arranging the marriages of all unattached women, so that ‘no woman
left the camp single’.41 In fact, the problems and dilemmas facing women were
the same on both sides of the border. In the following interview with Tahira
Mazhar Ali, many of the issues discussed are reiterated by her:
I am sorry but nobody admitted that they were raped because of bad
things. They had feared that maybe somebody would not marry them.
Sarabhai knew more women because the establishment was with her and
they helped her but we could not. Nobody told us, maybe there was a fear
of getting a bad name, maybe she could not get married or she was already
married and that her family would not accept her. Nobody mentioned this
to us. Some of them did not come back. One of our relatives, she stayed
there. She fell in love with a man and got married with him. Hassan
Abdal is our ancestral area. The women jumped into wells there. They
were mothers, sisters, daughters and wives. They were all Sikhs. They
committed suicide rather than be abducted by Muslims; this sort of thing
happened on both sides. Some of them decided that they would settle
here [Pakistan]. [The women said] why should we go back when our
families did not accept us, what would we do then? No doubt Pakistan
made a determined effort to recover those women. Most of them lost
their honour and there was a lack of acceptance by society. But some these
people talked about their past and how they were Sikhs before. I don’t
know whether they would talk about it now [due to the lapse in time].42
Moral Dilemmas
This process of recovering and restoring women was thus shrouded in a
paternalistic approach endorsed by both governments. During the initial years
of the exchanges that took place between India and Pakistan women’s views
were not taken into consideration; however, as the years progressed it became
more difficult to forcibly repatriate these women. After all, this was years after
the event and circumstances had inevitably changed from the time of the initial
reports. In response to this, some changes did come about and special homes
were set up at ‘Jullundur and Lahore where “hesitant” girls will be kept for
ascertaining their wishes as to whether they are willing to join their relatives in
the country of claim or want to live with the abductors’.43 However, we also see
that there were disagreements on the management of the special homes which
were set up in the two countries for keeping the so-called ‘hesitant’ cases.44
The Government of Pakistan also lodged a complaint with India when they
discovered that the Government of India had released thirty-four abducted
women and fifty-nine children without first confirming their desires and
wishes as was expected under the joint agreement. This unilateral action was
therefore ‘in clear violation of the Indo-Pak Agreement of May 1954, regarding
the recovery of abducted persons’.45 As a result of this concern, in 1955 a joint
Fact-Finding Commission with the following terms of reference was set up:
1. To assess the extent of outstanding work of recovery in the two countries; and
2. To advise the two governments on measures to be adopted for speedy
conclusion of recovery in both the countries.46
By 15 August 1955, 20,695 Muslim abducted persons were recovered
from India and restored to Pakistan and for the same period 9,015 non-
Muslim abducted persons were recovered from Pakistan and restored to India;
the final figure was not much higher than that.47 Even in the closing days of
the programme, which is nearly ten years after partition, there are still women
being repatriated and exchanged. Though the numbers are not as significant
(see Table 8.1), nevertheless each one of these women has a story to tell, a
past which has been disrupted numerous times, and often with little agency
or control over events. How did these women feel about the prospect of being
returned ‘home’? Where was home now? And was there even any remote
chance of returning home to pick up where they had left ten years ago? The
official government records in the form of Fortnightly Reports barely delve
into such complex questions; those are not the areas of concern as they would
invariably expose the entangled and difficulties in policing morality.
Table 8.1: Summary for the Period Ending 30 June 1957
Number of Muslim Abducted Number of Non-Muslim
Women Recovered in India Abducted Women Recovered
and Received in Pakistan in Pakistan and Sent to India
1. January 1957 10 14
2. February 1957 12 22
3. March 1957 9 10
4. April 1957 16 15
5. May 1957 16 24
Source: File 13/CF/57 (17) Cabinet Secretary [as late as 1957] Fortnightly summary for the Cabinet
for the period ending 30 June, 1957. Ministry of Refugees & Rehab, GoP, 8 July 1957.
Near the end of the programme, however, there was increasing awareness
of the negative impact and disillusionment was setting in with the initiative. It
was impossible to expect the social workers to remain so committed, resolute
and detached from the project to not be affected by the emotional and morally
46 Fortnightly summary for the period ending 30 September 1955. File 10/CF/55
XVI, Cabinet Secretary, NDC.
47 The final figure is 20,728 Muslims and 9,032 non-Muslims. Fortnightly summary
for the period ending 30 September 1955, Cabinet Secretary, NDC.
Cleansing Hearts and Minds 183
People asked: Why are these girls being tortured in this way? … [sic]
What is the advantage of uprooting them once again? If making them
homeless again is not idiocy, what is it? To take a woman who has become
a respected housewife and mother in her [new] home, and force her to
return to her old home and [or] her parents, is not charity but a crime.
Forget this business: those [women] who are left in Hindustan [India}
and those left in Pakistan are happy where they are …48
Others questioned why the state was not there to protect them in the first
place. This is of course a legitimate question and a lament by these women
who were unquestionably let down by the state and society. Anis Kidwai’s
account was originally written in Urdu and remained unpublished until her
friends took the task on and got it published in 1974. Her granddaughter
later got this account translated into English. These accounts are invaluable
because, through these first-hand experiences of the social workers, there is
a more nuanced understanding of what was at play; there is at the same time
a ‘counter-memory’ that provides ‘voices that cannot easily be incorporated
into the dominant referential frame provided by state and communities’.49
Anis Kidwai increasingly grew ambivalent to the programme and, eventually
prompted by Mridula Sarabhai’s resignation,50 the Government of India
unilaterally discontinued the work of recovery and restoration of abducted
persons and allowed their Abducted Persons Act, 1949, to expire by November
1957. Although the Government of Pakistan estimated that more than 50,000
Muslim women still had to be recovered from India,51 it did repeal this act,
eleven years after the issue of recovering women was first discussed.52 The
tacit agreement between the states of India and Pakistan to resolve the issue
of ‘female recovery’ and thereby reassert their patriarchal approach concludes
48 Anis Kidwai, Azadi ki Chhaon Mein qtd. in Prose, 219–20. Anis Kidwai, In
Freedom’s Shade, trans. Ayesha Kidwai (Delhi: Penguin, 2011).
49 Dube, ‘Partition Historiography,’ 76.
50 See further, Aparna Basu, Mridula Sarabhai: Rebel with a Cause (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1996).
51 Fortnightly summary for the Cabinet for the period ending 15 October 1957, File
13/CF/57 (17), Cabinet Secretary, MR&R, GoP.
52 Six-monthly summary of the Ministry of Rehabilitation for the Cabinet for the
period ending the 30 September 1958, File 11/CF/58 (5), MR&R, GoP.
184 From the Ashes of 1947
with a lapsing of the existing law. However, less explicit in this is the acceptance
that increasingly it was difficult to convince women to uproot themselves or
to forcibly repatriate them.
Almost from the beginning, it was apparent that the programme of
recovering women was going to be fraught with difficulties. Leaving aside the
wishes of what women may have wanted themselves, families were also reluctant
to accept them back, having been ‘soiled’, dishonoured and who knows what
else because many of these women chose to remain silent about this period.
With the passage of time, there has been a growing disenchantment and
growing scepticism of the recovery programme. It has raised many moral
and ethical issues for all concerned. It is here that the lines between the victim
and perpetrator become blurred and what is in the interest of the nation
compared with that of the individual becomes marginal. The feminist writers
have of course been very critical of the ‘patriarchal power’ and misogyny that
was evident, initially, on the part of the perpetrators, and then, in the ways
in which the state handled the issue. The state’s absolute sense of legislating
around the lives of citizens, in this case the female citizens, sets a tone for the
future. There is of course a legitimate case for humanitarian intervention, but
there are many contradictions in the approach. Gandhi’s initial praise of pre-
emptive suicides by women is then re-scripted into accepting ‘stained’ women.
Amrita Pritam’s work, The Skeleton, fully exposes the re-scripting of the state
narrative and the hypocrisy with which this is now justified. The story revolves
around Poroo, who was abducted well before Partition and is rejected by her
family when she manages to escape, as no one will marry her now that she is
stained. However, when her sister-in-law is abducted during the 1947 violence,
there is a state programme to accept and rehabilitate these women. Poroo is
again encouraged to return to her family during this time, because it now has
state backing along with religious sanction. The Ministry of Rehabilitation
interestingly issued a pamphlet invoking the Laws of Manu to argue that
‘a woman who had sex with a man other than her husband became purified
after three menstrual cycles, and that her family should have no hesitation in
accepting her back’.53 The reality was that the state’s endorsement or bringing
its official legitimacy did not change the cultural resistance towards the
innocent lives, which suffered in the process.
1 Ahmad Salim from Kunjan Moian, trans. by Ami P. Shah, Journal of Punjab
Studies 13, no. 1 and 2 (1989; trans. 2006): 95. Originally written in 1968.
2 Sassi and Punnu are the heroine and hero of a tragic romantic legend popular in
the Punjab. Unable to live together in life, the two lovers are united in death.
3 The long scarf worn by women with traditional clothing, salwar kameez. It is often
used in poetry as a metaphor for the honour and modesty of a woman.
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 187
Although Lajwanti was recovered and rehabilitated, ‘she had also been ruined.
Sunder Lal, on his part, had neither the eyes to see her tears, nor the ears to
hear her painful groans’.3 The past, though being lived in the present, in reality
remains repressed. Lajwanti, though elevated to the status of a devi or ‘goddess’,
has become increasingly like the muted idols that society worshipped.
The duality of the discourse surrounding the abduction and killing of
women is most poignantly captured by the works of Manto, particularly in his
book, containing the eponymous short story, Khol Do. The short story is laden
with the trauma of partition, rioting and brutality where ‘men pretended to
act out of a sense of honour and piety’ and ‘at times co-religionists themselves
turned out to be the perpetrators of crime’.4 Among this, is the story of Sakina
who has suffered at the fate of this; she has been brought to the camp hospital
in an unconscious state.
