Partition Of India To India/pakistan In 1947

[Bharatvarsh]

It's all Equal-Equal, Sikhs are savage and Hindus are like dogs:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Sir Francis Tuker’s While Memory Serves
 
Chapter 36
First Fruits in Eastern Command

August-September

          It is a relief to turn from the red horrors of the Punjab to the milder climate even of our United Provinces. About this time a special representative of the Statesman made an interesting survey of reactionary activities in the United Provinces, the spirit which now appeared to us the most dangerous of all influences for Hindustan’s immediate future. It is most important, so I will give the gist of what he had to say.
          The revivalist spirit was rampant in the province, accompanied by an intolerant puritanism among the upper class. This spirit of revival found encouragement from senior leaders of the Congress no less than from humbler folk whose capacity for a comparative assessment of values was not so well developed. Sometimes the attempt to return to the past was rooted in cultural pride as was instanced by the Education Minister’s recent instruction to school-teachers to pay special attention to the Indian classics and to India’s cultural history. Very rightly he reminded them of the dangers of losing sight of what they inherited in the realms of Art and Literature and the need to preserve and develop that inheritance.
          But unfortunately the revivalist spirit was too often simply an effort to resurrect Hindu orthodoxy. There was of course also a feeling among many Hindus that the good old days of Hinduism were the best. The reaction had moved rapidly of late.
          The Vice-Chancellors of five United Provinces universities unanimously decided to adopt Hindustani as a medium of instruction. Fortunately, the Correspondent pointed out, it would take some time for the full scheme to be developed and before then the feverish zeal in favour of orthodox Hindi might have somewhat abated.
          For the Governor’s investiture on the 14th August an influential Parliamentary Secretary had ordered that dhotis {464} (full, skirt-like cotton garments) should be worn by officials. Most of the officials were used to wearing European clothes, and it so happened that this particular order was unauthorised and so not obeyed. There was no denying, however, that it had the tacit support of thousands of Hindus.
          At the investiture also the chanting of religious hymns was prominent, though the ritual was ‘given a touch of catholicity’ by the inclusion of extracts from the scriptures of several faiths.
          The revivalist movement had prompted a recent order restoring the ancient names to the great cities and rivers of the province.
          It looked very much as though the Congress ministry would cast out everything that smacked in the least of alien influence. A certain snobbery was engendered by which Congressmen pretended to treat with scorn all those whose ideas did not coincide with their ideas of a ‘national’ way of life. Their conception was of a crude austerity perpetuating joyless life for rich and poor alike. Ministers did no entertaining, so took little social interest in anything outside politics and showed intolerance for those who wished to live in any other way.
          The Correspondent quoted an instance of a Minister rebuking a senior Indian I.C.S. officer for smoking at a conference. He rebuked him in the presence of about two hundred other officers, both senior and junior to him. This was a quite unforgivable show of intolerance which naturally had much publicity.

          We began to piece together the causes of the Rampur rebellion. Hindus had been in no way involved and were, if anything, sympathetic towards the rebels. The quarrel was solely between the Muslims in the city and the State government itself and it arose because these Muslims objected to a Muslim State joining the Indian Union. They wished to be a part of Pakistan. Oddly enough, even the Hindus seemed to favour this choice. In the villages all remained quiet. Probably, those who stirred the people to violence were a few agitators who had a spite against the Chief Minister. They seized the opportunity of the Riza fast when tempers were easily frayed and when spiritual benefits would accrue to those who were killed, to set the mob ablaze on the pretext that the State had been false to its people by joining the Indian Union. {465} The students, of course, were to the fore in the later stages of rioting.
          The Rampur police were quite useless owing to their fear of reprisals and because many of them had relatives among the rebels.
          By the 10th August violence had died away.
          All over the hitherto disturbed areas of Muttra and Agra, confidence was returning so long as the soldiers were out on the countryside, touring villages and hamlets and were to be seen on patrol by townsman and peasant.
Around Meerut, sporadic disturbances continued. Near Bulandshahr on the 17th August some Muslim butchers and bangle-sellers coming from market and some peasants in the fields near by at Sarai Chhabila were mercilessly slaughtered by Hindus of local villages. The police could find only one seriously wounded man: the rest had been burnt and only a bone or two were found in the water close by. One of our pensioners died here, leaving a widow, two sons and a married daughter whom he had been visiting.
          But all this was child’s play to the terrors of the Mewat, Bharatpur, Alwar and the East Punjab.
          On the 29th August the Commander of the United Provinces Area received a very welcome commendation for his officers and men from the Premier, Pandit Pant.
 

I shall be glad if you kindly convey to the troops under your command a message on my behalf thanking them for the cheerful and devoted manner in which they have in these difficult times invariably come out to help in the maintenance of law and order in this province. I greatly appreciate the excellent work done by all ranks and officers, particularly so soon after their return from active service.

          At the same time the Pandit spoke strongly of his determination to keep the peace.
 

We will take the sternest measures to keep the peace, and we will not tolerate any act that interferes with the maintaining of law and order. It is our determination that, whatever happens anywhere, there will be peace in the U.P. We are alive to our responsibilities to 60 million people. {466}

* * * * *

          In the Army we were trying to get our Muslim soldiers away to Pakistan. Day by day, especially in Training Centres, Record Offices and small units, the Punjab atrocities were rubbing Muslims against Hindus and making for bad blood. We watched the rising hatred with much care, patching holes here and there to keep it from bursting through the now weakened texture of our Army’s discipline.
          In bigger combatant units, feeling was not too bad, far better than it was to be by October when we had to segregate our Muslims from the rest. The 3rd Rajputana Rifles said that orders to despatch their Muslims to Pakistan were received amongst their Hindus with very genuine regret, the Hindus of the Headquarters Company asking for permission to give a farewell party to their Muslims, an example copied by all other Companies. At Delhi, amid emotions of genuine comradeship, Hindu officers gave a great farewell party to their Muslim brethren. It was so, too, at Eastern Command Headquarters. It could not have happened so pleasurably two months, perhaps even a month, later. One only hopes most fervently that circumstances may arise one day not so far distant that will bring these former comrades together again in friendship and confidence.
          On the other hand we had instances of Hindu detachments leaving Pakistan by train shouting, ‘Down with Pakistan!’ ‘Down with Jinnah!’ at each station they passed and even letting off their rifles at random. From Hindustan more than one troop train bore Muslim soldiers shouting similar taunts and provocations.
          As the sorting out of our soldiers went on it became apparent that before long units in which the communities had hitherto been proportionately mixed would soon be heavily overweighted with Sikhs. Apart from the possibility of trouble with so many of these warriors together in one unit, there was quite a chance of trouble among the Sikhs themselves. Although supposedly a casteless society, the landowner Jat Sikh looks down on the landless Labana and others of the poorer sort. This is a problem that India will face later.
          With the transfer of Muslims had gone our Grand Old Man, Brigadier Mahomed Akbar Khan of Meerut Sub-Area, who was now to be a Major-General in command of the Sind Area at Karachi. {468}



