India and Pakistan: 60th anniversary section

As the dawn mist melted into thunder clouds the sound of motorbikes became a roaring crescendo and a crowd of several thousand surged towards Pakistan’s border with India. Mounted police lashed out with bamboo canes and women and children screamed as they were crushed against a gate barring the way to the Wagah frontier crossing, 50 metres away.

“Pakistan Zindabad!” (Long live Pakistan!) bellowed the crowd, in between cursing the police. One man fell to the ground, blood pouring from his head, scrabbling for his glasses amid a sea of lost shoes.

So began the Independence Day celebrations yesterday along the line where Britain hurriedly divided the “Jewel in the Crown” 60 years ago last night, triggering the biggest mass migration in history.

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The prevailing atmosphere was actually more festive than aggressive — the crowds had come to see the ritual flag-raising ceremony by goose-stepping border guards in regimental finery. But the chaos and violence served as a reminder of the bloody scenes that followed Britain’s decision to split Punjab, one of its colony’s most populous and prosperous regions, down the middle.

Sixty years ago, Shyam Kumar Suri followed a similar route to that of The Times yesterday, from the Pakistani city of Lahore to the Indian city of Amritsar, about 40 miles away. He was born in 1932 into a Hindu family in the town of Shahadra, near Lahore, where his father was head of the Institute of Dyeing and Calico Printing.

When Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, divided British India along religious lines, Lahore became part of Pakistan and Mr Suri’s family found themselves on the wrong side of the border. On August 10, 1947, his father, learning where the new frontier would be, decided to send his wife and six children to India while he stayed in Shahadra.

“I still remember the anxious and emotional face of my mother when she was bidding goodbye to our father,” said Mr Suri, who is now 75.

Over the next few days, an estimated 15 million people crossed the border as Indian Muslims fled to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs headed the other way. Between 500,000 and a million people died in the plague of violence that ensued. Hindu women committed suicide by jumping into wells to defend their honour. Trains pulled up in Lahore packed with the bodies of slaughtered Muslims.

Petrified and confused, Mr Suri boarded a train packed with other Hindus and Sikhs fleeing with what belongings they could carry. “It was an atmosphere of grief, loss, confusion, anger and humiliation,” he recalled.

Finally, his family reached Kartarpur in eastern Punjab — but the violence did not end there. On August 15, local Hindus attacked Muslim households, killing dozens.

“Nothing could have been done,” Mr Suri said. “Had the Hindus not killed the Muslims, the Muslims would have done the same.” His father joined him later after being smuggled into a refugee camp by a Parsee friend.

As their family celebrated its reunion, and Mr Suri stood guard outside brandishing a sword, Ayaz Pirzada, a Muslim, was trying to flee to Pakistan from the nearby village of Mohallah Pirzadgan in eastern Punjab. He recalls how his elder brother, Khurshid, bundled them on to an army lorry he had commandeered, with three Muslim soldiers, to try to avoid the butchery on the trains. They escaped only narrowly. As they headed to the border, in driving rain, Sikh policemen stopped them, searched them all for jewellery and detained them for several hours. Had it not been for the Muslim soldiers, Mr Pirzada is sure he would have been killed.

A few hours later, as they crossed a river, Mr Pirzada noticed something floating in the water. “There were two bodies of women floating with many parts of their body cut with sharp knives or swords. One of them had some Arabic scriptures in her hand that indicated that they were Muslims,” he said.

Today, Wagah bears no visible signs of the bloodshed of 1947. It is an oddly cheerful place, considering that this border is one of the world’s biggest potential nuclear flashpoints. Every day hundreds of Indians and Pakistanis cram into stadiums on their respective sides of the border to watch elaborate flag-raising and flag-lowering ceremonies.

It is supposed to symbolise the hostility between the giant neighbours, but the relaxed, even jovial, atmosphere says as much about the heritage that binds them together. As The Times passed through Customs on the Pakistan side, officials were printing out a piece of paper wishing their Indian counterparts a happy Independence Day. “We’re sending some sweets as well,” one said. “We are enemies, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

Voices from the past

“Some Hindu and Sikh girls, to save their honour, jumped into wells. They turned out 1,100 bodies from one well. My husband was the ruler of Patiala and his state was open so 300,000 people from Pakistan visited us. There was a constant flow of refugees coming and we set up camps for them.” Mohinder Kaur, Patiala

“My niece was just married. They got poison like to kill dogs . . . a mercy killing. But they did not get enough. She was strangled with her own dupatta (shawl), from one side her father and the other her husband. Eight or nine ladies in my family died this way. Some of the girls who survived were taken to the Pakistan area. What happened to them, only God knows.” Tirath Ram Amla, Delhi

“The guts shown by the women in those days, I did not see in the men. I did not come across an instance of a man lying across his children or somebody else to save their life. It was the wives, daughters and sisters who fell over their near and dear ones.” Malwinderjit Singh Waraich, Chandigarh

“I was born in India at Panipat. We lived there for 600 years and in 1947 we were asked to migrate. My mother always hoped she would go back. She would say ‘my father is buried there and I want to be buried near his grave’.” Dr Mubashir Hasan, Lahore

“I remember as a child, people hiding under our beds – little children told not to make a noise – and the sound of bullock carts. I can still hear their creaking as the refugees poured in.” Mira Philbaus, Lahore

Source: interview excerpts from The Sky Below, a film by Sara Singh, 2007

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