The doctor looked at the prostrate body and felt for the pulse. Then he said
to the old man, pointing at the window, ‘Open it.’
The young woman on the stretcher moved slightly. Her hands groped for the
cord that kept her salwar tied around her waist. With painful slowness, she
unfastened it, pulled the garment down and opened her thighs.
The father, oblivious to what the doctor had seen, only saw movement in
his daughter’s hands. The short story was published in Naqoosh in August
1948 and, while critically acclaimed, it generated some commotion within
government circles.6 The short story, while exposing the brutality, also provides
a subtle counter-narrative that moves away from what Veena Das argues is a
‘scripted tradition’.7 In an age where it was preferable to die an honourable
1, trans. ed. Mushirul Hasan (New Delhi: Lotus Collection Roli Books, 1997),
179–91.
3 Bedi, ‘Lajwanti,’ 179–91.
4 Sudha Tiwari, ‘Memories of Partition: Revisiting Saadat Hasan Manto,’ Economic
and Political Weekly XLVIII, no. 25 (2013): 54.
5 Saadat Hasan Manto and Introduction by Daniyal Mueenuddin, Mottled Dawn:
Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition (India: Penguin, 2011), 10.
6 Ayesha Jalal, The Pity of Partition (India: HarperCollins, 2013), 194.
7 Veena Das, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 2006). E-book version, 47.
188 From the Ashes of 1947
death rather than to be dishonoured, where fathers killed their own daughters
to avail this, here was a father shouting with joy that his daughter was still
alive despite the obvious scars. Sensing the content of this to be a threat to
public peace, the publisher Naqoosh was banned for six months, which signifies
the early intolerance of dissent and criticism of state authorities.
While Manto was one of the earliest writers to expose this harsh reality
of partition and independence, particularly from a feminist perspective, these
issues have remained largely buried in subsequent years. Only some change
emerged in the past fifteen years wrought by feminist writers and social
activists like Butalia, Menon and Bhasin.8 They have done much to highlight
the darker side of partition and the impact this had on women and the wider
amnesia surrounding the abduction and rape of women during 1947, allowing
us to uncover these ‘hidden histories’ and bringing them into the public realm of
discussion and debate. These works have challenged the conventional histories,
which marginalised women and other subaltern groups. Combined with the
fictional accounts, memoirs and autobiographical writing, these alternative,
albeit richer, sources have enhanced our understanding of this neglected area,
often filling in the gaps where official history fails. Yet there are still many gaps
in the body of research. We rarely talk about women and partition without the
lens of violence. We hardly touch upon the issue of caste and its impact or its
relationship with partition. Pakistan, which comparatively had a much larger
refugee crisis following independence, is largely examined through the prism of
the Pakistan movement. Comparatively, we know little about the experiences
of women in West Punjab. Feminist discourse there in recent years has been
far more concerned about the impact of Zia’s Islamisation of Pakistan rather
than examining this from a historical perspective. Indeed, much of our current
understanding about South Asian gender roles can be better contextualised
by delving into the past and its legacies in shaping contemporary India and
Pakistan. This chapter, therefore, attempts to unpick some of the issues raised in
the previous chapter and bring in some broader experiences, particularly from
the Pakistan perspective. This is based on first-hand accounts of interviews/
conversations with women over the past fifteen years; some of these women are
what might be termed ‘elite’ class, but they certainly speak from the experience
8 See further; Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of
India (New Delhi: Penguin, 1998) and Ritu Menon and Kamal Bhasin, Borders
and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition (New Jersey: Rutger University Press,
1998).
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 189
of having endured and grown up in the period, which changed from colonial
to post-colonial. There are also interviews with the ‘aam log’, or women who
form the fabric of society, but we rarely get to hear about these. Importantly,
the work and voices presented here are largely from women in Pakistan. This
is largely a conscious decision due to the scarcity of material representing the
voices from West Punjab and Pakistan more broadly. Comparatively, much
more had been written from an Indian perspective and there continues to be a
lack of interest in women from Pakistan. However, the stories themselves will
resonate across borders as they have no religion. The stories are of friendships
turned into fear, forced to abandon homes but ultimately they are also of the
tenacity and hope these women recovered. In the inevitable editorial process,
the latter is important. Much of the material and written history around
Partition focuses on the violence and projects women as victims. Indeed, much
of what has been presented here has also focused on these issues, as there is
no denying that this is the very essence of the pain and turmoil endured by
the people.
Khurshid’s Qissa
Khurshid Bibi migrated from Ludhiana district as a child.9 In the extract
from her testimony, she provides details of her flight from her village.
Many aspects of the extract make it compelling reading; it is an account of
children, their innocence lost and when they stopped just being children
to being children of a defined religious community. Her account itself is
depersonalised of any references to specific or named people and instead, they
only have communalised identities. There are good and bad characters and
while not judging the veracity of the account, one question every oral historian
must ask is, ‘how much of this is shaped by retrospective memory?’ But the
testimony also tells a communalised history. Although the story remains the
same, the children’s innocence is lost in the process and a new narrative has
been embedded in its place. The psychological trauma of this is not even a
consideration.
When I was inside that village and came to Pakistan, we faced atrocities all
the way. They invaded the village from all sides and started the massacre.
They started firing bullets at people and burnt alive those that were hiding
in their houses. They lifted the corpses of Muslims in the air on their
blades. They did horrible atrocities. They set fire on such a scale as to kill
each and every Muslim, even then few people escaped to Pakistan. I was
also one of them.
Our house had been set on fire while we were hiding inside – roof was on
flames, doors, windows and everything else was on flames. They dragged the
females out with them and nobody heeded the children – most of us were
lost and our mothers never saw us again. They took the females outside and
loaded them on vehicles, left over children were ignored and not taken away. I
not only saw all this but I equally suffered on that fateful day. I was present at
that place. When the night came, someone took me and three other children
with him – he was not from our family but someone else [a Sikh as she
reveals afterwards]. People said to him that he should kill the Muslims kids.
They teased us with their blades. They said to him that if he couldn’t kill
us, he had to leave that to them. While he was taking us with him many
attempted to kill us on the way, but he said that he wouldn’t kill us. We were
four children, I [she was seven and a half years old then] had my younger
sister with me and the other girl had her sister with her. There was some
wisdom in my mind, which was transferred to me by my grandfather, who
was a wise and renowned man. The lessons he taught and the advice he gave
me helped me a lot on the way to Pakistan.
It was night and the gangs who had killed nearly all the Muslims by then,
started looting and plundering their houses. While that man, who was a
Sikh took us with him. On the way, he halted for some time and took the
two other girls to a field and murdered them and at seeing this, great fear
overwhelmed us. We ran for our lives, he followed us running. We saw a
house with some people at a distance. We ran to that house and started
crying over the atrocities done to us. The other girls were killed and we
knew that we would also be killed in the same way. The people in that
house forbade that Sikh from taking us away and requested him to leave
us there – saying ‘these kids neither have parents nor any caretaker, so
please leave them with us, don’t take them away’. He did as they requested
and left us there. The people of that house took us to another village,
where Muslim women had been taken. Even there we found no one who
knew us. So, they took us back to their house and we lived with those
Hindus for six months. There was no news of our relatives but we often
heard that Muslim military would come during that month and take
away Muslim women and children who were left behind. The Hindus
didn’t want to lose us and never let us out of the home. We were also
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 191
One day those Hindus sent us to bring water from the well and that’s where
the military saw us by chance. We Muslim kids were easily distinguishable
from other kids as our noses and ears were pierced for putting on jewellery.
The military men saw us; they stopped the jeep and came to us hesitatingly
because they were not sure that we were Muslim kids. We also feared
them. They asked the women with them to come forward and talk to us.
Those women treated us with love and concern. When we told them that
we were Muslims, they gave us more love and called the military people to
take us to their vehicle. They military people treated us with great love and
concern as well. When we sat in the jeep, everyone including those men
started crying. But they made us feel better with their concern. We were
taken to the camp in Ambala and we were wondering about possibilities
of meeting any of our relatives who might still be alive.
population was also forced to flee. Sadly, Kamoke is also associated with one
of the worst attacks and massacres on a refugee train. Most accounts suggest it
happened on 24–25 September 1947 when the train was carrying around 3,000
non-Muslim refugees from West Punjab.11 The train had been forced to stop
overnight in Kamoke and the following day the train was attacked by mobs.
There are accounts of this incident in the Civil and Military Gazette,12 which
reported 418 non-Muslim casualties following the attack which lasted for
40 minutes. According to The Tribune and Khosla,13 almost all the passengers
were killed while the girls were abducted. Gurbachan Singh Talib also
mentions this incident; although the dates he provides are slightly different,
it is most likely the same incident. In Talib’s account, there were almost 5,000
passengers, and the police and military also joined in the attack and only made
cursory attempts to stop the carnage.
Talib does provide the statement of Shrimati Laj Wanti, which was
given to the chief liaison officer. She was a widow of Shri Manak Chand,
age 23 years, caste Khatri and resident of Nurpur Sethi, district Jhelum. She
narrates:
The women-folk were not butchered, but taken out and sorted. The elderly
women were later butchered while the younger ones were distributed. The
children were also similarly murdered. All the valuables on the persons of
the women were removed and taken away by the mob. Even clothes were
torn in the effort to remove valuables. My son was also snatched away in
spite of my protests. I cannot say who took him away. I was taken by one
Abdul Ghani to his house. He was a tonga driver. I was kept in the house
for over a month and badly used. I went to other houses to look for my
son. I saw a large number of children but I was unable to find my son.