          Our Army was crumbling away, and as it crumbled, the posters went up in Delhi’s Connaught Circus. ‘British Officers—Sack the Lot.’ Yet Indians asked me why so few of our officers were staying on with their army.
          By September we had come to know the new Indian Governors.
          Assam’s Governor, Sir Akbar Hydari, I.C.S., Nationalist Muslim, friend of Pandit Nehru, humorous and quick of wit, we have already noticed in Shillong.
          Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, who was to be a temporary governor of the United Provinces, and finally stayed permanently, was small, sparrow-like, witty, urbane and of great humanity. She had no illusions about the streak of cruelty that is in all too many Indians and which made a shambles of Calcutta, Bihar and the Punjab. ‘Labyrinthitis’ was her term for all those who had newly acquired power and did not know which way to, turn, which course to steer. She was a lady of considerable charm, even at her age—and she would not mind a reference to that age either!
          ‘C. R.’, Mr. Rajagopalachari, for Bengal, is a scholar, a man of liberal outlook, who gives one the impression of being both a strong man and a good one. Though he dresses in Indian homespun cotton, he is a man of the world—of the Western world, perhaps. He, too, is full of a kindly wit.
          Mr. Jairam Daulat Ram, Governor of Bihar, was dapper, serious, able, determined to the point of ruthlessness, perhaps Anglophobe, and was popular in his new province of Bihar.
          To Orissa I never penetrated after the 15th August when its former Governor left. The province was not turbulent so my footsteps, or wings, never led me thither. I was too much occupied in Bengal and in the north.
          All except Sir Akbar Hydari seem to have kept a teetotal household, no matter what their guests were used to drink in the evening or what they wished to drink. This did not add to the feeling of hospitality and it made a Western guest feel a little as though he were not welcome for he knew that when he himself bade an Indian guest to his house he was at pains to discover what food and what drink his guest would prefer in order that he might welcome him.
August went out with both Dominion Governments to some extent installed; both Army Headquarters partly {469} organised but functioning; Supreme Headquarters in office but obviously with its wings so clipped by Indian Army Headquarters that before long it would not be able to leave the ground; the Army in confusion as it sought to reorganise itself; Gurgaon and the nearby States still in a state of panic and devastation with tens of thousands of Muslim refugees outside the States; Bengal at long last quiet and the United Provinces smouldering from its last outbreak with sparks awaiting a breath to blow them into murderous life.
          Finally, the students were being rebuked by Mahatma Gandhi.
          The Mahatma attended the annual meeting of the University Students’ Union in the compound of Science College, Calcutta, and there held a prayer meeting.
          As Mr. Gandhi, accompanied by Mr. Suhrawardy and other members of his party, arrived, some students displaying posters demonstrated against the former Chief Minister of Bengal. Apart from this the meeting passed off without occurrence.
          Later Mr. Gandhi, in his post-prayer speech, reprimanded the demonstrators for their behaviour and said that, by insulting Mr. Suhrawardy, they had insulted himself. Addressing the students, Gandhi said that everywhere there appeared to be anarchy in the student world. They did not give obedience to their teachers and to their vice-chancellor. On the contrary, they actually expected obedience from their teachers. It was a painful exhibition on the part of those who were to be future leaders of the nation. They had given an exhibition of unruliness that evening. He was faced with placards in a foreign tongue referring to Mr. Suhrawardy in unbecoming language.
          A student must be under the strictest discipline. He could not marry or indulge in dissipation. He must not indulge in drink and the like. His behaviour must be a pattern of exemplary self-restraint. Had they all lived up to that pattern they would not have done what they did at the prayer meeting.
          On the 10th September, Brigadier D. Barker, commanding Meerut Sub?Area, went to Delhi to try and find out what really was happening, and to contact Colonel Proud, Sub?Area Commander. On the way in he stopped at Shahdara. {470} There he found a riot just finishing, the crowds flocking hither and thither and standing about in the narrow streets. Police were loafing round doing nothing. He went on to the police station and found a Sikh Magistrate and Muslim Sub-Inspector doing the same. They had no ideas and no morale. Shortly afterwards some men of the Madras Regiment arrived and started to patrol the streets. The crowds slipped out of the way. Delhi was like a deserted city, but even that was an improvement on its recent past.
          He then went out to Kotana on the 13th September. This was where a small police detachment prevented Muslim refugees from being pursued across the ford. They made a good showing. When the wretched Muslim refugees had crossed, the police fired on the pursuers, who shouted ‘Why stop us? These are our Shikar (prey)!’ They returned heavy fire at the police and tried to cross, taking cover behind bullock carts. Broken carts could still be seen sticking out of the water. With a confidence found anew from the example and support of our soldiers, the small police picket at Kotana had fought a stubborn and brave action through many hours.
          Looking west over the river from Kotana he could see no sign of life, only vultures circling, and one burning village. The Collector held a meeting and afterwards asked the Brigadier to present the monetary awards, a ceremony designed to boost police morale.
          We have before noticed the considerable influx of refugees, mainly Sikh, into Dehra Doon. On the 14th September we saw the result.
          The 2nd Gurkhas were celebrating Delhi Day, the anniversary of their great fight on the Ridge at Delhi in 1857, when a taxi-driver arrived at the Commandant’s house, shaking like a leaf. He said that a bomb had exploded in the bazaar and that ‘sab log’ (all people) ‘were running’. The Commandant called out the mobile column of the 6th Gurkhas, and some officers of the 2nd jumped into a jeep and made for the town. There they found that the police had acted quickly, and that Mr. Hunt, the Superintendent of Police, was enforcing a curfew. The town was clearing when the soldiers arrived in their lorries and spread out through the streets driving the inhabitants indoors. The Hindus were undoubtedly the aggressors. There had been a Hindu procession and, it was {471} claimed, someone from near a mosque threw a bomb, later diminishing into a brick, then into a stone, and the Hindus retaliated. That was the story. The facts lay about the streets in the shape of dead Muslims, fires smouldering at the wooden doors of little shops, gutted and looted houses, the usual nauseating debris of Indian communal riot, with a monsoon drizzle diluting the blood in the streets and washing it into the gutters. We saw one non-Muslim corpse, a little Sikh girl. The often-experienced crop of rumours came surging in, always of impending atrocities, assaults, burnings to be instigated by the cowed, suffering minority against the savage majority-rumours broadcast by this same politico-religious body. Unfortunately, the local administration was communal and regarded the extirpation of Muslims as inevitable and, since inevitable, therefore not to be unduly halted. The United Provinces ministry cleaned out this Augean stable with commendable promptitude.
          In 1922 there had been a small riot of this nature in Dehra Doon, a very small one. Here today was one that cost in a twinkling over a hundred dead and injured. The soldiers stayed in the town for a few days. Other columns of Gurkhas wove out among the little villages to stop Sikhs and Hindus who were now murdering wherever they could find a few defenceless Muslims—men, women or children. Hatred and violence even spread to the tiny hill village of Chakrata, 6,000 feet up in the monsoon clouds.
