This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (61 page)

From the radio came a broadcast describing the members of the Constituent Assembly being sworn in. The crowd inside the club had thinned out. Someone suggested, ‘Let’s go and look at the fireworks.’

On the esplanade in front of the club known as the Flat, groups of rickshaw coolies and dotiyals, in their ragged clothes but with white Gandhi caps on their heads, were dancing and singing to the beat of clapping hands:

Bairu pakey barah masa
Kafal paako chaita, meri chhaila…
Berries ripen all the year round
But, my lovely, the kafal fruit ripens only in the month of chaita…

Further down, near the bandstand at the lakeside, a group of people from the eastern United Provinces was singing the folk song
aalha
to the beat of a dholak.

A group of young Punjabi men was doing the bhangra dance, letting out whoops and cries by pressing their lips against the back of their hands and blowing, to imitate the call of a billy goat in heat.

Another group, in khadi clothes and Gandhi caps, was singing the national anthem. Some of them leaped into the air shouting, ‘Long live Bhagat Singh!
Inqilabb zindabad
! Chandra Shekhar Azad zindabad! Long live revolution!’

Fireworks were being set off at several spots beside the lake. Their reflection in the lake turned the water into a sheet of red, then green and then gold that shimmered in the dark.

Pandey, the Sikh and Nayyar, their arms clasped, walked towards the lake. Behind them were Ramprakash, Subhadra, Swarna, Kanta, Kanchan, Kanak and Puri.

‘Just look at these people bubbling over with happiness,’ Nayyar said as he looked around.

The Sikh, his steps a bit wobbly, stopped to plant his feet and steady himself. Instead of his usual English, he spoke in a mixture of Punjabi and Hindi, ‘Why shouldn’t they be happy? And why shouldn’t they show it? We’re free, baadshaho! We are not animals any more, but humans. Who cares at what price freedom comes? … No price is too great for freedom. I’d sacrifice my homeland for its sake.’

‘That’s right! This may not be the time to talk about the price,’ Nayyar stood still as he spoke, ‘but just today we got a letter from Lahore from our neighbour Mirza that each of my three houses have been illegally occupied. And today we also got a telegram that my father-in-law has had to abandon everything and flee to Delhi to save his life. Now we’re without a roof over our heads, but we’re free, we’ve been liberated!’ He roared with laughter, ‘And who cares?’

He sobered up, and turning towards Puri, said, ‘Puri is the only one here who has spent time in jail in this fight for freedom. Bhai Puri, people such as you are the real heroes today, no matter who may have come into power.’

‘It’s true that it doesn’t matter. I’m happy too,’ Puri replied. ‘I didn’t expect any reward when I took part in the struggle.’

Pandey took a long pull at his cigarette, and flicked away the ash as he spoke, ‘Reward! Why expect any rewards from independence? Isn’t independence enough of a reward in itself?’

The Sikh said, ‘We’ve got independence because of Netaji, but where is he today?’

‘What did these people get from independence?’ Nayyar gestured towards the group of coolies dancing, singing and clapping their hands, ‘Tomorrow morning they’ll go back to their back-breaking work, but still they can’t help but feel some happiness.’

‘Long live Netaji! Bhagat Singh zindabad! Long live revolution!’ The group in khadi clothes, brandishing national flags and shouting slogans, passed Nayyar and others on their march around the Flat.

Joshi and Chawla came into view from the direction of the club. Joshi
called out, ‘The revolution has already happened! What more revolution do you want?’

‘Yes, it’s been a real revolution!’ The Sikh, still attempting to stand steadily, said complacently, ‘’Twas indeed a revolution.’

‘Was there a revolution?’ Pandey pointedly asked Nayyar.

‘Revolution?’ Nayyar asked Puri in turn, ‘Was it a revolution?’

‘Revolution, well no… but to have got independence for the country was no less a victory,’ Puri said by way of finding a placatory compromise for this group of drunks.