During these visits I also saw a large number of Hindu women in the
houses of the Muslim inhabitants of Kamoke. All of them complained
that they were being very badly used by their abductors.14
11 See, for example, Khosla, Stern Reckoning, 151; Ishtiaq Ahmed, The Punjab Bloodied,
Partitioned and Cleansed (Oxford; Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012), 355;
and Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), Saturday, 27 September 1947.
12 See Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 26 September 1947 and 27 September 1947.
13 Khosla, Stern Reckoning, 151 and Ahmed, Punjab Bloodied, 355.
14 Gurbachan Singh Talib, Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab
(Amritsar: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, 1950). Introduction to
the reprint by Ram Swarup. The volume is a reprint of an old book compiled in
1947 by Sardar Gurbachan Singh Talib, principal of Lyallpur Khalsa College,
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 193
In the account, she goes on further to explain that she then spent one month
staying in the house of Abdul Ghani. She was told that there would be no
food for her in India and that she would be ‘shot dead by the Indian Military
because they were not fit for being returned to Hindu society and Hindu
society was not prepared to take them back’. This type of propaganda was
widespread and may explain why some women refused to go back.
We were also told that we must state before the police and other
authorities that we were not willing to return to India. The 150 women
who were produced at the station, Kamoke, were taken in tongas to
Gujranwala. Out of the women collected only 20 got up and said that
they wanted to return to India. I was one of them. The remaining lot
was put into the trucks and sent back to Kamoke by the Sub-Inspector
of Police.15
What is less clear in Laj Wanti’s account, is why the few women who returned
to India, chose to do so. Interestingly, these testimonies collected shortly after
partition hardly touch upon the subject of why and how women made their
choices. Most of them are accounts which conveniently fit into the existing
narratives. During the conversations I had with some women in Kamoke, the
accounts presented were understandably from a different perspective and at times
quite confused and contradictory. For example, Sardar Bibi, who was a resident
of Kamoke, recollects the same period, but from the interview the blurry space
between victim and perpetrator is evident:
Yes, they were from Kamoke. Because Pakistan had come into being, as I
am telling you, Hindus migrated to India and the Muslims arrived here.
The people of Gujranwala also joined with the local people when the train
was being massacred and looted. [Did they take girls with them?] Yes,
Pakistani women were humiliated, raped and their breasts were cut off
in India. Many things happened here as well. The Muslims threw them
in the wells; at that time, there were big wells around [here in Kamoke].
A young man came here after he killed a Hindu family; he killed small
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 195
children; women threw themselves in the well. We saw a lot. An old man
lay down on the ground, but [the local] people did not even spare him.16
Escaping Terror
The accounts by both Laj Wanti and Sardar Bibi offer two experiences of
one location but they differ and conflict in their outlook due to their own
immediate experience and the lapse in time. The following two accounts are by
Ayesha who migrated from Patiala, and Nazeeran who fled from Hoshiarpur.
Although escaping themselves, they were still witness to the atrocities and
carnage going on around them. But they are also testament to the fighting
spirit and the human capacity for resilience.
The Sikhs after attacking and burning other villages intended to attack
our village. We escaped before the attack. One of our relatives’ girls was
raped and afterward they [Sikhs] tried to kill. When one of her uncles
saw her, he spread his own chadar to her body to cover her. She survived
and a doctor told us that she had twenty knife wounds in her body. They
[Sikhs] also killed her children. There was one other girl who joined our
caravan on the way. A Sikh abducted her along with her child. At night-
time, she managed to escape and left her child in the Sikh’s house. She
concealed herself in a sugar field and eventually managed to find and join
our caravan. She left her own child there…children and young boys were
chopped off like vegetables.17
May God forgive us; we could hear the cries and lamentations on the
abduction of young girls because we used to live very close to the city
that was the centre of violence. The day when we were supposed to be
attacked by them, we gathered in a field. All our men encircled us and
the children and we sat down there waiting for our fate. But before they
could attack us, it started raining and we all dispersed to take shelters.
After that, we made a deal with them and paid a lot of money to let us
go safely. They allowed us to go but they accompanied us for a while and
it was very horrific to travel under their gleaming swords. I got surprised
to see the road full of blood and I asked my husband what it was. My
terrified husband asked me to keep quiet and carry on with the journey.18
I don’t know much but I had heard stories of partition. When the caravan
consisting of the inhabitants of our village moved towards Pakistan, they
were very much afraid of the assailants. The major worry was about the
women because they did not want to let their women taken by Sikhs. So,
it was mutually decided that in case of an attack women will tie up their
children with legs and will jump into the water; in any canal or well they
will find nearby. The lambardar of the village had been travelling, on his
horse, far ahead of the caravan to see if there were any attackers on the
way. Once he returned waving his shawl, the caravan misunderstood it as
a sign of danger. When women were about to jump he shouted ‘my sisters
do not jump, I have seen Pakistani army coming towards our caravan.
Now the danger is over and we are in safe hands’. The women did feel
much relief on hearing this news.19
Yes, many wells filled with dead bodies of young girls who threw themselves
(to save their honour) in Sultan Pura. That was nearby Amritsar. Our
relatives used to live there. Many girls were humiliated and raped. Many
wells swelled up with their dead bodies. They threw themselves for the
sanctity of their honour. This all happened in a village nearby Amritsar,
Dhariwal, Gurdaspur and Dina Nagar were all located side by side. The
Sikhs were really bad people; the Hindus were not too much brutal. Now
the Sikhs have developed good relations with the Muslims. We had many
relatives there; they also migrated to Lahore.20
I told you, one of our relatives was in the military. His family was migrating
to Pakistan by the train. On his way to Pakistan, his sister who was very
pretty was abducted. The girls’ brother was Iqbal and due to the shock he
became mad. The family tried hard to find her but remained unsuccessful.
19 Interview with Shareefan Bibi and Halima Bibi, Lahore, April 2007.
20 Interview with Balquees Begum, Lahore, September 2008.
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 197
Finding Solace
They searched everywhere and took their women and we took ours.
They searched everywhere; they went to Gujranwala too. They took their
women where they found them. Some Hindus and Sikhs came here and
Muslims went to India…Eminabad, which is near to here, some Sikhs
came here and took their women back to India. The Indian girls that were
in Pakistan were returned back to India. They [Hindus or Sikhs] also
took away my sister. We returned their two girls from Kamoke. Hindus
came here and took their women back, while the Muslims brought back
their abducted women. [What about your sister?] She is with us. Yes
we found her. [Your sister talks about that time?] No, she has forgotten
everything; I was the eldest and she was youngest. She got married and
now has children and even grandchildren. She doesn’t talk about this with
anyone.22
The account above was from an interview done in Kamoke. It refers to the
exchange and repatriation of abducted girls. Sardar Bibi’s sister was recovered
and managed to rebuild her life and although there is little information about
the actual incident and the aftermath, the last line conceals many silences.
In other cases, women were less open to returning, as was highlighted in
Lajwanti’s account earlier. As shown in the previous chapter, social workers
who were responsible for recovering these girls often faced difficult and
challenging moral dilemmas. This was especially difficult when they did not
want to return. We can only speculate about the multiplicity of reasons behind
why this was the case but some women had adjusted to a new life. Krishna
Thapar, a social worker responsible for recovering girls, recalls:
21 Interview with Nadira Khanum and Zakira Fatima, Lahore, September 2008.
22 Interview with Sardar Bibi, Kamoke, September 2008.
198 From the Ashes of 1947
In Borders and Boundaries, Menon and Bhasin met up with a woman in 1991;
she had been forced to return to India, despite her desire to remain with her
husband and three children. She refused to talk about her past, ‘Leave it. What
use is it recalling the past? Forget about it. I’ve banished it all from my mind.
I lead a respectable life now, why look back to the past – even my children
don’t know anything about it’.24 Some women indeed managed to put the past
behind them and ‘recover’ from the trauma, but only by erasing it out of their
memories. Yet these personal testimonies show that they are never completely
erased, the events and thoughts do remain. By accepting the realities of their
lives, some women perhaps found solace and reconciled. But Reshmi’s account
below shows that they did attempt to escape to bring about change.
She did not want to come back; she has two children now. The Military
men brought her back. They cunningly and forcefully left their children to
her mother-in-law in India and took her away, first, in Amritsar then in
Jullundur; then they wrote a letter to her brother who went to Jullundur
and fetched her back to Lahore and then here to the village. Here she
gave a birth to a baby girl. Men of the family intended to kill the baby
because of the dishonour to family but we [women] did not allow them
to kill her. She wrote a secret letter to her husband in India. When this
secret came out, the men of the family beat her badly. Afterwards, they
arranged her marriage and now she had got sons; even grandsons. [What
23 Interview with Krishna Thapar quoted in Menon and Bhasin, Borders and
Boundaries, 91–2.
24 Menon and Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries, 95.
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 199
happened to the baby?] She died after a year. [Did she speak about the
tragedy that happened with her that time?] She told us. She tried to come
back. One day her previous husband took her to the nearest city. She got
chance to talk with goldsmith. She requested him to send her and offered
gold ring to him. He said I could not do this. People from Pakistan would
take you back. She told me that she wanted to go to Lahore but could not
find a chance.25
My aunt, who was abducted in India, had got children in India when she
was recovered and brought back to the fold of the family. She again got
married here in Pakistan. She was an innocent woman. She did nothing
wrong…she was recovered after a long time and during that period she had
got children there in India. [Does she talk about this episode?] Nobody
could talk about such shameful incident. One of our relatives’ daughter
was left in India and was not allowed to come back here. She used to
scream and cry desperately. Refugees who came from there told us about
her miserable tale. She was a very pretty girl. She was abducted because
of her beauty. God knows how she lived there. [This happened on both
sides. Many Hindu and Sikh girls remained in this side of the Punjab.]
