Via 3QD, I came across an article in the Washington Post about a 10 year research project, based in Delhi but funded by the Ford Foundation, to interview thousands of survivors of the 1947 Partition.
The story begins with a powerful anecdote:
Every year in March, Bir Bahadur Singh goes to the local Sikh shrine and narrates the grim events of the long night six decades ago when 26 women in his family offered their necks to the sword for the sake of honor.
At the time, sectarian riots were raging over the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, and the men of Singh’s family decided it was better to kill the women than have them fall into the hands of Muslim mobs.
“None of the women protested, nobody wept,” Singh, 78, recalled as he stroked his long, flowing white beard, his voice slipping into a whisper. “All I could hear was the sound of prayer and the swing of the sword going down on their necks. My story can fill a book.” (link)
These ‘honor killings’, where women were killed by male members of their families to prevent their being raped by communal mobs, were not at all unusual. I do not know if they happened in other communities, but in the Sikh community in particular it is thought that thousands of women died this way. (I do not think anybody knows exactly how many it was.)
Thus far, the project has interviewed about 1300 people, including Bir Bahadur Singh. The project (“Reconstructing Lives: Memories of Partition”) does not appear to have a web presence, and I’m not sure whether there are any plans to digitize the tapes from the interviews, or publish raw transcripts. Hopefully, that will be in the cards at some point.
Readers, if you have grandparents (or great-grandparents?) who went through this, and who have stories they want to tell, I would urge you to interview and record what they went through while they’re still around. (Projects like the one I’m describing are only interviewing people still in India — I’m sure there are more than a few who have ended up settled abroad.)
If you’ve actually done such an interview, have you published the text of it anywhere? (If you’re interested in doing this, drop me a line.)
Why all this is important:Unlike the Jewish Holocaust, where there have been many documentary projects, including a number of survivor interview projects, the Partition of India has only been studied in dribs and drabs. There is, as I understand it, no public memorial to the Partition in India itself (compare to the many museums and monuments devoted to memorializing the Holocaust in western countries).
But a full knowledge of the true history, including these personal testimonials, is extremely important, for a number of reasons. First, it adds to the historical record, and makes it harder for extremist (communal) groups on both sides of the border to distort the story, or to put all of the blame for today’s problems on the other party. Second, a fuller knowledge from a position of historical distance might help everyone address the lingering trauma the event created (it’s no accident that the person heading this operation is a psychologist), so we can start to address the root causes of this kind of violence.
Amardeep, Perhaps how we deal with tragedies,as a culture, explains the absence of memorials and other tangibles. Perhaps, we recognize the futility of attempst at closure. Perhaps South Asians believe that we will always have to live with the past. Keeping it personal probably helps. And isn’t the continuing stand-off between the two countries enough of a reminder ?
India had a history of being overrun by Mughals and others , who themselves erected huge memorials to their presence. Maybe , as a reaction, Indians tend to be more introspective about history.
These ‘honor killings’, where women were killed by male members of their families to prevent their being raped by communal mobs, were not at all unusual. I do not know if they happened in other communities, but in the Sikh community in particular it is thought that thousands of women died this way. (I do not think anybody knows exactly how many it was.)
What I have read – It was done in all the communities in India – Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. The book, Freedom at Midnight goes into it, somewhat.
There is also an excellent movie – Khamoshi Pani, made by a Pakistani movie maker that touches the same subject in a very delicate way.
Bhishim Sahani, Amrita Pritam, and Khushwant Singh have written about it extensively.
Ford Foundation has been funding projects in India for a long time – they are using the wheat payment money India made to USA (US Government) in 50s, and 60s in rupees – at that Indian Government did not have foreign reserves to make payments in US dollars. It is also known as rupee fund.
There is, as I understand it, no public memorial to the Partition in India itself The biggest memorial to partition are all satellite cities around Delhi – Gurgoan, etc that were developed in response to partition. that have been the nerve center of India’s economic growth
Neale is right. My own grandmother will say, ‘what’s the use?’
I dont think we should have memorials for atrocities. People will nurse a sense of injustice. Something beautiful can be built for the survivors that reflects the contribution they made to India.
I wasn’t aware of the number and extent of violence of these honor killings. Absolutely chilling stuff. My ignorance, and that of most in India, is perhaps the biggest motivator for such interviews.
