Bbc 2 ,9pm 2nite - Partion Victims Tell All

[AK47 JATHA LION]

Did u all see that elderly singh with sitting on the manja with his old sword talkin about how he cut/sliced/murdered so many people . Sounded like he got whoever he could get his hands on. Then he said he had no regret or remorse for killing innocent people, because he claimed he was protecting his own. (by killing innocent people?? i dont think so)

he can only claim he was protecting his people if he had murdered mobs that were trying to attack him/his people. how can he kill innocent civilians for just belonging to a religion and then claim he was in the right. i see no sense in that. Pathetic monstrosoties on both sides of the border . bear in mind alot of these killings happened before the petition even happened. 2 or 3 weeks somtimes a month before.

I admire people such as mr dhillon as mentioned above, for defending innocent people from slaughter from mobs due to their religion or background. Such atrocities cast dark shadows on our blood drenched history.

[proactive]

Did u all see that elderly singh with sitting on the manja with his old sword talkin about how he cut/sliced/murdered so many people . Sounded like he got whoever he could get his hands on. Then he said he had no regret or remorse for killing innocent people, because he claimed he was protecting his own. (by killing innocent people?? i dont think so)

he can only claim he was protecting his people if he had murdered mobs that were trying to attack him/his people. how can he kill innocent civilians for just belonging to a religion and then claim he was in the right. i see no sense in that. Pathetic monstrosoties on both sides of the border . bear in mind alot of these killings happened before the petition even happened. 2 or 3 weeks somtimes a month before.

I admire people such as mr dhillon as mentioned above, for defending innocent people from slaughter from mobs due to their religion or background. Such atrocities cast dark shadows on our blood drenched history.

I think you've missed the bigger picture and its relationship to Shingara Singh's comments. Muslims in West Punjab had started to kill Sikhs a clear 5 months before Partition. Expelling non-Muslims was part of their tactic after all how could they have a Muslim state when the best lands and most of the businesses were in non-Muslim hands? Pakistan for the common Muslim meant being able to seize the lands of the Sikhs and the businesses of the Hindus. A lot of the Muslims were under heavy debt to both Hindu and Sikh moneylenders. Independence for Sikhs and Hindus meant being rid of the British and having their own people in charge. This was the difference, the Muslim league had sold Pakistan to the Muslims as a land without non-Muslims and the chance to grab the best lands and businesses and able to renege on their debts.

In East Punjab when the Sikhs and Hindus were being driven out of West Punjab then naturally you will get retaliation. If the Sikhs being driven from West Punjab were to be rehabilitated in East Punjab then the Muslims would also have had to be driven out. This was a natural consequence of the way the Muslims were acting in West Punjab. Muslims weren't going to leave East Punjab unless they were threatened or there was anti-Muslim violence. Possibly for the first time since Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sikh leaders who organised these attacks provided the best leadership since that time. The Akalis, the retired and returned soldiers and the common village Sikhs were all united in clearing East Punjab to make space for Sikhs coming in from West Punjab. Shingara Singh is right when he says that his activites were for the protection of his fellow Sikhs, firstly because Muslims had local majorities in some areas of East Punjab, for instance the first outbreak of violence in Amritsar city was Muslim attacks on Sikhs and Hindus. In the 'bet' areas along the Satluj river Muslims had majority villages and they waylaid Sikhs and killed them when they passed by their villages. Secondly protecting doesn't just mean physical protection, it also means making a place for fellow Sikhs expelled by Muslims to be able to live in. The Jatha system adopted by these Sikhs and their level of activities were such the even the British were of the opinion that the Indian government would not be able to take back control of Sikh areas of Punjab. The Muslims in the villages on the Pakistani side of the new border were panicky that at any moment a Sikh army would invade and take back the areas that their fellow Sikhs had just been expelled from.

It's all very well being sentimental and say that such things should not have happened but like I wrote before, if East Punjab hadn't been cleared we would have a 25% Muslim minority in East Punjab creating the usual problems that Muslims are world famous for.

[lsingh]

There were some interesting observations from the TV programme

Why were the British troops withdrawn so suddenly when violence had started at least a year earlier in the Punjab? They were supposed to stay on until 1948 , and even a phased handover of power was proposed where region by region would get independence making it easier to manage.

