MEMORIES of a 14 YEAR OLD of INDIA's INDEPENDENCE & PARTITION

This is the tale of a simple youngster coming from a modest traditional home whose early teen years saw him through the tragedy of the holocaust during the 1947 partition of India, that violently took away the lives of his uncle, cousin, friends and many class-mates, and the families having to flee from and lose everything including their settled homes at Lahore, and become refugees. His disturbed education had to be completed in three different cities and he was compelled to give up his post-graduate engineering study plans at BHU and to get employed. 

We were a 'probashi ' (a Bengali word that implies being settled outside Bengal) family happily living in Lahore - in then undivided Punjab. My grandfather had settled there around 1860-1870 after leaving Bengal for good, and most of his children were born and raised there, followed by later generations. My memories related here are from the early forties at Lahore.

As a large number of people are well aware, 1947 brought about tremendous pre-partition communal turmoil in most of North India preceding India's independence from the British rule on August 15th. Lahore was especially affected where we had been living. I was then 14 years old and was completing my academic year in Class IX at the DAV High School there. While Bengal and many other areas too were similarly affected due to the partition, I can only share our personal story of what we experienced during the independence struggle in Lahore, and later in Delhi. For us, it started in March 1947 as my annual examinations commenced when the predominantly Muslim police fired indiscriminately on a Hindu student gathering agitating for India's independence at the nearby sports ground of my school - killing many by even chasing them into their hostels. The agitation spread rapidly throughout the city thereafter, and a curfew was imposed immediately, and our examinations were postponed. The communal overtones strengthened mainly due to the uncertainty about Lahore becoming a part of either India or the newly proposed Pakistan. Both groups were hoping that the lovely city of Lahore would be theirs, and sought supremacy through unruly mob violence, as also in other parts of Punjab. These severe communal riots had spread throughout Punjab and most of North India. Innocent bystanders and even train passengers were not spared - and were massacred simply because of their religion, and there were widespread arson and violence cases all-round those days. Often in school or our classroom, we would learn about the loss of some of our classmates through such actions. There were even many tales of the partisan Muslim dominated police in Lahore firing on residents whilst running out of their burning houses carried out by Muslim mobs on grounds of curfew breakage!

I did volunteer sentry duty during nighttime in our Hindu locality - to raise alarm in case of any attack or arson (there was one such incident during my duty period). Those were very difficult and uncertain days for us all. Many Hindus (including Sikhs) and also Muslim mobs extensively carried out attacks on each other during the partition and independence without any cause. There were extensive curfews and severe inconveniences, and like a large number of families we finally decided to temporarily get away from Lahore till the border issue was resolved (the Radcliffe Award was announced on Aug 17, 1947, that positioned Lahore in Pakistan).

An excellent article by my college-mate and a very dear friend Shyam Saksena entitled - "Radcliffe: That Bloody Line" may certainly be viewed that has much more detail about the above and includes a short film by Ram Madhavan presented by India Today.

PLEASE, DO NOT MISS IT, nor the following unsparing poem about Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the British Barrister, on the partition of India by the famous poet WH Auden in Partition, 1966:

Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,

Having never set eyes on this land he was called to partition

Between two peoples fanatically at odds,

With their different diets and incompatible gods.

'Time,' they had briefed him in London, 'is short. It's too late

For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:

The only solution now lies in separation.

The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,

That the less you are seen in his company the better,

So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.

We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,

To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.'

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day

Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,

He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate

Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date

And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,

But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect

Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,

And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,

But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,

A continent for better or worse divided.

The next day he sailed for England, where he quickly forgot

The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,

Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.

We all had hoped and intended to continue to live in our home in Lahore as before - whether it became part of Pakistan or India, not realizing what was to happen actually in the future. Instead of goodwill and living in future harmony, we could not imagine that such strong differences will develop between the two neighbouring countries - who were one nation earlier, and that would be fully exploited by the ruling political parties to create hatred between the countries instead of co-existing peacefully.

We had stayed back at Lahore during our summer vacation hoping and waiting for the end of this unfortunate turbulence. This became futile, and finally, we decided to get away to Delhi for a while. My father was then working in Jammu, and he gave up his job at the end of July 1947 and came to Lahore for taking us to Delhi. Those days, many trains were attacked and many passengers were butchered just because of their religion by senseless mobs, and it was quite dangerous to undertake any travel. However, we had little choice, and my father escorted us all. Our trip, luckily for us, was uneventful, other than an over-packed compartment with barely any place to even sit, leave aside carry luggage! Before going, the previous day during an hour's break in the curfew, we all went to my father's eldest brother Boro Jethamoshay's home near Nicholson Road to try to persuade all of them to accompany us the next day to Delhi till peace returned (there were no phones in our homes those days). But it was to no avail. He insisted that since he had recently built the house with all his life's savings, they would continue to stay on at Lahore whatever may happen. He and his eldest son, Phoringda, regrettably lost their lives there a few weeks later - both being stabbed to death along with quite a few others. This happened soon after we were unable to persuade them to accompany us to Delhi when the local police falsely arrested many of the neighbourhood young men including my cousin on trumped-up charges of creating or planning disturbance but had to be later released by the judge. This did not suit the mob present there, and who indiscriminately attacked them with daggers inside the courtroom with impunity. This resulted in the saddest tragedy and major loss to our family during the 1947 partition of India - besides the loss of our homes and all our belongings, most of which had been so carefully packed and labelled by me before leaving home!

