We Walk by Faith: Stories from The 1947 Partition Archive

“Open the door or we will set the room on fire. ” With a loud bang, the door was broken open, Ali and his brothers along with many other children and women were pulled out and made to stand under the tree. They started firing. Ali saw Zahid fall at his feet, his eyes open but lifeless. Ali stumbled and slipped but he made his way to the railway station without looking back.

The partition of 1947 was not only a division of land, it was the division of hearts. It brought along the mass uprooting of twelve million and the tragic end of one million people. We have all heard some stories of this victor-less war from our parents or grandparents but we have never seen mentions of these horrifying and chilling experiences in our text books or in any form of historical record. The struggle and suffering of the people who lived through the Partition of 1947 is not something that can be contained in the pages of a book, but it is the only means we have left to completely connect with and understand the silenced stories of those who became a part of this battle of blood and loss. Guneeta Singh Bhalla, the founder of the 1947 Partition Archive has given a voice to the unheard accounts of the survivors who lived through one of the largest ethnic cleansings in history. Her simple idea to archive all of the painful testimonies of first hand experiences of the Partition by collecting and carefully documenting oral histories gained momentum quickly. Thousands of Indian families poured in with help and the idea of preserving Partition Literature became a full-fledged movement. But I still remember the warning my father gave to us. He told me and my sister that he will slit our throats to protect our dignity if we encountered a gang again. We were terrified of such a death yet we agreed with our father. ” Heart-wrenching testimonies as these can be found in the online Partition Archive.

The Archive contains many accounts of women and children who had either been told by their families to kill themselves to protect their honour, or they had decided to commit suicide if the need arose. Such desperate attempts of suicide made to protect women from being violated came to be called Dignity Suicides. The short account on Dignity Suicide given above is an excerpt from the interview of Simarjeet Kaur, who travelled through forests and survived many murderous gangs on her way to North Delhi, India. The 1947 Library is the biggest link we have to connect to our roots and understand the heartbreak and agony of our ancestors. The kind of insight that the Archive gives to our generation is vital for us to connect with our elders and empathize with their pain. Personal interviews and recordings of people can be systematically put together and be called a more accurate history of the 1947 Partition. “There was no religion. In my family, my eldest brother had converted into a Sikh. We were a family of Maliks but Ambar was my Sikh brother. It was common for most households to have a Sikh son who could join the army at some point. After the Partition was declared, we decided to stay in India so we all converted to Sikhism. ” Thousands of people who belonged to a certain religion chose to convert to another solely to save their lives.

There are many stories about the effects of how quickly the poison of religion spread to all parts of one nation and cost over twelve million people their homes. Countless such stories of entire families converting or changing their religion out of fear are available in the Archive, and in many other books written on the horrifying truths of 1947. As Mahim Malik said in his voice memorandum, there was no religious divide in most towns before the Partition. In fact, one family used to have more than two religions as its parts. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs lived in harmony until neighbourhoods were corrupted with rumours of brutal killings on the basis of religion and people were triggered to move as religious gangs in murderous rampages across several villages and towns. “My father told me to hide in the graves, so I went inside and hid there. For three-four hours we stayed there, till the riots were over…We only had a bag with us…We were not compensated. Not for our money or property. Life from scratch in Mymenshigh (East Pakistan, Present- day Bangladesh). ”This was a video recording of Kazi Shamsuzzaman who migrated from West Bengal in India to East Bengal in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). The end of the riots was not the end of all troubles for the people of 1947.

A large number of families were out of choices and had to move out at a moment’s notice. Many could not carry and important documents, gold or money with themselves. After the riots settled, refugee families were required to apply for homes and compensation to start a new life but many had no access to any aid given by the government. Even today, colonies that used to be known as ‘refugee colonies’ exist in various parts of India. Many refugee families were forced to move into the recently vacated houses of those who had hurriedly fled to protect themselves from being killed. To build a home and a life from scratch after losing all roots and connections is nearly impossible. The trauma and strain of establishing a new life in a foreign land without any resources seems harrowing and almost impossible today, but thousands did just that to survive. The declaration of Partition took only a few hours to spread like wildfire across the nation.

The news brought along immense violence, blood and inhumane behaviour along with it. Anarchy reigned for days on end until the bitter seed of religion had killed over a million human beings. While it is still difficult for many survivors to tell their truths today, organisations like 1947 Partition Archive have made it possible for us to have access to such libraries and understand why the Partition is known as ‘a division of hearts’. Many other authors like Urvashi Butalia, Kamla Bhasin and Khushwant Singh provide true accounts of the 1947 Partition through their writing. Fictionalised stories by authors like Saddat Hassan Manto and Ismat Chughtai are also great sources for Partition Literature as they provide readers with an understanding of the times of 1947. “It will take decades for these wounds to heal, centuries for the trauma.