Rebuilding without bitterness

Vijay Sabharwal

My family belonged to Eminabad, a historic town of Gujranwala district, now in Pakistan, and owned 2,200 acres in the villages of Tokariya, Tupasari and Shamir. My father had gone to college (which was rare in those times) and was thus an educated landlord who expanded his business by opening a rice mill in Kamoke Mandi, Gujranwala. Later, he also started an ice factory there.

When the law and order situation started to deteriorate a few months prior to Partition, my father explored the option of exchanging our properties in Eminabad with a Muslim landlord in Delhi, who was, of course, worried for his own family’s safety in this part of the country. However, the elder brothers in the family were opposed to the idea — they were confident that there would be no Partition and that no one would be forced to leave their hometowns and properties in such extreme circumstances.

My father had followed in the footsteps of his elders and was politically active, holding the post of vice-president of the municipality. A few months before Partition, his political instincts warned him of the looming danger of social upheaval, and he decided to pack off the entire family to Dehradun by taking on rent a bungalow. He figured the family could stay there for a few months while things became clearer. So, all of us moved to Dehradun, along with our family cook, Brij Lal, assuming this was going to be a few months of holiday before we returned to our home. I was just over two years old at the time.

The family was fearful about my father’s safety in Eminabad. So, when I fell ill, a telegram was dispatched to my father, who came over to see me. This was just weeks before Partition, and the family then pleaded with him not to go back. As the situation deteriorated, lives and businesses were impacted. Munims and other workers fled from Eminabad and reached Dehradun to inform us that our factories were being put to fire by miscreants.

Without any source of income, we were left with no money to pay rent, or to run the kitchen. My father asked Brij Lal to go to his village in Hoshiarpur district, but he refused, saying he would not leave the family in a time of crisis and instead requested that we allow him to stay with only food and lodging.

The family then shifted to Mohan Vedic Ashram at Haridwar, where my family had contributed a donation under the patronage of my Tayaji, Mela Ram, who was the secretary of Arya Samaj unit, Kamoke Mandi. My younger brother, Rohit, was born during this time at the ashram and was given the pet name ‘Swami’.

My father made great efforts to seek compensation for the loss of property and wealth. He was allotted an ice factory in Sarian Mohalla, an urban locality in Pathankot. He was awarded a relatively small farm at Gharaunda in Karnal district. Later, the agricultural land was reallotted at Bagthala village, a forest near Kurukshetra, where my father finally settled and earned his name through his social activities.

While we were at Pathankot, in the early 1950s, I recall that our tonga driver in Eminabad — Jalala — crossed the border near Madhopur and came to meet us. As a child, I heard Jalala saying to my father that it was good that he decided not to go back to Eminabad in July 1947 since there were innumerable incidents of looting at our rice mills and other factories, and that my father’s name figured in a list prepared by local fundamentalists who were trying to foment ethnic and religious strife.

Jalala’s narration remained etched in my memory, and I was curious to know more about those tense and terrible times. One day, after reading my article that was published in The Tribune some years back, 87-year-old Akram wrote to me. Akram had settled in the US after retiring from Pakistan Railways and he wrote of his joy in learning about me from the article. He himself was from Eminabad and was well-acquainted with my family and my father, whom he described as kind and generous to the villagers. Akram’s letter gave vivid details of the tense situation that prevailed during Partition. Akram wrote about several incidents that were shocking and unfortunate, but through it all, I still felt excited to connect with a person from Eminabad.

Akram said the first murder was of Dewan Maya Ram. “None of the villagers of Eminabad can forget this happening committed by some mad, criminal-minded persons. He was a very kind, sympathetic and helpful man. Everybody in the village greatly condemned the incident that occurred in August 1947. I have no words to write about his service to the people. Everyone was sad and wept at his slaughter.”

He narrated that a Gorkha battalion was called over, which killed some Muslim men and took control of the situation. Members of the Hindu community were shifted to the camp in the custody of the Indian Army.

Akram wrote of an incident which horrified him. He saw some young men indulging in looting a little distance away from our haveli. A soldier on duty tried to attack him with the butt of a rifle, and he escaped from the site and ran to his home. He was trembling with fear and did not venture out for many days. He also remembered the train from Rawalpindi to Lahore being stopped at Kamoki railway station, next to Eminabad, and looted.

While Partition was a terrible human tragedy, it is worth noting how many from my father’s and my own generation never really dwelled on our misfortune and instead, looked only to rebuild. Many continued to have fond memories of our hometowns in undivided India. Maybe this is a good time to pause and reflect so that the next generations may appreciate the gravity of what occurred to ensure that something like this never happens again.

— The writer is based in Kurukshetra

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