We had come to Delhi with minimum possessions, expecting to return to Lahore in due course, but soon realized that going back to our well-organized home left behind was out of the question, and consequently we lost everything we had possessed and been left behind, including even my late mother's jewels kept in the bank locker at Lahore, as also my father's bank account there, which could not be transferred. I was particularly sad that even the pocket money that was given to me by various relatives or visitors over the years and the wristwatch that my father had presented as a prize for being first in the class, that I was only permitted to see or handle once in a while, and was stored in the cupboard normally were also lost forever - a big loss to me! It was due to the generosity of initially my mejo-jethamoshay to put us up in his Daryaganj home and thereafter my aunt Sejo-pishima & her husband (the Lal's), who gave us a large part of their ground floor 70 Daryaganj bungalow in Delhi to stay for the next few years with all household things, that enabled us to live with dignity at that time - and some degree of normality. Half of the flat was given to Pishomoshay's other relatives who too had come as refugees from Punjab. Such generosity and help from relatives and friends were common during the catastrophe and many refugee families like us were saved from utter disaster as a result. We were then too young to realize or understand the extent of their support financially or otherwise and their benevolence and that from many others in the family that saved their relatives and friends to survive from the crisis. To support the family needs, my father who was the miller of the largest and best-known flour mills in the past had to take up short and temporary jobs in small broken down flour mills around the country having no security of service and with little money and no facilities, as most of the major or large flour mills were in western Punjab - which fell within the newly created Pakistan as a consequence to the partitioning of India with the grant of independence - a costly price to millions including us. On looking back about the terrible tragedies and the senseless loss of so many friends and my cousin and jethamoshay during the partition at Lahore, I feel that I still personally remained somewhat detached in accepting the happenings more calmly despite the deep anguish, and could not direct my anger towards any community in general, instead of the actual unknown culprits. This may have been due to my primary enthusiasm and focus on the freedom of the country - for which we all were so eagerly looking for from my early school days and being prepared to suffer for it. I had been earlier involved with minor student protest movements for the British to 'Quit India' in anticipation and had mentally been conditioned to bear consequences for this defiant attitude. Further, my Brahmo upbringing had emphasized respecting all religions and remaining 'good' in all actions - that had been ingrained in my behaviour. Moreover, since I had a number of Muslim friends & neighbours whose homes I had always been welcome, I was never able to understand the frenzy that so many others got caught up with the religious aspect and the mob revenge syndrome against strangers belonging to any other religion or community despite the losses of life, property, and possessions. Delhi too was going through similar mob violence. I recollect that when I learned rumours of a likely attack to annihilate our neighbouring Muslim family in Delhi during post-partition days, at my effort and action such tragedy was averted on my informing and helping them get away to safety before any such incident. The terrible tragic images of the pile of dead bodies of Sikhs and Hindus killed during the riots that were being dumped from a truck at the Lahore Hospital mortuary that I had earlier witnessed whilst going to School haunted me for years and deterred me from any such thoughtless communal mob reaction.

The very significant joyful memory that still remains vivid with me includes the historic Independence Day of India on August l5th, 1947 at Delhi - when we all celebrated the long-awaited great moment of change of the country's status and listened to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech on All India Radio during the midnight broadcast, followed with the celebrations & euphoria of India's independence - including the celebrations later of the Republic Day on Jan 26, 1950, also remains equally strong in my memory!

Independence of India from British rule was the cherished goal of all citizens for years and dreams of all of us that we had been struggling for. Most unfortunately at a late stage the deliberate British policy of "Divide and Rule" enabled them to engineer the partitioning of India to satisfy Mr. Mohamed Ali Jinnah's demands for a separate country based on religion for the Muslims in then undivided India, so that he could become their supreme leader, despite his earlier personal belief in secularism. "Pakistan was created to enable Britain to retain its paramountcy in West Asia - which was part of a continuum of military control that took in Ceylon, Malaya, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand" - as noted by Prasenjit K Basu, a Singapore-based economist, formerly chief economist for Southeast Asia & India at Credit Suisse First Boston, Chief Asia economist at Daiwa Securities and global head of research at Maybank group. Further, he had validly stated: 

