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Foreword
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" ... For a long time, there was a belief, not just in our country, but abroad as well, that the history of a nation is that of the ruler—their victories and defeats and their attempts at nation building. No one was really recording the history of the people, and certainly not the history of the common people. ... "
That seems like a typical diatribe from an anxious mindset traumatised by centuries of colonial subjugation, of an outsiders oriented Indian, usually influenced by and likely to regard everything outside as higher. This type is usually anxious to chime in "we too" for every new guilt currently fashionable abroad, whether imposed by left or adopted by West.
But fact is, of several dozens of generations mentioned by name in genealogical records of ancient Indian literature, few rulers, however great, get more than a short mention; one has to be worthy of more for good reason. And it's equally untrue that common people get a short shrift - several are immortalized in epics, again for good reason.
So the opening there is turned inside out - writer ought to have, in all honesty, turned that 'not just in our country, but abroad as well' around, at the very least.
" ... In this book, the CEO and curator of the award-winning Partition Museum, Mallika Ahluwalia, has compiled select stories from the thousands of Partition stories the Museum has recorded (and continues to record) to bring to us some truly inspirational stories. ... "
With that false beginning about records of history, it's funny that few of the recorded stories in this collection are from names unknown.
"Sometimes people forget that this history of the Partition of India is not very old. All this happened just seventy years ago—and yet we did our best for many decades to airbrush it away. We, in fact, were doing great disservice to those who had gone through Partition as they were forced, by our silence, to also keep silent about what they had seen and what they been through."
This was chiefly due to Gandhi’s policy imposed by congress, to insist Hindus sufferings were of no consequence whatsoever, whether in Kerala massacre, or Calcutta Direct Action Day, or Noakhali or Lahore or anywhere that refugees arrived from; he in fact had pressured the then government of India to send them back, even if only to be massacred as eleven million others had been across the border.
And this was subsequently also what the government of India did to Kashmir Hindus, forced to exodus via a terrorists imposed order in Kashmir demanding thst they convert, die or leave, but without property, including women. Government of India then imposed silence on media, media was only too willing to obey that order, and till date most part of it calls it migration.
"They lost their homes, livelihood and friendships. Many saw extreme violence and death. Many died. Women and children were also not spared from the violence. Cholera and typhoid tore through refugee camps and shelters; a heavier than usual monsoon caused floods. There were not enough refugee camps, not enough hospitals or medical care. Millions suffered.
"Yet, the stoic fortitude and idealism of the refugees was remarkable. Many Partition survivors still say quietly, ‘Yes, we suffered, but at least we were alive.’
"It is to the credit of the vast majority of the survivors that they did not display their frustration or bemoan the lives they had left behind. They retained their dignity, worked hard, stabilized their family situations, and got involved in nation building."
That's true of those arriving from Northwest. Refugees from East Bengal fared very poorly, especially if they stayed in Bengal, particularly in Calcutta.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee had accused the then government of being partial in favour of refugees from Northwest, although that certainly did not mean they were treated well or helped humanely or adequately; Its just that he saw sufferings of those arriving from East.
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Introduction
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"Millions of people were impacted by the Partition of India. Each of them has a story. This book contains the stories of 21 extraordinary individuals who lived through the devastation of Partition, were deeply affected by it, but then went on to achieve greatness in Independent India. It features a prime minister, a deputy prime minister, a chief minister, a governor, a Grammy award winner, two world-record breaking sportspersons, three Padma award-winning artists and two businessmen who built multimillion-dollar enterprises, amongst other equally inspirational figures.
"Each of these stories is unique. They differ in terms of the family backgrounds, their migration and rehabilitation experience at Partition, the opportunities they had access to and the career paths they chose. But the common thread that runs through them is resilience. These stories are a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that bounces back even after facing great adversity."
" ... When we started recording these stories, we knew of course that we would hear experiences of challenging migrations by train, kaafila (caravan) or bus, of difficult days at refugee camps, of the violence, particularly against women. But we also heard things that we weren’t expecting. For example, I wasn’t expecting to find just how many children and grandchildren had never heard the Partition experiences within their own families (the veil of silence runs deep). I was also not expecting to hear as many tales of humanity and kindness as we did."
" ... we felt that the stories would be much richer if we could include personal anecdotes and experiences. Thus, many extraordinary people we would have liked to have profiled could not be included. So many like Manoj Kumar and Rajendra Kumar have, unfortunately, passed away. But there are still many who we wanted to interview but couldn’t reach in time for this book. They include Roshan, Prem Chopra and Krishna Sobti, amongst many others. The only exception we made was Lal Krishna Advani, whose 900-page autobiography provided sufficient detail and personal insight on his Partition and post-Partition experiences."
"We have one story of someone moving from Balochistan, four from the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa), nine from (west) Punjab. We also included three Sindhi stories and a Bengali story. This was important because the Sindhi and Bengali experiences of Partition were very different from the Punjabi experience. While in Punjab, almost all the migration was concentrated in a very violent nine-month period between March and December 1947, in Sindh and Bengal the percentage of migration that happened in 1947 was much smaller.
"Sindh in 1947 did not witness the kind of communal violence that raged through Punjab. While some affluent families did migrate and some chose to send women ahead to safety due to sporadic incidents of violence, the vast majority of Sindhis did not leave in 1947. However, by late 1947, with the arrival of a large number of Muslim refugees in Sindh, the situation started changing. These Muhajirs (refugees) living in crowded refugee camps began to forcibly occupy the homes of the Hindu Sindhis. A growing fear and two major incidents during December 1947–January 1948 became the trigger. Within the next few months, a million Sindhis fled to India. Over the next three years, a few lakh more families followed."
"Similarly, Bengal too had a very unique pattern of migration; unlike the concentrated migration in Punjab, Bengali migration occurred in waves spread over many years. While some refugees migrated in 1947, a larger wave occurred in the 1950s when the combined impact of communal riots, the language movement in Pakistan, everyday discrimination, and the tensions created with incoming refugees over land and other resources, caused millions to migrate. Dalits, who often did not have the resources to migrate, and could imagine no livelihood away from the meagre land they owned or tilled, had resisted migration till the early 1950s; they too now left in large numbers. Waves of migration also continued in the following decades, including around the Hazrat Bal riots of 1964, and particularly in 1971, and even beyond. ... "
" ... A story that I would have loved to include in this book is that of Shah Rukh Khan’s father, Taj Mohammad Khan. At a time when Muslim migration was mostly from India to Pakistan, he made the reverse journey. A staunch freedom fighter, he believed in the vision of a united India. This decision had economic consequences—he left behind his home in Peshawar and moved to Delhi—and the family struggled for a long time. ... "
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1. Manmohan Singh
Telegram: ‘Father killed. Mother safe.’
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" ... Singh’s father worked in a trading company that imported dry fruits from Afghanistan."
" ... ‘There were more Muslim families than Hindu and Sikh families in Gah, so there were two Mosques in the village, and one big gurdwara.’ The economic disparity was visible though, as the Muslims were mostly tillers on the lands owned by Sikhs and Hindus."
That's likely due to conversion being easier amongst poor.
"‘All the Hindu and Sikh men were invited for a meeting with Muslims. But they used that opportunity to butcher all of them, so my grandfather died in the process. All male Hindus and Sikhs were butchered.
"‘My uncle who was working as a clerk in Chakwal with a private firm, he sent a telegram to my father. The telegram bore just four words describing how suddenly life had changed, “Father killed. Mother safe.” I remember seeing that telegram, and that’s how my parents got to know that something was happening in our villages in Gah, in Jhelum, in Rawalpindi District. March was the beginning of trouble in those areas.’"
"Around May–June, the family reached Uttar Pradesh by train. ‘We passed through many important towns, like Lahore and Amritsar, then Saharanpur, then Bareilly, and finally to Haldwani.’ ... "
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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2. Lal Krishna Advani
We Had No Land, the Whole of Divided India Became Our Land
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"Days after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, RSS pracharaks across the country were arrested. ‘I was incarcerated in Alwar Central Jail… I spent the next three months there in the company of ordinary criminals… ... "
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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3. Madan Lal Khurana
I Owe My Life to an Unknown Gurkha Jawan
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"When Emergency was declared in 1975, there was a crackdown on political activity. A warrant was issued for Madan Lal’s arrest. ‘It was a difficult time because he stayed underground for six months. He was in hiding. He used to stay at one place and then another because he had warrants against him. But even in that time, he didn’t fear anyone, he kept thinking about how to help others. He used to send out pamphlets informing people that if they needed help they could go to such and such a person for help. For six months he continued doing this, but eventually he got arrested.
"‘[They] demolished our house as well. We were living in Kirti Nagar. They took away everything, even the curtains. They took away our fridge, our TV, the children’s toys. My children were only five or six years old at that time. They brought trucks and took away all our belongings. Even the things that were kept inside our fridge, like milk, etc., were thrown outside. They took it away because they believed that if they troubled us, Khuranaji would come back. I remember it was raining when they came. They told us to sit in the garden outside our house. Then they put up the forces all around the house so that no one could even come to help us. I asked them if we could go inside to get some bags, but they would not even let us enter. I sat outside with the children in the rain.
"‘Then our bank accounts were sealed. It was basically like we had nothing. ... "
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4. Captain Manmohan Singh Kohli
Defying Death, Scaling New Heights
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"In the North-West Frontier Province of undivided India ... amidst lush green pastures, with mountains all around, and the Indus flowing a few miles away, lay a small town called Haripur Hazara. In this scenic setting, Manmohan Singh Kohli was born on 11 December 1931."
"The town was well-integrated and different religious communities lived peacefully most of the time, barring a few incidents. One such incident occurred in 1943 when the birth anniversary of a Sikh Guru coincided with Muharram. The joyous celebration of the Sikhs and the mournful procession of the Muslims passed each other peacefully in the morning, but in the second half of the day, miscreants descended on a local Gurdwara, killing a priest. ... "
" ... By the start of 1947, killing of non-Muslims had become commonplace. ... By March 1947, ‘with daily killings, we were wondering whether we too should immediately leave to save our lives.’"
" ... A week before the exams, a minor altercation resulted in 50 deaths, so stepping out of the house became nearly impossible.
