Agony Agony Of Women During Partition

[GPS]

Agony of women during Partition

By Letter

Published: October 19, 2013

From an early age, students are taught the basic aspects of the Partition of India more like a chronicle of events, inevitably leading to the vivisection of the subcontinent, without any heed to the true power dynamics and politics behind the conflict and its outcome. The publicly available history of Partition had left some serious questions in my mind which needed to be addressed. My doubts were due to the fact that I had been told completely different versions based on personal experiences by elders who were actual witnesses to the painful drama as compared with official versions recorded in textbooks. From a sociological perspective, no aspect is as vital as the catastrophic impact in the lives of people who endured massacres and rape, witnessed the slaughter of other communities and saw forced migrations en masse.

To discover the truth, I interviewed senior citizens from various locations in Rawalpindi and its suburbs where violence was widespread during Partition. As a part of that study, I visited Thoha Khalsa, a village of Kahuta, for four consecutive days earlier this year. This village is located southeast of Rawalpindi, and was home to a very large community of Sikhs before Partition.

I have recorded four stories as narrated by the local residents of Thoha Khalsa who witnessed the tragic incidents of that time. Later, with the help of my two Delhi-based friends, Gurpreet Singh Anand and Raj Aryan, I recorded an online interview of Bir Bahadur Singh, who left the village during the disturbances from 6-13 March 1947. No Sikh or Hindu remained in the village after the March 1947 rioting, except one girl, Phagwant Kaur, who was married to a local Muslim resident of the village and had converted to Islam.

There are many incidents of honour killing of women in partition stories. Muhammad Aslam witnessed Sikh women jumping into a well to take their own lives. Here is an excerpt from his interview:

I am originally from Thoha Khalsa; I was 16-year-old in 1947. We were living peacefully in the village. People were very friendly and co-operative. Sikhs were very rich people as they ran the shops and had thriving businesses. They often helped us on money matters. I used to visit Darshan Singhs house quite often. On the evening of March 6, Muslim mobs from the surrounding villages entered Thoha Khalsa and gave ultimatums to the Sikhs to convert. On that evening, the impact of their presence was negligible due to the lateness of the hour but the actual clashes started the next morning, when their numbers swelled to some thousands. After resisting for three days, the Sikhs hoisted white flags from their havelis. They had only acted in self-defence. But when defeat and dishonour was imminent, Sikh men started killing their own women. I still remember when Bhansa Singh killed his wife with tears in his eyes. They all gathered in the central haveli of Sant Gulab Singh. In the span of some hours, I witnessed the deaths of almost 25 women. It was such a horrible scene. For six days, the whole village witnessed orchestrated looting and killing. While their men fought, the Sikh women started gathering near a well around the garden. It was almost after noon, and I watched from nearby with two of my friends. Some of the women held their children in their arms. They sobbed desperately as they jumped into the well. In about half an hour, the well was full of bodies. I went closer and realised that those who were on top were trying to submerge their heads. No space remained. A few came up and jumped again. It was a terrible scene. They were determined to die rather than sacrifice their honour. In one week, all the remaining Sikhs and Hindus were compelled to leave their native place.

Haroon Janjua

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2013.

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[Jonny101]

Really painful to read this. On Gurbachan Singh Talib's book he mentions this:

In Thoha Khalsa, on March 12, 1947 after long and heroic resistance, 200 Sikhs were killed. The women were asked to embrace Islam, but 93 of them, old and young, decided to escape dishonour by drowning themselves in a well, which they did. The Muslim invaders, aghast at this tragedy, fled from the place. A little later, the military arrived and rescued the survivors. (See a fuller account of this happening in Appendix).

http://voiceofdharma.org/books/mla/ch4.htm

[GPS]

In 1980s Govind Niahalani made a TV series :"Tamas" on this tragedy.It was shown for a few months on Indian TV.

It had very wide audience. Bhisham,Sahni, Om Puri and Amrish Puri were the actors.

[dashmesh1984]

I get emotional reading this....

[Jonny101]

In 1980s Govind Niahalani made a TV series :"Tamas" on this tragedy.It was shown for a few months on Indian TV.

It had very wide audience. Bhisham,Sahni, Om Puri and Amrish Puri were the actors.

Seems interesting. The whole serial is online on youtube.

[Mehtab Singh]

Tamas was very strong and disturbing. Saw it as a kid a few times and found it very painful.

[GPS]

In Tamas sikhs had barricaded themselves in village Gurudwara. Amrish Puri (most probably named kehar singh) is their leader.