"The creation of Pakistan was integral to Britain's grand strategy. If they were to ever leave India, Britain's military planners had made it clear that they needed to retain a foothold in the NWFP (Northwest Frontier Province) and Baluchistan, because that would provide the means to retain control of Iran (where BP's predecessor, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, owned oil reserves), Iraq (where a British puppet monarchy enabled tight British control of the Iraqi Petroleum Co.) and the potentially oil-rich British protectorates of Kuwait, the Trucial States (now the UAE), Bahrain and Qatar. The problem for Britain was that the NWFP (whose leader was nick-named "Frontier Gandhi") had elected Congress governments in both 1937 and 1946, and the NWFP delegation had joined the Constituent Assembly of India in December 1946 (defying the Muslim League's call to boycott it)".

Even as Britain was giving up their largest colony from where they had enriched themselves so tremendously in the past century and more, they insisted on the partition - to successfully create the divide from the secularism that they had themselves followed during their own rule, or otherwise threatened to delay granting the freedom that was demanded. The then Indian political leaders gave in - that satisfied only some for them to see the British leave immediately, but which created the unfriendly neighbour on both eastern & western side of India, as well as increasing the existing internal strife between so many citizens of India. The two halves created of West and East Pakistan were a failure from the administration point of view, which had to be forcefully resolved later so painfully - with East Pakistan becoming independent Bangladesh eventually. The British succeeded in ensuring that these two new neighbouring underdeveloped countries would rather waste their resources in struggling with each other instead of jointly progress from their inherent wealth. Instead of a bloodless revolution, the partition process, resulted in such a vast number of innocent lives being lost or having to relocate causing the dislocation of millions of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim families. This frenzy of violence marred and diluted the joys of independence, and sowed the seeds of enmity between the two countries, and consequently, encouraged the rise of the future fundamentalists - which plagues the world of today, in particular, more so in Pakistan, and also in the rest of the world.  Further, Pakistan became 'a partner' to the British, as noted by M.J. Akbar, in his "A History of Pakistan's Jihad for Kashmir", as below:

"One of the foundational myths created by its leadership after 1947 was that Pakistan was born out of some long struggle. Perhaps this untruth was necessary as some kind of antidote for lingering embarrassment over the charge that the British had handed over Pakistan to Jinnah as part of a secret deal.

But facts remain what they are. Jinnah and the Muslim League never once initiated any kind of people's movement, let alone a Jihad, against British rule. No Muslim League leader ever went to a British jail. This is indisputable. Conversely, there is no eminent Gandhian leader during India's freedom struggle who did not go to jail. Pakistan was the end-product of cooperation between Jinnah and the British during the six-year Second World War. For understandable reasons, the manpower-starved British were deeply grateful to Jinnah for support in mobilization, particularly from Punjab and the Frontier, during their darkest hour, in 1940 and 1941. By the end of the war, about 2.5 million Indians were serving in the British war effort, a substantial proportion of whom was Muslims. The British rewarded Jinnah by giving him a veto on minority rights, and he converted that veto into Pakistan. The British Raj was Jinnah's ally, not his foe."

Similarly, Shashi Tharoor had noted in 'Era of Darkness' that:

"The sight of Hindu and Muslim soldiers rebelling together in 1857 and fighting side by side, willing to rally under the command of each other and pledge joint allegiance to the enfeebled Mughal monarch, had alarmed the British, who did not take long to conclude that dividing the two groups and pitting them against one another was the most effective way to ensure the unchallenged continuance of Empire. As early as 1859, the then British governor of Bombay, Lord Elphinstone, advised London that 'Divide et impera was the old Roman maxim', and it should be ours". Further: "Religion became a useful means of divide and rule: the Hindu-Muslim divide was, as the American scholar of religion Peter Gottschalk documents, defined, highlighted and fomented by the British as a deliberate strategy. Three arguments, as Romila Thapar has explained, were foundational to the colonial interpretation of Indian history. The first was the British division of Indian history into 'periods labelled in accordance with the religion of the rulers: thus the 'Hindu', 'Muslim' and 'British' periods formulated by James Mill in The History of British India (published between 1817 and 1826). Implicit in such periodization was the assumption that India was always composed of monolithic and mutually hostile religious communities, primarily Hindu and Muslim. Another foundational argument was that India's precolonial political economy was a form of 'Oriental Despotism', which essentially held that Indian society was a static society ruled by 'despotic and oppressive rulers' who impoverished the people".

Whatever it may be, but the British deliberately succeeded in ensuring that after the freedom the two countries would waste their resources towards their differences due to the partition rather than combine their strengths and jointly develop together to become a much greater power.

PICTORIAL OUTCOME of THE PARTITION

REFUGEE MOVEMENT ↓ DURING 1947 PARTITION