The UK and India are celebrating the Year of Culture to observe a growing closeness between the 2 countries. Whether it is trade, defence, business or cultural exchanges the two countries are rejoicing a new era of their over 300 year old relationship. But for many, these new relationships fostered between the two countries cannot take away the horrors of separation and bloodshed of partition that their families have gone through.
Everybody knows the Independence of India was not given on a plate. It would have never happened without the sacrifices of thousands of freedom fighters. Imperial power will never relinquish its authority willingly and voluntarily. Indians have fought and many have paid the price. Today when India celebrates its 70th Independence, all the sacrifice has not gone in vain. Since the Second World War, in 1945 nearly 70 countries have gained their independence. India is one of the few, who have remained democratic and is developing within the free market environment.
BBC Radio 4 had a special commissions to mark the 70 years since the Partition of India in 1947, including an ambitious dramatisation of Salman Rushdie’s multi-award winning Midnight’s Children and a three part factual series with remarkable first-hand accounts of British Asians and the British who lived through the Partition, which concluded on 14 August.
The Times has done a spread on the stories of surviving partition victims who live in the UK such as Swaran Singh Rayit, who lives in Berkshire, Bashir Mann in Glasgow, Raman Bannerjee in Essex, Raj Daswani in London, Gurbaksh Garcha in Lewisham, Abdul Hafeez dawood in Luton, Mohinder Kaur Matharoo in Essex, Surjit Singh Sandhu in Wolverhampton, Rajkumari Bowri in Leicester- many candidates interviewed by BBC's documentary. Called the Partition Voice, the British Library is archiving these testimonies.
Many know the story of Shaheed Nanak Singh, father of Dr Rami Ranger CBE, who was assassinated during India's partition. The hardship Rami faced during his childhood is documented along with the pivotal role played by his mother, who worked as a teacher and was responsible in shaping him into a fine upstanding individual. In 1971 he emigrated to England and overcame prejudice to achieve success on a scale that he could hardly have imagined in his wildest dreams. He has been honoured by Her Majesty a record eight times. No other Briton can claim this accolade.
For Swaran Singh Rayit the summer of 1947 should summon happy schoolboy memories of growing up in Indian Punjab. Instead, he recalls being chosen, at the age of 15, to take part in a raid against Muslims in a nearby village. As the eldest son in his family, it was his duty to take part in a revenge attack for the slaughter of Sikhs, although in the event his sword was taken from him by a man whose own weapon was damaged.
Rayit reportedly watched Muslims butchered, the streets full of blood- a scene he does not want to remember. Arriving in the UK, Rayit worked in quality control for a manufacturing company in Southall, west London. Being involved in mundane things of life, he never got a chance to tell his family the full story about the bloodshed and partition. Now he lives in Berkshire, and have three generations of family love, but he still remembers those days of pain and heart break.
However Rayit's is not the only story. Many of those whose experience was as traumatic as Rayit’s never spoke about it with family and friends. But now something is changing. Urvashi Butalia, a celebrated writer on partition and author of 'The Other Side of Silence', told The Times that there is “a sense that people now feel if they don’t speak it will be lost for ever”.
Bashir Mann has lived in Glasgow for nearly 65 years. He was involved in Scottish Politics for more than three decades, and has been politically active his whole life. When he lived in Punjab he was a member of the Muslim League and campaigned for a separate homeland for India’s Muslims, but he never imagined the violence that would break out.
Raman Bannerjee, as a young man in Dhaka, now in Bangladesh, was reportedly a part of the Quit India movement (1942). He came to Britain in 1966 to study for the Bar exams. He now lives in Essex and remembers the growing tensions as partition neared. He threw petrol and nail bombs as Muslim attackers came to the Hindu compound where he lived. One time he threw 17 of them. Bannerjee expresses regret for his actions, but explains, “It was just for self-defence.”
Asian Voice interviewed a few people and gathered such stories, where people living in Eastern India experienced horrors that are untold of.
Dr Soumitri Chakraborty from Solihul spoke about her grandparents who were affected by this biggest ever man made tragedy of humankind. She said, “Both side of my grandparents got affected badly My grandfather was working in Kolkata as a bank manager during 1947. He was well aware if the tense situation going on back home in Dhaka where his family lived. But in those days transport was not so easy and accessible to all like now.
“The print media did not have access all around the Indian subcontinent and so the newspapers were very much localised. One day my grand father got a telegram from his father which said - ''everything is gone, hope we can reach Kolkata alive''. They were influential landlord in their own village in Faridpur, Dhaka but still religious divisiveness did not spare them. They were rioted out from their own house and all their properties were looted by people belonging to another community.
“My grand father lived his whole childhood and teen age in the same village but he never experienced any such extreme hatred between communities before. The telelgram left him shocked and he did not know where to go to get any further information about his own parents and family. The whole family split up. My great grand parents managed to come to Kolkata to my grand father. But his other siblings had to move to different parts of India. A wealthy extended family broke down in pieces and left to being homeless refugees. They were fortunate enough that they could survive and as all the siblings were very highly educated, they got jobs in different parts of India. But they saw their devastated father die in few days because of mental trauma, they could hardly meet each other through out their lifetime because of distance and lack of affordable transport.
“My great grand father could not bring her sister from that ancestral house as she decided to stay there in spite of knowing she can be murdered any time. She later died and after her death when my grand father reached Dhaka to do the cremation, he found the whole house has been dug up by the neighbours because they thought the widow lady might have inherited lot of wealth from her wealthy family and she hid those wealth under the ground.
“My grand father died at the age of 82 years in a small state in India where he worked as chief judicial magistrate and then as public legal prosecutor. He had dementia before his death and during those days he only used to talk about his ancestral house, his childhood and his friends and siblings and the happy family he was forced to leave behind because of partition.
