India partition 1947 (Ved Nanda)

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How India’s partition gave my life purpose, after nearly taking it away

By Ved Nanda PUBLISHED: August 25, 2017

Rishabh R. Jain, the Associated Press A worker sorts through photographs, newspaper clippings and other material that will cover the walls at the Partition Museum in Amritsar, India, 20 miles from the border with Pakistan. The museum tells the stories of those who survived chaos and bloodshed seven decades ago. This Aug. 15 marked 70 years of independence for India and Pakistan.

I still vividly recall the day in early August 1947, a few days before the independence and partition of India and the birth of Pakistan, when my mother and I had to flee for our lives.

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We lived in Gujranwala, a town in Punjab not even 50 miles from the boundary dividing India and Pakistan.

Not yet in my teens, I had barely slept the previous night, deathly afraid as my mother and I watched, from our rooftop, houses burning across town from where we lived.

Gujranwala was majority Muslim, with a sizeable population of Hindus and Sikhs at that time, and the communities lived peacefully, actively participating in each other’s social, cultural and religious lives. But all that had changed in a hurry.

Shrill voices spewing hatred and venom were calling for Hindus to leave west Punjab and move east. Similar voices in the east called upon Muslims to leave east Punjab and go west toward what would later become west Pakistan. Lifelong friends had turned into bitter enemies. Violence had torn the communities apart. A similar scenario was playing out in the eastern part of India. Eventually, with a million dead and 10 million on the move, the question from 1947 still remains unanswered: How do humans turn into animals?

A Muslim friend and neighbor whom my father had often helped gave us the grim news — our neighborhood was the next target, perhaps even that day. His counsel: Leave now, leave immediately. Save your lives.

My mother had already decided we had to leave, but, panic stricken, she was in a quandary — where to go? My father, who was a civil servant, had already taken my siblings to seek a place in India where my mother and I could join them, but we did not know where he was. And several trains going east, carrying fleeing Hindus, were stopped by armed bands who mercilessly slaughtered them. The neighbor advised us to go the opposite direction, toward Kashmir, and said he would walk with us the half-mile to the train.

My mother put some jewelry and a few treasures in a suitcase and we hurried to the railway station to catch the next train to Jammu, a town in Kashmir.

Two events before we reached our destination stick in my mind. Changing trains at Wazirabad railway station, we had a long wait. Night had come and I fell asleep, sitting on a bench. Awakened by a thunderous noise, a bomb blast in the waiting room. We ran for cover. My mother left the valuables behind because she was more concerned with saving my life.

Back on our way, the train was stopped by an armed mob who blocked the track. They boarded a few cars and stabbed and killed several people. In our car was a Sikh man in military uniform with a rifle, who fired a couple of shots so no one entered our car.

After the track was cleared we reached Jammu with the clothes we were wearing as our sole possessions.

The local people in Jammu had set up a camp for those uprooted like us. We were provided the necessities and stayed there for perhaps a couple of months, but I can’t Page 2

recall the exact duration. What I remember is that it was late autumn when we, along with thousands of others, started walking toward east Punjab. It was a long walk and took several days, especially because I had fallen sick and could not travel far at a time. I saw things as a boy no one should ever have to see.

All that time, we could not reach my father. Although we had some relatives in east Punjab whom my mother also tried to reach by mail and telegraph, we were unable to connect. When we finally made contact and were reunited with our family, we learned that, assuming us to be dead, they had already conducted the Hindu last rites for us.

As I look back at the 70th anniversary of India’s partition, it is perhaps this experience which has given me the lifelong purpose to work for peace and human rights, especially for refugees. I firmly believe that humans must not turn into animals.

Ved Nanda (vnanda@law.du.edu) is Evans University Professor and director of the Ved Nanda Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

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