          A flight over the eastern Doon towards the Ganges revealed Jawalapur near Hardwar, a third gutted with fire, and five miles to the south of it a Muslim village lying between two Hindu villages, a blackened, lifeless desert with vultures afloat above. By now our Sappers and Miners from Roorkee were in charge of this area and all was quiet.
The Army was now being used in Hindustan as a communal weapon. Too often it only reached the scene in time to prevent the luckless minority from revenging itself on the triumphant majority.
          On the 19th September a patrol of seven men of the 1st Kumaon Regiment, under a Hindu officer, was out in the Bulandshahr district after a report of impending trouble. It passed through Pinauti where all was quiet. Later it saw smoke, so turned back to the village. There at 7 p.m. it found {472} the village alight and a heaving mob of between 3,000 and 4,000 Hindus around the village, directed by a leader on an elephant. As the patrol came on, shouting to the mob to go, some of the rioters advanced on it. The patrol opened fire and, as the mob persisted, got down to the business with its automatics. The crowd drew back but, despite losses, came on again and the patrol opened fire again. The action went on for an hour, when the mob dispersed, dragging their casualties away with them into the crops.
The patrol then ran into the village, where it released some two hundred Muslims, mostly women and children, from a blazing house into which they had been locked. Our men stayed close by that night, sending in for reinforcements which arrived before daylight.
          Only one villager had been hurt, a woman who was killed in the fields. So, here at least, we were on the spot in time. Another patrol scoured the neighbouring villages and evacuated seven hundred Muslims to Rajghat for Aligarh.
At least one hundred of the raiders were killed, so we know that they suffered heavy casualties. It was for our men a commendable affair.
          Two nights before, another patrol of the same regiment went out to save another Muslim village but was intentionally misdirected by a venal village tehsildar (village official) and never reached its objective. Over 150 Muslims died as a result.
          At Agra we found the Kumaon Regimental Centre rather perturbed because one of their patrols from the 1st Battalion had come upon a riotous band of Hindus, had opened up at once on them and knocked out about fifty. These proved to be Ahirs from the very villages where the Kumaon Regiment takes its men. There were murmurings among the men. The Subadar Major of the Centre was a sensible soldier and only needed reasons to support the soldierly action of the 1st Battalion patrol. We supplied them with the remark that only a first?class regiment could bring itself to so impartial an action, and with the story of Henry IV directing the judge to punish the future Henry V, his own flesh and blood. All was well.
          At Agra, too, we learnt that the Hindus and Sikhs of a Workshop Company were threatening the Muslim minority in the unit. There was talk of ‘The Day’, so we removed {473} the Muslims and attached them to a Muslim Transporter Company in the same station to await in security their transfer to Pakistan.
          I give these two instances to show what sort of perplexities were presented day by day to our regimental officers all over the Command. These domestic anxieties, together with the sight of wounded fugitives coming in untended on trains from Bharatpur, and the stories told by the ever?flowing stream of refugees from this and other States close by and from the Punjab, kept commanding officers for ever alert and expectant.
          News from nearby Gwalior State was not reassuring. That Darbar had flirted with the highly dangerous Mahasabha in the past: now it was acceding to a Congress government. As a result, there were stabbings in the streets.
All over the northern and western United Provinces there were by now incidents in the villages—Muslims being thrown from carriages by Sikh and Hindu passengers; big and small raids on unescorted trains; police firing on looters at Farah near Muttra; panic on the Bharatpur border; rioting at Moradabad; Amroha, Bareilly, Rohilkand, all on the very verge of disaster; Dehra Doon, Saharanpur and the Hardwar area in the grip of rioting; civil authorities shouting for more and more troops.
          Dehra Doon blazed up again on the 22nd September and had to be heavily suppressed by Gurkhas. The trouble spread to outlying districts with many casualties. Sappers were in action against a Muslim mob of close on a thousand near Jawalpur, killing a score of them. Even the peaceful hill station of Missouri had its killing. 
          We were overstretched, had done all we could to help the Punjab. From Eastern Command at Ranchi we sent our last two battalions to General Curtis. Now that things were a little better in the Punjab, we looked to our own concerns, found them thoroughly bad and urged that Delhi return our men from the Punjab and take firm military action in Bharat pur State. Bit by bit, and not before they were vitally necessary, our men came back to us, the 2nd and 4th Rajputana Rifles and the 6th Jats as a beginning. It was touch and go during September whether we could shore up the tottering walls of the United Provinces against the heavy seas that were battering it from the Punjab. With a less resolute and energetic {474} commander in the United Provinces and less experienced subordinates under him we should without doubt have failed. We were there threatened by a widespread rising of Sikhs and Jats.
          On the night of the 24th September General Curtis played our last card. We had not another man to put in to hold the wall and all was going against us except one thing—by now the police were showing signs of recovery.
At a meeting with the ministry that night he told them that the Army Commander intended to institute martial law forthwith in the northern areas of the province. If we did this then the whole world would know that the United Provinces government could no longer govern; suspicion would become knowledge of what had for weeks been a fact. If we could apply it there, then we could apply it everywhere in the province. He knew only too well that neither he nor I could find the officers to administer martial law in even so restricted an area. But, who else was to know? The response was to ask him what added powers came to us through martial law. He told them the conditions that he must insist upon and pointed out that under martial law all the odium of stern measures would fall on him rather than on them who were possibly less well placed to bear it. But they preferred the odium of imposing severe measures to that of succumbing to martial law. So they banned the carrying by Sikhs of kirpans longer than nine inches, gave the widest powers to Commissioners, agreed to segregate Sikh refugees in the areas about Dehra Doon into two places, Premnagar and Chakrata, and there to disarm them, to segregate Hindu and Muslim refugees—the latter to Saharanpur for better protection—put a considerable part of their police force under the direct control of General Curtis, and took other useful measures. This forceful action was worth many battalions to us.
          General Curtis, who had served with Sikhs all his career, issued a note on the carrying of kirpans: the note was sent to Army Headquarters, to the United Provinces government and to all our Areas. He pointed out that there were now large numbers of refugees in the province and their numbers were likely to be further increased. Amongst these were many Sikhs, of whom a large proportion were armed with talwars, curved swords), which they called kirpans, slung across the {475} body, and in addition they carried a sword. They thus had an advantage over every other community. Up to the end of the first world war, all Sikhs used to wear a miniature kirpan attached to the comb in their hair. As a reward for services in that war, they were authorised to wear kirpans, the length of which was restricted to, I think, ten inches. On return from overseas, kirpans were provided under regimental arrangements for every man in the battalion to which Curtis then belonged. Orders were issued for these to be carried at all times. After a month, the Sikh officers asked for the order to be rescinded. This was agreed to, and all ranks reverted to the practice of wearing a miniature kirpan attached to the comb. There would seem to be no religious justification whatever for the present practice of carrying swords, which gave them this advantage over other communities, and the mere possession of which was likely to lead to incidents when passions were aroused.
