Heal, don’t relive Partition trauma

Iremember my paternal grandfather’s house near Chaura Bazar in Ludhiana — a small, triple-storeyed house with a tiny room, a small kitchen, a courtyard on the ground floor and a toilet without sewage on the top floor. It was a queer-looking house that he got in lieu of the property left behind in Pakistan at the time of the Partition. Similar is the story of my maternal grandfather who was allotted a house in Gurgaon in the early 1950s, much before it became a Millennium City. Both my grandparents hailed from Multan, now in Pakistan. They were uprooted and had to leave behind their belongings when they came to India as refugees. The houses they got were the ones vacated by Muslims who fled India under similar circumstances.

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I am lucky to have opened my eyes much after Independence but my grandparents and parents witnessed the trauma — mass migration, barbaric killings, arson and loot on a large scale on both sides of the border. When tension started brewing, my mother, a young unmarried girl at that time, was sent with her brother to India by train. Fortunately, they did not face any mob attack or violent encounter on the way. However, there were instances when trains arrived with bodies, and in retaliation, were sent across the border with bodies of passengers. My mother and my mama safely reached Beas, where they were received by their uncle who was the station master. It was much later that my grandparents joined them. They did not have to stay in refugee camps, but had to rebuild their life.

The story told by my father is no less horrific. He was a young government servant posted in Delhi at the time. He had seen a truck-load of bodies being carried. A head kept rising occasionally from the heap, obviously still alive but dumped with the dead.

There is no dearth of such gruesome tales. The tragedy was suffered by both communities as terrible atrocities and senseless killings engulfed populace on both sides of the border. Those who let loose hell upon fellow human beings were religious fanatics — Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs — but certainly not humans.

It has been 75 years. The memories have faded, most of the people who bore the brunt and suffered unspeakable hardships are gone, and the rest are in their twilight years, more or less at peace now. What is the point of reliving the trauma when men turned into savages? Why scratch old wounds which may become a reason to promote hatred and discord?

No more displacement, no more violence, no more communal tension. Let harmony prevail.