Partition of India - Divine Intervention! Part II

Continued from Part I which MUST be read to get the complete picture and clarity

Since I am a Punjabi privy to direct feedback from the family, Punjab is the focus of this Partition article.


My parents in Lahore with my eldest brother, Arvind, who passed away prematurely this March 2008.

The Partition of India especially hit home very hard. I am part of a family which truly reflects both the pre and post -partition India story. I am the only sister of six brothers. Three of my oldest brothers were born in Lahore in pre-partition India, the part of Punjab which is now in Pakistan. (As I pointed out in Part I, the British province of Punjab was divided between India and Pakistan.) Four of us were born in post-partition and free India in New Delhi. So it is almost like there are two generations within the family and understandably there is a lot of gap in terms of years and culture between the oldest three and the youngest four... Needless to say, our oldest brothers were like father figures to us and as is traditional in our culture, they were respected accordingly. What follows is information gleaned from the many dinner discussions while growing up in New Delhi, the capital of India...

My mother with the three oldest brothers with my grandmother who was a true matriarch of the family in Lahore.

My parents were born, brought up and educated in parts of Punjab, now in Pakistan. Father was a bureaucrat in the British civil service and his father was a Magistrate in the British judicial system. India's independence movement under Gandhi and the Indian National Congress was in full-swing in those years and the British policy of divide and rule at every level had finally achieved their desired impact of pitting the Hindus and Muslims against each other.

Essentially in the months preceding and following the partition in August 1947, communal tensions and violent confrontations became rampant only to reach unimaginable depths of human depravity when the country was actually divided.

Folks like my parents whose home was Lahore refused to believe that such atrocities were happening. My father a tall and imposing figure, both stubborn and overconfident in his physical ability to protect himself and his family which included my grandmother (grandfather had passed on), my mother and his three young sons under ten, waited till the last minute to leave in August 1947. Essentially, it was hard for him to accept that he would have to leave home, his friends and his entire lifestyle for what seemed an unknown world on the other side... He kept believing much to my mother's dismay that all this was transitory-he could not fathom how his lifelong Muslim friends and neighbors could ever turn on him. Father's ability to go into denial about life's realities was both an endearing and frustrating trait for my mother till the end of their lives...

Anyway, as I am told, father only started realizing the gravity of the situation when he was actually advised by a close Muslim friend to stop being foolhardy-yes everyone was not caught up the communal madness- and that he should take his young family and flee as the mobs would descend on our family home any day now. Arson and murder was regularly taking place in the homes next door. Finally, very reluctantly, dad started preparing the family and even then he left the family servant behind as a caretaker of the vast property they had to abandon, thinking that they would be coming back when the madness had calmed down. Family rumor has it that he even asked his mother to stay back, telling her that he would return after leaving my mother and brothers in safe haven on the India side. It would not be polite to translate here what my totally aggravated grandmother told her son in Punjabi (our native dialect) - something to the effect of "over my dead body!!!" This is, of course, the censored version of her colorful disbelief.

Now here if it wasn't such a grave situation, it would be quite funny.... My grandmother, ever materialistic and thrifty started hoarding up all the family treasures and jewelry rapidly, packing all that she could fit in her limited luggage space and my mother, the eternal intellectual with her love for academics, started packing the school books for her three young sons instead telling my dad that it was important that the kids studies not get interrupted in all the time they would be refugees on the move.
My brothers went to a school run by the British nuns. In India Catholic schools used to be quite coveted due to the quality of education instilled through tight discipline often delivered through the proverbial painful ruler raps.

Anyhow, the family somehow made it to the railway station in nerve-wracking conditions in horse-driven carriages with luggage piled high. The railway station had thousands of refugees squatting on the platform waiting for the India bound train. There was complete pandemonium. The train was delayed for three hours!. Nerves were on edge and there was tremendous terror about the possibility of the arrival of Muslim mobs because this was now their land - Pakistan!

At one point, I believe that a few miscreants brandishing daggers did approach my father after having gone through and robbed the belongings of the other huddled families, but father's larger than life persona came into play here as he in a show of complete confidence pulled himself straight and told the goons that he was a senior officer in the British government and he was going to return after he left his family on the other side. Amazingly, they believed him and they left leaving a hushed and terrorized family behind. Father's bravado was his signature and helped him through many life situations... Throughout his life, he never let on to the outside world his inner quaverings...

Three bewildered little boys escaping with their lives in 1947

Arvindji-the eldest. In Indian culture you add "ji" as a sign of respect.

Rajeshji -the second oldest- I lost this brother too tragically years ago

Ashok who kept demanding that he wanted to go back and play with the family help while gun shots could be heard on the railway platform and the terror-struck family waited for the arrival of the train to India....

Finally the train arrived and there was a mad mad rush, pushing and jostling, thrusting kids and women into the train first till by miracle everyone got on board. Even then the train didn't move and tension was building up in the compartments with windows and doors bolted and further bolstered by heavy luggage. Finally after many false starts, the train moved and the passenger fell asleep from sheer exhaustion and terror. Little did they realize at that time how lucky they were! Due to Divine Intervention, their lives had been saved. Apparently, because of the huge delay, the mobs that were waiting en route to stop, ambush, plunder and massacre the passengers had got tired of waiting and dispersed otherwise yours truly would not be writing this story.

Tragically, these mass killings were happening on both sides because of the ineffectiveness of the newly-formed governments and complete breakdown of law and order. This is the darkest and most shameful period in the history of the sub-continent and movies and books galore have been written on this tragedy of undefined proportions.

Anyway, by divine providence the train arrived in Delhi where there was total bedlam, but now the atmosphere was much lighter as the Hindus were in free India - on their own turf. How my family restarted its life from a scratch in New Delhi, after finding shelter with various relatives initially, is a story for another time....