This side, no, here nothing like this happened. I never heard about any
Sikh girl being abducted here. Maybe some girls were left over here. The
Muslims were not so cruel. They also killed Hindus and Sikhs. Refugees
who reached India told us that the Muslims had been killing, attacking
and looting their caravans. Everyone was involved in looting and killings.
The Muslims were also involved in looting, but this type of incidents
(abduction of Sikh women) did not happen here. Such incidents did not
happen in our village. [Those girls in your family who were abducted
during the partition, are they still alive?] Yes, one of them presently
lives in Okara. She has got grandchildren now. They did not commit
any crime, or wrongdoing. But they returned, got married here and now
have settled down. [Does she talk about those days?] No, we never asked
her about such things; we feel shame in asking anything like that. They
suffered, why should we disturb them by recalling their bad memories?
[How did people of the family come to know all about this?] She must
have talked with anybody; perhaps her own family, sisters or brothers. In
fact, the entire family knows that they were abducted in India and were
recovered after a long time. They were indeed abducted involuntarily and
forcefully, otherwise girls did not have any relations with the abductors.
[Both governments were trying to recover these girls.] Yes, because of
such efforts these girls were recovered and they returned to their own
homes. Some returned shortly while others took years to recover. Some
girls came back within six months but others came back after many years.
My sister-in-law came back after six years and other relatives came back
after seven years and more.26
26 Interview with Nadira Khanum and Zakira Fatima, Lahore, September 2008.
27 Mridula Sarabhai was tasked with rescuing abducted women and returning them
to their families following independence in India.
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 201
of the stories of those women?] No I did not. It was not the time to
follow the stories. The time was such that following the stories was
virtually impossible. Neither did Mridula follow the stories. It was a
terrible time. The people had no homes or anything else to bank on. Our
leaders had been telling them that there would be everything that they
ever aspire. There would a heaven on earth. What a nonsense they were
telling to the poor people.28
The state was obviously leading this initiative in recovering women and
providing shelters for them. But the role of the voluntary social workers and
the family is also important to ensuring the ‘success’ of this policy. The short
account below by Balquess highlights the complexity of networks and relations
at work to make it a success.
Their two daughters were abducted though after some time both were
recovered; one of them even was pregnant that time. My mother arranged
marriage for their younger daughter in Faisalabad. Many of our relatives
live in Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Karachi. In the Sikh princely state of
Kapurthala a Sikh Deputy [police] took away our phuphi [aunt]; she was
a very pretty and married woman with two children. When we tried to
bring her back, she refused to come back.29
Fatima Sughra shared a story about close friends. Again, the friends and family
network is important in keeping this a closely guarded affair but in some ways
at least it could be shared among close friends and family circles, presenting
them with perhaps the only opportunity to talk about this. While the state is
responsible for recovering the girls, the family is important in bringing them
into the fold and protecting their honour. The silence around their past is
important in ensuring their successful rehabilitation.
I know a case very well; a Syed family who came from Amritsar to Lahore,
their daughter was abducted in Amritsar. When they came to know that
Fatima Begum [an activist working for the recovery and rehabilitation
of abducted Muslim women] had brought a truck of Muslim recovered
women in Lahore, they learnt that their daughter was in the custody of
a Sikh. The Sikh was nice man; he took over the girl from other Sikhs
and kept the girl in his house like his sister. He helped the girl to be
handed over the recovery team who finally sent her to Pakistan. Even
the Sikh man, who escorted her to the border to see off her, gifted her
sewing machine. He said: ‘she is like my own daughter’. Eventually, this
girl reached home but the family never said anything about her abduction
and recovery to anyone, chiefly because of tarnishing their honour in the
society. At the end, the girl committed suicide but the family still never
disclosed anything to anybody. She did not speak to anyone; she was a
Syed Zadi [from the Prophet’s lineage]. They had lots of murids [devotees].
They were pious and nice people. They were grateful to us because we did
not disclose this affair to anyone. [Did she come back happily?] Yes, in
fact she never disclosed to anybody what actually happened. There must
be many women like her. She was nearly 20. [How did the family allow
the abducted girls to come back?] One of my relatives adopted abducted/
missing kids and brought up them and gave them everything. She took
over two missing girls and brought up them like her own kids. Many
people adopted kids to make them their servants. Some women never
came back in Pakistan. One of my relatives was in the police. His family
was in India. During the partition-related-killing his wife jumped into
the well with two daughters to save honour...They preferred death rather
than humiliation. Many women recovered and settled and many others
lost everything. Many children lost their houses. Some were adopted by
good people and others were made servants by some bad individuals.
[Why do people not talk about the sufferings of that time?] Sixty years
have passed and people have forgotten many things. Many have already
passed away and others are too old now…Now people have settled.30
Reinventing Oneself
Shortly after partition and much before any attempts had been made to
understand the human tragedy of partition, Manto’s writing provided us
with many sensitive and insightful accounts in his short stories.31 The Dutiful
Daughter,32 written through the perspective of liaison officer working to recover
women, highlights the challenges that people like Tahira and Mridula faced.
The abduction of girls did not just end with that event itself. Manto shows us
in The Dutiful Daughter that it forced many to sever old family relations, in this
case a woman refusing to recognise her old desperate mother. Partition forced
many to re-imagine their old family bonds in order to deal with the present.
Afzal Tauseef, who was a Punjabi writer and experienced partition first-hand
herself as a child, was more critical of the brutality of even those that one
considered ‘apne’ (our own).
Besides abduction and rape, there was another tragic element of that
situation. Those who remained safe from abduction and rape were exploited
by their own people. On this aspect, a collection of my stories Aman Wailay
Milan Gay is very relevant. It has been translated in Gurmukhi. A story
from that collection perfectly explains this tragedy. It is about the girls who
remained safe and had been sent to the countries they belong to. When
these helpless girls reach Lahore, the welfare centre or the camps that were
supposed to give them shelter started playing the role of a brothel. Irony
reaches its zenith when the girls protest saying that they were better off
when with the enemies. Anyway, this is a subtle and a serious issue and once
you go deep you can see the true face of this society.33
Camps and centres for organisations were of course easy targets because they
had a concentration of people in them. They could be preyed upon easily. Once
recovered it was always preferable to be with a family but, as Butalia found,
women lived in camps in some cities of Punjab, either because their families had
never claimed them or because they had refused to go back to their families.34
The ashrams became permanent homes... there they lived out their lives,
with their memories, some unspeakable, some of which they were able to
share with a similar community of women. And there many of them died....
As late as 1997 some women still remained in the ashram in Karnal; until
today there are women in the Gandhi Vanita Ashram in Jullundur.35
Pakistan. Set during his rise to power in 1979, the two narratives are interwoven
and gradually we begin to see the narrative threads unravelling but also the
parallels between the two narratives become clear. The main protagonist of the
film is Ayesha, and as the film progresses we see through flashbacks how she
decided not to jump into the well to save her ‘honour’. Dishonoured in her
family’s eyes, she was captured by Muslims, raped and ultimately married one
of her captors before converting to Islam. Through the unfolding narrative,
we see the scars of that painful period which is depicted by her fear of the
village well and her refusal to go near it. The elders in the community are
aware of this traumatic past but remain silent throughout, until one day
Ayesha learns that her brother is visiting a Sikh gurdwara with other pilgrims
from India. Through this turning point, Ayesha’s son, Saleem, learns of his
mother’s past. But a radicalised Saleem in Zia’s Pakistan is unforgiving and
Ayesha ultimately jumps into that well. The violence depicted is not always
actual but psychological and this manifests itself in a number of ways. The
violence from her family and refusal to make that pre-emptive sacrifice, the
enveloping political violence which targeted women like Ayesha, the silent
trauma that haunted her throughout her life and then finally we see her own
son disowning his mother, his own past. Saleem’s gradual allegiance with Zia-
ul-Haq’s form of Islam and a rejection of his more moderate upbringing is the
parallel narrative that shows the darker side of religious fervour. It also shows
how since 1947, religion, nationalism, misogyny remain key characteristics in
contemporary Pakistan as well as secular India.
Farkhanda Lodi, a renowned Punjabi/Urdu fictional writer, was in many
ways able to articulate this silenced history in a more open and profound way.
She suggests that there are still silences that exist around talking about women
and the horrific crimes they were subjected to during the communal violence
in 1947. The trauma associated with the upheaval and violence of 1947 has
created a collective amnesia about the event. This has led to many people
having only selective recall and choosing to consciously forget these harrowing
and painful memories. The abduction of young girls was like an unspoken
reality, something which existed but was hardly ever talked about because of
the importance of women’s honour. Yet silence is also prevalent in her family:
My bhabhi [brother’s wife] who was also my cousin and her family
migrated from Kapurthala. When they came here they were wounded
and shattered completely. None of them was killed but they were seriously
injured… Only one woman from our relatives was abducted. But she
never speaks about her abduction. We did hear, in our childhood, that she
Lost Innocence and Sold Honour 205
was abducted and they brought her back, what happened to her during
that time I do not know at all.37
Erasing those former memories and former self alleviates the fractures,
though the problem for many of the partition refugees is that there has been
no closure. The forced displacement following the violent and traumatic start
led to permanent fractures because of the strained relations between India and
Pakistan since 1947. Furthermore, there are cultural pressures which meant
that in the case of what happened to women, there has been almost complete
silence. When I interviewed Farkhanda Lodi she expressed her sadness at the
suffering that women are subjected to, suggesting that women are forced to
remain weak due their social and cultural conditioning. In her interview, she
reflected on the plight of women in Pakistan and goes on to lament the fact
that it is always women who bear the responsibility of suffering. She argues
that it was not just strangers in the form of men from other communities but
it was also those from within their own community.