“I always think where do we belong to? Where was the beginning or end of the journey? My grand father belonged to undivided India and then he belonged to India, my father thankfully always belonged to India, I belonged to India, but then moved to UK- so this makes me think are we the global citizens or just uprooted immigrants? The painful experiences I heard from my grand father and few of our relatives are not easy to compile in writing because it is too sad to be written. People got killed, became homeless, families got split up and separated forever and could never re-unite! My grand father always used to tell me through out his life how much he missed being with his siblings who were living far off and could not connect to each other in spite of spending the childhood and teen age under the same roof and being brought up in the same family.
“When I see the extreme tragic story of Syrian refugees in news, I can easily connect with them as a fellow human being , because just one generation back my grandparents went through the same amount of grief and struggle and tragedy. People say till now the Kali temple established by our ancestors remain there in Bangladesh though neither my dad nor me would have had any idea even how it looks or ever looked!”
Annie Dey Sarkar told Asian Voice, “I would like to share the story of my grandfather Shyam Sundar Paul. They lived a good life in Bangladesh (Dhaka), but after partition they lived for quite sometime in Ranaghat Refugee camp. From where he was almost kidnapped but was saved. His brother and him shared only one pair of trousers between them, while the other covered in a towel (gamcha). From then to now being a successful business man, he has been through a lot.”
Poppy Dey told the newsweekly, “We had an unique tragedy. Jassore -Khulna were on the map of independent Indian side of Bengal and then within few days Gandhi accepted to give it to other side in place of Bohoram pore/Murshidabad on this side of map. One of my father's cousin (flourished & affluent advocate of Khulna) was over the moon as he learnt that Khulna would be in India, but soon he went into depression when he heard that Khulna and Jessore were to be given to East Pakistan and he had to leave Khulna as a refugee to make his journey to Kolkata to settle there. He couldn't bear this and leaving his young family & retired parents behind, he committed suicide.”
Asian Voice Editor C B Patel shared a story from his life about many sacrifices involved in lives revolving around the independence of India. “I was little over 5 years, when “Quit India” campaign was launched by Mahatma Gandhi in Mumbai on 8th August, 1942', he said. I was at that time living in the large household of Kalidas Dada, my mother’s maternal uncle. In the household was Dada, his wife, their son, his younger brother/ his wife/ son, Shantamasi(Shankuntalaben’s young windowed mother), Shankuntalaben, myself and some 3 other cousins. It was a much extended joint family.
“Kalidas Dada’s story is worth retelling. His father Kalyanjibhai belonged to an average Patel household in Nadiad. The family land holding were inadequate in view of the increasing younger people and Kalyanjibhai with 2 other friends migrated to present day Dhulia in Khandesh. At that time the imperial power was encouraging development of cotton cultivation for supply to the Manchester mills, and Khandesh was an ideal phase for going that staple.
“In 1880, Kalyanjibhai with 2 other friends started a ginning factory for cotton in Dhulia and became successful. There was a train service once a day from nearby place in Khandesh to Surat then to Nadiad. It took a day or sometimes day an half to travel. The postal service during those days used to take a week to reach the destination. The 3 partners of the ginning factory used rotate turns on regular basis to visit their family for 3 to 4 months each. Once when Kalyanjibhai was in Nadiad for his extended holiday, he got a postcard from Dhulia announcing about the fire in the ginning factory, due to which all the stock and other machinery were destroyed. Consequently the business went bankrupt. Some said that it was a conspiracy by other 2 partners.
Ultimately, Kalyanjibhai who was in his early 40’s had to return from Dhulia empty handed and completely broken. He had 3 sons and 1 daughter, Kalidasbhai, Chunibhai, Chottabhai and Kashiben (Kashiba is my mother’s mother). When Kalyanjibhai passed away, the family had to go through worst financial crisis.
“At the age of 12, Kalidasbhai was compelled to look for a job to support his family. In those days, there was a cotton mill in Nadiad which belonged to Mafatlal Gagalbhai Sheth, the founder of Mafatlal Industries Ltd. This is important to know that a 12 year old boy, completely exhausted with scattered clothes, entered the mill and was eager to meet the manager for some employment. Obviously, his plea was rejected and he was asked to return. The boy had no other option but to seek for some employment to feed up the family, so he stood some feet away outside the entrance gate for hours in the scorching sun just to get a chance to meet the manager.
“By his good fortune, the owner’s son saw this boy standing when he was entering the office, and he asked the reason for why he was standing there. The boy shared the pitiable condition of his family and pleaded for some employment. The warm hearted owner’s son accepted his request and at the age of 12 Kalidasbhai was appointed as the peon of the mill. He was paid some 8 Rs. per month which was bear enough minimum for the household. Kalidasbhai sincerely served the mill very well. Along with that, he self educated himself in various subjects. Due to his hard work he was promoted as a clerk then head clerk and eventually he became the manager in a particular department and finally the General Manager of the entire mill in 1910.
“During this period Kalidasbhai well established himself, bought property and got his sister Kashiben married and took the responsibility not only by helping this family but also paid for the weddings in due course of the 3 daughters of Kashiben. He also helped his elder brother to get along through life. Moreover he was also influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s return to India in 1915 and joined the freedom struggle. In 1932, he was a leader of Congress party in Kheda district and Mayor of Nadiad. He was known as “Lion of Nadiad” as he was fearless, confident and warm hearted. By the time, he retired from the textile mill and was reasonably well off with some agricultural land but his life style was very generous. He used to support the freedom movement. In 1930’s when a large number of people were imprisoned for taking part in the freedom movement, Kalidasbhai would supply food and other necessities to the imprisoned as well as their family members. Even he borrowed money from money lenders to support the freedom fight...”