They send Granthi singh to talk to Muslims who have surrounded the village. Sikhs go on roof top and see granthi singh discussing

with Muslim mob.

Sikhs read Dasam bani shabad loudly while watching arguments from a distance.The shabad is

ਖਗ ਖੰਡ ਬਿਹੰਡੰ ਖਲ ਦਲ ਖੰਡੰ ਅਤਿ ਰਣ ਮੰਡੰ ਬਰ ਬੰਡੰ ॥

ਭੁਜ ਦੰਡ ਅਖੰਡੰ ਤੇਜ ਪ੍ਰਚੰਡੰ ਜੋਤਿ ਅਮੰਡੰ ਭਾਨ ਪ੍ਰਭੰ ॥

ਸੁਖ ਸੰਤਾ ਕਰਣੰ ਦੁਰਮਤਿ ਦਰਣੰ ਕਿਲਬਿਖ ਹਰਣੰ ਅਸਿ ਸਰਣੰ ॥

ਜੈ ਜੈ ਜਗ ਕਾਰਣ ਸ੍ਰਿਸਟਿ ਉਬਾਰਣ ਮਮ ਪ੍ਰਤਿਪਾਰਣ ਜੈ ਤੇਗੰ ॥

Bachitra natak

Finally they say Granthi has attained martyrdom as Muslim mob kill him. It was a very touching serial.

What an invincible spirit sikhs of those days had.

[West London Singh]

None of this partcularly healthy. Unhealthy because anything that restricts our mind and thinking capabilities rather than expanding it is detrimental to us.

The fact of the matter is that the 'other side' have even more examples than us of how their womenfolk suffered.....including mass-suicide to escape mobs of sikhs and hindus.

The fact of the matter is that 2 and half times more Punjabi Muslims were murdered in Punjab during partition than Sikhs.

Put it this way: As horrendous and brutal as partition was from our point of view we would have to go through the same thing again once more and then half of it yet again before we even reach their numbers of suffering.

Remembering suffering is good and a must......but we should remember the suffering of all humankind....even the ones that suffered from our hands.

[Jonny101]

None of this partcularly healthy. Unhealthy because anything that restricts our mind and thinking capabilities rather than expanding it is detrimental to us.

The fact of the matter is that the 'other side' have even more examples than us of how their womenfolk suffered.....including mass-suicide to escape mobs of sikhs and hindus.

The fact of the matter is that 2 and half times more Punjabi Muslims were murdered in Punjab during partition than Sikhs.

Put it this way: As horrendous and brutal as partition was from our point of view we would have to go through the same thing again once more and then half of it yet again before we even reach their numbers of suffering.

Remembering suffering is good and a must......but we should remember the suffering of all humankind....even the ones that suffered from our hands.

ਲੀਗਲ ਸਿੰਘ (ਇਲੀਗਲ ਖਾਨ), of the one million people that died in 1947, half were Muslims and about 1/4 were Hindus and 1/4 were Sikhs. From this it may seem like the Punjabi Muslims suffered the most. But in reality it is the Sikhs who suffered the most for the following reasons:

-Although 1/4 of the one million victims were Sikhs but this number meant 5% of the Sikh population died where as 3.33% Punjabi Muslims died. So Sikhs suffered more in terms of population loss.

-before partition Sikhs were 13% of the entire Punjabi population but 1/3 of the land was owned by the Sikhs. The best lands were in the canal colonies that were given off to Pakistan. Sikhs lost land which cannot be totaled by the land lost by the Muslims of east Punjab who in comparison were small land owners. When the populations were exchanged the Sikhs from west Punjab had to settle for smaller land holdings in east Punjab where as the east Punjab Muslims were given even more land than they had in east Punjab from the huge amounts of land vacated by the Sikhs of west Punjab.

-West Punjab was the birth place of Sikhi. Most of the great Gurdwaras associated with Guru Nanak Dev Jee are located there. This loss is probably the biggest one felt by the Sikhs. It is almost like Muslims being forced to leave Hejaz in Soudi Arabia or Jews being forced to leave Israel.

And as for which side women suffered the most, I would dispute your claim that the other side's women suffered more. I don't have the figures with me right now, but I remember reading not too long ago of the amount of women that were recovered from east and west Punjab. The Hindu/Sikh women were more.

[Ranjeet01]

I think we should not dwell too much on this. What we should focus on is what lessons should be learnt.