"‘I had to be very careful and go through the mohallas secretly to reach the examination hall in my school, which was almost a kilometre away from my house. When I got there, I saw almost half my classmates were missing; they had left Haripur and had gone [east] to save their lives.’
" ... With the general breakdown of law and order outside, even inside the classroom, Kohli recalls, some students ‘kept their pistol and dagger on the table and cheated openly’. Every day for a whole week, Kohli went through the same ordeal, unsure whether he would make it to school safely in the morning and make it to home safely in the evening."
" ... My entire 16 years had been spent in Haripur, surrounded by its hills, so, naturally we were excited that we could continue to live at home.’
"But less than two weeks later, the idyll was shattered.
"‘On the 26th of August, a Muslim family friend came running to our shop and told my father “Leave immediately! A big mob of a lakh people is coming and you’ll be killed on the spot.” Since the Gurdwara was opposite our shop, we ran towards it, and just about managed to get in and close the door from inside when these men came running and nearly caught us.’
"That night, recalls Kohli, thousands were burnt alive in the town. ‘All of Haripur was set on fire. All the shops and houses were burning.’ The sky turned orange with the flames.
"By evening, the fire had reached the Gurdwara also. ‘We realized we needed to reach the police station. So at night, we jumped from one terrace to the other, and made our way very gingerly towards the police station. It took us the whole night since we had to avoid being seen.
"‘But finally, at around six in the morning, when we jumped out on the street 50 metres from the station, a mob saw us and charged at us. We somehow managed to outrun them and reached the police station.
"‘We were kept there the first day. On the second day, we were taken to the town fort. There were maybe some 20 to 40 other families there. A few days later, a truck came, and we were taken to the Kakul military camp in Abbottabad."
"‘We spent a week at this camp, but then when trouble started there, we were shifted to the Wah camp near Rawalpindi. It was a huge camp, with about a lakh refugees from all over Pakistan. Trucks with refugees would pour in every day.’
"However, Kohli noticed that most of the refugees were male. Due to the abductions and the honour killings, there was a palpable lack of women. ‘Some people killed their own women. They asked them to jump into the well and die because they couldn’t tolerate the mobs taking them away.
"‘Every day or every other day, two or three thousand people would be taken by goods trains to India. We remained in fear about when or whether our turn would ever come. It came after about 25 days or so.’ Despite the relief of getting on the train, the journey was extremely difficult right from the start—300 people were squeezed into a bogey that would normally accommodate 50. It was difficult to breathe.
"Midway through their journey on the train, the group realized that something was amiss. ‘We were not being taken towards Lahore, but towards Kasur. Then there was a deafening crash—the engine and the two front bogeys derailed. We realized later that the rails had been removed from the tracks. Suddenly, firing started.
"‘The firing went on for hours. Our goods train was without any roof, and the walls of the train were only 4-feet high, so the bullets were coming freely on top of us. We were open targets.’ Kohli watched as people around him were hit and collapsed. He tried all the while to stay low and hide.
"‘And then just like that, the firing stopped, another engine was attached to the rear of the train and we were taken back to Wazirabad railway station. But once again, the firing started there, and went on through the night. At one point, the commander of the platoon that was guarding our train, came to us and told us that they had run out of ammunition. They said they couldn’t save us anymore and that all of us would die.’"
"‘My father jumped from the train and shouted “Ayub save us!” He replied that he would ensure that we reached India safely. So, he put the Baloch regiment all around the train to guard us as we moved back towards Gujranwala. We spent a week at an intermediate camp there, and every day people were evacuated by about half a dozen buses. Our turn came after seven or eight days.’
"On the bus journey, they encountered an angry mob coming from Amritsar. As the bus swerved and sped to avoid them, Kohli watched helplessly as fellow passengers on the roof with him fell on the roadside, with no possibility of stopping and rescuing them. He nearly fell himself and was only saved because the lack of space meant other passengers were sitting on his legs. Finally, after this harrowing journey, Kohli and his father reached Amritsar."
"In Delhi, Kohli joined college. He completed his Bachelor’s degree and then a Master’s degree in Mathematics, enrolling as a refugee student."
" ... these attempts only gave Kohli further drive to join the final Indian summit attempt in 1965. Kohli set a world record that year of putting a total of nine men atop the world’s highest peak on 20, 22, 24 and 29 May. The team was joyously welcomed by the Prime Minister of India on their return. They received three Padma Bhushans and eight Padma Shris for this achievement. The entire team also received the Arjuna award, India’s highest sporting honour. ... "
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5. Dharampal Gulati
A Refugee Who Built a Business Empire
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"Dharampal Gulati is perhaps the most recognized grandfather on Indian television, as he appears regularly in the advertisements for his company, MDH Masalas. A fifth-class dropout, Dharampal has outwitted the CEOs of other consumer goods companies to create a spice empire valued at around ₹1,000 crore."
" ... ‘I decided that studying is very difficult and I didn’t go back to school from the next day.’ He had not even taken his fifth class examination.
"‘I used to play, I used to fly kites and pigeons and slowly I got older. My father asked me, “What will you do? How do you plan to become successful in life?”’ Dharampal started experimenting with different trades. He tried carpentry, soapmaking, working with glass, cloth trading, working with a goldsmith, but he couldn’t stick with anything.
"The family business was spices. Dharampal started working in the shop that his father jointly ran with his brother. The shop was called ‘Mahashian di Hatti’, and it was in a local market called Bazaar Pansaariyaan in Sialkot. He would help out with everything, making packets of spices, or taking small pouches of mehndi for door-to-door sales. The family was renowned for a special spice—deggi mirch—and Dharampal took on the role of salesperson. ‘I went to Wazirabad, Majitha… I expanded the business to Lahore. From Lahore, we expanded to Sheikhupura and after that to Nankana Sahib, then to Lyallpur and then till Multan.’ The shop’s sales grew rapidly, and Dharampal recalls that sales reached between ₹500–800 per day—a large sum in those days."
" ... However, the escalating riots in Sialkot in 1947 made it impossible to stay.
"‘Every night we heard the shouts of Allah hu Akbar, Har Har Mahadev.’ Then one day, their neighbour’s house was set on fire by a mob. Some people came to Dharampal’s father and advised him to leave. On the night of 14 August 1947, instead of the fireworks of celebration, the family could see the orange glow of so many homes and businesses going up in flames. For families that had spent a lifetime building their factories and homes, to lose everything overnight was devastating."
"‘ ... Our train reached safely but in the train that came behind us, everyone was killed.’ In the pouring rain, with great difficulty, the family crossed the bridge on the river Ravi, moving finally from Pakistan to India."
" ... they left for Delhi to find one of Dharampal’s sisters, who was in Delhi as her husband had a government job. Dharampal remembers the mayhem: ‘People were sitting on the roofs of trains because there was no space inside, but none of them knew that there were so many tunnels—a lot of them fell off when the train would go through tunnels. They died. The train was moving very slowly and we reached Sabzi Mandi station in Delhi at 4 a.m. the next morning. ... "
"More and more relatives started arriving, particularly his parents and the rest of the family who had stayed back in Amritsar to be with his uncle till the leg healed. Their little house was soon overflowing with extended family members, but they could not turn anyone away.
"The family was struggling to make ends meet. Despite an initial hesitation about going back to spice trading, Dharampal soon realized that this was the trade they knew best and that could help them find their feet again.
"They started with a small wooden roadside shop."
"To grow the business, he put an ad in a popular Hindi newspaper, Pratap—‘Mahashian di Hatti of Sialkot Deggi Mirch Waale’.
"This proved to be a winning solution. Within days, they started getting numerous orders by mail. One of the first was all the way from Cuttack in Odisha from a businessman who had migrated from Multan.
"The business started growing. Dharampal decided to open one more shop in the main spice market in Delhi, Khari Baoli, and then soon another. Meanwhile, they had also put in a claim with the Ministry of Rehabilitation for the shop and property that they had left behind in Sialkot. They were allotted a plot in Gaffar Market."
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6. Faqir Chand Kohli
To Look Back or to Look Ahead?
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"‘I was born in Peshawar, where my family owned a department store. It was a large store with about a hundred employees. We supplied clothing to the British Army and civilians. We used to export to the UK. Business was thriving, so we did not have any problems as such. I had three older brothers—they were all more than a decade older than me, and they also worked in the store. We lived in the quiet cantonment area,’ recalls Faqir Chand."
" ... ‘In 1939, after I completed my matriculation, I went to do my BA (Hons) and BSc (Hons) from Government College, Lahore. I was there till 1945.’"
"‘After graduation, I was selected for a commission in the Navy in 1945, but shortly after that, within a month, I received a scholarship from the Government of India to study abroad. I had to wait till 1946 to get a ship berth to go to the United States because most ships were still commandeered for the war efforts. It took me around a month from Calcutta to San Francisco by ship.’
"From 1946 to 1951, Faqir Chand was in Canada and the US. ‘I had wanted to study Power [Electric] Engineering, so I went to Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, which was ranked number one in that field. After that, I worked with the Canadian General Electric Company for a year.’
"Faqir Chand was still in Canada on Independence Day in 1947. ‘There were hardly any Indians in Canada, so there wasn’t much one could do to celebrate,’ he recalls.
"‘I then went to MIT in Cambridge [Massachusetts, USA] for a master’s degree. When I graduated from MIT, I got an offer from the Tata Group to help them set up a Load Dispatch system, which is where we decide how much power a given power station can generate efficiently. So, I spent about six months working in the US at the New England Power System learning how they managed their Load Dispatch, and then I came back to India. I already had an offer from MIT to continue on to a PhD, so my thinking was that I would see what the Tata job was like here, and if I didn’t like it, I would go back to MIT.
"While he had been in Canada, Faqir Chand had not fully understood the devastation that Partition had wreaked on his family. ‘They just told me that they were moving to Lucknow, that is all. They told me not to worry, and to continue with my studies. They did not tell me what condition they were in. I only found out when I came back.’"
"The systems Faqir Chand set in place at Tata Electric were based on what he had seen abroad. These put the Tata Group at an advantage in the Indian market as they were able to reduce power losses considerably. ‘This ensured continuity and reliability of our supply, and we could also pass some savings to our consumers.’
