BRITISH INDIA BECAME INDIA PAKISTAN BECAME INDEPENDENT SOON AFTER ITS INCEPTION BUT THE PAIN AND TRAUMA OF SAVAGERY AND KILLINGS REMAIN STILL FRESH IN MIND
The partition of British India in August 1947 was full of savagery and pain. It is one of the bloodiest episodes of sub-continental history.
Radcliffe divided India geographically like slicing a cucumber with a knife thus inflicted a wound which never healed.
Seventy-five years later, the pain of partition is still fresh, my mother Gurdip Kaur who was barely 13-years at the time of partition, shares her most painful and agonizing memories
Escape from Pakistan – Partition of British India, 1947
(Memoir of my Mother)
The passionate, religious slogans of “Allah hu Akbar, we will take Pakistan,” by the raiders and plunderers still ring in my ears. We were living in Bahawalpur, a princely Muslim state that now comes under modern-day Pakistan.
At that time, I was barely 13 years old. My father, Bachitar Singh, fondly called as ‘Bapu ji” was working as an Accounts Officer with the Nawab Amir of Bahawalpur and was attached to the revenue department. It was a great honour as both Muslim and Sikhs shared mutual love and respect for one another. All the festivals were celebrated together, with great pomp and show by both the communities. Muslim women wore a ’burqa’ (veil) when stepping out from their homes. Sikh women too covered their heads with a dupatta ( a shawl traditionally by women in Indian subcontinent) each time they traveled in a tonga or a bullock cart, that in turn was covered from all sides by a thick cloth or tarpaulin.
It was a difficult time for girls to study, and all school curriculum was in Urdu. My father was very keen that I should get a good education. I received my primary education and home-tutored in religious books, mathematics, history, and geography. As I grew older, I was put into a boarding school in Kotkapura. My maternal village “Vander Jattana” was close by, and often my Uncle Mehar Singh and Giani Zail Singh (who later became President of India) would come and visit me in my boarding school. India was at the height of its freedom struggle and engulfed in the ‘Prajamandal’ movement. I barely managed to clear my 8th class exams, and as the ground situation became intense and unsafe, I had to leave the boarding school and shift to Nursar, again in modern-day Pakistan. It was my ancestral village, where my family had relocated to as tensions rose in Bahawalpur.
And then came the Partition of India, division of British India into two independent dominion states, India, and Pakistan. The ruthless division of land and homes based on religion fueled communal hatred amongst friends, neighbors, colleagues…everyone.
There were unspeakable horrors committed in the name of religion. We witnessed riots and bloodshed. Bungalows, mansions, and villages were looted and burned to the ground. Countless women and young girls raped, and thousands of children killed in front of their siblings. Neighbors slaughtered each other; childhood friends became sworn enemies. Miraculously, our village, by and large, remained peaceful as large part of the population were Sikhs and ‘Bagaria’. There were only a handful of Muslim workers. There was a school, a Gurdwara ( Sikh temple)and a Hindu temple in the village.
My father, who had come on ‘Eid’ holidays, had to go back to Bahawalpur on Aug 20, 1947. He was at a railway station called Madressa, waiting to board the train but was advised by the Station Master to go back and not to proceed as bloodshed, looting and arson of Sikhs and Hindus was underway in Bahawalpur. The Sikhs and Hindus were slaughtered most brutally.
Madressa railway station was located about 5-miles from our village Nursar. It connected Bhatinda Junction with Samasata junction via Abohar, Hindu Malkot, Bahawalnagar, Madressa, Chishtia Mandi and Bahawalpur. It ran through India and Pakistan, both.
As my father narrated the entire sequence of the impending danger to life and property, the villagers became anxious and restless that caused a frenzied rush, commotion, and stampede. There were 4 to 5 predominately Sikh and Hindu villages nearby, who had started migrating and leaving their homes. It was on a bright, hot Indian afternoon of Aug 21,1947 that we left our village. The convoy consisted mostly of bullock carts, with women, young girls, children and the aged. All the men escorting the convoy bore arms like swords, axes, machetes, and clubs – anything they could hold to protect themselves and all of us.
The Indian border was about 14 to 15 miles away. We were stopped on our way by a Military convoy and advised to turn back. My father was being given all sorts of assurances of our safety by the Military. However, my father did not agree. Although a few travelling with us returned to the village, we never heard about their whereabouts, and it is assumed that the mob killed them.
On our way, we had to cross a canal called ‘Gajiani’, which was fortified by the Military and once again, we were asked to turn back. The Military was not letting anyone cross the bridge. But as luck would have it, the skies opened up, and we struck by a heavy rain and severe thunderstorm. The Military ran to take shelter, and that gave us an opportunity we needed to run and cross the bridge over to the other side. We heaved a sigh of relief the moment we crossed the bridge, as now we had entered the Indian state of Rajasthan. Completely drained and exhausted, spent the night in the open without any food or water. But we knew we were safe; we were a joint family of 19–20 members and with grace of GOD we managed to cross over from Pakistan to India all alive
After a restless night of sleep, we trekked from the Rajasthan border towards a “New India”. After a few hours, we came to an abandoned village called ‘Badopal’ (now part of Hanumangarh district in Rajasthan, India). It was previously inhabited by Muslims who fled to Pakistan in this terrible partition just like we ran and fled to India. The village wore a deserted look, completely destroyed, houses razed, cattle and grains looted by Hindus and Sikhs alike.
Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs were no less and became thirsty for each other’s blood. We took shelter in the village, we found some broken utensils, some scattered grains of wheat, millet, and chickpeas, which we managed to grind, collected some firewood and able to bake ‘roti’s’ in the tandoor. We also made some chutney with salt and red chilies and this became our staple food, a herculean task to survive in those trying conditions. This village became our abode for next few days.
While in Pakistan we had a huge bungalow in Bahawalpur and large tracts of farmland in village Nursar and Chishtia Mandi and we enjoyed a fairly comfortable and luxurious life, all of a sudden we had to abandon everything and run to save our lives, overnight we became paupers, a story of riches to rags. We became refugees – penniless, homeless strangers in a strange land. It is estimated that around 1 – 2 million people died during the partition of British India. The most violent ones were centered around Punjab where the Muslim population of East Punjab was forcibly expelled and the Hindu/Sikh population in West Punjab. And yet we were fortunate to have survived the massacre and cross over to India alive and kicking. However now there lay a huge challenge for us not only to survive but to rebuild and reshape our lives once again.