          Wherever one went in the province one met Indians who said that they had heard that we were coming back to take charge or that we were not going at all—wishful thinking born of their agony. 
          Here, also, the students could not keep silent while great doings were about them. Mr. R. K. Bhatnagar, Convener of the United Provinces Students’ Congress Council of Action, announced that a section of the Press had begun to believe the U.P.S.C. to be in action earlier than their ‘direct action’ was timed to start. So far the Council of Action had given neither the call for a no-fee campaign nor for a general strike. Its notice to the United Provinces government was to expire on the 24th September. Instructions for the struggle would be issued to units after that and then alone would students act. They should, in the meanwhile, remain completely peaceful and disciplined. An emergency meeting of the Council of Action was to be held on the 22nd September to decide the method of the struggle to be launched against the government. One representative from each district had been invited and he must make it a point to attend the meeting.
          The Working Committee of the United Provinces Students’ Federation issued notices for a meeting in Lucknow on the 23rd and 24th September to finalise the steps to be taken against the recent enhancement of tuition fees in the light of {476} the latest press note of the Minister for Education and the decisions of the United Provinces Students’ Congress.
          Later in September we had some success in unravelling the political tangle in Calcutta which had made a small event on the 1st September into an historical one. Provocative leaflets, broadcast doubtless by this same Mahasabha and perhaps by the Forward Bloc,[1] showing Hindu girls being paraded before Punjab Muslims, were found by us in the last days of August on the streets of the town. The pirate radio broadcaster had also been at work egging Hindus on to avenge the cruelties of the West Punjab. Then came a clash with Sikhs and Hindus against Muslims. Then the affair of the boy at the cinema came as a God-sent opportunity to turn peace into strife.
          A very occasional red shirt denoted the formation of the Communist Red Guard. It was of little significance at this time, but may be more important to India in the years to come.
          Here and there we heard of molestation of European women by Sikhs. Otherwise, Calcutta was again quiet though filthy.
          In Bengal was proceeding a great switch of official and industrial employees between the Muslim and Hindu dominions. Wherever these unfortunates tried to sell up their property the opposite community so boycotted the sale that they bought it for little or nothing. In Hindu West Bengal there was slowly starting a privately expressed disappointment with the results of independence. It had been expected that dawn would break at once and that the government would forthwith embark upon constructive projects, agricultural, medical, domestic. Others hoped for greater persecution of Muslims. None felt satisfied.
          In Muslim East Bengal there was a general restriction of exports of articles of food for Assam or West Bengal. The export of jute was closed down. Hindu professional men were boycotted.
          Thousands of famished men, women and children, dressed in rags, were to be seen loitering in the streets of Chittagong day and night, begging for food and alms, a reminder of the pitiful scenes of 1943.
          Reports of deaths from starvation were constantly dribbling in from the villages. The general vitality of the people had {477} deteriorated from want of proper nourishment. For one thing, milk had become scarce owing to widespread mortality among cattle. during the recent floods.
          From Assam there was little to report—only that the Assamese, Muslim as well as Hindu, were about as provincial-minded a they could be, determined to stop Muslim penetration from East Pakistan, and that the Governor was remarking on ‘the very weak state into which the administration has got, and the difficulty of getting orders carried out expeditiously or with efficiency’, etc. etc., while Mr. Bardoloi, the Premier, was reported in the very same edition of the Statesman of the 5th October as saying that the administration in Assam was one of the best in India. The Assam government had obviously taken the Governor’s words to heart and improved Assam’s administration to a very high degree of efficiency in a very short time.
          Bihar and Orissa remained at peace, only the Adibassis being at all truculent parading it Ranchi hi and places in Singbhum with spears, bows, arrows and swords, defying the police and shouting slogans for their own independence from the hated and greedy Hindu. One always felt sympathy for these honest little dark men.
          We had our troubles in the Army, mainly the growing hatred and restlessness where Muslim units and parts of units were kept kicking their heels, daily expecting the order to go to Pakistan, daily disappointed. In the Indian Armoured Training Centre at Jhansi were whole squadrons of Sikhs and whole squadrons of Muslims both waiting for despatch to their permanent units; almost sheek by jowl. The Commandant kept very careful tabs on all these difficult people.
          Communal riots in the Punjab were affecting the morale of the troops. They were extremely worried for the safety of their families anti unfortunately the breakdown of communications further aggravated the position. News in the Press was meagre and one-sided (depending on the political, communal party to which the paper belonged). This, coupled with the non-receipt of letters, was the cause of grave anxiety. The divergent views of the two governments through the radio and the Press were not at all conducive to a healthy atmosphere, for the troops were far more communal-minded than ever before. {478} 
          We had liaison parties up in the Punjab with Brigadier Salomon, commanding the 123rd Brigade that we had lent to that Command. These parties sought out the missing relatives of our men in the Command. Army Headquarters in Delhi was arranging for radio broadcasts to give names and whereabouts of refugees so that our soldiers might at least know that their relatives were bodily safe.
          At the end of August we had sent out circulars1 to our Indian troops to tell them how deeply concerned we were for them in these anxious days, exhorting them to put aside all ideas of revenge and to treat the Muslim soldiers, now leaving them, with kindliness and generosity until they bade them farewell. Mercifully, our exhortations and appeals fell on receptive hearts and we had no communal occurrence to disgrace the honour of our soldiers.
          There was one foul episode. This was in a unit coming from outside into Eastern Command. Some Hindu and Sikh men of a paratroop formation passing from Pakistan into Dehra Doon on transfer, attacked, stabbed and threw Muslims out of the train near Moradabad. A following goods train picked up dead and injured. At Moradabad in the United Provinces the train was suddenly surrounded by the armed police. Some of these savages tried to escape but were prevented. The officer-in-charge did his best to conceal the numbers of his men. However, the armed police did their job like soldiers and the party was brought to book.
          We were lucky. I finally left the Command on the 17th November. By then we had had no bad communal incident among our men and expected none, for we were through that worst time when for weeks there was no movement at all of Pakistan men out of Hindustan. By mid-November, by sea at Bombay and by train through the Punjab, the exchange of men and their families was briskly proceeding. 
          The responsibility on the shoulders of our V.C.O.s was immense. One of our Subadar Majors told me that he himself was having a twenty-four-hour working day to prevent the battalion from breaking up from communal antagonism. They carried their burden loyally and manfully and behaved with a toleration that the whole of civilian India would do well to mark and imitate.