"Faqir Chand also brought a number of advanced computing technologies to their work. ‘In 1964, the first computer came to India and was installed at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. We started using it for our technical calculations. In 1968, we went even further—installing a computer that helped us control the grid between Bombay to Pune. It told us what was happening at every generating station from minute to minute. This was really pioneering work. Back then, most systems in the UK, Europe and Japan were still on analogue systems; only a few utilities in the USA used modern computers.’
"His advanced expertise and methods were noticed within the company. He was rapidly promoted to positions with more and more responsibility. ‘When they wanted to set up a company in computers, they asked me to head it, and that is how I came to TCS.’ In September 1969, Faqir Chand joined the newly opened Tata Consultancy Services as General Manager."
" ... But the real growth came when Faqir Chand was able to break into the foreign market bringing on clients like Burroughs, then one of the largest computer manufacturers in the US. At a time when no one was using the term ‘outsourcing’, Faqir Chand kickstarted the Indian outsourcing industry.
"Today, TCS is one of the largest companies in India by market capitalization. In April 2018, it became only the second listed Indian company ever (after Reliance Industries) to cross a $100 billion market capitalization. It has been recognized by Forbes for its innovation. It generates some two-thirds of the dividends of its parent company, Tata Sons. It has almost 300 offices across more than forty countries and is the fourth largest employer in India.
"Though Faqir Chand retired from TCS in 1999, he has not really retired at all. At 94, he still goes to office most days, and spends his time building IT solutions to the country’s most pressing challenges.
"In 1958–59 he got involved in higher education, by helping P.K. Kelkar’s work on establishing IIT Bombay and IIT Kanpur. Now, post-retirement, in 2000, he was distressed to learn about the opposite end of the spectrum of education—the high rates of adult illiteracy in India. He teamed up with linguists to understand the core of literacy. Once he realized that adults only need an average of 500 words to be able to read a newspaper, he led a team of programmers to build a software solution that used images to teach adults complete words rather than focus on the alphabet. Within a decade, the project had helped over 1,20,000 adults become functionally literate in their own native language."
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7. Manoranjan Byapari
Jijibisha: The Will to Survive
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" ... Manoranjan’s family only moved in 1953, as part of the large Namasudra migration of the early 1950s when over a million Dalits moved from East Pakistan to India."
"‘When we came to this side of Bengal, we were kept in refugee camps at the Shiromanipur camp in Bankura. We lived there for roughly seven years, but then one day, we were told that we cannot live in Bengal and we had to move to Dandakaranya because the government could not provide us any place in Bengal.’ Dandakaranya is the forest area now shared between Chhattisgarh and neighbouring states like Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. ‘Most people’s only association with Dandakaranya is from the Ramayana, where this forest is the residence of rakshasas (demons). So we were reluctant to shift there."
"‘That evening, the CPI(M) workers came and took me with them. They tied me to a lamp post and beat me up really badly. Their main aim was to give a message to the local youth and residents that if one tries to become a part of this revolt then one will get beaten up like this. The person who wrote on the wall was not hurt because his father had a grocery shop. He had four brothers, he was a local, and he also belonged to the Kshatriya caste; whereas I was from an untouchable and impure caste. We came from outside for work; my mother worked as a maid, my father and I were both daily labourers. I was an appropriate target for them.’"
" ... ‘My family and I moved to Dandakaranya, we cut wood and built a thatched hut for ourselves. But it was very difficult to stay there. There was no water, the heat was unbearable and the environment was generally unfriendly. The bus stop was 25 km away and the railway station was 200 km away from the place. We were stuck inside a deep jungle. After two years there, I came back to Jadavpur in 1973.’"
"‘One day, I couldn’t find the meaning of a difficult word I was reading, “jijibisha”. A passenger sat in my rickshaw and I asked her the meaning of this word. She was amazed by the fact that a rickshaw-puller knew such a difficult word. She asked me where I had learnt this word, to which I replied that I read it in a book. So she asked me which books I had read and I named some 10–15 books that I had recently read. She told me the meaning of the word is “the will to survive”. Then she asked if I would like to write in a magazine. When she got down, she gave her contact information, and that’s when I realized that it was the author, Mahasweta Devi.’"
" ... ‘I do not have my own country,’ he says. ‘I am “desh-bhikhari”. If I go back to the other side of Bengal—even though I have never returned since I do not have a passport, but I have heard stories from people who travel to the other side—we are known as kaafir, malaon, bidharmi, Hindu. And yet, when I am on this side of Bengal, I am known as bastuhara, udbastu, refugee, saronharti, boiragoto, gonoprobeshkari and bangal. (That is, on the other side, we are called non-believers or someone outside the faith, and on this side, we are called refugees or outsiders.) I do not have my own country. This partition of the country took away my country from me. If Partition hadn’t happened, we would have at least had some land, a house and a river.’"
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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8. Gulzar
How Will You Partition the Air?
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"Born: 18 August 1936 in Dina, Jhelum district, undivided Punjab (now in Pakistan)"
"Born in Dina in Jhelum district in, what is now Pakistan, Gulzar was already living in Delhi at the time of the Partition. ... "
" ... Gulzar actually grew up as Sampooran Singh Kalra. Born in a Sikh household to Makhan Singh Kalra and Sajjan Kaur, Gulzar followed the traditional Sikh custom of keeping long hair, when he was young.
"At the time of Partition, the young Sikh boy was 11 years old ... "
" ... ‘I must thank my father for his broad mindedness that we didn’t grow bitter, despite the fact that he lost so much at that time—money, property, relatives…’* ... "
"‘ ... Batwara is the story about a gentleman who thought I was his lost son. The way it happened to me is what I’ve written exactly. The names in the story are their real names. It is a very long story. In the days of the Janata government [late 1970s] in Punjab, there was a minister, Harbhajan Singh, who was convinced that I am his long-lost son. What had happened is that during Partition, while fleeing, he had lost one son and one daughter who were left behind. When the violence started increasing, the local landlord told Harbhajan Singh that he would give them shelter. He was a close friend of the family, and he had made them swear that they would let him help them and shelter them. But Harbhajan Singh was worried because people from outside the area had also started coming and going, and there were a lot of attacks. He was not sure if they would be safe there. So one night, without telling the landlord, the family joined a kaafila leaving the town. Somewhere near Chhoti Mianwali, there was a fear of an attack on the kaafila. In the chaos that followed, he lost his youngest son and daughter."
"‘Even though it had been 40 years since they lost their children, those memories didn’t fade. The fact that they had found their daughter, gave them hope to start looking again for their son. So one day I got a call that the family wanted to see me. In fact, a few different people called me. At first, I said, “no, no this is not me”, “I know my parents”, “I was already in Delhi during the Partition”. But they were so keen, so I agreed to meet them. The whole family was there. I asked them why they thought I was their son, and they said it was because our names were the same—“Sampooran Singh”, and their son was also called Poonni or Poonna, as I had been.
"‘Throughout the conversation, the mother—Harbhajan Singh’s wife—did not say much, she was just staring at me most of the time. But a couple of times, she stopped the conversation and asked, “Why don’t you just accept that you are my son?” It was very tragic, that hope still lived in her after all this time that she would find her son.
"‘Years later, when Harbhajan Singh passed away, I got a letter from his son, saying that “Maa ne kaha hai ki chhotte ko bata dena” (Mother said to let the youngest son know)."
"He completed his matriculation from a local school in Old Delhi. But the family was struggling economically. Gulzar’s mother, Sajjan Kaur, had passed away when he was just a young child, and his father, Makhan Singh, had remarried. He had five children from this marriage, and an additional three from his first marriage (Sajjan Kaur was his second wife). Many relatives were also still staying with the family post-Partition. Property in Jhelum had been lost during Partition. Makhan Singh decided to send Gulzar to Bombay (now Mumbai) in August 1949 to stay with Jasmer Singh Kalra, Gulzar’s eldest brother."
Strangely enough here the author and compiler makes very serious mistakes and neither the subject nor editors have caught them!
"Gulzar, the film lyricist and director, was fully established by the late 1960s with films like Aashirwaad and Khamoshi to his credit. A series of superhit films in the 1970s, like Anand and Namak Haram only cemented his reputation. There was no looking back after that."
None of those mentioned above were directed by Gulzar. With exception of Khamoshi, rest belong to Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Khamoshi was directed by Asit Sen.
Gulzar’s first film as a director was a remake of a film in Bengali titled Apanjon, which Gulzar titled Mere Apne in Hindi. Meenakumari played a chief character, rest of artists being all young, some new. This was almost her last complete film. Later another one by a then new filmmaker was so advertised, but it's unclear if she'd finished work in that one.
"In his entire film-making career, Gulzar has not made a film on Partition though, and doesn’t think enough films on the topic have been made. ‘The Second World War was extremely traumatic, but in Europe, in America, in Britain, they made films, and they purged it out. But we were not able to make films on Partition, neither in India nor in Pakistan, so it remained suppressed inside us and made us claustrophobic. Maybe if we had done this then, maybe if we had cried out completely, if we had completely let out our emotions and regretted the violence that happened, it would have been behind us today. But we kept it suppressed.’"
That's only partially correct. Mostly filmmakers were apprehensive about showing realities, since India was not as purged of 'other' as the separated North-West, nor was its film industry free of such domination in any way; moreover, Gandhi’s policy imposed by congress was to avoid any negative depictions of an Abrahamic-II or Abrahamic-III character, including as subject of comedy, and this wasn't said explicitly but was imposed nevertheless.
Still, there were some films that did depict horrors and trauma of Partition suffered by people, however oblique the depiction.
From Raj Kapoor’s Aag to Manmohan Desai's Chhaliya, there were several straight but veiled depictions.
Comparatively recently, there was Pinjar, based on a work by Amrita Pritam, renowned author. Gulzar did write songs of that one.
Then there were more oblique ones.
One, ostensibly about a joint family where a brother in law causes Partition of a joint family home, caught the trauma of hearts, although not depicting massacres. Especially a song - Kal Chaman Tha - caught this grief heartfelt by most who weren't involved in killing.
Another showed devastation of losing family, home and homeland, without ever mentioning Partition, by showing the devastating earthquake of Quetta as the cause; but all five members of the family ending up in Bombay and none staying back was a dead giveaway - that is, if anyone in audience questioned the storyline.
There were more.
Garam Hawa in 1974 was exceptional, but also safe, depicting plight and quandaries of muslims in India, before, during and after Partition, but not the massacres suffered by the refugees from across the border.