As you see our respectable culture does not allow us to speak about such
things. That is why she never discusses this issue [referring to abduction]
… She is weak, helpless and vulnerable. She has been forced to remain
weak. It is the training; she gets this from her parents, culture and the
social environment that develop in her a pitiable pathetic soul. Our
system and society do not allow her to progress. So she is in pain, for me
her life is a constant misery.38
Bapsi Sidhwa also agrees with this point, highlighting the pitiful position of
women and use of the body as a tool to target the ‘other’.
It is the women who bear the brunt of violence that accompanies these
disputes. They find their bodies brutalised. Victories are celebrated on the
bodies of women. When women are attacked, it is not they per se who are
the targets but the men to whom they belong. It is humiliating for a man
to see his woman being abused before him.39
The abducted woman in Lodi’s family eventually settled down and now has
children and this is another reason why these memories of a traumatic past
are rarely discussed. As a mechanism for dealing with this past, families have,
where possible, moved on and started a new life. These memories belong to a
past that has been locked away and hidden, a secret history that is deemed too
sensitive to discuss openly. Through these personalised histories and fictional
stories, it is possible to gain some understanding of the ways women’s lives
were completely changed during those few months and years when the British
left and left behind a fractured nation with a traumatic past. Displacement and
resettlement was clearly a lengthy process, which tested people’s resilience to
overcome such trauma and rebuild their lives again. And even when lives were
rebuilt, the state interjected and forcibly repatriated its citizens, prolonging
and adding to the multiple tragedies women had to endure.
While Lodi touched on the issue of silence surrounding the discussion
of this painful past, especially in relation to women, others often internalised
those childhood memories. Having spent many years interviewing partition
refugees, one theme that resonates constantly is how many people felt that
it was a temporary measure and that once the law and order situation was
brought under control they would return to their homes. But increasingly, the
new nations of India and Pakistan were defined by the difference that added
permanence to the border and more importantly to the division among the
people. As Amitav Ghosh says ‘if there is no difference, both sides will be the
same; it will be just like it used to be before…what was it all for then? Partition
and all the killing and everything?’40
An interesting thing that happened in Wah is about an old woman, Mai Jiwan
who used to bring vegetables to the homes of the people. When the partition
plan was announced and the people who were non-Muslim were leaving the
area including the sons of that woman, who intended to go to Delhi. People
said in explicit terms “she belongs to us therefore we would not let her go.”
So the love and affection was there, that was why people said clearly that she
has been living there for ages and we would not let her go anywhere. Her sons
left her behind and after partition episode was over, they came and took her
with them. She cried so much while leaving. But the question is “what did we
achieve”? I am asking you people, someone should provide me the definition
of freedom. Were we happy after the “freedom”? Instead, we witnessed tears
and screaming women saying, “Would my son join me? My small son was
left behind, would he ever come?” Obviously, such things cannot bring us
happiness.
1 Harjeet Singh Gill, Sufi Rhythms: Interpreted in Free Verse (Patiala: Punjabi
University, 2007), 115–17.
Dreams, Memories and Legacies 209
The remnants of this bygone era are everywhere, from the often-crumbling
buildings to the often-melancholic memories, and serve to remind us of a
different age and time: the food, the language, the dress, the vibrant and hearty
Punjabi and the plains of the Punjab that connected people are now divided
by a hostile boundary. There is a constant reminder of these divided histories
while travelling between the two Punjabs; one only needs to casually observe
the place names of shops which are frequently located in the ‘other’ Punjab.
These are the small ways in which those who fled in 1947 have preserved their
own ancestral histories, passing them through the generations that will be
unfamiliar with the other half. The strict visa controls maintained by both the
governments of India and Pakistan ensure that the ordinary people remain
divided and estranged. This is a hard and harsh international border; it was
imagined in the drawing rooms by the outgoing colonial power but it has been
re-imagined by the nation-states today. It is a stark reminder of the animosity
and mistrust the two nations have of each other, yet it also conceals other
truths. The border is open for all foreigners yet it is the most restrictive for the
very citizens of those two nations that it is located in. Indians and Pakistanis
are the most scrutinised people at the border.
2 Ravinder Kaur, Since 1947: Partition Narratives among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007).
3 Raza Rumi, Delhi by Heart (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2013), 49.
210 From the Ashes of 1947
7 Read further, Ian Talbot, Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and
Amritsar 1947–1957 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
8 Lucy Chester, Borders and Conflict in South Asia: The Radcliffe Boundary Commission
and the Partition of Punjab (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 75.
9 Talbot, Divided Cities.
10 See further, Luthra, Impact of Partition and Talbot, Divided Cities.
11 Gurpreet Maini, The Giant Awakens: Punjab Industry and Growth (New Delhi:
India Research Press, 2004).
12 Diwali is the festival of lights celebrating the victorious return of Rama and Sita
to their kingdom.
212 From the Ashes of 1947
While writers like Tauseef and Pritam struggled to reconcile with the changes
wrought about by partition, other provincial towns like Ludhiana and Lyallpur
became industrial heartlands of divided Punjab in the changing landscape of
divided Punjab.14 Both these towns previously had majority ‘other’ populations,
and consequently attracted fleeing refugees from the other side. The development
of the new Lyallpur canal colony in the late nineteenth century and the social
engineering that went along with the project has received relatively little
attention, given its dramatic impact on the region. Apart from Imran Ali and
David Gilmartin, the canal colonies still need to be explored more critically.15
Farmers, artisans and even some professionals from Central and East Punjab,
including Ludhiana,16 were drawn by the economic opportunities in these newly
irrigated colonies that came to represent the most fertile lands in India.17 Fifty
years later at the time of Partition, the non-Muslims re-migrated eastwards
once again to their ‘original’ ancestral homes from which their grandparents
and parents had earlier departed.18 Adding to the attraction of Ludhiana was,
however, the fact that it was on the main artery of North India, the Grand Trunk
Road. It was therefore connected to all the major cities, (Delhi, Amritsar and
Lahore) and thus was an important stop for refugees who were on the move and
consequently attracted many refugees.
Internal migration has historically played an important role in the
development of Punjab and, following partition, refugees and migrants have
played a significant role in providing the basis for creating new industrial
heartlands that have shaped new emerging cities like Lyallpur and Ludhiana and
in regenerating the economy post-1947. However, it was the dominance of small-
scale industry in Ludhiana that enabled it to emerge as East Punjab’s leading
industrial centre, quickly surpassing Amritsar and Jullundur. While small towns
like Ludhiana eventually benefitted from the mass human displacement of 1947,
there was also another side effect, which continues to resonate in contemporary
India and Pakistan. Interestingly, when we discuss East Punjab today, we forget
about the other parts, which constituted East Punjab in 1947, namely today’s
Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. These areas suffered equally and after Hindus,
Muslims were often the second largest group. Muslims were significantly
present in cities like Hissar (28 per cent), Gurgaon (34 per cent), Karnal (32 per
cent) and Ambala (32 per cent) which are all re-formed and re-imagined in the
post-partition era. Equally, there were significant concentration of Christians in
cities like Lahore (3.2 per cent), Sialkot (3.72 per cent), Lyallpur (4.33 per cent),
Gojra (9 per cent) and Gujranwala (2.24 per cent). The stories of Hindus in East
Punjab and Christians in West Punjab, for example, then get subsumed in the
wider history of partition.
While the urban landscape changed dramatically, lives were rebuilt and
new homes were made, the emotional attachment that people had with cities
such as Lahore and Delhi were a source of much literature. The following
poem from Prem Kirpal who was a Lahori migrant to Delhi shows how his
beloved city became a foreign land:
My beloved City of Lahore
Still Standing not far from Delhi
Within quicker reach by air or train,
Suddenly became a forbidden land
Guarded by a sovereign state
Of new ideologies, loves and hates.
Homes were lost and hearts were bruised
In both unhappy parts of Punjab.19
Pran Nevile, a retired diplomat and writer in his later life, never forgot Lahore,
the city of his youth. He reminisces, even today, ‘my emotional attachment to
this great city is as deep as ever. My memories of boyhood and youth are still
fresh in my mind and are often a subject matter of conversation whenever I sit
together with ex-Lahorias of my generation’.20 However, Rumi in his eulogy
to Delhi notes how many prominent writers from Lahore never came back to
visit the city after migrating. These included figures such as Krishan Chandar,
Rajinder Singh Bedi, Balwant Singh and Balwant Gargi; the trauma of seeing
their beloved city transformed in the new world was perhaps too much for
them.21
Aspirations
Similarly, Afzal Tauseef, a writer and journalist based in Lahore, moved to
Quetta, after her family were killed, unable to come back to Punjab and Lahore
until much later in life. The carnage left many members of her family dead
during August 1947 and Tauseef is still puzzled about the root cause that led
to such a painful division. She was forced to migrate following this massacre;
displaced from her ancestral land, she has not to this day come to terms of
being uprooted from her home. Her father, bitter from the experiences of
partition and forced to flee, chose to remove himself completely from the
Punjab he had known; instead, he went to Balochistan in Pakistan.
I did not live here [Lahore] for too long because my father was so bitter
about it. He opted for Balochistan and left Punjab forever. I came back to
Lahore at the age of 25-26...So for me, my Punjab was my village, which
then became a part of India. Living in Balochistan made me to forget
Punjab and Punjabi language. But then I started rediscovering the Punjab.
I was only nine years old and was too young to develop any personal
opinion about such circumstances. I was just like a scared child simply
following the instructions. My father was so dishearten and disappointed.
He left a lot of land from three villages. He left it straightaway saying
that: ‘I don’t want to live in here.’22
Pakistan. The expectations of the new state were high and millions had paid
the price for the creation of Pakistan and so the gradual deterioration of state
institutions has created a class critical, a class that is trying to understand and
reconcile itself to a bitter legacy of partition that has persisted for seventy years.
