Som Anand, 69. He works as a journalist in Delhi and is the author of, Lahore: Portrait of a Lost City.

 

We lived in Model Town, an upper middle class locality, comprising mostly Hindus and Sikhs. It was a Sunday. A friend of my father, Mr B.P.L. Bedi (father of the
internationally-known actor Kabir Bedi), who was a famous Communist leader in Lahore called upon us and said to my father “Lalaji I need some money”. My father, who was a banker, replied, “Bediji today is Sunday, the banks are closed.” But he insisted that since hehad the keys they could go and fetch the money. My father agreed and they went away.
A relative of ours was staying with us at that time. He was about four-five years older than me. We decided to call upon an acquaintance. During our absence, some Afridi Pathans raided our house. Some ten, twelve of them came to our house. Just at that moment, our Muslim neighbour, Maulvi Sahib, who was a supporter of the Congress Party, arrived. Our families shared the same porch at the entry. When he saw the Pathans he came over and admonished them, telling them to fear the wrath of God for their misdeeds. Instead they became angry and shouted at him for defending Hindus. In the commotion an elderly Sikh gentleman Kartar Singh, who lived right opposite our house, came towards our house to find out what the matter was. His whole family had left and he was waiting for a truck that would transport his buffalo away. When the Pathans saw him they shot him dead. They people heard them regret that they had to waste a bullet; a stab with a knife would have done the job cheaply. My father stayed on in Lahore in spite of all the killings. He had actually married a Muslim woman. He was a managing director of a bank and the Pakistan government needed his services. When he died in 1957, I came over from India to attend the cremation ceremony. A Brahmin who continued to live in Lahore and was a government employee performed the funeral rites.

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Jamna Das Akhtar, 83. He is a veteran journalist who started his professional career in Lahore. He lives in Delhi.

I am originally from Rawalpindi. We are known as the Hussaini Brahmins. Hussaini Brahmins were once to be found in many places in the Rawalpindi division. Our elders believed that one of our ancestor Sidhu Dutt and his seven sons died fighting on the side of Imam Hussain at Karbala.
I worked in Lahore for several newspapers including Milap, Bande Matram, Kranti and others. When the communal riots started, extremists from both sides took part in the killing and looting of innocent people. When the situation worsened, I brought my family over to Delhi. It was in July. I was hoping to return to Lahore but could not. In Delhi I became active with an organisation, which went around recovering Muslim girls abducted by Hindu and Sikh criminals. In 1948 I could visit Pakistan again. My friend Shorish Kashmiri and others assured me that violence had subsided. I was given full cooperation and help by the authorities to trace out and recover Hindu and Sikh girls captured by the Muslims.
What happened in Lahore and in Punjab in 1947 baffles me even now. It must be some temporary insanity that caught in its grip all the communities.

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Nanak Singh Broca, 90. He was owner of the first film studio in Lahore. He now lives in Bombay.

 

The troubles in Lahore never worried me because my conscience was clean and my heart pure, but after 14 August we could not remain in Lahore.
My father was a revenue officer in the Punjab government. He served in several places, including the State of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1914 he retired and we came and settled in Lahore. I was then five years old. Our house was on Railway Road near Amritdhara. One day, in 1915, he said to me: ‘You are always so inquisitive. Your brothers are going to see a movie film. If you want you can accompany them.’ We went to a cinema on Mcleod Road. Thus began my fascination for films.
I established a film distribution company by the name of Upper India Film Distribution Company and also a film studio near the Shalimar Gardens. The recordist I employed was a Muslim. The famous Muslim actor Najmul Hassan and I became partners in business. One never felt threatened or unsafe at any time. On the contrary Lahore was a very friendly city. The troubles in Lahore started after Master Tara Singh’s provocating behaviour in early March 1947. One day Najmul Hassan proposed that we make a film on an intercommunal love affair. I said to him, this might lead to riots. He replied: ‘Broca Sahab, this is the time to tell the people that we are one. We are from the same ethnic stock. Our ancestors were Hindus. So what if we have adopted the Islamic and Sikh faiths.’ Such sentiments and the very good behaviour of my Muslim neighbours dissuaded me from leaving Lahore.
My younger brother had qualified as a doctor in 1947. He was posted in a hospital near Murree hills in the Rawalpindi area. I had gone there with my wife and children to visit him. My wife was ill and needed medical attention. It was the 14th of August. A ceremony tocelebrate the independence of Pakistan was going on in the hills below. A man came running to us and said: ‘They want you to come down and join the celebrations.’ I took part in the flag-raising cermony. When I returned my brother had just come back from Rawalpindi. He was very worried. He said ‘Good you have come back safely. Hindus and Sikhs are being attacked everywhere’. We left for India via Kashmir on 25th August. Thus terminated my stay in independent Pakistan.

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Rattan Chand, 79. Mr Chand learnt the art of photography from a Muslim and established himself as a photographer in Lahore in the early 1940s. He retired as the president of the Delhi Association of Photographers. He lives in Daryaganj, old Delhi.