Sahir Ludhianavi, who went after Partition to Lahore to join his mother, but subsequently escaped to India, wrote at least one poem specifically about Partition massacres; and his long poem of 90 odd stanzas about war and aftermath, includes pain and the subsequent devastation of Partition, but without mentioning it specifically in so many words.
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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9. Hamida Habibullah
He Slept on the Verandah to Protect Us
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" ... This grande dame of Lucknow, who passed away in early 2018 at 102, is also remembered for her work on the education of girls. She was the president of the first college for girls in Lucknow to give degrees, the Avadh Girls Degree College, ... "
" ... She had been born in Lucknow in 1916 to Nawab Nazir Yar Jung, who later became the Chief Justice in Hyderabad. ‘I came from a family of High Court judges. Three generations were judges—my father, his father and my great grandfather,’ she said."
"Enaith also came from a distinguished family. His father, Sheikh Mohammad Habibullah, was the Taluqdar of Awadh, and one of the early members of the civil services, holding the posts of Vice-Chancellor of Lucknow University and Deputy Commissioner, Saharanpur. His mother, Inam Habibullah, was the MLA from Lucknow, having recently won the 1937 elections. ... "
" ... For Muslims living in the heartlands of India, the question of whether to leave for Pakistan or not was a very personal one.
"Each couple within the Habibullah household took their own decision. A tragic consequence of this was separation.
"Sheikh Muhammad and Inam Habibullah did not want to leave. Neither did Enaith or Hamida, but all his other siblings and their spouses chose to leave India."
"At Partition, when everyone in the armed forces and government services—those working in the army, police, libraries, railways—was given the option of India or Pakistan, Enaith chose to serve in the Indian Army.
"‘We did not believe the country should be divided. My husband, Enaith, went to plead to Nehru that he should not allow Partition, that there is no difference between Hindus and Muslims,’ remembered Hamida. ‘I was asked to give a speech at a Muslim League election rally in 1946, but I refused. I said I could not, as I did not believe Partition should happen.’"
Reading about the separation of family members due to Partition in this tale is faintly reminiscent of the WWI account of separations in The Royal Mob.
"In the beginning, there wasn’t a clear sense of what Partition meant for such divided families. ‘People thought it would be like a Union, and that people would go back and forth,’ muses Saif. In the early years, it was like that. All of Inam’s grandchildren from Pakistan spent their summer vacations in their ancestral home in Lucknow. However, over time, the borders solidified. ‘We completely lost touch with that side of the family. ... "
The Royal mob, on the other hand, was cleft suddenly and swiftly asunder, with war, revolution and massacres added to requirements regarding loyalty to nation making it impossible for close relatives across borders to even know of one another, much less meet every holiday and summers, weddings and funerals. Battenbergs, perhaps, were affected most.
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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10. Kasturi Lal Wadhwa
A Delhi Staple
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"Kasturi Lal was around twelve years old when he came from Rawalpindi in 1948 with his parents and siblings. The family had travelled by bus and train from across the newly demarcated border. They had not managed to bring anything with them when they arrived in Delhi, so their economic situation was dire. They moved into a refugee camp in Jhandewalan, Karol Bagh, in New Delhi.
"The young Kasturi Lal felt the full weight of economic responsibility. Though his father, Shivram Wadhwa, was trying to restart the masala business he had left behind in Rawalpindi, Kasturi Lal too felt that he needed to contribute to the family’s welfare. He was conscious of the fact that he was the oldest of eight siblings, who needed to be fed and looked after.
"He had only studied till class six at that point, but further studies were out of the question now given their financial circumstances. Kasturi Lal had already started helping his relations with their businesses in Rawalpindi. Now he knew that he would need to start working full-time."
"Kasturi Lal’s future wife, Rajrani, too left behind a comfortable life in Jhelum in undivided Punjab. Rajrani’s father (Vinod’s nana or maternal grandfather) used to own a general store and had gained some influence and local standing in his community. He had, therefore, believed that they could stay behind in Pakistan. This proved to be a fatal decision. He was killed in the violence that shook Jhelum; his wife saw him being killed before her eyes. She believed that he was targeted because of his wealth. She succeeded to make it across with her daughter and two sons. She had managed to hide a little bit of gold and bring it with her, but other than that they had nothing. ‘They really struggled in life in the beginning,’ says Vinod. But his nani could not let herself look back because of her three young children. She somehow found a place to stay in Bhogal in New Delhi, and then moved nearby to a house in Jungpura. ‘She was a very strong lady,’ remembers Vinod. ‘She raised three children all by herself.’
"Kasturi Lal’s father, Shivram, meanwhile started again to make the chana masala, chaat masala and other spices that had been the family business before. These had a distinctive flavour, and in fact, even till date form the ‘secret sauce’ behind the Pindi restaurant’s dishes. Kasturi Lal’s mother, Rampyaari, was a housewife and focussed on looking after the large family. Meanwhile, Kasturi Lal started selling chana and kulcha near India Gate. His father’s spices gave a zesty taste to the food, so business grew quickly.
"In 1959, the Wadhwa family’s fortunes started turning for the better. They were allotted a shop in the newly built Pandara Market in Delhi. As Shivram was occupied with the spice business, it fell on the young Kasturi Lal to build this business.
"He decided to start a small eatery and to name it in memory of the home they had left behind—‘Pindi’ ... "
"‘When we were first allotted this place, it was just a small kiosk. People would sit outside. There was no indoor seating. First, we started with putting a fan, then a cooler, and then much later, an air conditioner—that is life, step by step.’ The family have a 99-year lease on the shop from the NDMC. Vinod guesses that the rent was hardly one rupee a month in the early days, now it is still only ₹3,000. ‘One wouldn’t be able to get a place like this today for less than some lakhs. The government really helped us by allotting us this shop.’"
" ... When the restaurant began it could seat only about 10 people; it took four decades of toil to convert it to a hundred-seater."
" ... The 1984 riots were a painful reminder for the Wadhwa family of all that they had lost in 1947–48."
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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11. Krishen Khanna
I Have Always Felt Like a Refugee, I Still Do
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"Khanna was born in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad in Pakistan) in 1925. His father, K.C. Khanna, came from a humble background. As a young child, his father had lost his right arm in a freak accident while trying to rescue his sister who was caught in a whirlwind. As a result, his education was interrupted. However, he persevered. He began studying secretly at night, then enrolled in the local village school, till eventually he went on to do a PhD in London. By the time Krishen Khanna was born, his father was well established as a professor of History."
"At the age of 12–13, Khanna went to Imperial Service College in Windsor on a scholarship. He made the journey alone, and for four years—from 1938–1942—did not see his family at all. However, the young boy found his feet in the new country, throwing himself into sports. He became captain of the fencing team, in addition to playing rugby and cricket. But World War II brought dramatic changes—Khanna’s school headmaster told him in 1942 that he would have to return to India by the next available ship as there might not be another opportunity. In the three-month-long journey from Liverpool to Bombay (now Mumbai) , Khanna unfortunately witnessed his cabin mate passing away from a long affliction with tuberculosis."
"Khanna, then 22 years old, remembers Lahore being in flames that summer of 1947. ‘You could see it from where we were—flames going up, houses being burnt. Allah hu Akbar ... "
"It was in fact never certain whether the family would leave Pakistan. One day, as his father was wrapping up work, he told the peon, Ghulam Ali, who was still cleaning the place to also head home. However, Ghulam Ali, perhaps by some instinct, sensing danger, didn’t leave and instead locked himself in the bathroom that night to try and learn more about the situation afoot. That night, Ali overheard people talking about unleashing mob violence the following day. ‘The next morning when my father came, Ghulam Ali was there cleaning the room, and without looking at my father in the face, he said, “Sahib, aap chale jaayein, maamla garam hone waala hai, log aane waale hain” (Sir you should go away, things will get ugly, people are coming). My father understood what he was saying, and believe me, if he hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have been here. We packed and left the next morning with as much as we could carry. Just like that.’"
" ... His father also told him to go help at the Ambala railway station because many of his colleagues were still on their way. Their wives had come ahead, and Khanna would try to help them find their husbands in the middle of that chaotic, brutal atmosphere. ‘These poor women, young and old ladies, waited for their husbands to turn up and nobody arrived. I tried to give such assistance as I could give.’
" ... Many trains didn’t arrive and many arrived totally [butchered]. They were all killed. People were dead.’ Khanna painted this scene of the refugees waiting for the train at the railway station, years later."
" ... When he moved to Mumbai it was not with the idea of painting, it was instead to stand on his own feet again and make an income after Partition wiped away so much."
" ... Mumbai itself was a chaotic carnival of celebrities such as Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand and Zohra Sehgal, many of whom had their own stories of hard work and struggle. This group would encourage Khanna to continue painting."
"Soon after, Khanna became the first Indian to be awarded the Rockefeller Fellowship in 1962. He then became Artist in Residence at the American University in Washington in 1963–64. In 1965, he won a fellowship from the Council for Economic and Cultural Affairs, New York. ... "
" ... ‘When my father sent me [to the Ambala railway station] to receive people coming down from Lahore, I saw people sitting anywhere. They were anxious, bitterly anxious. There was a noticeboard there that said: “Refugee train 16 hours late”. I painted that.’
"He has not finished with the Partition series, says Khanna. And he doesn’t want to sell these paintings. Today’s generation doesn’t understand Partition, he feels; they don’t know Pakistan, they’ve never lived there. But he has and he knows what that separation means.
"‘You grew up with people, you spoke a language which was the same as them and all the teasing was done with them, you know. All that’s disappeared. I have a lot of friends and people I know now, but the friendships don’t have the kind of depth as it had with my childhood friends.’
"He deeply feels the loss of a way of life left behind. ‘I have always felt like a refugee. I still do. I still do.’"
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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12. Kuldip Nayar
A Relationship of Loss Developed Between Us
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It's startling, to say the least, seeing his name amongst refugees of Partition, especially if one has read his account of his meeting Jinnah shortly after Partition and much more shortly before the latter passed away; he'd asked Nayar in course of that interview, Nayar writes, to ask the then PM of India to "forget about Partition", to become one nation again!