The need to forget and move away from the place of trauma can be a useful
tool to erase those painful memories. Meena Alexander, a poet and a novelist,
in her autobiographical novel, Fault Lines, captures these subtle emotions
beautifully: ‘I am, a woman cracked by multiple migrations. Uprooted so many
times, she can connect nothing with nothing’.23 And so for many people, the
only way to reconcile was to detach themselves from those sites of trauma,
whether through physical dislocation or through emotional detachment.
Saadat Hasan Manto, a migrant from Samrala, Ludhiana, was never
completely at ease in Lahore and died shortly afterwards in 1955. The
confusions of identity and citizenship are themes which resonate in his work
and as the ending of Toba Tek Singh unfolds we find the remnants of the
many migrants that were torn between two spaces in no man’s land. Manto
struggled to come to terms with the intolerance and distrust. ‘He could not
accept the fact that suddenly some people saw him not as Saadat Hasan but
as a Muslim’.24 His stories often portrayed the absurdities of communities
being forced to accept the new communalised and national identities. We see
this most poignantly in the story about The Dog of Titwal in which the dog
belongs neither to Muslims nor to Hindus and the exchange of patients of the
mental asylum in Toba Tek Singh.25 To mark Manto’s birth centenary in 2012,
Ajoka Theatre in Lahore developed a new play based on his writings Kaun
hai Yeh Gustakh? (Who is this recalcitrant?). This recent tribute to Manto
testifies to the importance that literature continues to play in bridging the
divisions between the people of India and Pakistan. Shahid Nadeem, writer
of Kaun hai Yeh Gustakh?, stressed the importance of cultural exchanges as
he prepared for the play’s performance in Delhi.26 But writing in 2017, India
and Pakistan have once again closed the doors for such exchanges and a more
confrontational and aggressive mood is noticeable.
One of the earliest writers to tackle the subject of partition, Manto was
pioneering in tackling dark subjects. ‘His most memorable characters are
products of the illicit social exchanges’ and ‘whether he was writing about
prostitutes, pimps or criminals, Manto wanted to impress upon his readers that
these disreputable people were also human, much more than those who cloaked
their failings in a thick veil of hypocrisy’.27 Again, the importance of humanity
above religion and state is prevalent in the subjects and their stories. It is also
highly questionable whether someone like Manto could exist and be tolerated
in today’s Pakistan and India. ‘Times are tougher than they were in his time and
we are now more intolerant as a nation,’ says his daughter Nusrat.28
Salim Akhtar in his essay poses the question, ‘Is Manto Necessary Today?’
For Akhtar, unquestionably writers like Manto are essential in providing
the ‘courage to face bitter truth, to analyse it and to express it openly. He
fought all his life for the right to speak the truth. He endured not only the
censure of religion and the courts but also, eventually, the rejection of his
fellow progressives’.29 These freedoms are indeed constantly under threat in
both contemporary India and Pakistan. In Pakistan, for example, a young lady,
who gained popularity through social media, was murdered by her brother for
dishonouring the family. Arsalan Khan quoted in Al Jazeera and commenting
on Qandeel Baloch’s tragic murder highlights ‘a culture of toxic masculinity
in Pakistan in which men’s reputations are bound up with their ability to
control the bodies and lives of their daughters, sisters, and wives. We think of
women as the keepers of family and national honour, and so they are endlessly
scrutinised for upholding the values of sexual modesty and propriety, and are
relentlessly policed to ensure that they do not transgress those norms’.30 What
struck me about the commentary by Khan was that it could quite easily have
been applied to the Partition-related violence what women were subjected
to or even Delhi in 1984, Gujarat in 2002 and so on. But the point is that as
nations, neither India nor Pakistan has really progressed particularly when we
assume that women are integral to national and familial honour and thus are
subjected to stringent norms of behaviour, which are not applicable to men.
In an interview with Tahira Mazhar Ali, she pointed out the more systematic
and political faults that have prevented progress:
Much of the bitterness emanates from the lack of those freedoms that people
were promised. Freedom or its Urdu equivalent, azaadi, was very powerfully
used in agitations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2016 and echo much of
what Ali was saying ten years earlier. Interestingly, the azaadi chant used by
Kanhaiya Kumar (who was at the centre of the JNU controversy) originated
from a feminist discourse by Kamla Bhasin, who had, in turn, improvised
this slogan from Pakistani feminists. It boldly demanded freedoms: ‘From
patriarchy: Azaadi; from all the hierarchy: Azaadi; from endless violence:
Azaadi; from helpless silence: Azaadi’.32 Like Ali, it was not simply a question
of freedom but a freedom from the injustices which still plague society and
disempower them from achieving real freedom. The idea of freedom is not
merely then an act of political freedom and is certainly not a freedom from
thought in the increasingly forced homogenisation of society. It entails actual
and real freedoms, freedoms which allow the citizens to exist without fear of
persecution, fear of raising critical voices, fear of consumption and cultural
practices, fear from oppression and, above all, freedom from having a question
mark at their very existence just for being. These questions of rights and
freedoms still remain largely unresolved in contemporary India and Pakistan.
Ali goes on to expose the differences between what Jinnah had envisaged
and what became the reality. The disappointment in her voice was palpable, as
was Najum Latif when he recited Ustad Daman’s poem. She argues:
Yes, of course they failed the people. They had disappointed the people. It
was good that Jinnah passed away very early otherwise heaven knows what
these people would have done to him. The Mullahs already denounced him
as non-Muslim. Jinnah was a good man. He came from a very sophisticated
society of Bombay. He had been mixing with Parsees and other communities.
But in Punjab when we raise these relevant questions as to how this country
should be managed suggesting the ways and means to ameliorate the lot of
the poor, we are branded as the Indian agents or the Soviet agents etc. On the
eve of partition, CID was sitting at the door of my house…In 1945-46 the
Communist Party had passed resolution that Muslims of India must have a
separate homeland and I was asked to go and deliver the copy of the resolution
to Mr. Jinnah who was staying at Mamdot Villa. I rode my bicycle and went
there. When I met Mr. Jinnah he said a bit pointedly, “you are with Congress
and not with us”. I said, “Jawaharlal talks about whole of India whereas you talk
about Muslims only”. He said, “I know you have apprehensions that you would
not be able to meet your non-Muslim friends but I promise you that you will be
able to come to India whenever you like, as I will come to Bombay every year”.
Now when anyone talks about mending fences with India he/she is branded as
renegade whose ideology has gone astray. But I fail to understand that ideology.
You will have to meet more competent people than me.33
Urvashi Butalia also continues to raise this issue of injustices. Bringing the
experiences of Dalits, she highlights the way in which their experiences do
not neatly fit into the broad meta-narratives. She recounts one story: ‘My
entire dowry came from there. My friends’ dowries came from there’. And I
asked her how she escaped the violence when it was all around her. And she
said, ‘We’re not Hindu or Muslim, we are Dalit’.34 At that moment, there was
a realisation for Butalia that caste played a role in the movement of refugees
and the ways in which they faced violence. This was not a homogenised
experience. And those experiences continue into the contemporary age, where
the injustices remain despite freedom from colonial rule.
I start with the above quote, which is taken from a small publication detailing
the Punjab industries following partition because it encapsulates so much that is
tragic about the partition. It highlights the human suffering, the violent (and at
times genocidal) forced migration, and although the pain may eventually subside,
the quote above also touches upon the individual’s capacity to recall those painful
memories. Indeed, for some people, it was better to forget and to live in amnesia.
Mushtaq Soofi in a recent article in Dawn quoted Brecht’s poem, ‘when the wound
stops hurting what hurts is the scar’,36 and it is this ‘scar’ that continues to mark
Punjab, the spectre of a violent beginning which continues to loom over a divided
home. But what happens once survivors pass away with the passage of time? Does
that mean we forget about it? Is it no longer necessary to remember the event? Or,
does it become even more important to ensure that these memories are not lost
with that generation? Many in the past have questioned why surprisingly there has
not been a meaningful partition memorial of some sort to commemorate the lives
lost, those that survived and also to promote peace between India and Pakistan.
Veena Das has also questioned this complete absence of public discourse around
Partition and ‘public anxieties around sexuality and purity’.37 Furthermore, there
has been nothing in the form of public hearings to allow for stories of mass rape
and murder to be public,38 to allow for truth and reconciliation which has been
done elsewhere. There is no form of ‘putting history on trial’.39 These are cathartic
processes which have been completely absent in South Asia.
Picture 10.1: The small monument at the Indian border dedicated to the 10
lakh Punjabis who died unsung in 1947. This was funded and petitioned by
the Folklore Research Academy in Chandigarh and was inaugurated on
31 December 1996
Dreams, Memories and Legacies 221
There are some small memorials: there is the Martyrs Monument in the
purpose-built capital of Indian Punjab, Chandigarh, which commemorates
the people lost during the freedom struggle and the partition of Punjab. In
Pakistan, there is Bab-i-Pakistan in Lahore which was developed on the
Walton Camp site which was one of the largest refugee camps in Punjab and
commemorates the millions who were made homeless and destitute. There is
also a small privately built peace memorial on the Indian side of the Wagah/
Attari border but these initiatives barely receive wide-spread coverage and
most of the public is unaware of their existence. The push for a meaningful
peace museum or memorial has been mooted for some time, but it has largely
been driven by peace activists, online campaigns and occasionally endorsed by
the political leadership on both sides of the border. These initiatives include
Aman ki Asha, Friends without Borders, Indo Pak Bangla Friendship (one
of the many Facebook forums) and Asiapeace, which was started by the
Association for Communal Harmony in Asia in 2001, as part of a sustained
and coordinated campaign to promote peace and harmony in South Asia.