I was born in 1920 in a village in Gurdaspur district in a family of Sahukars (moneylenders). We had considerable property. Ours was the only house that was pukka (made of bricks) in our village. My grandfather also headed the local post-office. He was the only literate person in the area and people sought his help in reading letters and in official matters. The traditional structure of Punjab was such that Muslims and Sikhs were engaged mainly in agriculture. Hindus ran shops in villages and were also dominant in urban trade and commerce. Hindus saw to it that their boys received modern education. Muslims did not take to education.
In 1937-38 Sir Choutu Ram, who was a minister in Sir Sikander Hayat’s cabinet, passed a law, which abolished the system of private moneylending. Instead the government opened banks that began to offer loans to the agriculturists. This was the beginning of the Hindu-Muslim tension. This measure hit the sahukars very hard and many were ruined. Caste boundaries and communal tensions began to emerge as the traditional Muslim-Hindu economic structure collapsed. We started running a merchandise shop but then in the late 1930s I moved to Lahore and started living in the Bhati Gate area. Initially I worked in a textile factory in Shahalmi Gate. Later I learnt the art of photography. My ustad (teacher) was a Muslim. In the early 1940s I opened a photography shop near the shrine of Data Ganj Baksh. It flourished very well.....
By the beginning of 1947 communal tensions began to rise in Lahore. Actually when the Khaksars started parading the streets of Lahore in the early 1940s the Hindus organized themselves in the RSS and would march in Hindu localities. Not until March 1947 did things get serious though. When my eldest daughter Vijay Kumari was born on 25 May (1947), Lahore was under curfew. Some people warned me that it was unsafe to live in a Muslim area, but I did not believe that things would get so bad that our lives could be in jeopardy. As a precaution, we moved to a house next to our shop. By this time communal violence was taking place everywhere in Lahore. Hindus began to feel unsafe and many of us started moving eastwards, but the general idea prevalent in our circles was that whereas Gurdaspur will be given to Pakistan, Lahore would be awarded to India.
By July 1947 communal attacks became more frequent. In early August hell broke out all around us. Hindus and Sikhs living around the railway station were attacked by bloodthirsty mobs. Many of us took refuge in a Hindu hostel. I don’t remember its name now, but proved an easy target. Some 50 of us men, women and children therefore sought refuge in the nearby Naulakha Church. However, we left our possessions in a cellar of the hostel. The priest, who was a convert from Hinduism and bore a Hindu name, gave us all the protection sharing with us the meagre food at his disposal. He contacted the authorities and used his influence to procure help. A military truck manned by Gurkha troops arrived which took us to a safe place in the Lahore cantonment.
During this period a Sikh woman, whose husband had been killed some days earlier and who had lost her child, became very friendly with my wife and me. She always carried my baby daughter in her lap. We both felt very sorry for her. She pleaded with me to go back to the cellar in the hostel and fetch her belongings. I also wanted to bring over our own trunk. On 15 August I came back to the hostel, but everything had been looted. Worst still, suddenly I found myself surrounded by a crowd. They wanted to kill me. The local butchers were among them. They were waving their knives in the air. I ran for my life. They followed me. I felt that death was imminent. Suddenly I found myself in front of a police station. I jumped over its low wall. In the compound a British police officer was sitting on a chair. Around him stood some of his staff. All were Muslims. I threw myself at the feet of the Britisher and implored him to save my life. He remained unmoved and did nothing. I now pleaded with the other police officials to save my life. They scolded me, calling me bad names and hit me with their rifle butts. They said that nobody would kill me and therefore I need not make such a fuss. Outside the wall of the police station stood the crowd. I sensed that a violent and painful death would be my lot any moment, and made one more effort to escape. I ran out of the police station in a direction,
which seemed unguarded. The crowd followed in hot pursuit. I felt that my end had come. There is nothing that can be compared to the fear of death. I was now running in the middle of the road. Suddenly a fire brigade truck with Sikh staff appeared from somewhere. I cast myself on the ground in front of it. The crowd quickly dispersed when they saw the Sikhs in uniform. The Sikhs took me safely back to the cantonment where I was reunited with my family.
We crossed over to India on 16 August. We had to go through many hardships. We had lost everything. There was nowhere to turn to. Eventually I arrived in Delhi. Here I began to work in a photography shop owned by a Muslim. Mr Ahmed Hassan, the owner, decided to emigrate to Pakistan in 1948. I have once again prospered through the dint of hard work. I became the President of the Delhi Photographers Association. Some years ago I retired.
I still recall my Lahore days. All the communities lived in peace and concord. I still have Muslim friends in Lahore and Karachi. Some of them have visited me. They have invited me to the weddings of their children, but the fear acquired when the mob was out to kill me has traumatised me forever. I would like to go back and see Lahore, but probably will never dare do so.

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Pran Nevile, 75. He began his career as journalist, then joined the Indian ForeignService and later worked for the UNCTAD. He is author of, Lahore: A Sentimental Journey. He lives in Delhi.