[1] Mr. Sarat Chandra Bose’s party.
 
 



———
 

Chapter 37
More Reports from the Punjab

September




All men love liberty and seem bent on destroying her.
—Voltaire
          One of my officers had cause to tour the Punjab[1] in September. Here are extracts from what he had to say. The Punjab slaughter had been going on for about a month.
 
10th September. Discussing the situation in East Punjab with — (Police Officer).

          ‘He is very worried about the position of the Sikh and Hindu refugees who are now in East Punjab. The East Punjab government appear to be doing little or nothing to rehabilitate these destitutes on the land or in the houses vacated by the Muslims. He has urged the East Punjab government to take immediate steps to set up some machinery to deal with this most urgent problem. While no machinery exists persons are quietly taking possession of properties without authority. Some large Sikh landowners from Montgomery district have come across into East Punjab and have laid claim to large areas of land vacated by Muslims. As he says, this will lead to serious trouble and end in the “Have Nots” rebelling against the “Haves”.’

13th September.

          ‘A reliable British lieutenant-colonel in the Pakistan Army stated that some 250 armed Pathans from the Frontier have drifted into Lahore and the surrounding villages. More have come to Rawalpindi. That a number of armed Pathans from Swat have moved over the hills into the Kashmir Valley, that the motor road from Murree to Srinagar is not safe, and that an arrangement has been made to evacuate Europeans without their kit from Srinagar to Rawalpindi by convoy.’ {480}

14th September.

          ‘The condition of a trainload of Muslim refugees. [Had it not been for the timely intervention of one of our Hindu battalions, the Royal Garhwal Rifles, the passengers on this train would have been virtually wiped out by Sikhs.]
          ‘This train had already been derailed twice before, first 4 miles west of Kapurthala, and again just before reaching Jullundur. This is confirmed by the railway authorities. It is also learnt that these evacuees were searched by police and military in Jullundur and they were refused water to drink. On their arrival in Amritsar their condition was beyond description. There were dead and dying in every rail truck, and their beddings were covered by bile and excreta. The smell was almost unbearable. It is said that approximately 100 women were abducted at the first derailment and several killed. Police reports state that the train arrived in Jullundur 12th September evening with 145 dead, of which 100 had been killed and 45 had died for want of food and water. During the search by the police in Amritsar some 50 to 60 women and children died of thirst, hunger and sunstroke, as no efforts had been made to give these people water, although there was a plentiful supply in the station. No civil medical aid was available. The day was extremely hot, the search lasted from 9 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. and most of the refugees were in open or closed steel goods waggons.
          ‘Communal feeling had reached a high level in Amritsar on 13th September after a Hindu Sikh refugee train had arrived from Lahore [Pakistan] and refugees described to the local people that they had been detained at Badamibagh, Shahdara and searched by the police. Also it was said that some of the women were stripped of their clothes, and one woman is supposed to have arrived in Amritsar without clothes.
          ‘After hearing these stories the Sikhs were determined to take revenge and took it. The local police were conspicuous by their absence during the whole of this outrage.
          ‘The total number of deaths from all causes for this Muslim refugee train while in Amritsar alone was about 120. Thirty corpses of Muslims from this train were collected by the rail {481} way staff from the vicinity of the railway station yard and platform.
          ‘Some 50 to 60 bodies were thrown out from the train between 9 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. as the people died during the search on 13th September. [Seen by one of my officers.]
          ‘Twenty-one corpses were counted by my officers on the 14th September lying around the train at the place of derailment. These died during the night 13/14th September. Only two of these had died as a result of the derailment. The rest, mostly children and old men and women, had died of heat?stroke, thirst and starvation. Some 50 per cent of the evacuees had atta [flour] with them, and started cooking at dawn on 14th September. The main reason for the starvation was that they had been refused water at Jullundur and throughout the journey had not been given an opportunity to cook owing to derailments and attacks by Hindus and Sikhs.’