But these initiatives remain tangential and minuscule, although importantly,
they do maintain and encourage dialogue across borders. More recently a
concerted effort has been made by The Partition Museum Project to establish
a People’s Museum.40 Kishwar Desai, an Indian author and columnist,
started the project in 2015 and launched this to commemorate 70 years of
independence. Ironically, one of the events organised to launch the project
was co-funded by the British Council. The colonial linkages are never far
away, and even after seventy years the ex-colonial power contributes towards
commemorating an event created by its policies. Moreover, during a recent
trip to The Partition Museum, the patriotic overtures and strong sense of
nationalism were discernible in curating the exhibition. For this to be more
meaningful, some balance in apportioning blame must be visible.
Anindya Raychaudhuri argues that a partition museum would certainly
help in healing and educating while at the same time ‘helping in the project
of nation-building by promoting an informed citizenry’.41 But Raychaudhuri’s
article is also titled ‘demanding the impossible’, which highlights how difficult
the task of developing a memorial for partition has been. The natural place
for a memorial or museum has always been at the Attari/Wagah border in
Picture 10.3: Inaugurated in 2007 the new look Attari-Wagah border which
is the only official land crossing between India and Pakistan
Dreams, Memories and Legacies 223
Punjab. Thousands of people use this space to travel across the no-man’s land
that Radcliffe created. Yet, few would notice the small symbolic memorial
to the people who died in 1947 at Attari, India; but even this small effort is
crumbling away among the transformation of Attari checkpoint.
There has obviously been some urgency to establish a memorial because
those who witnessed these events first-hand are a fading generation, and with
seventy years approaching we turn to another milestone. Personal testimonies
of first-hand accounts have been collected by a number historians (used
extensively in this work) and now, increasingly, by oral history projects within
the diaspora communities.42 The 1947 Partition Archive based in America
is one example, but other smaller projects have also been conducted in the
United Kingdom and oral testimony collections are preserved in Leicester,
Cambridge and London, for example. Some initiatives also exist in the
subcontinent such as the Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP), a repository
for Partition oral histories (and other projects) and is the brainchild of the
Academy Award winning documentary maker, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. In
India, CAP worked closely with the Delhi-based NGO Routes2roots on the
‘Exchange for Change’ project that encouraged interaction between children
to demystify the ‘other’ by learning about their shared history and culture. The
Nehru Memorial Library and Museum in New Delhi also has a collection of
interviews related to the freedom movement. More recently, a joint project
between ITU, LUMS and Habib Universities in Pakistan and Harvard
University in the United States brings together a plethora of material to form
a digital archive. But there is a vigour with which these projects are currently
being conducted in the diaspora that is not found in either India or Pakistan.
This may be partly explained through the exposure that the diaspora community
has to other memorials, museums and commemorations, especially to the
Holocaust. There is evidently some cultural transfer taking place, including an
increased interest in documenting ‘hidden histories’, in multicultural Britain
at least.43 Crucially though, it is the changes in technology that have made this
42 Ian Talbot and Darshan Singh Tatla, eds., Epicentre of Violence: Partition Voices and
Memories from Amritsar (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006).
43 For example, I worked on two such projects, The Punjab: Moving Journeys (Royal
Geographical Society, 2008) and Coming to Coventry (The Herbert, 2006). Both
projects were about incorporating minorities into mainstream history in public
spaces. These provide the impetus needed to explore and document partition
narratives from a people’s perspective and form part of the new drive towards a
people’s history.
224 From the Ashes of 1947
possible. Since I first started my research in this area, I have advanced from
cassettes, to micro cassettes to digital recordings. The citizen journalist can
now collect and record material on a smart phone and share instantly with a
global community among others, social media. This was not possible even as
recently as 2001, when I first embarked on this journey. Artists, writers and
people can work together despite the hard borders and made possible through
technology. The virtual space is now as important as the actual space and it is
here that there is at least some hope in the collaborative and open discussion.
44 Safir Rammah, ‘West Punjabi Poetry: From Ustad Daman to Najm Hosain Syed,’
Journal of Punjab Studies 13, nos. 1 and 2 (2006): 215.
Dreams, Memories and Legacies 225
45 I am thankful to Dr. Yaqoob Khan Bangash for bringing up this point in a panel
discussion at the Lyallpur Sulekh Mela, February 2017. Although, since writing
this, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also now wants West removed from
Bengal. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/Assembly-drops-
West-renames-State-as-Bengal/article14596751.ece. Accessed 5 October 2017.
226 From the Ashes of 1947
One of the most important features of any ethnic group is language; it binds
and brings the cultural history of those people together to form a cohesive group
of people with a shared sense of its past. Punjabi, interestingly, was never given
state patronage; this is true for the Mughal period, Ranjit Singh’s reign and also
under the British. The preferred state or official language was Persian and Urdu.46
Farina Mir argues that part of the problem under the British was the plurality
of the scripts used to write Punjabi; all three scripts (Indo-Persian, Gurmukhi
and Devanagari) were used but none of them dominated.47 Yet, despite this
anomaly, Punjabi continued to be the language of the masses and reached into
wider Punjab (from Peshawar to Delhi), albeit in different dialects but broadly
comprehensible. But it is the plurality in written Punjabi that causes friction and
provides the space for further divisions in the post-colonial context. It is within
this milieu that the language, the people and the land become further subdivided
to reflect both national and, in the case of Sikhs, subnational identities. This
produces three distinct outlooks: Hindi, Hindu, Hindusthan; Urdu, Muslim,
Pakistan; and Punjabi, Sikh, Khalistan.48 The Hindu Punjabi has therefore been
absorbed into the wider Hindutva project; the Muslim Punjabi (in West Punjab)
has abandoned the Punjabi language in favour of the more ‘Islamic’ Urduised
identity; and interestingly, it is the Punjabi owning and speaking Sikhs that have
become synonymous with the Punjab and Punjabi identity. Yet in reality, it is also
the mother tongue of the majority of Pakistanis and non-Sikh Punjabis in India.
The connection of language and religion has therefore come to define the
post-colonial landscape in Punjab. While these are simplified stereotypes of
the divided people, more broadly, they are symptomatic of the communalised
politics of the subcontinent and more specifically, they are much more peculiar
to the Punjab region. For example, Tariq Rehman has shown how, ‘soon after
the creation of Pakistan, Punjabi vanished as a University subject. Because of
its association with Sikhs and due to the state’s promotion of Urdu, Punjabi
was relegated to the periphery’.49 It is difficult to think of another region in
the subcontinent that has shunned its own linguistic and ethnic history in
favour of a national or religious identity. The pluralistic land of Punjab that
epitomised people like my own parents’ generation are fewer and fewer. My
46 Anshu Malhotra and Farina Mir, eds., Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture, and
Practice (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), xxix.
47 Farina Mir, The Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial
Punjab (London: University of California Press, 2010).
48 Virinder Singh Kalra, ‘Punjabiyat and the Music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan,’ South
Asian Diaspora 6, no. 2 (2014): 179–92.
49 Rammah, ‘West Punjabi Poetry,’ 216.
Dreams, Memories and Legacies 227
Picture 10.4: The multilingual sign indicates the closeness of Lahore but yet
this is a distant city for most Indians
unearth some of the hidden histories of a composite Punjab, which belies the
dominant narrative. He recalls this story:
where are you from before partition.53 Naming places after former villages,
towns or cities helps embed and memorialise the past in the present. It is a
form of preserving our own history despite new borders, and while East and
West Punjab have erased this reminder people still memorialise their past
histories in these small but significant ways. This, of course, is contrary to
what has been happening at the national level in India and Pakistan, where
both countries have been busy erasing colonial place names and renaming
them with their heroes from a mythical past and resisting any challenges to
current state narratives. A good example of this is the resistance to a campaign
to have Shadman Chowk in Lahore to be renamed Bhagat Singh Chowk to
commemorate the revolutionary hero of undivided Punjab and the place where
he was hanged. In contemporary Punjab(s), an atheist like Bhagat Singh has
increasingly become a contested figure for all those who want to own him.54
Interestingly Ajay Bhardwaj, a documentary filmmaker, has been attempting
to capture this hazy space of shared and composite culture of Punjab. In his films,
he captures the voices of a marginalised idea of Punjabiyat (Punjabi-ness, especially
through language), which becomes replaced by contending identities through the
establishment of two new nation-states. In his film, Milange Babey Ratan De Mele Te
(Let’s Meet at Baba Ratan’s Fair), Bhardwaj takes you through a journey that pieces
together remnants of a pre-partitioned Punjab in which identities were fluid and
people blended together in fairs and Sufi shrines. More recently, Yogesh Snehi has
been exploring the lives of two Sufi shrines in East Punjab which remain peripheral
in otherwise dominate discourses.55 While in Pakistan, writers such as Haroon
Khalid have been delving into the composite culture and history of West Punjab.56
These are small attempts to ‘recover’ these lost spaces and traditions in order to bring
them into the mainstream; his work alludes to the presence of the past in the present.
Punjab(s), of a time when the ‘great men’ decided what the fate of millions of
people should be. The tragic and longer-term consequences of this violent
beginning have overshadowed the trauma and forced migration experienced by
millions of innocent people who were never asked about their desires and dreams
of what azaadi should look like. While the process of carving up India was pre-
planned, the exchange of population was not; though disruption and violence was
expected, the ability to deal with this was inadequate and while New Delhi and
Karachi celebrated their new existence, neither thought this would be the source
of such hostility between the two countries. The legacy of decolonisation in India
has therefore had ramifications far beyond merely transferring power. This was
not just a physical separation but a division of people, emotions, ancestral lands
and properties; it was a partitioning of people whose primary identifier now was
their religious identity, while their caste, class, linguistic or ethnic identity had
been receded, albeit temporarily. The process had started in colonial Punjab, with
increasing communalisation of identities. Revivalist groups, like the Arya Samaj,
were important in awakening and constructing essentialised religious identities
among people who had previously adopted a more pragmatic attitude. And it is
within this context, that more broadly, it is about the transformation of a region
which has not just been demographically altered but that also now tells us a
different history. It is now a new and different history that fails to adequately
acknowledge the shared cultural roots and traditions of the broader ethnic identity.