I was born in Mohalla Molayan, Sutar Mandi inside Lohari Gate. It was a mixed area. We lived in a Hindu mohalla. Next to us was a Muslim mohalla. There was a woman, Mehtab Bibi, who used to sew ladies’ clothes. My mother and my sisters had their clothes sewn by her. At that time, Hindus and Muslims did not eat together, but my father had many Muslim friends and the men would meet together to discuss, drink and make merry. The womenfolk followed the orthodox codes and restrictions more strictly. During marriage and other
cermonies the Muslims would send fruit to our homes but not cooked food or sweets. On the other hand, Muslims would eat at our place. These rules were accepted as given and normally did not result in resentment or tension.
On the other hand, Muslim fruit-sellers, milkmen, vegetable sellers and so on supplied most of the daily needs in the Hindu localities. When Muslim women entered a Hindu locality they would lift the veil as a matter of course. Everyone knew how to conduct himself/herself in such situations. The inner city of Lahore was indeed a paragon of communal amity and understanding. Later we moved to Nisbet Road. I studied in the D.A.V. School and then at the famous Goverment College. Government College was truly a centre of cultural freedom and free mixing among the communities. Its intellectual spirit was cosmopolitan. Hindus were in a majority, but the number of Muslims had gradually been increasing. Muslims were the landed gentry of Punjab and for a long time they were not keen on education. The Hindus took to education much earlier. Later the British began to reserve seats for Muslims. This began in the 1920s and gradually more Muslims were admitted to the medical and engineering colleges and they entered the services.
After the Pakistan Resolution of March 1940, Muslim students from UP began to come to Punjab. They started to poison the atmosphere in Lahore, but until 1946 things remained calm. The UP Muslims felt that if a Muslim homeland was created they will be the ruling class. They did not think that Punjabi Muslims would be any match for them. The Calcutta Killings and the riots in Bihar added fuel to the fire.Among the Hindus and Sikhs there was a fear that Lahore could go to Pakistan because in the district as a whole Muslims were in a majority. In the city proper, Hindus and Sikhs were in a majority. There were only two buildings on the Mall, which belonged to the Muslims; Shah Din Building and Ghulam Rasool Building. The latter was in fact under mortgage to some Hindu. Hindus and Sikhs owned the rest. In Anarkali also it was mainly Hindus and Sikhs who owned the shops and businesses.
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I had joined service in Delhi in 1946, but my parents were in Lahore when the riots started. One day in June, my father was coming back on a tonga (horse-driven carriage) from a visit to Mughalpura. A Muslim mob recognised that he was a Hindu from the way he wore his turban. They were about to attack him when one of them, to whom my father had once done some favour, stopped the others. In fact he accompanied him all the way to Beadon Road, where it was safe. Although my immediate family members could leave Lahore safely, many of my schoolteachers and professors were killed.
My father was in the postal department. He actually opted for Pakistan. When things became really bad his Muslim friends persuaded him to leave Lahore for the time being and return when law and order had been restored. On 14 August he boarded the train for Amritsar. His friends accompanied him to the railway station and found him and my mother seats in a compartment where many Europeans were sitting. They arrived in Amritsar safely, but for some three weeks we did not know anything about their whereabouts. My father could never recover from the shock of leaving Lahore. He was posted in Ambala Cantonment, where he died in 1954 a heart-broken man at the age of 58.
Jinnah was not basically communal. None of the leaders expected riots of such a magnitude to take place.

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Dr Jagdish Chander Sarin, 79. Interviewed on 24 October at his residence in Delhi. Dr Sarin was educated at the King Edward Medical College, Lahore and started his career in a Lahore hospital. He resigned as Reader in Pathology from Medical College, Jaipur in 1960. He lives in Delhi.

I was born in Hoshiarpur, but we shifted to Lahore in 1933 when I was in the fifth class. I was educated in the D.A.V. School and later College and then at the King Edward Medical College from where I graduated in 1944. I became a house surgeon in Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. After one year I became a demonstrator in pathology in the Balk Ram Medical College, which is now known as the Fatima Jinnah Medical College. Bilqis Fatima who became the first principal of that college was one year senior to me. I have some friends from
those times who have kept the contact. One of my class fellows Zia ur Rahman visits me sometimes from Islamabad. He has relatives in India. Mohammad Hussain Bokhari, who was an adviser to the health ministry in the government of Pakistan, once came to India and we met.