15th September.

          ‘Amritsar today resembles an armed camp. Almost every Sikh carries either a spear or a sword. Spears are illegal and the police have been told to confiscate them, but they are either afraid to do so, or have not the desire to do so. The police of Calcutta were bad enough, but the police of East Punjab are utterly and entirely useless. Practically no crime cases have been lodged in the past three months. The administrative collapse of the police and civil organisation of East Punjab is to some extent due to the fact that all records were in Lahore, and most officials and a large percentage of the constables and minor officials have gone to Pakistan. It will take at least a year or two of peace to build up a proper police and civil administration for this province.
          ‘In the meantime practically all Muslims, apart from those in evacuee camps, have left their homes in the Amritsar district for Pakistan. There is no necessity for Sikhs to carry swords and spears for their protection. These are being carried for display and swank, and so that they can rapidly collect into armed Jathas for killing off Muslim evacuees. These evacuees are well guarded and ‘Musalman Ka Shikar’ [hunting Muslims], as it is called, is becoming a dangerous task. {482} 
          ‘Now that the looting and killing of Muslims is becoming difficult, some of these armed Sikhs are taking to intimidation of passers?by at the Pul Porain [wooden staircase flybridge near the Railway Station, Amritsar], and at the Rego Bridge also near the Railway Station, and are demanding money from Hindus by threats. This is entirely a police matter and it is up to them to stop it. If they don’t, and I don’t believe they are capable of doing it, this will spread into general intimidation and lawlessness of the “Have Nots” against the “Haves”.
          ‘The condition of the railway station is indescribable. Sikh and Hindu evacuees are everywhere, and the front porch and the whole station stinks of human excreta and urine. Masses of flies are carrying infection from the filth all round to the food the evacuees are eating, as they sit in this scene of “Disgrace Abounding”.
          ‘When several lakhs further evacuees arrive, which is anticipated during the next few weeks, it is impossible even to picture the condition of this and other evacuee areas.
          ‘Little has been done to rehabilitate evacuees, and it is rumoured that rehabilitation officials are making considerable money in the allocation of ex-Muslim property. [Unconfirmed but almost certainly true.]
          ‘The problem of rehabilitation of this vast horde of destitutes appears, at any rate at the moment, quite beyond the scope of the East Punjab authorities. The authorities here and in West Pakistan are faced with the greatest evacuee movement in history, and in the case of East Punjab the problem is to be handled by a civil administration that is significant by its incompetence. How long it will take for lawlessness and disease to readjust the economic balance, remains to be seen.
          ‘Some of the events such as murder, brutality, looting, illtreatment of women and small children in evacuee trains, the results of vicious hatred and communal fury, have outdone even Belsen and other bestialities created by the warped Nazi mind.
          ‘A British officer who was captured in 1942 by the Japanese and worked on the Siam Railway said, “I thought the Japs knew how to pack a train of P.O.W.s to the limit, but this beats them hollow.” ‘ {483} 

23rd September.

‘Amritsar. Another Muslim refugee train.
          ‘This morning, 22nd September ‘47, it was learnt that two Muslim evacuee trains were standing at Mananwala Railway Station some five miles east of Amritsar waiting to get the all-clear to proceed direct to Lahore. The military here made elaborate arrangements to prevent any incident, but were sadly lacking in numbers of troops owing to other commitments. At about midday the first train went through Amritsar Station without any mishap, but an attempt was made to attack it near Khalsa College about four miles down the line. The attackers were driven off by a military picket consisting of one officer and 15 men that were on duty there.
          ‘This made the mob very angry and the military picket had to fire spasmodically to keep the mob from attacking them. ‘At about 5 p.m. the second train went through, but the train was halted near Khalsa College as it was found that the lines had been removed by the mob.
          ‘Immediately the train had halted a Sikh-Hindu Jatha of about 8,000 in number made determined attacks on the train with rifles, Stens, kirpans, spears and other weapons. The military picket, with the help of the escort of 1 B.O., 2 Havildars and 12 I.O.R.s of a Field Regiment (Note: both the picket and escort, except for one officer, were Hindu troops) were able to hold them off, but it was soon found that the picket was running short of ammunition, so they had to withdraw after expending all but one Sten magazine.
          ‘This picket withdrew to Khalsa College, where it informed Bde. of the situation and asked for help.
          ‘A Dogra company of the Baluch Regt. was sent out as soon as possible, but by the time they arrived at the scene of the incident the mob had overpowered the escort, having shot the B.O. and one Havildar, and injured 5 of the others (the lives of the rest of the escort were spared only because they were Hindu troops) and had attacked the evacuees, killing and injuring almost all.
          ‘The Dogra company opened fire and dispersed the mob, killing and injuring quite a large number (correct figures unknown, but the casualties from military firing can be considercd as fairly high). {484} 
          ‘About 1 a.m., 23rd September, the train was brought back to Amritsar Station for the remainder of the night.
          ‘It may be noted that the civil authorities here had done absolutely nothing in the way of organising medical aid or giving the few remaining live evacuees any water. I requested one of the Dogra officers to detail some of his men to get water and give it to these people, and I and another officer assisted. I do not think I have ever witnessed such coldbloodedness by any human beings as I witnessed last night from the civil authorities.
          ‘The previous incident (see my note dated 14th September ‘47), which occurred almost at the same place was a minor affair to this. In every carriage without exception the dead and dying were mixed up with the wounded—it was certainly a train of death; the train was also well riddled with bullets, they appeared to be mostly Sten and rifle bullet holes, and all the shutters and windows had been smashed.
          ‘It was estimated that there were 2,000-2,500 evacuees on this train, out of which 1,000 or more have been killed, the rest, with the exception of about 100, have been injured; through lack of medical attention another 50 per cent of these will probably die during the next few days.’