I am somewhat troubled by the ritualism in these killings. If you wanted to save your family, your own sisters, mother or wife from the mob, why use a sword? Were there no less violent means? And if the women were willing participants, why not commit suicide? Why put the men through the painful act?
I am somewhat troubled by the ritualism in these killings. If you wanted to save your family, your own sisters, mother or wife from the mob, why use a sword? Were there no less violent means? And if the women were willing participants, why not commit suicide? Why put the men through the painful act?
This is one of the great mysteries of this aspect of the history. One problem is, of course, that the only people who survived these honor killings are men, so we mainly have their side of the story — laced with guilt, in many cases. But the women who died in this way might have had a different story to tell. Was it really by “choice”? How can we really ever know how much choice they had?
And then there’s the strange conundrum of women being ‘punished’ (if that’s how one reads it) for the crimes committed by men against them…
why use a sword?
The account you read above is from a Sikh, and sword has a huge significance in Sikh culture, and religion.
Like in the movie Khamoshi Pani, and Freedom at Midnight, a lot of suicides were just jumping in the village well.
Ritual is important in such tragic events. That is why the ritual of johar – Rajput women throwing themselves to fire, when defeated.
Ritual is important in such tragic events. That is why the ritual of johar – Rajput women throwing themselves to fire, when defeated.
Or for that matter – harakiri or the ritual of kamikaze pilots
Or military officers when committing suicide do it in full uniform
5 · Amardeep said
Yes, the victims of “honor” killings seem to always be women.
If there was any scenario where I had to kill my wife and daughters, I would have to kill myself too.
Great-grandparents? My father lived through partition, and I am not that old (under thirty, and the eldest sibling in my family). It seems to me that any project that only interviews those in India are missing a huge facet of the history. What about those in Pakistan and Bangladesh who were forced out of India? Not all of the mohajir went to Pakistan willingly. The honor killings and honor suicides also were not limited to the Sikh community.
Does anyone think the women offering their necks echoes the action of the five Sikh men who offered their heads for the 10th Guru?
From what I have heard and read (Urvashi Butalia’s “The Other Side of Silence”), honor killings may have been most prevalent in the Sikh community. The movie Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters) that Kush Tandon mentions, too deals with the plight of a Sikh woman – an excellent film, by the way.
Among the numerous displaced families I knew in Delhi, I never did hear of honor killings although I heard a lot of other horror stories. People tended to speak of the atrocities perpetrated by the other side but not their own.
One incident that I do remember had to do with an aunt of a very good friend of mine. A beautiful grown woman, married and a mother, she was slightly “odd” – almost childish in her manner and mannerisms. She was a bit of a misfit among other family members who were upper class and sophisticated. Whenever I visited my friend, if the aunt came over for a visit, I could see everyone else visibly stiffen up in her presence. It was sad. After a while she would gravitate toward where we, the children were, to socialize with us; the grown ups impatiently brushed her off. Much later, when were were in our late teens, my friend finally told me her aunt’s story. A teenager at the time of the partition, she had been separated from the family while crossing the border into India. More than two years after her disappearance, she was rescued by a volunteer organization and later reunited with her parents and siblings. She had been abducted and abused. The family, although relieved to see her alive, was less than enthusiastic about her presence. They got her married as soon as they could, to a relatively poor and uneducated man, denying her the education that the rest of the children were priveleged to receive. She would become the family’s “black sheep” for no fault of her own.
As for recording partition memories, I myself feel that it is an important enterprise pertaining to a searing part of India’s history. This sentiment is strong among Punjabis and to some extent, also Bengalis. My father in law is an Urdu writer of some renown – a refugee from Sialkot. The majority of his literary output deals with the partition but he never mentions honor killings. While Punjabi and Bengali writers have addressed the partition experience in Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and English, it is interesting to note how faint the mark of this event is on rest of India’s psyche. Emotional personal accounts of the partition is often met with an unmistakable “Get over it” attitude. I posted this story on my blog also. One reader left a curt comment dismissing the whole experience as irrelevant to the modern “India Shining” narrative and unnecessary sentimentality of a small group.
Kush Tandon, India was partitioned on its eastern wing also. So, Gurgaon, Karol Bagh and Lajpat Nagar are not the only testimony to that bit of history. My own parents lost their ancestral homes in East Bengal.
What about those in Pakistan and Bangladesh who were forced out of India? Not all of the mohajir went to Pakistan willingly.