We lived in Mozang, near the tonga-stand close to the high court. Our landlord was a Muslim. We used to go to his place and eat there and he would visit us and eat with us. The women in his family never observed purdah from us children. The Khaksars used to come to our locality and do their military parade. They never bothered us. But many Muslims and Hindus were afraid of them because of their militant style and behaviour. In my college days I had many Muslim friends. After living in Mozang for some time, we moved to Gowalmandi in an area called Ganda Engine. From there we shifted to Chamberlain Road. Later we moved to Montgomery Park, which was behind Nishat Cinema. Not until the last days before I moved to eastern Punjab did it ever occur to me that we will have to leave Lahore. First came Master Tara Singh’s outburst. Then a few days later followed the attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the villages around Rawalpindi and Jhelum. I volunteered along with two other doctors to go to the camps where the victims had been brought. I stayed a complete month. At least ten thousand people were staying in the camp where I was located. I saw many maimed people. In some cases the mutilation had been carried out with exceptional barbarity. Even I, a doctor, was shocked. The assailants had chopped off the breasts of women and raped them many times. The men had also been subjected to bestial acts of disfiguring. Some children, even babies, had been pierced with sharp spear-like things after their bodies had been flung in the air. When I talked to some of the survivors they said that the Muslim hordes had been indoctrinated by people who had come from UP and Bihar. The demobilised Muslim servicemen who had returned after serving at various fronts in the Second World War seemed to had planned the whole operation. After that tension rose gradually in the whole of Punjab.

On 21 June fire was set to the Hindu area of Papar Mandi in Lahore. After that Machi Hata and then Shahalmi were put on fire. There was a magistrate Cheema who personally directed the attacks on the non-Muslims. He would not allow the fire-brigade people to do their duty and if Hindus and Sikhs tried to flee from the place they were sent back. During those days when I used to go to work from my house, taking the route from Montgomery Park to the Plaza Cinema and then to the Medical College, one heard daily that someone had been killed or seriously injured. Some seven to eight people were being put to death daily. If one day, seven Hindus were killed then next day seven or eight Muslims were reported dead. In our own area, to the best of my knowledge, the local Muslims did not attack us. One day two badly burnt persons arrived in the hospital. They were most likely RSS cadres who had been trying to make a bomb. It had exploded and caused them severe injuries. One day in June a friend of mine came and told me that the Hindu locality of Mohalla Sareen in the walled city had been attacked the previous night and seventeen young men had been killed. They had no weapon to defend themselves. A doctor was needed to help the wounded. I offered to go and help those people. I went to the head-office of the Sarswati Insurance Company owned by the leading Hindu Mahasabha leader, Sir Gokal Chand Narang. It was also the headquarters of the Lahore Relief Society, which was actually a cover name for the Hindu militants. There we got the basic equipment for first-aid and also a 303 rifle and some cartridges. I had never used any weapon before and got very scared of the idea of carrying it. A Mahrashtrian who had played a part in the socialist movement in the 1940s gave me bottles of ammonia and bromine capsules. He told me that if you are attacked and want to disperse the crowd you should throw them on the ground. Fumes will come up and the crowd will disperse. We conceled the rifle in a stretcher and other such things in bundles of cotton and drove to the Mohalla Sareen in Sir Gokal’s big Buick car. He was the leading Hindu leader of Lahore. We entered Shahalmi Gate, then Rang Mahal. Many people were assembled there. They were shouting, ‘Don’t go further. A fire is raging ahead.’ We kept going, however, and entered Kashmiri Bazar. We parked the car in front of Mohalla Sareen. We went in, stayed for some time, gave them the things we had taken with us and then left via Shahi Mohalla. What we learnt was that Muslim boys had been trying to enter the mohalla through a narrow gate with the intention of setting that locality on fire while the Hindu boys inside had been trying to stop them with the help of sticks and stones. Both sides seemed not to possess any other weapons. The next day seven members of the Lahore Relief Society, which were actually the RSS, went there to given them bullets. They were arrested by the police and later tortured. Afterwards the great fires in the walled city began and whole Hindu areas were burnt down. This continued unabated, but it was still by no means certain that Lahore will go to Pakistan. One day I said to Dr Gopi Chand Bhargava, who was a Congress leader, ‘Dr Sahib 45 you should leave Lahore. There is a danger to your life here’. He replied ‘ No I am a follower of Gandhi. If someone comes and kills me I shall die quietly.’ Another person, Mohan Lal, said jokingly ‘Dr Sahib everybody is selling his property. Have you any to sell. I will buy it.’ Actually the Hindu leaders of Lahore were very confident that Lahore would remain a part of India. Dr Gopi Chand Bhargava was convinced that Lahore would never go to Pakistan. The population of Lahore was more or less evenly balanced between Muslims and non-Muslims. Perhaps the Muslims were in a slight majority. I left Lahore on the 9th or 10th of July for Jullandhar because some friends had warned us that our house would be attacked. They told me to come back when normality was restored. The rest of my family members had gone already.

It was many weeks later that we could trace out each other. I actually started my return journey for Lahore on 11 August because on the 12th, I had to report at work. However, on the way I met fleeing Hindus and Sikhs in the thousands. It became clear to me that returning to Lahore was out of the question. I therefore gave up. An uncle and a cousin of mine were stabbed and taken to Mayo Hospital. They mentioned my name to a colleague of mine, Dr Muhammad Nazir, who was on duty. He looked after them as if they were his own uncle and cousin.

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Ram Parkash Kapur, 75. Interviewed on 20 October 1999 at his residence in Delhi. Mr Kapur comes from an affluent upper class family of publishers and entrepreneurs of Lahore. He is a publisher and an industrialist and lives in Delhi.

