Partition Stories

“I came to Pakistan on the 13th of September ’47. And I was a student. I had just passed my F.A. I was seventeen-and-a-half years old, not yet eighteen. And then I did my B.A. from Lahore’s FC college in ’49. So I came as a student. And my father had come earlier – about six months earlier. My father was practicing law in Lucknow. He was a lawyer and he practiced law in India. My mother, my brother and sisters, they all came in ’47. That’s it. And I flew to Pakistan, so I have no adventures to tell you. I took a flight out of Delhi and landed in Karachi and then came to Lahore. I think it’s a very unromantic story.

I brought records with me – music records. I brought perfumes. I brought poetry books. Urdu poetry, some Persian poetry. That’s it. I travelled by air. I could carry 44 pounds of luggage and that consisted of records and poetry books and some perfumes. That is what I cherished and what I picked up.

"The very rich did not come to Pakistan. They had property there. They stayed on there"

I was listening to Indian music, very little English music. Classical music, some film music, at that time the film music was not today’s film music. At that time, film music was sentimental and soft, lyrical – not classical music but just like classical music, still soft and sentimental. I was interested in poetry and music as a student. It was encouraged at my house, in the environment, generally. The records and books, they are scattered. Do I still have them? Yes and no. Seventy years is a long time. I did bring Mir and Ghalib and Dagh and Hafez. The records I brought were 78 rpm records. We did not have the microgroove records, 33 rpm or 45 rpm, only 78 rpm records.

There was a sense of aesthetics. I also brought perfumes. Although I myself did not use them, but perfumes, I did appreciate. Not imported perfumes, all of them were perfumes that were made there, in UP. Kannauj was the place where they were made, in eastern UP – so some samples of that. They used natural ingredients, not chemicals, not alcohol, but plants, flowers.

There was a lot of violence, but I was lucky, I did not…

You cannot generalise. There are all kinds of situations and all kinds of people. Coming from different classes, some from the very poor class. The very rich did not come to Pakistan. They had property there. They stayed on there. Large property. We too had property, but medium-sized. So the very rich did not come. The professional class, the service class, they did come. There is a clear distinction between those cases where there was a lot of murder and killing and looting and arson and where there was not. I didn’t see any of it. As I told you, I took a flight from Delhi to Karachi.

I was studying. I was a middle-class person in India. We didn’t have riots in Lucknow. There was no killing, no murder. It was a perfectly settled life. I was going to my college. And then I got a train and went from Lucknow to Delhi and from there I got a flight to Karachi. My uncle was already here. He was a government servant. He was in the foreign service. That’s it. And then I came to Lahore.

"In Pakistan, I have been to prison five times. So my life here has been a life of protest.
I have not touched any evacuee property"

I was involved in the Quit India Movement as a student in India. I used to pray, say my namaz, and pray for Pakistan to happen. Like the overwhelming majority, I was also pro-Pakistan. We had a vision of Pakistan. That Pakistan would be a much better place than India was. There was, of course, the Hindu-Muslim issue. The Hindus were in a majority, the Muslims were in a minority. So they were the underdogs. You can understand what a person feels if they belong to the underdog community. You see, we were pro-Pakistan. My father and I and my mother. And we had expectations that Pakistan would be very different. That we would worship values. That it would be cleaner, nicer – a much better society. In fact, it was not. That was an illusion.

There was a scramble here for evacuee property. Anarkali was looted, where there were only two shops which belonged to Muslims. The rest of the shops all belonged to Hindus and Sikhs, and they were all looted. Locks were broken. So there was nothing pretty or beautiful, as we had imagined. Pakistan became a hunting ground for personal benefit. Houses of Hindus and Sikhs who had migrated to India and locked their houses; they broke those locks and they occupied it, furniture and everything. And then they would hang board there, saying “Haza Min Fazli Rabbi”. The property they had looted was a fazl of God, by the grace of God. That kind of mindset. So it was very…I did feel a very strong reaction compared to my expectations and ideas about Pakistan. In Karachi also, there was looting. Everybody was concerned with getting evacuee property. Most of them were forging documents to prove that they had property in India when in fact they had no property. Things like that. So Pakistan began to unfold, the real Pakistan. And your Pakistan, today, is a continuation of that. Personal opportunism. The pursuit of personal opportunism. Pakistan unfolded in a rather ugly light. Looting and greed, personal greed, and I reacted to that. So I joined the Communist Party in 1948, in reaction. And in 1949, I was in prison for the first time. In Pakistan, I have been to prison five times. So my life here has been a life of protest. I have not touched any evacuee property. I was angry about the situation.

It was a very materialistic scene. And very insensitive. There were no values. There was a lot of rhetoric about Pakistan and Islam, but that was only rhetoric. In reality, it was a very ugly sight. Of selfishness, of a craze for material assets and goods, looting furniture etc. Look, the jobs. The one big bonanza was that the Hindus and the Sikhs had left so in the government service, in professions, there was a complete vacuum. And that you can try and imagine and figure out: what a huge opportunity that was. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, government officials. Now there was a lot of rioting and killing, here in Punjab. There were no officials left, no Hindu doctors left, no Hindu teachers left. So that was a huge vacuum. Everyone was going begging to become headmasters and things like that. No, it was an ugly sight. It was not pleasant. It was not pretty. Pakistan was in fact seen as a land of opportunity, personal opportunity. Two years before Pakistan, I believed foolishly that Pakistan would be a place where the best Muslim values will prosper. But all sensitivities and values were cast aside.

Those people who migrated from East Punjab were in a very bad condition. There were many injuries, by the thousands. There was killing and rioting there. But those who were not physically harmed, they were just crazy for opportunities, to acquire property that the Hindus and Sikhs had left behind – jobs, opportunities, properties. There was a big vacuum which translated into material opportunities. And that became the norm, and over seventy years I think it is that norm that has progressed. The norm of acquiring personal benefits, material benefits.

The Muslims who came to Pakistan, they were not interested in the arts or any idealism: they were too occupied with opportunities. They had no time for the arts or any ideals. Just a question of making your own material career. Isn’t that the scene today? That’s where it is coming from. You see, look at the political leadership. Or take your generation. They are unthinking, insensitive. They just want to have a little good time without any thought for arts or culture. Your generation is about seeking a good time or migrating to America or some such thing.

I think these facts are very obvious, are they not? I am not saying anything new. The elders availed the opportunities and you are children of that. Before ’47, there was a struggle for opportunity, particularly among the Muslims. I think you are a very unthinking generation, but your elders were also unthinking, it was all very career-based. Pakistan was seen as a land of opportunity for the Muslim minority of India. And that is what it pursued and made a mess of. Have we not made a mess of it? And your generation is not concerned. No, you see, Pakistan is another chapter in the history of the life of the people, particularly the Muslims, and they still have not been able to really define with any clarity. We are still muddling through. I don’t know what the future is: what you will have to hand over to your grandchildren or your children for that matter. No, there’s nothing romantic about it, I’m afraid.”