‘Listen!’ said Pandey, with hands on hips, as he struck a pose of great seriousness, ‘We’ve got independence for our nation. All we need now is a revolution.’

The first thought that came to Puri when he woke up on the morning of 15 August was of going back to Lahore. He mulled over this for a long time. He had told his family and the people of the gali that he had been called to Nainital with an offer of a job. How would he be able to look them in the face now? He had been willing to sacrifice his life for the freedom of his country without even thinking of his future, but, he thought, ‘…An independent nation doesn’t want to take the responsibility of finding me a job. Isn’t that an act of ingratitude by my country? What bitter irony!’ … But the country was not made up entirely of people like Awasthi and the others who only wanted to be government ministers. Not everyone could be a minister… ‘What expectations did those coolies have last night when they danced and sang with joy? They were the citizens of an independent country, but just the same they must have strapped themselves back into their work of pulling rickshaws.’ But how would he explain all this to his family and his neighbours?

On the previous afternoon Kanak had begged Puri to stay in Nainital for a few days longer, and to go back to Lucknow along with her to meet Awasthi once more, but he had refused to listen to her. Now the thought of returning to Lahore without success, and of the embarrassment of facing his family and his neighbours made him change his mind.

When he met Kanak in the afternoon, he told her that he was willing to stay in Nainital until the nineteenth, on the condition that Kanak would go to Lucknow with him on the evening of the twentieth. Kanak’s father had written in his letter that he’d arrive in Nainital by the eighteenth. With that
in mind, Kanak gave her word to Puri. She also let her intention of going to Lucknow be known to her family members at Vimal Villa, so that no doubt should remain in their minds, and sent her clothes to be laundered at urgent service rates and began to pack her suitcase.

Neither Nayyar nor Kanta said anything. Pitaji would arrive soon, they thought, and absolve them of all responsibility.

No Urdu or English-language newspapers published in Lahore were delivered to the cottage on 15, 16 or 17 August. The newspapers published in Delhi carried the news that trains had ceased to run between Lahore and Amritsar. The only mode of passenger transport was now in buses, escorted by the military. Such sketchy and incomplete reports were a cause of even more alarm in the hearts of Punjabis who had taken refuge in Nainital.

On 20 August, Puri read in a Delhi newspaper that he received late in the morning: In Lahore, the Pakistani military and police had herded all Hindus remaining in the galis and bazaars of Rang Mahal and Lohe ka Talab, and from Gwal Mandi and Old Anarkali, into a refugee camp set up in the buildings and the compound of D.A.V. College. There was also news about similar camps being set up in Gujranwala and Lyallpur, and about rioters and looters seizing Hindu women in these cities and marching them naked in procession through the bazaars.

Puri’s heart skipped a beat. He read the reports over and over, and decided that he must return to Lahore at any cost. He could not stay where he was any longer, or under any circumstances. He quickly packed his bags. At half past twelve, he met Kanak at the library. She too was very worried. Her father had not reached Nainital as expected. A letter from him had arrived instead. Panditji and Kanak’s mother were staying for the time being at a hotel in Delhi. The family of Vidhichand was in a refugee camp. Panditji was looking, continually and day after day, for other, more permanent accommodation, however modest or small. Hundreds of thousands of refugees had arrived in Delhi from Punjab. If he left for Nainital without first finding a house for the family, he feared, it would probably be even more difficult to find a place when he returned.

Puri told Kanak about the news he had read about Punjab, and about his decision to return to Lahore at once.

Kanak could not ask him to stay, in such a situation.

AT BAREILLY STATION, PURI HAD TO CHANGE OVER FROM THE NARROW TO THE
broad gauge railway and board a mail train going west. That train was very crowded. He had to fight and force his way into a compartment. Other passengers who got on at Bareilly were mostly Muslim men and burka-clad women, and those already aboard were also predominantly Muslim. A Hindu man sitting next to the window at the far end of the compartment shouted at a middle-aged Muslim attempting to squeeze in beside him, ‘You want to sit in my lap? Take the next train.’