 

I was born in 1924 in a very well known family of textbook publishers of Lahore. The name of our firm was Attar Chand Kapur and Sons. My great grandfather founded it. After my grandfather died in 1925 my father, Lala Ram Jawaya Kapur, and his brothers took over the business. We had a very big printing press behind Nishat Cinema, which we also owned. The press was built in 1927 and the cinema in 1928. My father worked indefatigably day and night and he brought the firm on the same level and standard as British publishers. He was a great friend of the governor of Punjab. In 1927 he was nominated as municipal commissioner of Lahore. He was so close to the British that the governor would call him and seek advice on which Hindu to nominate as a minister. At that time, elections had not been introduced. My father had very good relations with Muslim leaders. Sir Sikandar Hayat, Sir Abdul Qadir, Sir Shahabuddin, Mumtaz Daultana and so many others used to often visit our house. Feroz Khan Noon, Nawab Mamdot and Shaukat Hayat, were very close friends of his. Not only at the elite level but also on the popular level there was no tension between Hindus and Muslims.
In the morning of 14th August 1947, Shaukat Hayat and Nawab Mamdot came to my father. Shaukat was a minister and Mamdot chief minister of the new Muslim League government in Punjab. They told my father not to leave Lahore. He was to stay in Pakistan and continue his business and maintain business relations with India. They were to provide him full protection. When my father heard that the leaders of the new Pakistan would give him complete protection he decided not to leave. We had a house on 10 Edgerton Road. It was built on two and half acres of land. We had a very successful and established business in Lahore. So, he saw no reason to leave and go to India.But after the 16th of August commmunal frenzy flared up in Lahore, especially in the inner city. In our own area, nothing untoward happened until then. My father was an honorary magistrate. The British deputy commissioner Mr William asked me to inspect the situation in the trouble spots, so he left on such a round. At that time there was a city magistrate, Mr Cheema. He said to my father: ‘What business do you have to come here? Now that Pakistan has been created, I am in charge.’ My father replied: ‘No, I have been instructed by the deputy commissioner to come and look at the situation. If he says, then I will not come again.’ Now, this man Cheema was rabidly anti-Hindu. He somehow managed to dissuade Mr William and next day my father received a phone-call from the deputy commissioner to the effect that he should not go on any such round any more, because his life was in danger. My father rang up Mamdot and explained the whole situation. He replied that there was nothing to worry. There was no danger to his life.

In the meantime, riots in eastern Punjab broke out on a big scale. Actually in western Punjab riots had begun already after 3 March. My feeling is that the people had been incited to believe that an Islamic state was going to be created in Pakistan, and therefore non- Muslims had to be expelled from such a state. Otherwise a proper Islamic state could not be established. When the Muslim leaders gave the call ‘Islam is in danger’ the people got carried away. In any case, we stayed on some more days in Lahore. On 5 September Mamdot and Shaukat Hayat again visited my father. They expressed great regret that things had gone out of control and they could not protect us anymore. My father said: ‘How can I leave now. Until the 14th of August I could get help from others who were leaving. Now, I have no truck or anything else to carry my belongings.’ They said: ‘Your business asssets will have to remain in Pakistan. However, your personal belongings and household articles can go along with you. We will arrange the transport for you and also proper police protection so that you can cross the border into India safely.’

They gave three trucks to us. We knew somebody in the army. He promised to lend us another one or two trucks. Our family and my uncles’ families left our Egerton Road House on 7 September. When were driving through Baghbanpura on our way towards the border, a
police inspector stopped us. He said: ‘You cannot carry so many things with you. All this is now the property of Pakistan. Leave everything here’. However, Mamdot had ordered a police superintendent to help us cross the border safely and with our belongings. He asked the police inspector: ‘Why have you stopped these people. The chief minister has ordered that they can go to India with their belongings.’ The inspector retorted: ‘Who are you? All these things belong to the people of Pakistan.’ The SP tried to explain to the inspector that he was implementing the decision of the chief minister and if he obstructed him, he had the authority to suspend him. The inspector remained defiant. Finally, the SP ordered him to take off his belt and badge and hand it over to him. The SP now came to our car and said: ‘When you cross over from Pakistan to India, please unload the government trucks and send them back.’
Government Official Yuvraj Krishan, 79. Interviewed on 21 October at the India International Centre. Retired as Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General of India. He is an author of many works. His most recent publications include ‘The Doctrine of Karma’, 1997 and Ganesa: Unravelling of an Enigma, 1999. He lives in Delhi.

I was born in Lahore in 1922. We lived in Dhobi Mandi in the old Anarkali area. The locality where we lived had a Hindu majority, but next to us was a Muslim majority area. I did my M.A. in history in 1943 and sat in the central services exam in 1944. I was selected and joined the Railway Accounts Service in 1944 as an accounts officer at the Railway Headquarters in Lahore.