In the making of these new histories, one aspect that stands out in the new
globalised world is the widespread impact of migration. Earlier in the chapter,
there was a brief discussion of how refugees often find small ways of preserving
their histories and memories in their ‘new’ homes. This has allowed them to remain
connected with the past, which is forever fractured. Others, however, decided to
completely break with history and chose to migrate abroad. There is evidence that
this great migration led to further migrations, both internally to other states and
abroad like post-war Britain, which at the time was short of labour and was an
attractive option for those looking to escape the trauma of Partition.57 According
to estimates by Tan and Kudaisya, ‘between 8 and 10 per cent of all Sikhs had
migrated overseas by the end of the 1950s and another 30 per cent were living
within India but outside Punjab in towns and cities of adjacent provinces and
in the capital of Delhi’.58 And it is within the diaspora that much of the recent
57 Tan Tai Yong and Gyanesh Kudaisya, The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia
(London: Routledge, 2000), 231–2.
58 Tan and Kudaisya, The Aftermath, 231-2.
Dreams, Memories and Legacies 231
scholarship on memory, trauma and partition has been emerging. Though they
escaped the immediateness of the sites that were associated with the violence and
dislocation, the memory associated with the land has not escaped. The generation
that has grown up listening to stories of partition has prompted some people to
at least explore this history. Bhalla, a US-based physicist, ‘grew up listening to
these stories from her grandmother who remained traumatized till her death.
She regretted not having recorded them and this prompted her to start the 1947
Partition Archive’.59 The oral history project has been busy collecting first-hand
accounts from a fading generation.
The loss associated with Partition is also made worse by any lack of closure or
any form of official recognition for what happened. People were forced to flee and
many thought they would return to their home but most never did and this sudden
fracture was never allowed to heal properly. The suffering, therefore, has largely
been a private matter, until more recently with the digital revolution allowing
people to share their stories across the borders and religious boundaries. But it
is the dreams, memories and legacies of partition that Balraj Sahni, a prominent
Indian actor and a migrant from Rawalpindi, captures so evocatively in his poem
and continues to haunt many. It was written during his visit to Amritsar in 1951
and it draws on much of the pain and loss associated with partition:
You are those with a country; you are those with homes
We are homeless; we are estranged
You smiled and took us to your breast
We cried and took consolation
The faded stars, twinkled once again
What we did not hope for, was made possible by your warmth
May my city live, and its people thrive
We came and pray for this as we now depart
All our pockets are empty!
We carry nothing with us as we leave.
59 Sameer Arshad, ‘Partition Stories, in First Person,’ The Times of India, 27 October
2013.
60 Balraj Sahni, ‘Mera Pakistani Safarnama’, trans. Gibb Schreffle, Journal of Punjab
Studies 13, nos. 1 and 2 (1963; trans. 2006): 89.
Select Bibliography
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Asian Age
Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore)
Dawn (Karachi)
India Today
Outlook
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The Hindustan Times
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The Times of India
The Tribune (Chandigarh)
Tribune (Lahore)
Oral Interviews*
Abdul Haq, Montgomery Bazaar, Faisalabad, January 2003.
Abdul Rahman, Lyallpur Cotton Mills, Faisalabad, February 2003.
Afzal Tauseef, Lahore, April 2007.
Ajay Singh, Ahmedgarh, Malerkotla, August 2001.
Atiq-ur-Rehman, Jama Masjid, Field Ganj, Ludhiana, March 2002.
Ayesha Bibi, Kamoke, September 2008.
Balquees Begum, Lahore, September 2008.
Bashiran Bibi, Harcharan Pura, Faisalabad, February 2003.
Bhagwant Kaur, Sabzi Mandi, Ludhiana, March 2002.
Bibi Amir Fatma, Gill Village, Ludhiana, March 2002.
Chaudhari Rehmat Ullah, Harcharan Pura, Faisalabad, December 2002.
Farkhanda Lodi, Lahore, April 2007.
Fatima Sughra, Lahore, September 2008.
Ghulam Nadi, Gobind Pura, Faisalabad, February 2003.
Gian Chand Ahuja, Model Gram, Ludhiana, April 2002.
Gurnam Singh, Sabzi Mandi, Ludhiana, March 2002.
Haji Kazim, Jhang Bazaar, Faisalabad, February 2003.
*
All names of interviewees have been changed to protect the identity of the people,
unless these are already public figures.
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Donaldson, J.C., 97 H
Durkheim, Emile, 56–57 Hansen, Anders B., 53, 57
Harappan culture, 24
E Hasan, Mushirul, 8–9
The Emergence of Pakistan, 3 India Partitioned: The Other Face
Epicentre of Violence, 69 of Freedom, 10
ethnic cleansing, 13, 53, 58–59, Hasan, Sheikh Sadiq, 180
96 high politics, 6–7, 18
European Jews, 59 Hindu Mahasabha, 32, 63
‘experience’ of living in Pakistan, Hindutva ideology, 6
17–18 Hodson, H.V., 3
Horowitz, Donald, 57
F Hussain, Intizar, 9, 186
Fact-Finding Commission, 55
Faisalabad, 103 I
Faiz, Ahmed Faiz, 9 Ikramullah, Shaista, 209
Farid, Baba, 23 Impact of Partition on Industries in the
Fatimah, Begum, 176 Border Districts of East Punjab,
fiction writing, 9–10 144
Francisco, Jason, 59 Industrial Home for Mohajir
French, Patrick, 55 widows and destitute women, 73
Indus Valley Civilisation, 24, 24n3
G International Criminal Tribunal for
Gandhi, 6, 8, 31, 64 the Former Yugoslavia, 13
vision of Swaraj, 49 Islamia College for Women, Lahore,
Gandhi, Indira, 12 71
Ganjshakar, Khwaja Fariduddin izzat, notion of, 94, 177, 179
Masud, 76
Gargi, Balwant, 214 J
Gaur, Ishwar Dayal, 23 Jalal, Ayesha, 4
genocide, 13, 53, 58–59 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, 31
Ghosh, Amitav, 206 Jat Sikhs, 28–29
Gilmartin, David, 7, 212 Jinnah, Fatima, 71–73, 72n90, 74
Girls Training College, 74 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 3, 6, 8, 36, 46
Grand Trunk Road, 28, 111 A Journey to Pakistan, 112
Green Revolution, 132 Jullundur, 37, 62, 69, 97, 122, 127,
Guha, Ranajit, 10 137n26, 138n32, 141, 144–145,
Gurmukhi script, 22 151, 203, 210n5, 213
250 From the Ashes of 1947
K Le Bon, Gustave, 56
Kabir, Ananya Jahanara, 12 Liaison Agency, 48
kafilas, 66–67 Liaison Agency Records, 110
Kakar, Sudhi, 57 Lines of Control project, 12
Kanwar, Amar Lodi, Farkhanda, 204–206
A Season Outside, 12 Ludhiana, 102–103, 111, 132,
Kaur, Ravinder, 11 212–213
Kaur, Sardarni Gulab, 60 demographic transition,
Keller, Stephen, 68, 70 137–140
Khaliquzzaman, Chaudhry, 3 development of, 141–144
Khalsa College, 108 evacuee properties, take over of,
Khan, Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali, 118–120
71–72, 74 forced migration, 122–130
Khan, Genghis, 26 hosiery industry, 160–162
Khan, Ghazanfar Ali, 47, 180 locational advantage, 144–145
Khan, Ihsan Ali, 97 Muslim refugees in, 112–115
Khan, Liaquat Ali, 46–47, 49, 62 post-partition economic growth,
Khan, Nawab Ahmad Ali, 94–96 156–161
Khan, Nighat Said, 15 problems of rehabilitation,
Khan, Saleem Ullah, 4 119–122
Khan, Shaukat Hyat, 166 process of migration, 115,
Khan, Sikander Hayat, 33 118–122
Khosla, G.D., 4, 55, 60, 62, 166 small-scale industry and
Khuhro, M. A., 49 entrepreneurial skills,
Khyber Pass, 25, 28 145–150
Kidwai, Anis, 183 violence against Muslims,
Kidwai, Ayesha, 166 111–112
Kipling, Rudyard, 25 Ludhiana-Ferozepore-Kasur Road,
Kirpal, Prem, 213 111
Kudaisya, Gyanesh, 5, 132 Lyallpur, 102–103, 132, 212–213,
Kurukshetra, 24–25 228
Kurukshetra Camp, 68 attack on Tandlianwala, 105–106
forced migration, 122–130
L impact of the partition, 103–105
Lahore Resolution, 35 industrial development in, 161
The Land of Punjab (Ahmad Salim), mass movements, 109–110
100–101 non-Muslim refugees,
Latif, Najum, 208 evacuation of, 107
Index 251
U W
Unionist Party, 33, 33n39 Walton Camp, 68
United Nations Convention on the While Memory Serves (Francis
Prevention and Punishment of Tuker), 5
the Crime of Genocide, 1948, Wolpert, Stanley, 4
58
‘unmixing’ of ethnic communities, 47 Y
Upanishads, 24 Yong, Tan Tai, 5, 29, 132
V Z
Vakil, C. N., 5 Zafar, Bahadur Shah, 25
violence against women, 15 Zaidi, Z. H., 44
violence against women in Bosnia Zakariya, Khawaja Muhammad, 52
and Herzegovina, 13