One forgets the response Nayar records when the message was conveyed, but vaguely recalls it was taken as emotional rather than serious proposal, and that too from someone who may not have held power to do do any more. From what one gets on internet, he lacked medical care when his final hour came.
"‘I used to stay in Sialkot city with my family. My father was a renowned medical practitioner so we were a well-to-do prosperous family. We had property, servants, cars and everything else,’ recalls eminent journalist, Kuldip Nayar.
"He remembers the city as having a composite, syncretic culture. Their own family practised a mix of Sikhism, Hinduism and Sufism. His mother was a practising Sikh, who attended the gurdwara regularly, and had her children’s names selected from the Guru Granth Sahib by a preacher as per Sikh customs. Hindu festivals like Diwali and Lakshmi Puja were equally celebrated in the house, and Kuldip’s grandmother would regularly call the pandit to read their palms. Additionally, as in the family courtyard there was the grave of a Pir (a Sufi saint), the family would pray there every Thursday."
"Kuldip’s family wealth was invested in Pakistan. ‘Just a few months before Independence my father had used a lot of his savings to build a new house, dispensary and shop—all that property was of course not movable.’ Therefore, the economic rationale to stay in Pakistan was also large. Kuldip’s father at that time was past 60—moving to a new city to start his medical practice again seemed unthinkable. Soon after the Partition, when the riots started and the mobs started burning homes and shops, the family realized they might need to leave Sialkot just till things calmed down again.
"The family was still debating their plans, when on 12 September, an army officer who had been transferred to India came to their home, before leaving. ‘He said “Doctor Saheb, you’ve been of great help to us in the past. We’re now leaving, can we do anything for you?” My father pointed to me and my two brothers and said, “Take these three to Hindustan”. The Brigadier looked very embarrassed and said that it would not be possible to fit three in the jeep, but he could take one with a handbag. So, my brothers and I started arguing, saying “you go, you go”. Then, we took out a chit in a lottery type system and my name came out. I was the unwilling one who was sent ahead. I felt very scared that night about the future. The following morning, I took a small bag with two changes of clothes and left. I was so worried about my family and whether and when I would see them again.’
"Kuldip was not expecting the devastation he saw on route. ‘When we reached the main road—Grand Trunk road—I saw thousands and thousands of people. It was like all of humanity had come out on the streets. They looked devastated, their clothes were tattered, so many were injured… it was harrowing.
"‘At one point, when the jeep had stopped because of the crowd, an elderly sardar (Sikh) pushed a small infant towards me through the window. He said, “This is my pota (grandson), and out of our family of 40 people, he’s the only one left. Take him to Hindustan with you.” I was so flustered, I didn’t know what to do. I said “I’m still studying right now, how can I take him?” He replied, “I’ll find you, just become his guardian for now.” I said, “This won’t be possible, I can’t take so much responsibility.” But even now, I remember his face, a helpless man, saying “take this child”. I’ve never been able to get over this incident, it still haunts me, there is a lot of guilt somewhere.
"‘All along the way, we saw village after village had been annihilated. We could see fires burning in the distance, and corpses and empty suitcases along the road.’
"Just outside Lahore, the convoy was stopped. Kuldip and the officer’s family feared an attack."
"On the way, the atmosphere in the second-class train compartment was charged. People were angry and grieving for their losses. The tattoo of the star and crescent was visible on Kuldip’s right arm; a rippled murmur started that he was a Muslim. He was pulled out of the compartment at Ludhiana, and soon was surrounded by a mob of angry people. Some Sikhs with spears and swords loomed over him. He told them he was Hindu, but they did not believe him. In India, where circumcision is practised by Muslims but not by Hindus or Sikhs, Kuldip was saved this humiliation of proving his religion by the sudden appearance of an acquaintance from Sialkot who shouted out to the crowd that he was Doctor Saheb’s son. The crowd slowly dispersed, and a very shaken Kuldip somehow made his way to Delhi. He had narrowly escaped humiliation and possibly death.
" ... Though Kuldip had intended to be a lawyer in Sialkot and had earned his LLB degree, with Partition’s intervention, Kuldip’s journalistic career had started instead."
"Meanwhile, his parents were still in Sialkot. Around end October, they too finally realized that they would need to leave. ‘Whenever they wanted to leave, my father’s patients and friends would say “Doctor Saheb, we won’t let you go Who will look after our children’s health?” But, not everyone felt that way. Others, even some who had been family friends, said, “Doctor Saheb, it would be great if you could stay, but it’s our policy that we should not let Hindus and Sikhs stay. If you want to stay, you will have to convert.” Then the thought of staying vanished.
"‘Finally, one day they got on the train to leave. Then some young boys recognized him and said, “Doctor Saheb, you’re going in this train? We won’t let you go in this gaadi [train].” My parents kept insisting that they needed to leave, but these boys insisted, “No, not in this gaadi. Tomorrow, we’ll take you” and dropped them back to their house. The boys came back the next day, and said, that they had known the train the previous day was going to be derailed, so that was why they didn’t let them go. They had checked and been assured that this one will go safely, so they dropped my parents to the station.’"
"The small bag with all of the jewellery and cash that his parents had brought with them was stolen on the way. So his parents found themselves, at age 60, having to rebuild their lives. They settled in Jalandhar."
"Radcliffe told Kuldip that initially Lahore was to come to India. ‘He said, “At the time I drew the line initially, I gave Lahore to India. But, then I realized that Pakistan had no big city. Even in the East, I had given Calcutta to India, and Dhaka was not ready at that time, so I gave Lahore to Pakistan.” I remarked that it was an extremely strange way to divide a nation. He said, “the problem of the division was that there were no maps available, no statistics or data. I had to draw a line on an ordinary map.”’
"Radcliffe had very little data to work with. ‘He told me, “First, I thought I should use the Chenab as the border and then I felt the Ravi would be a better idea or maybe somewhere in between. But there was such little information.” He was a sensitive man. He felt that what he had done had had repercussions, though he did not think he was responsible.’"
"‘I had waited almost 25–30 years to go back to our home in Sialkot, but I didn’t linger there for even 30 minutes. There was nothing there that was known or familiar to me. A house or city is made of known people, friends, it’s like a family of sorts. I just saw the house from the outside and left.’"
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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13. Ajeet Cour
Unsettled People Cannot Settle
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"When Cour was around nine years old, she was taken out of the convent school to be educated by Giani Kartar Singh Hitkari, the father of the eminent poet Amrita Pritam, to improve her Punjabi. It was during these months that she would be introduced to all the major Punjabi poets like Waris Shah, Peelu and Bulle Shah. ‘During that time, my interest in Punjabi literature grew. I dreamt that even I would write poetry some day.’
"Born in an affluent family of Lahore in 1934, Cour grew up in a large haveli on Chamberlain Road, where her father had a homeopathic clinic on the ground floor. Her nanaji* (maternal grandfather) owned a lot of land around Gujranwala (now in Pakistan) with fruit orchards, and Cour spent her vacations there.
"However, despite the affluence, Cour’s childhood was a lonely one. Brought up by a disciplinarian father who didn’t believe girls should be educated, or even venture much out of the home, Cour retreated increasingly into an inner world. Though she excelled in her studies, clearing a University level exam at age nine, her education was sporadic and intermittent, with her father periodically removing her from school for household chores or because she disobeyed his instructions.
"But things rapidly changed in 1947. ‘From Rawalpindi, large groups of people fleeing the riots, the looting and killing, came to Lahore. My mother and I went to the camps to give people blankets, quilts and other items they needed and my father used to help people with medical ailments, giving them medicines. When we used to go to the camps we heard stories that were extremely frightening—“We killed the women of our families in order to ensure that their honour was protected”, “My husband killed our daughters with his own hands with his sword”, or “Our daughters and daughters-in-law jumped into wells to kill themselves so that they would not lose their honour”. So all these people, who had lost everything, came to Lahore and stayed there and we would hear their stories and start crying. We didn’t know that soon the same thing would happen to us.’ At the time, early 1947, Partition was still an unbelievable idea to those in Lahore. ‘All the leaders had said that anyway Partition was not going to happen. [Mahatma] Gandhi had said that “Partition would happen over my dead body”, so we thought Partition would not happen.’ And even in their moments of doubt, there seemed one surety: ‘Lahore was the safest place because Lahore would stay in India—everyone believed this,’ she remembers.
"But by May 1947, the situation in Lahore was becoming dire. ‘By May, fires from riots had become very frequent. All night, people would stand on the terrace and see that Shah Alami [a largely Hindu neighbourhood in Lahore] had been set ablaze, and Bhati Darwaza was burning. All night you could hear shouts of Allah hu Akbar, Nara-e-Takbeer, Allah hu Akbar, and people would come running and set houses on fire.’"
"Cour’s father, Dr Makhan Singh, decided to send the entire family to Shimla for a month till the riots calmed down."
"The family didn’t take many personal or household items with them. ‘We had a small iron trunk, in which we put the clothes for all four of us. Everyone was asked to keep two sets of clothes saying that it was enough for a month, and if need be, we could always buy more—we had the money. So we took one trunk and left our home. One small iron trunk.’
"Cour’s maternal aunt lived in Shimla and helped the family find a house to rent. Little did they know then that they would stay in Shimla till November 1947."
"‘The trouble in Lahore kept increasing and then the trains full of corpses started arriving ... The violence just kept increasing, and it reached such a level that we were unable to go back.’ The family was in Shimla in August 1947, and it was here that they heard of the Partition of the country, and more devastatingly that Lahore would go to Pakistan. Cour recalls the radio announcements when they heard that bank accounts were being frozen. ‘In one minute we became paupers. One minute we had lakhs and the next we had nothing.’ With the loss of Lahore, the family had lost their home and the life they had known."
" ... Singh made his way back to Shimla with his parents and the Guru Granth Sahib. On the way there and back, Makhan Singh saw more evidence of the violence that overtook Punjab in those terrible months—trains with butchered bodies, corpses on the road and the misery of the refugee camps."
"‘We had an acquaintance in Dev Nagar who gave us his house on rent. My father was allotted a clinic in Karol Bagh and he began his practice there.’ Over a period of time, through the property claims process run by the Ministry of Rehabilitation to compensate refugees for the land they had left behind in Pakistan, the family was allotted a plot in Patel Nagar in Delhi. Makhan Singh’s practice picked up again.
