Praja nahin badalti, raja badalta hai, but it happened the opposite : The Tribune India

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Praja nahin badalti, raja badalta hai, but it happened the opposite

LUDHIANA:Hand-written notes pasted at railway stations were the only source of information about the whereabouts of the near and dear ones during Partition.

Praja nahin badalti, raja badalta hai, but it happened the opposite

Kewal Krishan Luthra and his wife Kanta Devi share the tales of Partition. photo: Inderjeet verma



Manav Mander

Tribune News Service 

Ludhiana, August 13

Hand-written notes pasted at railway stations were the only source of  information about the whereabouts of the near and dear ones during Partition. 

Kewal Krishan Luthra’s father pasted one such  note at Amritsar Railway Station, telling his friends and family that  they had shifted to Ludhiana from Nankana Sahib. The city-based elderly couple, Kewal Krishan Luthra and Kanta Rani, sharing the  harrowing tales of Partition, said the time had been etched in their  memory. 

Luthra said it was July 1947 and the schools  were closed for summer vacations. “All that we listen everyday were  high-pitched slogans, some demanding Hindustan and others Pakistan, and  finally, the fate was decided and the country was divided into two,” he said.

Luthra’s father owned a cloth shop and they had their house on the upper floor. Adjoining to their shop was the shop of Mela Ram Halwai. “Some  Muslims came to Mela Ram’s shop and ordered nearly 100 kg of laddoos as  they wanted to distribute them to celebrate the formation of Pakistan. Meanwhile, some  Sikh groups came to know about the order placed at the Mela Ram’s shop. They  came in a large group and destroyed all laddoos at the shop.  Sometimes when I close my eyes and think about the old times, I still  see those laddoos scattered all over the street, crumbled and broken.  These laddoos were not just a sweet but they actually depicted the state  of mind of every individual, broken and shattered, at that time,” he  recalls.

After that curfew was imposed and tension further griped the  country. The entire city of Nankana Sahib was turned into a refugee  camp. The Indian military safely transported people to India while the Pakistan  military brought people from India.

My father said: “Praja nahin  badalti, raja badalta hai”. But during Partition, it happened the  opposite because there the people were changing places rather than the  rulers. Luthra, along with his father, mother, grandmother, three  brothers and two sisters, came to India because theconditions in  Pakistan were no longer favourable to live. 

The Indian military was  transporting people free of cost to India while a few private people also  got engaged in the work who demanded Rs 100 and allowed to carry as much  luggage as one wanted while the Indian military allowed limited number  of articles to be carried along. 

The Luthra family reached Amritsar and  from there they came to Ludhiana by a goods train. Since it  was a goods train, a ladder was attached to it to reach the rooftop and  the person standing near the ladder demanded 2 aane for climbing atop. 

The train halted near Jalandhar for five days. “We made  chullahs nearby and collected flour and other eatables from the nearby  localities and cooked food for ourselves. Then we finally reached  Ludhiana on the sixth day and after reaching here, we came to know that  Panipat was allotted to those coming from Nankana Sahib and we went to  Panipat. But we came back to Ludhiana and my father started hosiery  business from here,” he said. 

Kanta Rani, wife of Luthra, was just  seven years old at that time and she vividly remembers 1947. She  belonged to Rawalpindi. “My mother only took the tiffin along while  leaving our home. She set everything in place at  her home and even spread the new bed cover because she wanted her home to be spic and span, once she returns. She was very sure that they  will return but something else was in store for us,” she said. 

She  remembers the evening of August 12 when her mother was making chapattis  on the “tandoor” and some shops were burnt outside. “We had to leave our  house because it was not safe to stay there any longer. There was a  gurdwara at the back of our house. We all hid there and from the roof  we watched everybody’s movement. When things became little normal, we  moved out and came to Ludhiana in a military truck,” she recalls. 

Luthra,  sharing another detail from the time, said during night, people used  to keep a glass of water with caustic soda and red chilli powder at  their bedside as a precaution if in case anybody attacks them during the  night. Luthra is also writing a book on the partition times and  wishes to get it published. Luthra, who has five daughters, is at present  living with one of his daughters, Rajini, and son-in-law Sunil Sofat at  Haibowal.  

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