Daily Times

Patiala, the powerful princely state in eastern Punjab, ruled by Maharaja Yadavindra Singh, witnessed intense communal and gender violence against Muslims. On September 3, 1947, Sikhs decorated a special train with Pakistan flags and picked up thousands of Muslims under the pretext that they would be sent safely to Pakistan. To their utter shock, armed military Sikhs attacked the train at Fatehgarh station and killed many.

The most brutal incidents of violence took place in the village of Baras, Patran tehsil. Violence broke out in August against Muslims seeking shelter for survival. Many residents were attacked in August 1947 including targeting the women who jumped into wells to save their honour. Professor Niaz Erfan, interviewed on April 9, 2013, narrates this account. A resident of Ambala District, he happened to be in Patiala during partition. Even after recording his story, many clarifications were sought to settle the confusions that prevail in verbal accounts.

The story:

“I was born in 1933 in village Sill, Tehsil Kharar, Ambala. Our village had three wards wherein the Muslims Rajputs constituted the majority. Most of the non-Muslims belonged to the lower castes — sweepers, cotton fluffers and barbers. The lone Sikh family was headed by Sardar Gurbakash Singh whose son Jaspal was my friend. My family was respected by all. My father Naseerudin Khan and uncle Khairudin were in the Patiala State Army. After my primary education, we shifted to the state of Patiala. It took me a month to learn the Gurmukhi script, required for further studies. It was around mid-July that the law and order situation started deteriorating. Communal riots broke out while my family was in Patiala, while my uncles were still in our Ambala village. We were fortunate that Major Babu Singh from my father’s unit had become the S P of Patiala Cantonment and took us to his house where we spent the next one month. Because we were staying at the police superintendent’s house, other Muslims assumed that Baras village would be safe; a sizeable Muslim population decided to settle there. A deadly mistake, as it turned out. I recall that the Sikh community observed around August that a sizeable Muslim fraternity was based in Baras and must have planned to attack them because, in the meanwhile, they crammed the Patiala army with Sikhs. One evening, they opened fire on our people and the mayhem started.

In a desperate bid to save his life, my cousin Muhammad Aleem sustained injuries but succeeded in escaping and hiding in the nearby fields. He stood there helplessly watching the brutal massacre of our family. My grandfather, Muhammad Baksh, took direct bullets and died on the spot. My cousin heard the volley of bullets and cries of men and women who pleaded for mercy in vain. Soon, thereafter, my granduncle and his father were also gunned down with his sons, Muhammad Rafiq and Muhammad Jamil. My uncle Khairudin Khan and my father’s cousin Abdul Aziz were also killed brutally as Aleem watched from his hiding place. In the meantime, scores of women and children began jumping into the well, expecting impending rape and conversions. My aunt, Rafiq-un-Nisa, and her daughter Firdous also jumped into the well, which was by then filled with corpses. My other aunt, Wahab-un-Nisa, escaped because she fell on the heap of corpses and was rescued later along with two other women. She later migrated to Pakistan and died last year in Gujranwala.

During our stay with the superintendent of the police we heard screams from across the city of Patiala. The havoc and mayhem unleashed night after night simply went on and on. We had little sleep or peace in the house. Finally, when we ventured out, the city stood cleansed by the cantonment forces. When we were brought to Patiala cantonment and the Kotwali railway station, I saw hundreds of corpses lined up against the walls. The whole station resounded with the cries of injured women. It dawned upon me that the raiders must have attacked the station just before our arrival. I considered it divine intervention that we were saved by arriving late at the station. The corpses, which lined the station, were loaded onto the train and sent off to west Punjab.

By this time, the Muslim force was also equipped and my father was a part of it. We proceeded to Bahadurgarh Fort, which was five kilometres from Patiala. We were in the fort on Eidul Azha. There was no sanitation system there and I remember being in a group, which dug out makeshift toilets. I had received a message that my Hindu and Sikh classmates were looking for me outside the fort. Despite protests from our people inside and disregarding the danger I stepped out and indeed found them waiting for me. Classmates embraced me and offered me fruits, a sign that all humanity was not dead.

We stayed at the refugee camp of Bahadurgarh until December. At long last, when the train arrived at the Kohli station, we were eager to leave. There was no space inside the compartments so the boys and men huddled onto the roof in neat rows clutching the ropes. We spent two days and nights in this condition, braving the cold winter. We were thirsty but could not find water anywhere. Even the wells were rumoured to be poisoned by Sikhs. We also heard of other trains being stopped and people murdered mercilessly. Major Ayub Khan, who later became president of Pakistan, was ably leading the guard of our train to avoid such attacks.

On the banks of the Beas, hundreds of bodies lay along the tracks and vultures hovered around them. Amidst seething rage and helpless tears, we reached Amritsar station. There we learned that the train, which had left just before ours, was attacked by Sikh mobs and people were slaughtered. Upon reaching the Attari station, we saw torn pages of the Holy Quran strewn across the roads to vex us. When we finally reached the Wagah border and saw the flag of Pakistan, we wept with mixed emotions: gratitude to have survived and grief for the loved ones lost. We were immensely relieved to be in Pakistan. In October 1948, I went back to Jullundur with the help of Sufi Abdul Hameed to get back my cousin Aleem who had sustained injuries during his escape from Baras.”

Individual narratives make connections, which are ignored by official history. Partition can be seen as a bloodied story of the damned and dispossessed, of grief and devastation, tormented cries and broken hearts. Apart from historical context, the remembered experiences of survivors constitute a valuable supplement to history. The saga of memories continues through films, novels, history and everyday stories. These survivors are all old and with them their stories will be lost forever. That will be a forgotten footnote to history. It is my endeavour to ensure that these testimonies will fill in some blanks in the sad chronicles of the events of 1947.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at janjuaharoon01@gmail.com