Although differences did exist between the communities and from time to time one heard of some communal tension, most of the time things were peaceful. I had several Muslim friends. Trouble in Lahore started with Master Tara Singh’s speech on 3 March at Kuri (Girls’) Bagh near Purani Anarkali, nearby our house. Before the real massacres and burnings started in May, communal animosity began to be expressed in terms of belligerent communal slogans at night from the rooftops. The Muslims would shout ‘Nahra-e-Takbir, Allah o Akbar’. This was followed by screams of ‘Har, Har Mahdev’ by the Hindus and ‘Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal’ by the Sikhs. Each chorus dragged on only to be followed by the other side prolonging its menacing recitation of the religious call to arms. All this generated deep fear and insecurity. When the attacks started on a more organised basis, Hindus and Sikhs were attacked in those areas where they were in a minority and Hindu-Sikh gangs attacked Muslims where the latter were in a minority.

The police in Lahore was overwhelmingly Muslim. It played a very partisan role during that period. We lost confidence in the state machinery. If a Hindu or Sikh went to the police station to ask for help it was denied in practice if not formally. By early August many Hindus and Sikhs had left for the eastern part, perhaps not with the intention of going away forever. It must be pointed out that the political leaders of all parties, including Jinnah, had assured the minorities that they need not leave, but since the division of the country also envisaged that the services will be divided, the administration had been split notionally and no longer owed allegiance to a unified state. Thus the officials and functionaries began openly to favour their own co-religionists. The Hindus and Sikhs in Lahore felt that they had no protection against the criminal elements of the Muslim community.

In 1949 I published an article in which I presented a thesis explaining the riots and forced migration. It is the following. One should distinguish between communal riots and forced migration as two interconnected but separate phenomena. As long as the services were composite and each functionary followed the rules, law and order could be maintained in an impartial manner. The trouble started when the option was given to the functionaries of the central government and of the provincial governments of Punjab and Bengal to choose between joining either India or Pakistan. It made those functionaries biased and partisan.
Forced migration became inevitable when the law and order machinery, instead of simply ignoring appeals for help, became actively involved in systematic attacks to drive people of the other communities out. I think that administrative and police functionaries bear the greatest responsibility for the communal killings.

My father had left for Kulu when the troubles started. My elder brother, a cousin of mine, and I lived together in our Dhobi Mandi house On the night of 27 May the Muslims set fire to Papar Mandi, a Hindu locality in the walled city. When the Hindus tried to come out the police ordered them back since there was curfew at that time. At two o’clock in the night we could see from the roof of our house flames leaping from the direction of the old city. All this deeply discouraged and frightened us.

By 1947 further recruitment to the ICS had been stopped. On the eve of independence the government of India decided to establish an all India administrative service. In July the first exams to it were held and I decided to compete for it. My examination centre was located in Islamia College Railway Road, but I was too frightened to go there because of the communal killings. My brother was a journalist at the Civil and Military Gazette. He wrote to Sardar Patel, requesting him to change my exam centre. Surprisingly Sardar Patel took notice of his letter and it was shifted to Government College, which was safe.

I had decided to opt for India as I had the forebodings that non-Muslims will not be safe in Pakistan. One day in July a senior colleague of mine, Mr Mushtaq Ahmed, who belonged to a famous Muslim family of Allahbad and who eventually the Auditor General of Pakistan, met me in the corridors of the Railway Headquarters. He tried to persuade me to opt for Pakistan but I told him that I don’t want to be butchered. Mr Ahmed did not mind what I said. Rather he talked to my chief, a South Indian Christian Mr C.T. Venngopal, urging him to convince me to change my mind and continue in Pakistan. He even promised to have me promoted but I felt that Hindus would be in grave danger in Pakistan.

Since I had opted for India, I was required to leave for Jullandhar and take charge of the office there on 14 August. The Radcliffe Award had not been announced yet, but the notional boundary had become the effective line of demarcation between western and eastern
Punjab. It was felt that Lahore will go to Pakistan but the exact boundary line was a subject of confusion. However, most of us knew which areas were Muslim majority areas and which were Hindu-Sikh majority areas. Jullandhar we knew will come to India. Also, Amritsar was going to go to India. The non-Muslim leaders, especially the Sikhs, however, were hoping to win Lahore on the basis of “other factors”.

On 13 August I reached Lahore railway station at 6 pm, just before the curfew commenced, to catch the train to Jullandhar. At that time the curfew began at 6 in the evening. Our train was to leave at 8.30 pm. My boss, the south Indian Christian, accompanied me. He was entitled to travel in a separate saloon and wanted me to accompany him. The train however got delayed. An hour later, at 9.30 the saloon carriage arrived, although the train, which was to take us, had not arrived yet. My chaprasi (orderly), a Hindu who was an ex-army man was also with us. He told me that we should not sit in the saloon because it was dangerous to be alone. The fellows who had brought the saloon carriage pulled it back into the yard when they realised that we did not intend to occupy it. I think this saved us. Murders at the railway station before 14 August did not take place on the main platforms, but in the various yards and sidings where the railway carriages were stabled.