From a British Officer

          ‘Throughout September I was along with ——— and the Railway Police struggling to save life and keep the trains moving in North Rajputana in conditions of the utmost difficulty. We succeeded in getting 5,000 Muslims out of Narnaul, a railside town in Patiala State, where there was a wholesale organised massacre going on. We got 6,000 out of Bharatpur, and had to fight every train through. On the 19th I got a wire telling me to hand over duties at once to C. C. Ajmer. We have the satisfaction of having brought off the biggest police job of our lives.’

The Tale of a Dogra Company (Hindus) on its Journey from Razmak to Lucknow

          ‘The Company left Razmak for Bannu on 8th September. The night 8/9th September was spent in the Bannu Rest Camp where there appeared to be no signs of any tension whatsoever. {485} 
          ‘On 9th September we moved to Mari?Indus by road, providing an escort for B.O.s and I.O.R.s detained at Bannu due to a ban imposed on the movement of all military personnel on the Bannu?Mari Indus line. This ban was imposed on account of the fact that a week previously two Sikh I.O.R.s had been killed in the train while proceeding from Mari-Indus to Bannu. Sections of the Bannu-Mari Indus road were patrolled by troops of 2nd Frontier Force Regiment and there was very little movement of local inhabitants seen en route.
          ‘We were detained at Mari?Indus as it was not considered safe for us to move beyond Mari?Indus to Lahore via Mianwali due to the seriousness of the trouble then prevalent in the whole of the Mianwali district.
          ‘On 11th September we mounted a guard over 650 Hindu refugees who were brought to Mari?Indus for onward despatch to Mianwali where a refugee camp had been established. While at Mari?Indus the non?Muslim shopkeepers in the camp repeatedly requested us to smuggle them away in our train as they considered themselves unsafe in present conditions. This sense of fear was further increased by the arrival in Mari?Indus of the Guides Cavalry (a Pakistan unit) on their way to Dera Ismail Khan, who openly declared that they would one day “cut them up for meat”.
          ‘On 13th September we entrained for Rawalpindi. The train was not a military special and was, until half an hour before its scheduled time of departure, a normal mixed train carrying in the main Muslim I.O.R. leave details from Waziristan Area. At 6.30 p.m. orders were received from H.Q. Waziristan Area that the train would carry us to Rawalpindi. Due to insufficient accommodation all Muslim military personnel were detrained and their accommodation allotted to our Company. It is reasonable to assume that due to the last-minute change in the composition of the train any gangs who might have been bent on mischief were not given enough time to organise themselves, and so no attack was made on the train. We arrived in Rawalpindi on 14th September. We were accommodated in the Rest Camp where there were both Muslims and non?Muslims in transit. There were no signs of any tension and troops moved about freely within the limits of the camp.
          ‘On 10th September we left Rawalpindi on a military special {486} for Delhi. We were detailed as escort for the train which carried B.O.s, B.O.R.s, V.C.O.s, I.O.R.s and families. Every station from Rawalpindi to Lahore was patrolled by troops and no one was allowed on to the platforms. From what could be seen from a moving train, it appeared that things were normal. ‘The train was detained overnight at Lahore (10th/21st September). The railway station was a mass of human beings, presumably Muslim refugees awaiting onward despatch.
          ‘On 21st September the train did not leave Lahore as was intended because a report had been received that a Muslim mob had gathered at Harbanspura and was waiting to attack any train passing that way from Lahore.
‘From a conversation with a Muslim V.C.O. at Lahore station, it appeared that it was the confirmed opinion of all Muslims that the Sikhs were wholly and solely responsible for the trouble in the Punjab. He declared that not a single Sikh was left in Lahore and it was the intention that not a single Sikh would ever enter Lahore again. He maintained that the Muslims had nothing against the Hindus and he assured us that if the Dogra company wanted to move about either in the station or outside, they were at liberty to do so and they would not be touched by any Muslim. This V.C.O. described in some detail the horrible outrages performed by Sikhs against Muslim women and children. He said the Sikhs were the enemies of the Hindus and the time would come when they would turn on and attack the Hindus. To support this he cited instances in Amritsar where the Sikhs had hauled down the Indian Union flag and hoisted the Sikh flag instead. This was evidently a false statement as all the way from Attari to Amritsar and beyond, the Indian Union flag was seen flying from all railway stations and overhead bridges.
          ‘On 22nd September the train left Lahore at 11.30 a.m. At Harbanspura we saw the results of the previous night’s attack on a refugee train—dead bodies were lying on the railway track. Locals at Attari informed us that about 1,500 non-Muslims had been killed in the attack on the train and that the Muslims had been working all night to remove the bodies so as to show no trace of the attack. When we passed the place about 30-40 bodies were lying on the track and they were being removed under military supervision. The smell in the area was dreadful. At Attari, the first railway station {487} on the Indian border, the train was given a rousing welcome by the local Sikhs. Food and water were distributed freely amongst all, including the troops. We were looked upon as martyrs who had been imprisoned by the Pakistan Government and had only just been set free. The main topic of conversation was the previous night’s attack on the refugee train at Harbanspura. The population were infuriated and declared that not a single Muslim refugee train would enter Pakistan—every one would be attacked and the occupants killed.
          ‘At Khasa railway station (about ten miles from Amritsar) the train was again detained owing to the line ahead having been tampered with. The locals openly admitted that they had tampered with the line and that their intention was to stop the up Muslim refugee train and slay every individual in it by way of revenge against the Harbanspura incident. Troops report that at about 5.30 a.m. on 23rd September a body of Sikhs passed the station on their way home with their spears smeared in blood. It was rumoured that every Muslim on that train was killed and that the attack was organised as a minor military operation, with covering fire from L.M.G.s and rifles for those who went in with knives and spears. All that remained in evidence of the attack when we passed through were empty boxes and torn clothing and patches of blood.
          ‘The train left Amritsar at 3 p.m. The smell from the dead bodies on the station was unbearable. The bodies were on some back platform and could not be seen.
          ‘All along the way from Amritsar for a distance of about ten to fifteen miles numerous groups of Sikhs with spears and swords and knives could be seen converging on a small railway station where a refugee-filled train was standing with no engine. It appears that the engine driver, having come to hear of the impending attack, detached his engine from the train and started off for Amritsar. We actually did pass a lone engine on the up line making for Amritsar. No attack was made on the train while we were in that vicinity as the mob had not then reached the station where the train was standing.
          ‘Beyond Jullundur there seemed to be no sign of trouble, though up to Ambala thousands of refugees (non-Muslims) were on the stations waiting to board trains.
          ‘At Jullundur I spoke to a respectable Sikh gentleman and {488} he said that the Sikhs would now only let a refugee train go through to Pakistan unmolested provided one came from there unmolested. This he said equally applied to road and foot convoys.
          ‘At Delhi railway station a man was stabbed on the platform on which our train was standing. The crime was committed in the rear of the platform, an isolated place, where there were neither troops nor civilians. The man who committed the crime evidently made good his escape.
          ‘The train remained in Delhi for four hours. Things appeared to be normal. Sikhs with their nine?inch kirpans were very much in evidence on all platforms, especially where incoming trains were expected.
          ‘The reaction of the troops to the present situation is one of complete disgust. The plight of the refugees, both Muslims and non-Muslims, aroused their sympathy.
          ‘They maintain that both parties are equally responsible for the trouble prevailing in the Punjab. Some of the more educated are asking “What price freedom?” ‘