According to Washington Post article, the project covers India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
It is just Delhi-based, and Ashis Nandy as the PI.
Sorry, part of Amardeep’s comment didn’t get blockquoted in my response.
Kush Tandon, India was partitioned on its eastern wing also. So, Gurgaon, Karol Bagh and Lajpat Nagar are not the only testimony to that bit of history. My own parents lost their ancestral homes in East Bengal.
Yes.
And, Ritwik Ghatak has made some masterpiece movies about that, and other Bengali literature covers that too.
I just making a point about living memorials, and mentioned satellite cities of Delhi, and neighborhoods that are product of partition.
On eastern end, the comeback story of refugees was very difficult, Guha in his India after Gandhi has a whole chapter that Amardeep blogged six months ago.
This is very important point. Because there is no major scholarly work available on the partition, this human suffering of epic propotions remains unknown to most all around the world. I have a freind, whose family fled Lahore after some of his family members were murdered by a mob.
My grandparents and their extended family moved from Karachi to Gujarat at the partition. But, apart from a few mentions now and then, nobody ever wants to talk about it. None of my friends who live in India seem interested in discussing recent history. As Ruchira said, they are more interested in the ‘India shining’ story. The partition remains a rich source for movies (like the awful Gaddar) and books and short stories (Toba Tek Singh, the ‘partition’ chapter in Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games). I am glad that this project is being done. Its a part of history that, painful as it is, is something that we don’t want to forget about.
Excellent point Seahawks fan about men in these cases surviving. Does anyone know of any accounts that men sacrificed their own lives after they killed the women? My maternal grandparents moved from Lahore and my paternal grandparents are from Amritsar, both sides saw a lot of bloodbath but were always reluctant to go into details, unfortunately, I lost both sets of grandparents a while back.
Excellent point Seahawks fan about men in these cases surviving
In large number of cases, they did not survive either, they were killed immediately afterwards, or if survived, it was after killing the “others“, or escaping or timely intervention by newly created Indian/ Pakistani armies. There used to airplane sorties above the moving columns of refugees, and armed escorts while they moved but it was mostly futile.
I think some commenters here are missing the point that this was done as an act of desperation by the communities caught in the mob violence and being at siege (it all depended on who is minority or majority in that area), not some stylized ritual.
There were train loads of dead bodies that used to arrive at Delhi or Lahore station in August-September, 1947. Neighborhoods were burned down.
Does anyone remember Tamas, the TV series on a book written by Bhisham Sahani, it had Om Puri, Deepa Sahi, Amrish Puri, Uttara Baokar, A. K. Hangal and many others. It brought out the human tragedy behind the partition.
Not all of the mohajir went to Pakistan willingly.
I think thats true for Bengal and Punjab. However, Muhajirs from UP/Delhi/Bihar and other parts of India did go to Pakistan willingly for the most part.
My father too lost his factory in Balawali and came to India as a refugee on top of a railway carriage with a suitcase containing his B.H.U paper degree and little else.
He seldom spoke about his experiences except to sometimes straighten us out when we whined about our own paltry setbacks.
Maybe the reason we have an “India Shining” today is because of the quiet fortitude of such men.
PAFD (in comment #20) wrote:
Muhajirs from UP/Delhi/Bihar and other parts of India did go to Pakistan willingly for the most part.
Depends what you consider “willingly”. Do you have to be chased by men with machetes? Or just recognize the threat in the air? At the time, people played the odds — safer to leave or safer to stay? In UP and Bihar, they had a choice, which others didn’t, but it wasn’t a free choice.
“These ‘honor killings’, where women were killed by male members of their families to prevent their being raped by communal mobs…” –this is so very chilling and incredibly tragical – I can’t imagine one family member having to kill another. As Seahawks fan says: “If there was any scenario where I had to kill my wife and daughters, I would have to kill myself too.” –I’d kill myself too, if I had to kill my spouse and child. And it saddens me immensely that even today, such honor killings happen…that a human life is snuffed out so easily…. Isn’t there a less violent means? The answer lies in the mindset that death is better than dishonor. Is it? For whom?
That is an excellent post Amardeep! I remember watching TAMAS, a serial on doordarshan when I was a teenager. That show still haunts me! Also there was a recent movie called Pinjar with urmila matondkar on that topic. ExpatinLA-I can almost your picture your dad from that brief description you gave of him! Hats off to such men!