I remember that while we were waiting a trainload of Muslim refugees arrived from Amritsar. Most of them were women. Many were carrying children in their arms. My guess is that the men had been killed but the womenfolk spared. It is fifty-two years now and my memory perhaps betrays me but what I remember distinctly from that evening of 13 August are the horror-struck faces of those women. I realised that more retaliatory violence will now follow in Lahore as the reports of the various riots and attacks reach different parts of western Punjab.
A train finally left late in the night. I arrived in Jullandhar city early in the morning of the 14th. There I saw the brutal killings of Muslims. Three Sikhs cut down an old man carrying all his belongings on his head. Some Muslims belonging to nearby villages tried to
enter the Jullandhar cantt. station by force. Three Indian soldiers shot them down. One more terrible memory haunts me to this day. After a brief stay in Jullandar I came to Delhi, where I was staying at the Railway officers retiring room on top of the old Delhi railway station. I remember an old Muslim with a flowing white beard and a young man with a black beard were waiting on the station, probably with the intention of migrating to Pakistan. Both were attacked. The old man began to bleed profusively from the stabs he had received. There was a police station on the railway premises itself. Instead of helping him the police let him bleed.
After some time a military truck came. Dead bodies were heaped on it. They put both the old man and the young Muslim on it even though they were still alive. What happened to them, one can only guess.

There are always pleasant exceptions to main trends and propensities, however. For example, a relative of mine had retired from the railways as a junior officer in August only a few days before the actual division took place. He could not, therefore, collect his provident fund nor get his dues, because he had fled from Lahore. I wrote to the Muslim accounts officer, who had worked as a superintendent under me. He went out of the way to help, and the government of Pakistan paid the provident fund to him, even though the official policy was not to release the provident fund and other dues to non-Muslims employees.

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Dr Ramanand Sagar, 82. Interviewed on 25 October at the India International Centre, New Delhi. He began his career as a journalist and later became the editor of the pro-Congress Urdu/Hindi newspaper, Milap, published from Lahore. He is one of the leading filmmaker and storywriter in Bombay. His television serial, Ramayana, followed by serials on similar Hindu religious and cultural themes have been a great success. He lives in Bombay.

 

I was born on 29 December 1917 in Asal-Guru-Ke, a small village on the outskirts of Lahore. My father had business interests in Kashmir, but I grew up with my grandparents who lived in Cha Pichwara off Lytton Road, Mozang, Lahore. My childhood was spent in Mozang. In those times, children from all communities played together and the elders were respectful to each other’s beliefs and traditions. As a youngster, I would sometimes go to the mosque along with my Muslim friends and join them in their prayers. I can’t recall any tension between the different families in our locality.

Later we moved to a house on Nisbet Road. I studied in the D.A.V. High School, Lahore, Shri Pratap College, Srinagar and Punjab University and began my career as a journalist in 1938. Our policy was to promote communal amity and humanistic values and to advance the nationalist cause. In those days, the nationalist movement was in full swing. After the Muslim League gave the call for a separate Muslim state in its Lahore secession of March 1940, some communal tension could be sensed in the otherwise very harmonious atmosphere of Lahore, but at that time nobody could imagine that Hindus will have to abandon Lahore.
Despite the changing political situation of Lahore, the artistic and literary activities of that city continued to flourish. The latter benign influence could be noticed in the budding film industry there. I had started writing scripts for films. In 1944, W. Z. Ahmed invited me to Poona to participate in a team of writers, which was to produce quality films. I stayed there for two years, but in 1946 when communal tension began to worsen in Lahore, I had to return
for the sake of my family. At that time my son Prem had just been born (29th March 1946). In early March 1947 communal riots broke out in Lahore when Hindu-Sikh students clashed with their Muslim counterparts. Suddenly nobody felt secure. We Hindus, however, were convinced that Lahore will remain a part of India. There was so much material and cultural contribution of the Hindus and Sikhs to the development of Lahore that it never occurred to us that one day it will be taken away from us. The all-India as well as the Lahore-level Congress leadership told us not to vacate Lahore. It was widely believed that Lahore would be given to India. However, violent attacks against Hindus and Sikhs became a daily occurrence.
Many Hindus and Sikhs who had relatives in eastern Punjab or elsewhere in India began to move their families to safety.

We had to flee Lahore in July when things went from bad to worse. We did not cross into India from Wagah, but took another route. We travelled to Sialkot and from there to Jammu and continued to Srinagar. At that time I was writing my novel ‘Aur Insan Mar Gaya’ (And Humanity Died), based on the horrors of Partition as my personal experience of those days. When I left, this novel was half complete. The Great Urdu Poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz knew about my incomplete novel. Hence later on he came to Gulmarg in Kashmir, where I was staying in a hut in Tangmarg. He came to tell me about the events which followed in Lahore after I left.
We managed to board the plane from Srinagar to Delhi. I worked for a while in Delhi but then came to Bombay. I have been in that city for some 52 years now. I have achieved outstanding successes in the film industry, but I still feel like a refugee. The feeling of being a refugee never lets go of you.