A Report of his Journey from Montgomery to Meerut by a Sikh Subadar

          ‘I left Montgomery by the Karachi Mail at 3.30 p.m., 22nd August ‘47. We arrived at Raiwind Jn. at 7.30 p.m. I had to change there and waited until 1.30 p.m. on the station. At about 10 p.m. some 200 Punjabi Muslims armed with swords attacked the station and looted the Hindus and Sikhs on the station. Some 10 persons were killed. There was a military train guard who fired and dispersed the looters wounding several of them. The guards appeared to be Punjabi Muslims of perhaps the Baluch Regiment.’ When the train started I and a Punjabi Muslim Havildar and Hindu Sepoy got into the guard’s van where there were two armed Sepoy guards—one Hindu and one Punjabi Muslim. As I was a Sikh I kept out of sight while in Pakistan as there was considerable trouble at each station over looting. We arrived at Ferozepore at 3 a.m., 23rd August. The train remained there until midday, when it departed. There was no trouble at Ferozepore. In between Faridkot and Jind States there were {489} large numbers of Sikhs and Hindus at every station. They were checking at each station to see there were no Muslims on board the train. I took the Punjabi Muslim Havildar into my 1st Class compartment and hid him in it. There was a retired Sikh Captain in the carriage with me and he helped to hide the Havildar. The Sikh looters came on many occasions and I assured them that there were no Muslims in the carriage and even had to take oaths to this effect. If I had not shown them my pistol and threatened them, however, I think they would have tried to force their way in on more than one occasion. We arrived safe and sound in Meerut midday, 24th August, after a most harassing journey.’

From One of my Staff Officers

23rd September.
          ‘The present situation in both East and West Punjab has considerably improved, the reason being that the Sikhs and Hindus in West Punjab have all left their villages and are being concentrated in evacuee camps. For this reason there are no killings, lootings or burning of villages. The same has happened in regard to the Muslims in East Punjab. The only incidents that occur now are attacks on convoys, caravans and evacuee trains. These are heavily guarded with troops available, and attacks on convoys and evacuee trains are becoming more and more costly to the attackers. I visited Pakistan on two occasions and had long discussions with officers working in this area. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Sikhs of East Punjab are far more vindictive; they take every opportunity of derailing trains and attacking convoys with swords and spears which the civil authorities have not got the guts to confiscate. The attacks that are taking place on Sikh and Hindu convoys in West Punjab are more in the form of a reprisal for attacks taking place on Muslim convoys in East Punjab. If the Sikhs could be made to stop their brutal vindictiveness then the Muslims would probably do the same. Major-General Chimni has a target of a fortnight for the transfer of this enormous population. It is more likely to take six weeks from the date of the writing of this note. before this population can be transferred. If attacks on convoys, caravans and evacuee trains ceased, it would probably be possible to
{490} transfer this population within the specified fortnight. The season for sowing pulses will end about 1st October, the season for sowing wheat will close about 1st November. It is considered that there are approximately 1,500,000 Hindu and Sikh evacuees from West Punjab to be rehabilitated in East Punjab. Of this about 1,000,000 are agriculturists. Newspaper reports from both sides give figures of rehabilitation of personnel-for instance that 25,000 have been rehabilitated on the land. These newspaper reports and this propaganda from the government are gross misrepresentations of facts. Most of these people have rehabilitated themselves by taking up land evacuated by the Muslims in East Punjab. They have no ploughs, they have no cattle and they have no seed. In order that East Punjab should produce crops it will be necessary to supply at least 20,000 ploughs and 1,000,000 ploughing cattle together with the requisite seed by 1st November, and this task is far beyond the scope of any government, let alone the present government in East Punjab. Many of these evacuees will die of disease and others of hunger and starvation during the next year and, as many of them have no clothing, they will die of cold during the winter.
          ‘This disaster to the Punjab started with the veneer of politics. It is, of course, directly the result of the words and actions of responsible leaders and still more the irresponsible Press. Politics, leaders and the Press can be held to account for 20 per cent of the responsibility of this crisis, the remaining 80 per cent is entirely due to greed on the part of both communities in East and West Punjab. Muslims in West Punjab saw that by butchering and attacking Sikhs and Hindus who owned property and land, they could drive them out thereby acquiring their land, and exactly the same happened in East Punjab, where Sikhs and Hindus attacked the Muslims, driving them out in order to acquire their land. Both communities are equally to blame and the leaders of both communities and the Press of both communities are also equally to blame. The Punjab has been ruined financially for the next five years. The majority of the industries in West Punjab were owned by Hindus and Sikhs, whereas the Muslims have no knowledge of running these industries and they will be a dead loss until such time as the Muslims gain the necessary knowledge.
          ‘As regards casualties on both sides it is impossible to give {491} any exact figure, and no exact figu