Except that this process has been going on for twenty years or more. There have been TV series like Buniyaad and Tamas, stories and films like Train to Pakistan, Khamosh Paani, Toba Tek Singh, Earth/Ice Candy Man and Pinjar, Partition is an established topic for scholarly publishing, with oral histories and testimonies gathered and published in books by Urvashi Butalia and Gyan Pandey (read Pandey’s Remembering Partition). Of course we could always use more stories and more records. I’m just a bit surprised that Post/Ford Foundation are pitching this as somehow radical and new (I can see why they’d want to do that for funding/pitching a story purposes, but it’s not intellectually honest to say that Indians are only just beginning to talk about this painful part of history).
It’s remembered by Indians, just not in a way that academic historians are comfortable with (i.e. all communities playing villain & victim in equal measure with the Brits as the only ones clearly in the wrong).
I remember watching Tamas, I am not sure if the DVD is available somewhere. Kush I understand what you are saying and I understand the desperation aspect just that I haven’t heard of any male members of such families who voluntarily killed themselves after sacrificing the women.
it’s pretty clear that most of the men in these circumstances were facing certain death so maybe they went out fighting
Louicypher,
From the article Amardeep talks about, it looks like the surviving members are giving their account. I am not trying to create trouble, I am just asking for some sources that shed more light.
I saw this video on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4GJF9moVm0
I forgot to add that the first part of the interview was with Bir Bahadur Singh, and you can see how heart renching the memory was for him
There was an excellent movie called Pinjar made by Dr. Chandra Prakash Dwivedi made a few years ago (and this one should be easily available in some Indian video stores) about a woman abducted from (Indian) Punjab by a (Pakistani) Punjabi during partition. Probably Urmila Matondkar’s finest role, and well worth a watch.
Yes, true about depictions in the arts and culture and discussions among the intelligentsia. However, I do not know of any systematic effort to document the accounts of partition survivors on a large scale.
Amardeep, thanks for the push to do a more formal interview on tape with my parents, who both left East Bengal (now Bangladesh) for Kolkata around the time of partition. Dad tells stories of how both Muslim and HIndu boys were asked to “prove” their identities by unzipping pants or untying lungis. My grandfather basically died of bitterness and sorrow over his lost jute farm. Is there a place where we might find some standard interview questions related to this project?
FYI, Kashmira Sheth’s brilliant novel for teens, Keeping Corner, is set during partition:
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blockquote>”This powerful and enchanting novel juxtaposes Leela’s journey to self-determination with the parallel struggle of her family and community to follow Gandhi on the road to independence from British rule. Among the vivid and appealing characters is India itself.” — Starred Review, Kirkus
If the women did choose to be beheaded, I wonder if was because of the fear of the rape itself or what their lives would be like after the incident. Seems like they would be rejected from society because they were raped had they not died. They would probably lose their families and have no place to go afterwards.
The answer lies in the mindset that death is better than dishonor. Is it? For whom?
I wish it was that simple.
For most cases, it was a choice between a) suicide or honor killing before, or b) be raped, and then be killed by the “others” in the most humiliating way.
Also, you have to keep in mind that 10s of millions (or even more) were caught up in violence during the partition, about 14.5 million people crossed borders in later 1947, a million died, and perhaps a few thousands (as Amardeep points out, nobody knows the the true numbers) were involved in honor killing.
Neale and Rasudha, (post #1 and #3)
I respectfully disagree on your views. This is about the human element of truth, despite stirring up feelings of hate and injustice; We have learned from a number of tragedies and life-altering experiences in a similar format (holocaust, hiroshima, WWII to name a few); perhaps south asians who experienced the Partition have something new to say? I don’t know the answer but I think it would provide a deeper understanding of a generation before my time.
28 · louiecypher said
The men were not facing certain death, lc, although the threat of violence loomed large. Many of them might have died, but someone correctly pointed out upthread, even if these women survived after being raped, they/their families could face ostracism. As far as I know, no women in my family died. There was, however, a Punjabi family who we knew well, in which all the women were gone. In that joint family, all the brothers and young their sons came to Delhi after partition and opened a samosa shop to make a living. I find also that most survivors of the partition (and this is all the older folks in my family, including my father’s elder sisters), don’t really want to talk about it. They say it was a huge loss, and according to them nostalgia is futile and self-indulgent. This is my family’s take on it, I’d love to hear about others. Incidentally, some of my grandmother’s family decided to stay back, and none of them converted, but all those who can are moving out to the US and Canada.