"Cour resumed her education in Delhi. By mistake, she was registered as having completed the tenth standard. Through a scheme for refugee students run by the government, Cour was able to complete her BA when she was just 16 years old."
" ... Cour went on to complete her MA degree at Camp College, an evening college set up especially by Punjab University for refugees. The building functioned as a school in the morning, and became a college in the evening. Cour would have preferred a degree in English Literature, but her father did not allow that because he found the class timings inappropriate, as the classes finished late in the evening. Thus, she enrolled in a degree in Economics, preferring that over the option of not enrolling at all.
"Cour had completed her post-graduation by the time she was 18. But completing her education so quickly turned out to be a problem, reflects Cour. ‘If I hadn’t done that, if I had completed it slowly, I wouldn’t have gotten married so early. At that time I didn’t think that completing MA would be a cause of problems for me, but then the family started saying she’s sitting idle at home, get her married.’ Her marriage was an unhappy one.
"Her husband would physically and emotionally abuse her, cutting the already short wings of her freedom even further. She found her own being entirely trampled under her husband’s domineering personality. This dominance only got worse with the birth of her two daughters, as her husband would now use them as leverage to ensure Cour’s subservience to him. He controlled everything she did and all her choices—her work plans, the clothes she bought for the children, the household expenses, her daily routine and movement, everything. Cour felt constantly observed and fearful. In the eight years she lived with him, he threw her out of the house an equal number of times."
"Decades after Partition, Cour returned to Lahore for a conference, and went looking for her old home. Chamberlain Road, once an upmarket residential colony, was in shambles. ‘It had potholes and was so unkempt and shabby that I could barely recognize it. I could hardly even recognize my own house. We kept going from one end of the street to the other. We finally identified the house with a lot of difficulty. The platform in front of the house had been covered and shops had been constructed there. The house itself had been broken up into 10 different parts, with many separations.’ When Cour went inside, she had a rush of emotions. ‘I felt that the souls of my nana–nani, dada–dadi, of my family, were buried in the walls of that house. I could see them all in the walls. I wrote a story on it—Sheher Nahin Ghoga—the way a seashell holds the sound of the sea, the same way a city holds the sounds of times past.’"
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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14. Brijmohan Lall Munjal
A Hero’s Journey
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"Before his death in 2015, Brijmohan Lall Munjal had a net worth of over $3 billion. From the young 24-year old who saw the family shop go up in flames in the riots of 1947, it had been an impossibly long journey of rebuilding his life from scratch.
"Brijmohan Lall Munjal was born in July 1923 in a village called Kamalia in Lyallpur district (now Faisalabad in Pakistan). ... "
"As the brothers contemplated moving further east from Amritsar, thousands and thousands of weary refugees poured into Amritsar from west Punjab by foot and by train. They had witnessed killing and misery on their difficult journey. One of those trains brought the brothers’ parents. Another, the woman that Brijmohan would eventually marry, Santosh.
"At the time of Partition, Santosh’s family was living in a village called Samundri in Lyallpur district. The family had stayed back even after Pakistan was created in August because her father did not think they would need to move: ‘He would say: “So many rulers have come and gone in the past too, but everyone has lived together for so long—Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs. The government may have changed again, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stay.” He felt that there was a lot of love amongst the people,’ Santosh recalls.
"But by September, the riots had gotten much worse.
"Despite their initial resistance, the family was forced to make their way to Lyallpur town to a refugee camp for safety. ‘We tried to arrange bullock carts to come to Lyallpur, but that did not work out. Somehow, we found a bus. We had to pay the driver a lot of money but we reached Lyallpur. The government had set up a camp there, so people took whatever little space they could find there. It was a difficult situation—there was only one stove and so many families had to share it."
"At that time, there was a lot of violence against women, and a lot of abduction. Fearing for the safety of his daughters at the camp in Lyallpur, Santosh’s father sent them further to Amritsar on a military truck. ‘The army took care of our food and safety, and we felt safe with them. But we were worried about our parents and other relatives. Our fear concerned them. They were left behind.’"
"Santosh’s father was a doctor, as was her brother; they both started working again and the family tried to put the trauma of their difficult journey behind them to start life anew in a new city they did not know.
"At that time, Santosh was already engaged to Brijmohan. Relatives had arranged their match in Lahore earlier, but amid the chaos of Partition, the wedding was delayed. Soon, however, in a simple ceremony, they would get married."
" ... They witnessed a lot of violence,’ says Santosh. ‘Kamalia was far from Lyallpur, and one had to travel from Lyallpur to Lahore and then Lahore to Amritsar.’"
"The nearly penniless dreamer made the bold decision that the family should set up their own parts-manufacturing factory. New factory licenses were being given by the Government of Punjab to kickstart the economy. Brijmohan managed to obtain one.
"Hero Cycles was born in 1956. ‘It started with one part, then two, then three and it eventually grew. Soon they took more space on rent and started making complete cycles,’ recalls Santosh. From bicycle chains, to freewheels, to the hubs, the manufacturing business kept expanding till they were manufacturing complete bicycles.*"
"But fortunes would really take a different turn with their joint partnership with the Honda group in the 1980s. The Japanese company had put out an open call in a newspaper to find an Indian partner for a joint venture. Honda was impressed with the attention to detail, the supply chain systems and customer orientation at Hero. ‘It was his ideas that they liked; the business itself was not that large at the time. Honda said that your way of working and ours is the same which is based on continuous effort.’ The famous Hero Honda partnership was born. In time, the company went on to become the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world."
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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15. Govind Nihalani
My First Memory of Fear
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"‘One evening, we heard shouts from the street. They weren’t very loud sounds, but they created a panic in the house. The doors and windows of the house were closed, and my mother, my aunt and other ladies of the house started whispering amongst themselves, trying to figure out if everyone in the family was safe at home or not. And then I heard woh nahi aya, nahi woh bhi nahi aya (he hasn’t returned, no he hasn’t returned either). That’s when I came to know that there is something called “fasaad” (riots). That word struck me. There was something called a fasaad that was happening down there somewhere.
"‘After this, my father and my uncles covered the entire balcony with gunny bags, so that nobody from outside could look in. Every evening, my father and my uncles peered through the gunny bags and kept watch on what was happening downstairs. There was a real fear that we were being watched. My first memory of fear is from this period—that something might happen to us."
" ... Everything was silent. Even in the house people used to speak to each other in whispers. There was so much silence. And one afternoon, in the middle of that silence, I heard a man’s scream. I rushed towards the terrace and I saw a man running, and suddenly, he was reeling on the ground with red blood oozing out of his back and he was screaming. My mother came running and pulled me away from the terrace immediately, so I must have seen that incident for only a few seconds, but those seconds stayed with me, like when you take a photograph. ... "
"The family found themselves slowly living in a state of siege. The women in the family started keeping red chilli powder with them to fend off an attack. The fact that the family was well-known and affluent increased the fear of an attack."
"Finally, they decided to temporarily seek refuge in Rajasthan. Govind doesn’t remember when exactly they left, but he remembers the flight. ‘The family got nine tickets, divided into three flights. I was in the first batch with my mother. My father stayed back because it was decided that the women and children were to be sent first. Much later, I was told that there was an attack on our building soon after we left. The mob was banging on the door of our house, but thankfully my father was able to call the police before they could break down the door. Our family was saved.’
"Govind had so far been home-schooled in Karachi, but now in Udaipur he started going to a regular school. After matriculation, as he decided what to do next, fate intervened. ‘I was going through various options and was considering radio engineering or civil engineering, something where I could help my family. One day, I came across an ad in the paper for a course on cinematography. I wanted to pursue it, but initially my father said no. My aunt and uncle tried to persuade him. Finally, he agreed to consult the family guru. Our guru, Brahmanandji, examined my janampatri and he said it showed that I would work in a field that mixed machines and art, and that, since in cinematography the camera is mechanical and the work is art, I should go for the course. My father then agreed, so I enrolled in a course in Bangalore.’"
"But when Govind completed his cinematography from Shree Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic (the present Government Film and Television Institute), he realized he had no connections in the industry. With a little research, he found out that the acclaimed cinematographer Venkatarama Pandit Krishnamurthy (known in the industry as V.K. Murthy) was an alumnus of his institute. He decided to take a chance and go to Bombay to meet him."
" ... Baharon Ke Sapne (1967) onwards, Govind assisted Murthy on most of his films."
" ... Satyadev Dubey introduced him to Shyam Benegal. Benegal had just returned from the US and wanted to make his first feature film, Ankur (1974). He had written the film while in college and had been trying to find financing for the film for many years, but with no success because it was a serious film looking at a social issue of the feudal system in rural India. He was keen to cast a known actress like Waheeda Rahman, but after her refusal, he decided to give the opportunity to the then newcomer, Shabana Azmi. Govind could not have known when he signed the film as cinematographer that it would be the start of a long partnership with Benegal, or that the film would achieve such high critical acclaim. The film was runner-up at the National Film Awards for Best Feature Film (1975) and won both the Best Actor and Best Actress awards. It also made an international mark, with a nomination at the Berlin International Film Festival (1974) for the Golden Berlin Bear award."
"‘I was shooting for Gandhi in Delhi (Govind was an assistant director on the famous Richard Attenborough film) and one evening, I was just browsing idly in a bookshop, and the name of this book Tamas (Darkness) caught my eye. I had not heard of the author or the book before, but the blurb revealed that the book was on Partition. Because I was working on Gandhi, I was reading a lot of Partition stories as research, so I decided to buy this one too. The next few days were very hectic with shooting, and I didn’t have time to read the book. About a week later, I got home early, so I opened the book to read. I read the first sentence “Aale mein rakhe diye ne ek jhapki lee” (the lamp placed in the niche flickered)—and I don’t know what it was about that sentence, a very simple one, but it hooked me. I couldn’t put the book down, I couldn’t rest until I had completed it. I made an instant decision that this was a film I wanted to make.’"