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Muslim activist involved in attacks on Sikhs and Hindus Mujahid Tajdin, 86. Interview conducted by Zubair Ghazi on 2 and 25 February 2000. At the time of Partition, Tajdin was a militant Khaksar. He now owns shop No. 154, where different types of Naan (a flat bread made from white wheat flour) are baked. It is located on Fateh Sher Road, Mozang, Lahore.

At the time of the Partition of India, I was living in Mozang. Being inquisitive by nature I used to visit Hindu temples, Sikh gurdawaras, Christian churches, besides praying five times a day in the mosque. I wanted to know how people, belonging to other religions, live and preach their faiths in their religious places. Now when I look upon those years I can say that the Angrez (English) have done more service to mankind than any other people.

I was a very devout and active member of the Khaksar movement. When the call to create an Islamic state, to be called Pakistan, was given many of us were fascinated by that idea. I took active part in that struggle against Hindus and Sikhs. I killed four Sikhs near Atchison College and took part in the killing, looting and burning of Hindus and Sikhs when fire was set to Shahalmi Gate and other Hindu-Sikh localities.

Attack on the Sikh Gurdawara, Chaeveen Padshahi, on Temple Road Lahore (this temple was built by the sixth Sikh Guru Hargobind Rai) The Thanedar (sub-inspector or S.H.O) of Mozang Police Station, Malik Maqsood masterminded the attack on the Chaeveen Padshahi. He trained some of us for four days. We were to take possession of important Hindu and Sikh places when Partition occurred. He told us that if we died fighting against the non-Muslims we will be shaheeds (martyrs) and if we survived we will be ghazis (soldiers of Allah). He told us that our Muslim brothers and sisters were being killed in India, and the main objective of the training was to protect Muslims and to take revenge.

We were given a security plan to protect Mozang from Hindu and Sikh assault. Thus we established our morchas (defence posts) at Mozang Adda, Safan Wala Chowk, Mozang Chungi and Kanak Mandi. Those of us who took part in the training besides me were Zahoor Din Khaksar, Naseer, Bau Amanat, Hussain Ganja kabadi-player, Bashir, Rasheed, Alamgir Baloch and Shah Din.

It was the 26th of Ramadan (13 August) when we stormed the Sikh temple. I, along with five others entered the temple by climbing its high wall. We gave a lalkar (battle cry) tothe Sikhs to come out.  Nobody responded. It was pitch dark at that time. We broke open the front door and entered the temple. The Sikhs had splashed hot kora tel (mustard oil) on the floor with the result that our feet slipped as we walked on it. When we lit up a matchstick the oil started burning. I took the kabza (possession) of the main takht (a long bench). We were 25 to 30 altogether. We were shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ (long live Pakistan) and challenging the Sikhs to come out. Suddenly one of them appeared from under the takht with a talwar (sword) in his hand. He delivered a blow at me, which struck my hand and I received a deep gash on my wrist. I succeeded in snatching the sword from his hand and killed him. Meanwhile many
other people had entered the gurdawara. Now, the Sikhs came out of their hidings and a hand-to-hand combat began in the darkness. Talwars, churras (big knives) and dandas (heavy sticks) were used. Some pistol shots were also fired. Someone put on a fire with the help of petrol. In my opinion, Thanedar Malik Maqsood had provided the petrol to someone in our group. I myself was not informed about it. There were some 20 to 30 Sikh men and women in the temple. All of them perished in the inferno. From our side, we lost Naseer.
How do feel about what happened at that time? Do you regret what you did?
With tear in his eyes, Taj Din said: “We were told that Pakistan would be an Islamic State where the nizam (system) established by Allah and his Prophet would again be revived. For doing that, Hindus and Sikhs, who were kafirs (infidels), had to be killed or kicked out of Pakistan. Only then could it be a successful Islamic state. Once Pakistan came into being, I, like many others, began anxiously to await the revival of the true and just Islamic state and society. During the period of General Ayub Khan, I was particularly hopeful that things would change. I wrote to him and to the governor of Punjab, Nawab Amir Mohammad Khan of Kalabagh, and became very close to them. Later, I pinned my hopes on General Zia-ul-Haq. I even corresponded with the Shah of Iran and many other Muslim rulers of the world in the hope that they will do something for the glory of Islam and the uplift of Muslims. (Many certificates from such dignitaries and the bloodstained sword that he wrested away from the Sikh in the temple were hanging on the walls in which the interview took place). However, we never got our Islamic state. Every ruler looted us. Pakistan is a very corrupt society. If all this were to happen, then why were we asked to do what we did? Sometimes at night I cannot sleep because of the crimes that I have committed. The faces of those Sikhs whom I killed are always in my mind.

In 1968 I went with a delegation from Pakistan to attend the Urs (annual religious festival) of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia at Delhi. At the border Sikhs welcomed us. They gave each of us two oranges and one apple. In Delhi I was recognised by a Hindu who used to live
in Anarkali, Lahore. He was very kind and offered his help and services for anything that I might need.

It happens quite so often that I pray to God to give me mafi (pardon) for the murder of those Sikhs and Hindus. I have a feeling that Allah understands me and has forgiven me. We were misguided and used by our politicians.