The men were not facing certain death, lc, although the threat of violence loomed large. Many of them might have died, but someone correctly pointed out upthread, even if these women survived after being raped, they/their families could face ostracism.
That is Monday evening quarter backing.
Let me paint a simple picture.
Say, you are a Hindu family (or a Sikh family) in west Punjab village. Or you a Muslim family in Delhi** or Lucknow. Most of your surrounding neighborhoods are of different religion. You have lived in your house for a century, and have an extended family. From January 1947, you have been hearing about certain deaths, rape, and lot in Noahkali, and other parts of Bengal. You have heard of Gandhi’s fasting.
It is August 16th, 1947, the details of Radcliffe Plan is made public, and you are on the wrong side of the border. In last two nights, you see smoke and fire in the sky from miles away, the electricity of your neighbor has been cut off (this happened in the even swankiest neighborhoods of Lahore, villages had no electricity). You have heard rumor of trains arriving with dead bodies in it.
You hear screams, and arson, 200 meters from your neighborhood, in pitch dark place.
What do you do? They did not knew what would happen to them minute to minute. There is no time for “what ifs, and broader societal ostracism issues”.
** Muslim women from old Delhi took shelter in Nehru’s house. The PM residence, and viceroy’s residence had tents all their place.
38 · portmanteau said
portmanteau, I agree with your family’s take. Though I sympathize with the folks who survived the brutal tragedies, when parents/grand-parents try to “over-vocalize” all of their past problems – personal or political, with their growing children, then it becomes all the more difficult for children to grow up with freedom and sometimes unknowingly interferes with the peace of their life. Maybe a measured, balanced and a positive way of relating to the past is helpful for people to move on. If they really have had too much of problems they better consults doctors/psychologists/other support organizations, rather than crying on their children’s shoulders.
Ardy #33 :
The Jewish Holocaust has resonance with Jews from all over the world – no matter whether they themselves were directly affected or not. That can be attributed not only to a cohesive “Jewish identity” compared to the more fractured Indian one (regional allegiance trumping a national one for the most part ) but also to the meticulous documentation of the Holocaust. Some of modern day India’s indifference to the partition can be attributed to some degree, to the lack of such a persuasive body of records available to all of India. Lacking that, it indeed will remain niche history.
While I don’t believe that keening and whining about the past, no matter how horrific, is a healthy habit, too much quiet fortitude may also be an overrated virtue. I guess it depends on what stock one puts on accurate historical accounts and how much on “moving on” – one can argue for either option. Much of history is selective memory. It is up to India to decide which chapters she wishes to record.
Those who are younger readers here, unfamiliar with partition fiction, I recommend the anthology An Epic Unwritten edited by Muhammad Umar Memon.
However, Muhajirs from UP/Delhi/Bihar and other parts of India did go to Pakistan willingly for the most part.
But not all. My father didn’t, nor did his brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Even now sixty years later, my father still mourns never having seen Delhi again.
My father was a young boy in Calcutta during partition and he apparently was greatly affected from seeing people getting their heads chopped off in the street. We’re from a Christian Indian family so he had to wear a cross on his head so rioters would know not to go after him. He ended up having a lot of emotional/mental problems as an adult and I’m convinced part of the reason was partition. I’m late 20’s, born and raised in the US and it’s sad how this stupid senseless partition stuff has impacted me even though I’m so removed from it.
I’m 30 – both my parents witnessed the partition and grew up in the aftermath. My father grew up in refugee camps during his teenage years. During graduate school, I began a huge research project into the Partition as genocide, compared to other genocides that have generated mass attention. While there is some documentation on the partition, there is not an abundance. The media reports, the aftermath partitions which occurred in Bangladesh in the years after, the impact such a partition had on generations to come – this is all played down, for some reason, nowdays. For example, not many people know that the first UN Security Resolution was passed about Kashmir . . .since the UN (referred to as League of Nations) had just come into existence at that period.