Why was the border kept hidden from the people so they did not know which way to go ?

What on earth were Nehru and Gandhi doing, where did the peace marches etc go to at that time?They should have been in the Lahore area helping people. It proves it was just a show.

The programme said that the prominent Hindus left early from Lahore and saved themselves.

These people funded the Arya Samaj activities that created a lot bad feeling with Muslims.

There was a huge Indian army (1 million strong after WW2) with a large proportion of Sikhs that was kept in eastern India, they could have been deployed in the Punjab and certainly after Nehru took over on the 15th August, but were not.

Something not on the programme but with plenty of references on the web was that Nehru was having an affair with Mountbattens wife. Mountbatten's daughter said that this relationship was the reason why Kashmir (Nehru's birthplace) went to India.

Was Lahore sacrificed for Kashmir? Gurdaspur was included in India because it was the only land route to Kashmir.

Patel, Nehrus sidekick instead of helping the Sikhs once they arrived in India declared them a criminal tribe and prevented them from reaching Delhi . This was to prevent Sikhs settling in Delhi and creating a large Sikh population

A lot of people are saying that Nehru wanted the Sikhs and Muslims to fight to cause the collapse of Pakistan at Birth. Because of his immoral behaviour with Mountbatten's wife he had a lot of influence over decisions.

This no good to the Sikh who told the sad story that his father had to behead his sister and many others did the same for India's 'Independence'

[chatanga]

think you've missed the bigger picture and its relationship to Shingara Singh's comments. Muslims in West Punjab had started to kill Sikhs a clear 5 months before Partition

the killings of sikhs in western panjab started as early as 1946, especailly in the western parts of west panjab, such as hazara, dera ghazi khan etc. here the league were using only stabbing as a method to kill sikhs, and there were many incidents of this.The usual victims were in the villages.

Also one very little known fact about the Panjab POlice is that during the years 1945- 1947 when the league was the state govt, they recruited all the muslim applicants to the police overlooking sikh and hindu applicants. meaning that although the muslims in panjab were around 50 % of the population , they were in fact 77 % of the Panjab police. This was for a reason. they knew they had to protect the muslims, and what better way than to get the police to do it. also the police would bnot take action against their own.

the programme told an absolute lie when it claimed that the muslims attacked rawalpindi sikhs becasue they feared sikhs were about to kill them. Muslims in rawalpindi district were almost 85 % , wth Sikhs at 6% and hinuds at 9%.

The league atacked rawalpndi becasue it was a soft target and also the day before Master Tara Singh had torn down the league flag in Lahore . so the league were looking for an example which would show the others what to do. They had little success in Rawalpndi city but they completely drove the Sikhs out in the villages. Within 10 days they had achieved their objective, and the only sikhs or hindus in rawlpindi were in hiding, with thousands killed.

FRom this point it became more of an objective for the league to used city wide or district wide violence to clear out minorities.

[Guest Dancing Warrior]

The elderly Baba was heavy duty, no Bull from him, what you see is what you got, that I respect. Everyone who spoke during the documentary experienced different things at different levels at different times, even the musalman ustad in the Lahore akara spoke the truth about the actions of Muslim youths, so many different reflections on the same tragedy, however as a people Punjabis suffered the most what ever the background and religion. But as Proactive and Chatanga pointed out the slaughter of Sikhs started months before actual partition.

[dalsingh101]

Someone explain why the English are using the media to malign us please?

[dalsingh101]

Plus - The guys who chopped off all the heads of the daughters. What did they do afterwards?

[singhalicious]

It's all very well being sentimental and say that such things should not have happened but like I wrote before, if East Punjab hadn't been cleared we would have a 25% Muslim minority in East Punjab creating the usual problems that Muslims are world famous for.

100% with that and everything else you said in your post- well put!!!!!!

[singhalicious]

Plus - The guys who chopped off all the heads of the daughters. What did they do afterwards?

hmm dont know but i guessed they survived somehow

[dalsingh101]

Plus - The guys who chopped off all the heads of the daughters. What did they do afterwards?

hmm dont know but i guessed they survived somehow

Tell me that they sent some of them a ssholes back to where they came from.