The Muslim replied that he too had the right to a place.

A Sikh man, stretched out comfortably despite the crowd, asked, ‘Where do you want to go? To Pakistan?’

‘Wherever. What’s it got to do with you?’

The Hindu sitting beside the window moved aside and made space for Puri.

The Muslim man objected, calling this unfair.

‘There’s plenty of room for you in Pakistan.’

‘That’s your idea of manners? That’s your sense of fairness?’

Another passenger, prosperous-looking from his dress, with a beard trimmed in the Islamic sharai style, was sitting with two women clad in burkas. He said to the Hindu in support of the middle-aged man, ‘That’s the problem with your attitude. There’s so much hatred in your hearts and you blame Muslims for the partition.’

Puri felt embarrassed at accepting the seat he had taken. He stood up, ‘Here, sir, you take this seat.’

The Hindu gave Puri a look of disgust, ‘You’re being kind to these people! You want us to treat them with respect? Didn’t you know that no Hindu could even step on to the platform at Lahore railway station?’

‘It’s the feeling of hatred and enmity that is behind all this mayhem and rioting and bloodshed. Partition could have been accomplished peacefully and in a level-headed way. Just give each party its due,’ the Muslim said.

Puri had given up his place, but could not help saying, ‘
Janab
, Muslims
started up the hostility and confrontation when you asked for the division of the country on the basis of religion.’

The middle-aged Muslim agreed with Puri rather reluctantly, ‘We’re all God’s children. Religion is simply man’s connection with God. It’s only a matter of faith and belief. To dispute territory on the basis of religion …’

The prosperous-looking man interrupted him, ‘Wah janab, how can you say that? Religion comes first. Religion makes us human beings. When Hindus and Muslims are two nations, have different points of view, when they differ in what they eat and how they live, when they won’t intermarry, they logically should have separate spaces to live in as well.’

‘Then get the hell out of here! And take all your people with you! Who’s stopping you?’ the Hindu shouted at him.

Another man said, in a sad voice, ‘You don’t want us here any more, that’s why we’re leaving. Otherwise we did live together, for generations.’

The Hindu again protested, ‘Why should the Muslims stay here anyway? They got Pakistan for themselves, but they still want a piece of Hindustan. Pretty clever, eh?’

The Sikh said, ‘We got rid of these people in Calcutta. There might be only a few left, under the protection of the army. They too are being moved to Dacca. That problem would have been solved if the army hadn’t intervened.’

The Hindu said, ‘The government is protecting these people here, otherwise they’d have learned the hard way. In Pakistan it’s the government that’s getting the Hindus killed.’

A Muslim passenger begged with joined palms, ‘Bhai, our fate is in the hands of our leaders. Hindus or Muslims are both God’s people. As long as we are in this compartment together, let’s be quiet and keep the fear of Allah in our hearts.’

The middle-aged Muslim wriggled aside and made space for Puri.

The mail train halted only at major stations, and when it did, the people who wanted to come aboard were Muslims. As the compartment was already packed, the Muslim passengers inside the compartment told the newcomers to look for seats elsewhere. The man with the sharai beard, in consideration for other Muslim passengers, had the door to the compartment opened and let a few more in. This led to a row involving him, the Sikh and two Hindu passengers.

Some Muslim passengers were nervous that the train would take them
only as far as Amritsar. A Hindu comforted them, ‘The Pakistani government will take you beyond that point. If you can’t depend on your own fellow Muslims in Pakistan, why did you want to have Pakistan at all?’

Puri expressed his anxiety to get back to Lahore to take care of his family. He might be able to take a bus, he was told, because there were perhaps buses going to Pakistan under military escort.

Travellers swarmed all over the train at Muradabad and Saharanpur stations. By now the crowd was so dense in Puri’s compartment that even the Muslim passengers were loudly protesting against letting more Muslims in. The prosperous-looking Muslim too had fallen silent.

