During the months of August to December, almost all the Sikhs and Hindus of West Punjab left Pakistan and similarly nearly all the Muslims of East Punjab and many from adjoining areas left to create new homelands in the Dominion of Pakistan. The majority of the migrants came from West Punjab, Sind, North West Frontier Province, and Bahawalpur State on the Pakistan side and from East Punjab, the East Punjab States, Delhi and United Provinces on the Indian side. Migration in Bengal was comparatively on a much smaller scale in August 1947, although it was drawn out for many years. The violence, which prompted this mass movement, resulted in the estimated death of one million people; this figure continues to be a contentious issue even today.

Much has been written about the partition and interpretations of events vary from India to Pakistan to the Imperial power that wanted to preserve the memory of a benevolent master. Much of this material has focused on the main protagonists, Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah and Mountbatten and the ‘high politics’, though a valid history, it was vacuous of the suffering enduring by the people of the two nations.

The migrants experienced intense trauma arising from loss of life, loss of property and being forcibly removed from their ancestral homes. Even today, some families bear the physical and psychological scars of the upheaval that was accompanied by incomprehensible violence against the most vulnerable in society. In an attempt to move away from seeking answers to why and how India was divided, there is a need to focus on the people, exploring the human dimension of mass migration. This is also in line with current trends in history that is seeking to explore experiences “from below”.

Oral narratives allow the ‘victims’ of partition to have a ‘voice’, giving them a chance to communicate their histories in their own voices. These narratives allow us to understand our own history through the prism of personal accounts and experiences. They are just as important as the ‘high politics’ because they remind us of the human suffering that was endured in the creation of India and Pakistan.

I chose to do a comparative thesis (2000) looking at both West Punjab and East Punjab; Ludhiana in India and Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) in Pakistan because both had prospered economically in the post-1947 period. I wanted to examine to what extent partition migration had a impact on the two cities. There was also another case study, Malerkotla a Muslim princely state surrounded by Sikh States. This was an interesting area because there was hardly any violence in this state during those partition days and in fact it became a safe haven for Muslims fleeing the surrounding areas.

Speaking to people on both sides, experiences were shared, regardless of their religion. People went through similar processes of being uprooted and forcibly removed from ancestral homes and feelings of dislocation were apparent in all communities. The saddest part was when I was interviewing a Sikh gentleman in Malerkotla, he was in tears as he yearned to visit his home in Sailkot, just once before he dies but to date has been unable to get a visa. Many of the people I spoke to vividly remember their homes. They can describe their homes in such detail as if an image has been permanently preserved in their memory. As someone who grew up in Kenya and had to leave as a child, I can relate to those feelings of wanting to see that home once again but I chose not to, partly because I do want to preserve that picture just the way it was, untainted. While the people I interviewed have moved on and they have settled down to a new life, a part of them still yearns for those childhood memories.

Pippa Virdee is a History Research Fellow at De Montfort University. PVirdee@dmu.ac.uk

With the 60th anniversary of the partition coming up in 2007, Cultivasian would like to begin documenting some of these personal and/or painful memoirs. We are requesting individuals to speak to family members about their everyday experiences of Partition and document this in a 500-1,000 word conversation, which will contribute to a national archive. If you are interested in contributing to this please e-mail us at: partiton@cultivasian.org