"Making the film had many sensitivities and challenges. Since the costs of taking the entire team to Punjab were too prohibitive, Govind recreated an entire Punjabi town on the sets. In the movie, there is a scene set in a gurdwara, so he also decided to recreate a gurdwara on a stage in the sets. Like many Hindu families in Sindh, Govind grew up with a strong Sikh influence in the household. A Guru Granth Sahib was kept in the house, ‘paath’ was read regularly, and he remembers frequent trips to the gurdwara. ‘This familiarity with a gurdwara helped me a lot when I was making Tamas, because Bhisham ji [the author] had an entire chapter set in a gurdwara. I could immediately visualize how to do the scene.’ He still needed authentic extras. ‘Luckily, at that time there were Sardars who were waiting to go to the Gulf as labour—they were mostly carpenters and manual labourers. We brought them in and shot in what they were already wearing for authenticity.’"
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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16. Anjolie Ela Menon
We Get an Amnesia—We Don’t Want to Remember
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"‘My father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, and was in command of a hospital in Murree,’ remembers Anjolie Ela Menon of the summer of 1947. ‘Till the 21st or the 22nd of August, though Independence had taken place, everything seemed calm and quiet. We were not in a hurry to leave; we hadn’t packed anything. In fact, there really had been no question of leaving Murree at that time because one had not foreseen such mayhem.’
"But within a few days the situation changed completely. ‘Around the 24th of August, my father went to meet one of his friends who was an older civilian doctor. There were rumours in the market that there is going to be trouble and that Hindus should leave, but this friend told my father that he was not leaving. He said that he’d been born and brought up in Murree and had practised there for the last 40 years, so the question of leaving did not arise.
"‘The next morning, we learnt that he had been found in a pool of his own blood. He had been murdered. That was the turning point for our family. My father decided to get the family out of Murree as quickly as possible.’ The family drove down to the Army base at Rawalpindi in their jeep the same day. ‘Most of our belongings were simply left behind. We had no time to take them.’
"Anjolie was only seven years old at that time. ‘I remember being made to lie down in the jeep because our vehicle was being fired upon. By the time, we got to the Army Mess, the situation had become very bad. Riots had started. People had started arriving wounded and dead from the Indian side of the border, and this was having an effect in Rawalpindi.’
"Anjolie’s father realized that he needed to evacuate the family immediately. ‘There was a military Dakota plane leaving Rawalpindi for Delhi, and my father managed to get a place for my mother, myself, my younger sister and one of our servants. I remember that we were sitting on the floor of the plane because there were no seats. There were a number of sacks and lots of soldiers. Only two families were on the plane—ours and another army doctor’s family.’ Because of the chaotic situation, the family had not been able to inform anybody in Delhi. ‘In those days there were few telephones so we couldn’t be in contact with anyone. Fortunately, my aunt was living in Sujan Singh Park, so we made our way there.’
"‘ ... My aunt’s servants were all Muslims. When the riots began and the trains started arriving full of dead bodies, Delhi also became unsafe. Homes were vulnerable to attack, so the servants all went to take refuge in Purana Qila where a huge camp had been set up,’ she remembers."
" ... aged 19, Anjolie won a scholarship in 1959 from the French government to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. These years were formative in further developing her unique talent as an artist."
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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17. Milkha Singh
Milkha Singh, How Long Will You Keep on Crying?
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"‘I have been running my entire life,’ begins Milkha Singh.
"His school was 10 kilometres from his village. ‘We would go barefoot to school,’ he recalls. ‘The patches of sand used to boil, so, we would run for a couple of kilometres continuously, and only when we found a grass patch on the sand or some shade, we would stop there to cool our feet, and then again, we would start running.’ The teachers were strict, and the fear of being beaten either by the teacher or by his father would ensure that Milkha and his friend would make the long journey each day, even though it involved perilously wading through two rivers when neither he nor his friend knew how to swim.
" ... the Flying Sikh, and who won the gold medal in numerous international athletic contests, was born in a small, remote village called Gobindpura, near Multan. It was a simple, agrarian life he recalls. ‘We owned a little land.’ Child mortality was high in those days, especially since they were far away from the nearest city. ‘My mother gave birth to 15 children, but seven passed away very early from cholera and other diseases. So, before Partition, we eight survived—five brothers and three sisters.’ He falters and stops."
"‘Our village elders decided that we would not move,’ he recalls. ‘We were two villages, the other about two kilometres away. We both united and decided that we won’t leave.’"
"‘Soon, we heard that a mob is coming to kill us. The panchayat made a decision that the women of both the villages will take shelter in the gurdwara. And the menfolk would guard the outside.’
"Another panchayat meeting was held to decide what to do. Even as the meeting was being held, a large group of around 5,000 Muslims had surrounded the village. After a prayer meeting at the gurdwara, the elders decided that they would not convert to Islam, despite the danger to their lives. ‘We sent an interlocutor, Mota Singh, with our message.
"‘The mob was sitting some 50 yards from our village, and they had already started a fire. Mota Singh went to them to tell them that we had decided that neither would we convert, nor would we leave our village, but we were ready to fight till death. They shot him from behind as he was returning to us. He fell down from his horse and died on the spot. At that point, the war began. ... "
"‘I have watched everything happen in front of my eyes. My brother and sister, my parents, all of them were killed in front of my eyes. And my father’s only words were “Milkha Singh run and get out of here, Milkha Singh run and get out of here, they will kill you too! Escape!” I ran."
"Milkha pauses. ‘Very bad things have happened with us. Today people have only heard stories, they don’t know how many people died in the Partition and that all the people who died were poor. None of the rich died there. The rich were already long gone via cars, buses, planes. But poor people, how and where could they go? Lakhs of poor people died.’"
"‘All the refugees landed at the Old Delhi railway station… When I reached, I was all alone. No one was with me,’ remembers Milkha. ‘But there was a register where you could write your name, where you are from, how many of your relatives have survived, how many have died, the names of any who have survived.
"‘I explained to them that I belonged to this village, that my whole village had been slaughtered, this happened, that happened. I explained everything. Then they used to make an announcement at the Delhi Railway Station for all the refugees who arrived there. Every day, there were announcements “so and so is here, so and so’s relative so and so is here, come and meet him, come and see him”. The announcement used to continue all day and night.’
"It was a terrible condition, Milkha remembers. The hunger was overwhelming, with nothing to eat. ‘No one had water to drink, no one had food to eat, no one had clothes to wear. One dead body was lying here, another dead body was lying there, and people were sleeping in between. And when someone would come with food, they would throw chapattis like they were being thrown to dogs. But we were so hungry, we would jump to get something to eat. Those who were able to grab something, were able to eat, the others just slept hungry.’ There was no sanitation, so cholera also spread quickly."
And those were the people beaten with sticks by police, ordered by government of India, because Gandhi wanted them to vacate festival place of muslims!
"With his brother’s help, Milkha finally managed to enrol in the army. And this would be the turning point in his life. ‘I always give the credit of my success to the army because the army knows how to make a person work hard, how to maintain discipline.’"
"Milkha emphasizes that his story is not one of overnight or easy success. ‘After watching the film, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag*, all of India wants to become Milkha Singh. All of them are coming up to me—doctors, engineers—all of them saying, “We want to become Milkha Singh”. But becoming Milkha Singh is not an easy job, I did 15 years of hard work to achieve what I did.’ Today, looking back, he notes, it is easy just to see the highlights and the successes, without realizing the daily determination and the sacrifices. ‘Was Milkha Singh made in one day? I ran 80 races around the world. It was only because every month and every year my name was highlighted in newspapers, that I have achieved fame over 15 years. No one can make their name in one day, and most are deterred just by the first time they vomit blood, few are willing to undertake the hardships required for success.
"‘Without hardship, without discipline, without willpower, without hard work, no person can move forward, no person can be successful. I kept striving for 15 years. Be it day or night, Milkha Singh kept running.’"
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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18. Ram Jethmalani
A Refugee Fights for Other Refugees’ Rights
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" ... He matriculated at age 13 and completed law school at age 17.
"The rules at that time did not allow people under 21 years of age to practise, so this became Ram’s first legal battle. ‘I fought my own litigation at seventeen and a half. I had found out that when I joined the Law College, this rule did not exist. It came into existence after I had made my choice. So, I argued my own case before Sir Godfrey Davis, the Chief Justice of Sindh, that it could not be retroactively applied to me.’ He won, gaining the right to start his practice at the young age of 18."
" ... The riots had started in many parts of India in 1946, spreading like wildfire to the Punjab region in 1947. ‘There was a lot of communal tension outside Sindh. Though Sindh was still peaceful, the talk of Partition was in the air.’
"Sindh had been separated from the Bombay Presidency in 1936 and was now a Muslim majority province. However, it was one that prided itself on a syncretic culture. People from the region viewed themselves as Sindhis first and Hindus or Muslims second, so there was no sense amongst the Hindus that they might have to leave. In fact, even after Partition became a reality in August 1947, most Sindhi Hindus believed they would stay on. Unlike Punjab, that saw a mass migration on religious lines from east to west, and west to east between August and December 1947, the large majority of Hindu Sindhis did not leave in 1947. It was only in 1948 that this exodus started in Sindh too."
"When Partition happened, Muslims from other regions arrived. It was these outsiders who created problems. But even they did not want to kill us, they only wanted our property. We loved Sindh, but it became increasingly impossible for us to live in Pakistan.’"
"‘I sent my family across to Bombay by ship and stayed back in Sindh.’
"His wife, along with their two daughters, moved into her parents’ house in Bombay, and thus, avoided the squalor of camp life. But Ram’s parents, his sisters and grandparents were not so fortunate. They were allotted a room in a refugee camp set up in abandoned army barracks near Pune. The family remembers the squat buildings with four families in a row, with just a hole in the ground for sanitary purposes. Ram was horrified to see these conditions when he arrived later, and a biographer notes that he vowed then never to be poor again.*"
"Ultimately, Ram too found that he had to leave Sindh. This was in February 1948, after a major incident where a number of Sikhs taking refuge in a gurdwara in Karachi were burnt alive. Ram had been in office when the riots started, and he had to disguise himself to make his way back home safely; he hid there for three days, but finally realized that staying on further in Sindh at that time was impossible. ... "
"Fate was kind, and Ram managed to manoeuvre a property exchange with a Muslim who was leaving for Karachi. He followed up to attain an allotment order from the Bombay Land Requisition Authorities. This way they got a home in Bombay."
"’ ... The law noted that the state could decide where refugees could reside and where they would be rehabilitated; the state had used it to evict Sindhis and to restrict their movement. Ram filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the Act on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, and he won."