As it was delayed at every station, the train now was running hours behind schedule. There was no question of being able to sleep. Pressed on every side by closely packed bodies, none of the passengers could sit in comfort. Puri thought of reading something to pass the time, but it was impossible to reach his trunk. Also, there was not enough light for reading, the pressure of the crowd had dimmed the light too. There was not enough space even to stretch one’s arms. Puri yawned continuously and kept looking at his watch. It was close to five in the morning. He had spent the night jammed among the passengers without a wink of sleep.

At Ambala station such a huge crowd rushed towards the train that everyone inside the compartment was alarmed. Nobody wanted to open the door, but two Hindu passengers had to get off. When the door was opened to let those two out, a few people on the platform forced their way in. So many people stood crushed in the tight space of the doorway that the door could not be shut. The air became so close that everyone found it difficult to breathe. The Muslims standing inside were now obstructing and pushing other Muslims to keep them out. All one could hear was the noise of screams, cries and sobs, wailing and shouts. Some were yelling to be let in, while others were crying out in pain at being trampled upon. Babies and small children were screaming out of fear, and from being shoved and jostled by the surge of the crowd.

The passengers left waiting on the platform were panicky and nervous, as if they would surely face death if they were not allowed to get in. From the thud of footsteps overhead, it was apparent that many had climbed onto the roof.

There were so many people inside the carriages and sitting on the roof that the engine was unable to pull the load. It strained, belched clouds
of steam and chugged, but the wheels spun on the rails without moving forward. Every passenger blamed the others for this predicament.

A detachment of police constables, lathis and guns in hand, came on to the platform. The travellers on the roof cried out in protest and resisted, but the constables pulled and shooed them off. The engine again put out all its strength, and after much hissing and puffing and shooting out clouds of steam, was barely able to haul the train behind it. The doors of the compartment could not be closed from the crowd spillover, and many travellers were perched on the footboards and hanging from handrails outside the doors.

After the train began to move, the din quieted sufficiently for one to be able to talk in a loud voice. Two children were heard crying, one moaning and hiccupping pitifully. Someone asked in a weak, trembling voice, ‘Does any kind soul have two mouthfuls of water for the baby?’ Puri saw the man with the sharai beard handing a badna, the Muslim-style lota, to an old man.

Loud sobbing from a middle-aged woman drew everyone’s attention. An old Muslim man sat next to her, his clothes splattered with blood. When he saw the passengers looking at him, he too began to weep and speak through his tears, ‘Who knows what He wished for us? We abandoned everything we had, and left with our two young sons, the wife of one of them and our daughter. The Hindus and Sikhs of our village barred our way. Our sons tried to stop them when they tried to carry off our daughter and daughter-in-law. They were cut to pieces with machetes, and both women were taken away. This is our two-year old granddaughter.’

‘Ah! Tut! Tut!
Lahaul
! Curses be upon them! Tauba!’ Several voices expressed pain, sympathy and disgust.

Another Muslim man said, ‘It’s all the will of Allah. The true human being is the one who fears Him. About a dozen persons were murdered in our village also, and all Muslim homes were set on fire. But our neighbours, God bless that kind family, hid us first in their cowshed, and brought us to the station at night, hidden in their bullock cart.’

Another elderly man removed his turban to show a wound on his head, and prayed that the curse of Allah might fall upon those who had killed his brother.

Puri realized that the only two non-Muslims in the compartment were himself and the Sikh. After hearing his fellow passengers’ stories, a fear
was growing in Puri’s heart. What if all the Muslims attacked him and the Sikh in revenge? But the expressions on the faces of the Muslims were not one of menace, but of fear and anxiety.

Two more women began to wail and wipe away their tears. The man sitting beside them sighed deeply as he told their heart-rending story to the passengers around him.

The train was moving at a very slow speed after leaving Ambala station. Barely able to breathe in the crush of bodies, Puri was desperate for the train to reach Amritsar. But when would it get there at this snail’s pace? he wondered.

