Despite all, no ill-feeling

Brig HS Sandhu (Retd)

THE travails of Partition times are so deeply etched in the mind, it seems like they happened just yesterday. Our village, Maniala Kalan, was about 15 km southwest of the present Wagah border check-post. With more than 100 acres of land, a house with a courtyard and around 20 animals, including a camel, we were a prosperous family by the standards of those days. We had also recently dug up a well inside the house, making us part of a select group in the village to have their own source of water. In addition, my father was a BA (Hons) graduate from FC College, Lahore, and was working on defence accounts at a monthly salary of Rs 70. The village had a government middle school and I had just passed my first standard. My class teacher was a Muslim maulvi who also gave me tuitions for Rs 5 a month. The school had Muslim, Hindu and Sikh teachers with no communal feelings.

However, there was great uncertainty about the Radcliffe Line, so much so that my father, living in Lahore and reading The Tribune daily, moved his personal stuff to the village a few days before our imminent migration. He said Lahore was going to Pakistan, but the fate of our village, which fell under Kasur tehsil, was undecided. As people started moving to India, we too took out new clothes and shoes to be put on when leaving next morning. We — my two siblings and I, grandparents, father, uncle and some neighbours — were standing under a banyan tree in front of our house when my father started shouting at my grandmother for not moving out in time and jeopardising the safety of the kids.

Leaving home was especially difficult for the elderly. My grandfather would say: “It is only the government that has changed; people won’t run away leaving their homes and hearths behind.” After my father’s outburst, my grandmother and we children started crying and joined the fleeing neighbours barefoot. However, my grandfather refused to leave the village and stayed back, all alone. One day, a friend of his, who would visit him daily for tea, was killed while returning home. They would have attacked my grandfather too if the neighbours hadn’t stood against the crowd. Soon, my father and his friends went back, literally tied him with ropes and put him in a cart to bring him to India. So shocked was he that he lost his mental balance and kept condemning Jinnah for taking away his house and land. He passed away within a month of our coming to India.

After walking for three days and spending the nights in fear, we reached Tarn Taran and entered a half-burnt house left by a Muslim family. We stayed there for several days and had our meals at a gurdwara. Finally, my maternal grandfather came and took us to his village near Batala. My father, along with a few of his colleagues, went to Allahabad to relocate his office and arrange for our stay by renting a room in a dharamshala near the famous Khusro Bagh. When it was time for us to join him, my nana provided us with bedding, clothes, utensils and rations for the journey as we had left everything in our village.

The journey from Amritsar to Allahabad was a nightmare. All the families dumped their luggage in an open wagon of a train and sat over it. Since these were goods trains, they would abandon us in the wilderness where we would have to spend a few days before we embarked on our journey again, finally reaching Sarsawa across the Yamuna. We had to cook, eat and sleep in the open. The distance of 300 km was covered in 12 days.

From Sarsawa, father had arranged a bullock cart to take us to Saharanpur, 20 km away. We were in UP now. A policeman approached us and on finding out that the cart driver had overcharged us, gave him a few lashes and told us to pay only the actual fare. When we reached Saharanpur railway station, we were thrilled to see passenger trains and boarded one going to Allahabad, via Partapgarh, reaching 36 hours later. At the station, we ate langar again, after which we reached our new abode: a room in a dharamshala. After a few days, we moved into a house vacated by a Muslim family. I still have an atlas owned by the family with me as a souvenir. My father got Rs 1,000 as refugee grant and our family settled down in the new environment.

Meanwhile, my uncle and his family moved to a village vacated by the Muslims close to my nana’s village. My uncle and around 40 other families from our village were settled at this new village named Mohamadpura, located 30 km from Amritsar. Each household was initially provided the refugee grant and Rs 2,000 as loan at nominal interest to restart farming. They were also allotted 8-10 acres of land on a temporary basis and houses to live in. Two years later, when details of land and house records were obtained from the Pakistan government, permanent allotment of land as per their entitlement was made. As land was much less in East Punjab, we were allotted only 40 acres; in fact, everyone was allotted around one-third of their original holdings. The houses were also changed as per details received from Pakistan.

Most of the allotments were done without any bribe or sifarish. I must appreciate the great job done by Dr MS Randhawa and his team at the office of the rehabilitation commissioner in Ambala. It was ensured, as far as possible, that people from one village were settled together in a new village. More than one crore people were settled within a few years without any hassle or hardship. The government machinery did its job with compassion and justice and the result was there for all to see.

Later, my father was transferred to Amritsar where I pursued MBBS from Amritsar Medical College. Thereafter, I joined the Army and retired as a Brigadier in 2000. All my brothers and sisters got a good education and jobs. I must say that in spite of loss of our home and hearth and initial hardships, my family and I have no regrets and no ill-feeling against anyone for what befell upon us. Though we longed to go to our ancestral place, once the wounds were healed, we accepted the new reality of living in Independent India.

— The writer is based in Panchkula

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