Perhaps it’s a cultural phenomenon that the history of the partition and the telling of this history is done in such bits and pieces? I begged my aunts/uncles/relatives to share with me during my research project – and could only muster 10 minutes of relatively ‘superficial’ information out of them. They were of the “why does it matter” mindset verses the “learn from the past” mindset. I’m fascinated with the long-term impact such a violent partition has on numerous societies – including the Indian/Pakistani diaspora community in the States. Once I started asking questions to my family, odd behaviours, attitudes, and penchances that my family exbited around me growing up were more easily explained. I was able to link a lot of what I witnessed growing up to the Partition.
Thank you for raising this, it is certainly something which deserves in-depth documentation and attention. What can we do to change this trend?
“The answer lies in the mindset that death is better than dishonor. Is it? For whom?”
Kush Tandon said: I wish it was that simple. For most cases, it was a choice between a) suicide or honor killing before, or b) be raped, and then be killed by the “others” in the most humiliating way.
Kush, I am trying to understand this concept of dishonor. The fact that rape was/is used as a weapon…that once a woman was raped, she ought to die (of shame). It is time human beings move on from this notion. A woman gets raped…..which is an attack physically, mentally and emotionally and afterwards, why does society humiliate her, when, in reality, her attack(ers) are the ones who need to be shunned?
It is time serials/movies in India stop depicting this notion (that once a woman gets raped, her life is not worth continuing).
The point I am making is that if you were a Muslim living in the Indian side of Punjab you did not have much choice. Things however were a little different in Delhi/UP/Bihar. A lot of Muslims in these areas actually lived in segregated neighborhoods and there was no mass scale religious cleansing of those neighborhoods or atleast not even close to the religious cleansing which took place in both sides of Punjab. I am not minimizing the sectarian violence which took place in Delhi/UP/Bihar. My grandparents had their house destroyed during the riots. But these areas also had safe Muslim enclaves.
My grandparents actually chartered a plane to Lahore from Delhi after they got their house burnt down by a mob in 47. But they kept coming back to India to tie up the loose ends during the 50s and they eventually decided to come back to India for good in the late 50s.
Re: the use of the sword I don’t think this was symbolic — I think it’s a function of what was expedient and widely available. My grandfather says that the British had passed a series of laws disarming Punjab prior to Independence, and that the kirpan had been outlawed as well until just before Partition. I have no idea if his anecdote is backed up across all of Punjab, but it certainly affected his hometown.
There’s a demographic element to this as well. It sounds like they were prevalent all around.
I totally disagree. I don’t think that silence allows for balance. My grandparents both survived Partition (my grandmother was on one of the trains Kush mentions — in her train car gunmen boarded and killed everyone; she survived because she was buried under dead bodies), and neither will talk about it, even with prompting. They both have little habits that, in my opinion, are a function of living both through Partition and through the Depression. I think it’s important to understand the huge psychological toll, and its “ripple” effect throughout generations, that this kind of violence renders unto communities. The fact is, certain communities were hit harder in the struggle for Independence and in Partition. It’s no wonder that geopolitics, ideas of identity, etc., are then informed by both of those factors.
Oh, and I was going to echo Jai and say that I do like Pinjar. Most art/lit that addresses Partition, in my opinion, is either grossly unbalanced, nationalistic/kitschy, or distasteful.
I do support to some extent the wishes of those involved to not want to “memorialize” their suffering. In its own hamhanded way, the Indian government did the right thing with the refugees – give them some money, give them some land and tell them to get on with their lives (Bengali refugees in Delhi were given land in the East Pakistan Displaced Colony, i.e. present day Chittranjan Park which is now prime real estate.
Too much “memorializing” leads to a victim complex with communities suffering a permanent grievance that never lets anyone live in peace. One only has to look at the Babri Masjid issue to realize how easily people’s sense of “historic” wrongs can be harnessed to a macabre communal policy of hatred.
Are you kidding me? What fool believes there was anything close to volunteerism; countless scholarship points to women being the victims here. They would rather live as third wives of a Muslim I can assure than jump in a well. Shame on Sardar’s for pretending this was anything but murder of thier women.
This is great, and thanks for pointing this out. I have been doing interviews – hundreds – with mainly Pakistani survivors and witnesses, including some very famous ones. A handful are published on my website Harappa.com, including with Princess Abida Sultaan of Bhopal and Ghani Khan the Pushto poet as well as Attia Hosain, the writer. I have many more interviews not yet transcribed that will appear – slowly. Who is running the Ford Foundation study?