Lost Heritage - The Sikh Legacy In Pakistan

[Jonny101]

I stand corrected. Tell us more about Sodhi.

Sodhi was like Rambo and Commando combined in one. He was a skilled warrior. He was Sant Jee's most trused man almost like a younger brother. The day Sodhi died through treachery is said to be the only time Sant Jee ever became emotional. I can only imagine how many Indian army men he would have killed during operation blue star had he been alive.

[acsap]

The greatest of the greatest during our struggles in the 80's was a 'khatri' ; Surinder Singh Sodhi.

I don't like this Khatri Vs. Jatt debate, and I am not helping with my comment! Most of the Surinder's (i.e., name) in Punjab are called "Sodhi" for short. I will like to know is there is any evidence that he was from Sodhi clan, to my knowledge nobody else in his family used that last name, but I could be wrong.

[StarStriker]

Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalra found evidence of 6014 bodies that were cremated as unidentified in these areas between 1992 and 1995. I'm not sure about the 250k but would appreciate any supporting evidence. After 20 years we should have some more clarity and better evidence on how Sikhs were killed during this period.

This figure of 250k Sikhs killed was bandied around in the early 90s. with little evidence.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1WwUNltj0BQC&pg=PA6667&lpg=PA6667&dq=sikh+genocide+deaths+250k&source=bl&ots=UPmWVaG7iV&sig=1IwBZTIhSG_ZpcTg-WetVJoFn2Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ6AEwA2oVChMIg8fQh8GGyAIVFBjbCh2xxQfP#v=onepage&q&f=false

These figures come from Inderjit Singh Jaije (activist, the President of the Dalit Front and Movement Against State Repression) , who spent 30 years collecting data on sikhs killed.

Remember the killngs are of

- 1977-1983 killings of sikhs

- operation bluestar (june)

- indira assassination killngs (oct/nov)

- operation shudi karan

- operation woodrose

- operation metal

- kharkoos

- 90-95 etc

[JagsawSingh]

I don't like this Khatri Vs. Jatt debate, and I am not helping with my comment! Most of the Surinder's (i.e., name) in Punjab are called "Sodhi" for short. I will like to know is there is any evidence that he was from Sodhi clan, to my knowledge nobody else in his family used that last name, but I could be wrong.

I always thought he was khatri because he used the last name Sodhi. Its only natural I should think that, as I'm sure if you met someone with the last name Tagliattori you would naturally think he was Italian. But, you may be right and I may be wrong because after reading your message I read what 1984 tribute.com had to say about his life story and it according to them he's from a non-khatri village background. The website doesn't say what background but the fact that his village is in the Hoshiarpur district of Doaba we can probably narrow it down to either Jatt or Saini, as those 2 groups are the landowners there in equal measures.

[mrggg123]

As many of you have said, the Sikh partition story in popular culture is mainly a Pothohar dominated theme. This could be because being a business class they were educated and wrote books about it. Another reason could be that they suffered particularly brutal violence at the hands of the Muslim pothoharis. Still today when you read and hear of what went on in Rawalpindi division, it sends chills down your spine. They were under siege, fought bravely. Many times when it seemed to be all lost, their women jumped into wells to save their honour and their men fought to the last man. This is something one only hears about in history when reading about Chittor in Rajasthan where Rajputs fought against Muslim invaders after their women did jahaur. Pothohar was the epicenter of where all the partition violence started. It was like a testing ground for Muslims. Unfortunately Sikhs in central Punjab did not retaliate right then as they should have and this encouraged Muslims to carry out this violence in rest of west Punjab.

Same thing happened in 84. The Sikh genocide or the anti Sikh violence which happened after Indira Gandhi died was mainly directed against Delhi's Khatri Sikh community. Although other Sikhs suffered too, but who can deny the brutality of what happened in Delhi. So 84 genocide like 47 violence is seen through the eyes of Khatri Sikhs because in both cases they suffered greatly.

whats scary is these pothari muslims of 47 children live with us here in the uk.

[proactive]

whats scary is these pothari muslims of 47 children live with us here in the uk.

What's there to be scared off? The children of those who avenged the killings of the Sikhs of Pothohar are also here in the UK.

[Ranjeet01]

Why is the Potohar used as the testing ground. That particular region with the adjacent Jammu area (Mirpur) seem to be the most virulently anti-sikh areas.

What is the dynamic at play here compared to other areas in West Punjab?

Could it be that since the majority of Sikhs in these areas being more mercantile that they were seen as a soft target?

[StarStriker]

What's there to be scared off? The children of those who avenged the killings of the Sikhs of Pothohar are also here in the UK.

Haa, bingo! I was gona say that! Remember it was the doaba sikhs, from my understanding, that did A LOT of the killings of muslims in e.panjab, n most of the sikhs in uk, r from jalandhar/nawashaher/hoshiarpur etc.

[JagsawSingh]

Haa, bingo! I was gona say that! Remember it was the doaba sikhs, from my understanding, that did A LOT of the killings of muslims in e.panjab, n most of the sikhs in uk, r from jalandhar/nawashaher/hoshiarpur etc.

Yeah the doaba Sikhs were pretty much reponsible for most of the killings. In fact they (my family included) were prolific. Put it this way, 2 and half times more Muslims were killed during the partition of Punjab than Sikhs and Hindus and it was the doaba Sikhs, especially around district Jalandhar (which was at that time majority Muslim) that went into murder overdrive. In the context of this thread, these are facts that the wider community are not made aware of because the authors of books about partition have always been from the urban khatri stock and they have ensured the story of the 'Sikh' during partition is always seen from the prospective of the passive urban 'businessman' who is perpetually the victim. They've ensured that is the defining version of what happened to all Sikhs at that time. The fact that for a large portion of rural Doaba and Malwa Sikhs partition was a purely a time of being the frenzied killer and not the victim is not a story that has ever been allowed to be told. In this respect, this new book is just a continuation of that. The fact that the Sikh zamindars of Lyallpur and Montgomery practically owned agricultural land the size of small countries is irrelevent to the author. Thats why he misses it out of his book completely. Let us not forget that those powerfull men were veterans of the Army and the British made it crystal clear n official policy back then that the background the author belongs to was not allowed to settle in that land. Thats why the author feels no affinity for those places that most of us here in the west mostly associate with our Sikh legacy in Pakistan. Thats why he completely ignores it in his book. Thats why, for the wider world, this is a good book but for we Sikhs it is an incomplete and flawed book.

[proactive]

Why is the Potohar used as the testing ground. That particular region with the adjacent Jammu area (Mirpur) seem to be the most virulently anti-sikh areas.

What is the dynamic at play here compared to other areas in West Punjab?

Could it be that since the majority of Sikhs in these areas being more mercantile that they were seen as a soft target?

The March 1947 violence which was prelude to the partition violence initially started in the urban areas such as Lahore, Amritsar, Multan and Rawalpindi. In Rawalpindi the Sikhs were about 18% of the city population compared to 33% Hindu and 44% Muslim. So here they were able to defend themselves. The Sikhs of Rawalpindi consisted of both small traders as well as big industrialists. Some were military contractors and hence had access to arms and along with the Hindus kept the Muslim mobs that attacked the city at bay and by all accounts the Muslims got the worst of it. These Muslims mobs then moved on to find easier targets and that was when they attacked the small Sikh villages in the rural areas which had no way to defend themselves.