Puri had taken over the space vacated by the Hindu who got off at Ambala, and could now look out through the window. The speed of the mail train was quite slow, but it still did not stop at small stations, as usual. On all such stations, large crowds of Muslims, their meagre belongings tied up with jute cord, were waiting for trains to carry them away.

The morning was well advanced when the train halted at Sirhind station. The platform was deserted, except for soldiers standing on guard with fixed bayonets. An ominous stillness seemed to pervade every corner. There were piebald splotches of wet brown and black on the platform that appeared to be blood. On one side of the station, beside the fence, lay several corpses. From behind the station came the sound of distant shouts and cries. Only mail sacks were loaded and unloaded, and the train departed.

It had gone only a short distance past the signal post. Scattered houses could still be seen on the other side of the barbed wire stretched along the tracks. The wheels of the train ground to a halt with a metallic screech. The sound of gunshots came from close by, and of bullets hitting the side of the carriages. A group of people with swords, spears, machetes and guns in their hands, jumped over the barbed wire and charged at the train.

There were more gunshots, and the elderly man sitting beside Puri cried out in pain as a bloodstain formed on his shoulder.

Puri pulled away from the window.

Another man screamed, ‘Hai, I’ve been hit!’

The compartment was filled with screams as panic spread through the passengers.

‘Close the windows!’ someone shrieked.

The attackers climbed on the running boards outside the carriages, swinging machetes at people near the door and hurling spears through the
doors and windows. They pulled at those nearest the door and threw them down on the ground beside the track. Seeing the attackers advance, some of the persons packing the doorway shrank back. Three young men, two carrying swords and one holding a spear, came in. They struck at random at the passengers, and pushed them out of the compartment. They also threw out any luggage or bundles that they came across. Sporadic gunshots were still to be heard outside. A young woman screamed with terror and clung to her older woman companion. The man armed with a spear moved his weapon to his left hand, grabbed the young woman by the hair, dragged her towards the door and kicked her out. The spear rose, and came down on the mouth of the older women open in a scream, its blade piercing her gullet and coming out from behind. The man with the sharai beard knelt before one man brandishing a sword, pleading and begging for his life. The sword went through him just below the ribcage, and was pulled out. The women sitting next to the slain man collapsed in fear and rolled to the floor.

Nearly half the compartment had been emptied. No one had the courage to fight back. Puri’s throat was dry with fear, and he felt as if he were about to pass out in a faint.

He heard the Sikh call out, ‘Brothers, I am a Sikh and this man here is a brother Hindu.’

Puri too shouted, ‘I’m a Hindu! I’m a Hindu!’

Several others voices said, ‘Hindu! Hindu!’

There was a volley of rifle shots. The attackers began to jump out and run back towards the houses. On a dirt road beside the barbed wire, several jeeps were approaching. Soldiers carrying rifles jumped down form the jeeps.

No guns were firing now. In the ensuing silence, all one could hear was people crying and moaning with pain, and screaming for help.

Someone barked out an order, ‘Everyone get back on. You have five minutes to board the train. The train will leave in five minutes.’ The order was repeated several times.

Some of those thrown to the ground climbed back onto the train. A Muslim lying on the ground just below Puri’s window held up his hand and pleaded, ‘In the name of Allah!’

Puri went to the door, leaned out, grabbed his hand and hauled him. Two women, pulling their burkas together, climbed back into the compartment. The young woman also returned. She stood petrified when she saw the slashed head of her dead companion. A body lay barring the way just inside
the door. The elderly man sitting beside Puri who had been hit by a bullet, lay moaning on the floor between the two benches. The children sat in stunned silence.

Puri’s mouth was parched. Everything seemed to blur before his eyes. He went back to his seat. The soldiers were repeating the order for everyone to get back on the train. A few soldiers were helping the wounded climb back into the carriages. Puri heard someone moan loudly from the floor of his compartment. He saw the man with the sharai beard move his head and cry out again in pain. The Sikh put his arm under the wounded man and tried to lift him to a seat, but there was not enough space for him to lie down.