" ... Ram got married a second time in 1952 and fashioned an unusual arrangement with his two wives and families. He began to save his earnings, and soon, he and his second wife Ratna joined the social scene in Bombay."
"The loss of his homeland stayed with Ram. Later in life, Ram headed a committee to try and find solutions to the Kashmir dispute. His friendships with decision-makers on both sides of the border positioned him well as an interlocutor.
"Through all this time, he had not, however, lost touch with his mentor and friend, Brohi. In 1953, Brohi became Law Minister of Pakistan. A few years later, he became High Commissioner of Pakistan to India. ‘I used to travel, in those days, from my home in Bombay to Delhi for my cases in the Supreme Court. Brohi would say, “I will not allow you to stay anywhere else,” and so I would stay with him in his official residence on those trips to Delhi.’
"Fate had separated two friends in 1947—one went on to become the Law Minister of Pakistan in 1953, the other, some forty years later, the Law Minister of India in 1996. They never lost touch with each other till the former’s death in 1987."
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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19. Satish Gujral
There Was No Compassion on Anyone’s Face
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"His father had been a staunch freedom fighter. So, when Partition happened, Gujral and his father stayed back in Pakistan to help refugees to safety in convoys. Those seven months of almost weekly trips between Jhelum and Jalandhar escorting refugee families, haunted Gujral for a long time and drove him to give voice to those memories through his art in the following year."
"‘My fear was not so much about my hearing, as of the silence around. Finally, by evening, after many other tests, it became clear, that silence has come to stay with me,’ Gujral recounted in Metamorphosis, a film on his life."
" ... One day, Avtar Narain, seeing his son’s doodles, was inspired to send him to Mayo School of Art in Lahore; initially, the school allowed Gujral to just sit in on classes without being a formal student, but within a year, recognizing his talent, they gave him official admission. His time in Mayo would be instrumental in giving him an ability to work across multiple mediums and forms, from painting to sculpture to architecture."
"Later, when the decision of Partition had been finalized, he was in Lahore. ‘But nobody knew what will happen to Lahore. Whenever two Hindus and Muslims met, they only had one question—“Where do you think Lahore will go?” Many people thought that Lahore would be given to India because many businesses and institutions belonged to the Hindus.’
"‘One day, when I looked outside, I saw hundreds of women, men, children carrying beds and suitcases on their heads and running. Behind them there was a mob.’ It was early August. Soon after that, Nehru visited Lahore. ‘I still remember graphically that someone was saying “It’s Nehru! It’s Nehru!” We saw Pandit ji get out of the car, and immediately say, “Take me to the refugee camp”. But the crowd was turning violent with despair, so the police advised him to leave. Four of us, including my father and I, went with him to a meeting nearby. We entered a small room and sat around a table. Pandit ji was extremely quiet. I still remember that scene clearly. After a while, Pandit ji turned his face towards my father and said, “Lalaji, do you think there is hope that Hindus will stay in Pakistan?” My father said, “No”. He (Pandit ji) said, “Now you have broken my heart,” adding that, “In the morning, I flew from Delhi and when I looked down I saw kaafila after kaafila moving from both sides. But I thought that after reaching Lahore, I will get some hope, but it is the same here.”’"
"Gujral remembers, how in that meeting, Nehru also confided in his father that Lahore would go to Pakistan. Avtar Narain had been deeply involved in the freedom struggle for a long time. He had worked closely with Lala Lajpat Rai, particularly supporting him in the agitations against the Simon Commission. He went to jail many times; as did his wife, and Gujral’s other siblings. Soon after Partition, he took on the role of liaison officer for the Rawalpindi Division, helping evacuate refugees."
"Gujral and his father spent the next seven months evacuating refugees. ‘Once every week, we used to go to Amritsar or Jalandhar with a convoy from Jhelum. We used to drop off some refugees and then go back."
"Gujral remembers that over the course of those seven months, they rescued nearly a hundred women. ‘Every time we went, we were scared if we would even make it back.’ His mother meanwhile helped to set up an ashram at Jalandhar for these girls. ‘When we started to rescue women, I initially dropped them at home with my mother in Jalandhar. But when the numbers grew, my mother realized that a more permanent solution was needed, so she started a Nari Ashram.’"
"When they left, they were themselves able to bring very little with them. ‘We gave our neighbour the key to our house, and left. Never again did I go back to Jhelum. My heart wanted to. I went to Lahore twice. Not Jhelum. It’s strange, every time I went to Lahore, I fell ill and couldn’t go further.’ Years later, on one such trip, lying in the hospital bed in Lahore, Gujral looked out of the window and recognized the jail that his mother had once been imprisoned in during the freedom struggle."
"‘When I started to paint, it never crossed my mind that I was painting Partition, but what came out was Partition. If an artist thinks first and paints later, there will be no truth.’ Gujral’s paintings reflected the anguish of what he had seen in those seven months."
"In Mexico, Gujral apprenticed with Rivera and Sequieros, and became close friends with Frida Kahlo. This period had an enormous influence on his work."
"But just as he would become comfortable and start to establish himself in one style, Gujral would change direction; this happened numerous times in his career. He constantly chose his artistic vision and growth over the monetary comfort of a single path. At this stage, he turned to making paper collages; these were little understood or appreciated in the Indian art market of that time, though they got some interest abroad. After this he moved to using industrial waste and mirrors to make sculptures and then, to a burnt wood sculpture series.
"Because he was often ahead of his time, his works would not gain immediate acceptance, and Kiran and he struggled monetarily. But still Gujral followed his inner voice, always trying to push himself out his comfort zone."
"In 1984, Gujral pushed the boundaries even further when he moved into architecture, much to the disdain of many at that time who viewed art and architecture as two very distinct fields. However, Gujral had a vision. He applied for, and won, an international competition to design the Embassy of Belgium in New Delhi. This got him much critical acclaim, including a high honour from the Belgian government—the Order of the Crown. He also went on to design many more high-profile buildings like the summer palace of the Shah of Iran in Dubai, and the Ambedkar Memorial Park in Lucknow."
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June 29, 2022 - June 29, 2022.
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20. Surinder Singh Gandhi
A Natural Disaster, and a Man-made Catastrophe
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"Although he belonged to a relatively well-to-do family of Quetta in Balochistan, Surinder Singh Gandhi’s life would take many twists and turns even before Partition.
"The first mishap came in 1935 when the Quetta earthquake happened. ‘It was one of the biggest disasters of the twentieth century—in the few minutes of the earthquake, some 30,000 people died,’ recalls Surinder.
"His own family too was deeply impacted. ‘We also lost five members of the family—my grandfather, my grandmother, one uncle and two brothers. I was just about six years old at that time, but I vividly recall watching my father cremate the five bodies together.’ It was deeply traumatic.
"The family had to move into a camp for some time. ‘My first experience of the refugee camps was in 1935,’ recalls Surinder. ‘Though we had earlier seen the atrocities perpetrated by the British army, here in the aftermath, we also saw the British help with the relief work. All the communities—Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs—also helped each other and lived in the camps together.’"
" ... ‘At that time, the political situation in the country was in turmoil. The movement for the creation of Pakistan was gaining momentum. We heard on the radio about riots that had started from August 1946 in Calcutta, and in March 1947 in Punjab, but in Quetta it was completely peaceful. There were no riots at that time."
"‘One day, one of our Muslim friends told us that we should move out of our house because it was vulnerable to attack, so we moved into the Gurdwara for safety. Thankfully, we were already there when the mobs reached our house. My younger sister had fractured her leg and we were all very worried. My brother somehow managed to get two seats in a plane leaving Quetta, and he told me to take her to India.’ The other members of the family were still left behind. ‘My brother, my mother, my three sisters, along with my uncle’s family—another three daughters and my aunt—were still there.’"
" ... Fortunately, a Sikh regiment posted in Quetta evacuated the rest of the family in October."
"Meanwhile, as the family’s financial condition improved, Surinder ensured that his two sons received the education that he himself had not been able to complete. One went on to do an MBA at Harvard Business School (and later teach there), the other at Wharton Business School. Fate had resulted in Surinder dropping out in the twelfth class, but it could not clip the wings of this meticulous and determined achiever."
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June 29, 2022 - June 30, 2022.
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21. Ved Marwah
We Flew the Pakistani Flag, Celebrated the End of British Rule, Still Had to Flee
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"‘The June announcement of Partition came as a total surprise to us; till then, we had never believed that Partition would actually happen. But even after the June declaration, we believed that Partition would be quite peaceful, and that we could continue to live in Peshawar. On 14 August, we flew the Pakistani flag and declared ourselves as loyal Pakistani citizens and celebrated the end of the British rule. We didn’t think that Partition, or living in Pakistan, would bring any change in our lives. The communal trouble in Peshawar started much later. We didn’t leave till mid-November,’ recalls Ved Marwah."
"‘But suddenly, things turned violent; we are just lucky that we survived.’ In early September, a mob went on a rampage attacking Hindu and Sikh houses across the city. Ved recalls standing on a rooftop watching houses around them engulfed in smoke and flames. The family managed to successfully fend off an attack on their house but watched paralysed as their friends’ and neighbours’ houses were burnt down. Many came to find refuge in their home.
"But Ved’s father, Faqir Chand, was still determined not to leave. He and his brothers had built their business in Peshawar and couldn’t imagine leaving everything behind. It was only when the Deputy Commissioner, a friend and classmate of Faqir Chand, told him that he could no longer protect him, that Faqir Chand realized that the family would have to leave. The family had already been living in a state of siege for months, rarely venturing out; their shop had also been declared evacuee property, even though they had not left Peshawar."
"In 1951, Khan Market was established to rehabilitate Partition refugees, particularly traders from the NWFP. It was named after NWFP leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s elder brother, Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan. Shops were built on the ground floor, with residential flats on the first floor. In all, 154 shops and 74 flats were allocated.
"Faqir Chand Marwah was allocated a shop and a flat and decided to restart the book business that he had left behind during Partition. He named the shop after himself: Faqir Chand and Sons. ‘We got help from the government—that’s how we survived. First, they gave us a loan of ₹3,000 to start our little business, and then much later, against the claims, we got a shop in Khan Market.’"
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June 30, 2022 - June 30, 2022.
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