Other Side Of Silence

by Urvashi Butalia

  I learnt about Satya, that she was with dacoits and thieves and that she had become one better than them. They’d trained her and she even rode on horses. I told the SP that I want to go to this place and he said it’s a very dangerous place. I said dangerous be damned, I want to go. You see what they used to do, they’d take information from us and send a message on so the person could be removed. No sooner would they hear the news than they would run away. And our own movements were so restricted — we had to be very careful about where we went and how we went. I used to move about a lot, other workers not so much. Anyway, on that day we had to go through farms and fields and the SP kept saying this was very dangerous and unsafe terrain. The poor woman who accompanied me! In the morning they sent a message on ahead that Satya should be spirited away. However, somehow or the other, after much running around we managed to get hold of the girl. When we had to bring her back to Gujrat, first we had to ask the SP to give us police protection for the girls. The Pathans followed us and appealed in court saying we’re not ready to give up this woman, she’s been a Muslim from the start. Even before Pakistan was formed she had actually taken on the Din religion and she was a Muslim. So the DC took the girl from me and let her go. Her brother kept shouting and protesting but he wasn’t even allowed to meet her. I also said let her meet her brother at least but no. He refused to listen. I was upset — I had risked my own life, gone through a lot of danger and hardship to get this girl and the DC then acquitted her! Then I — the first prime minister of Pakistan, what was his name? Yes, Liaqat Ali. He was in Karachi at the time. [This is a mistake, the person Damyanti is talking about was not the Prime Minister but Raja Ghaznafar Ali Khan, the Minister for Refugees.] That was the time the Inter-Dominion Agreement had taken place about Indian women being returned to India and Muslim women being returned to Pakistan. I gave the reference of the treaty and sent a telegram to the Minister and said that with great difficulty I have caught this girl according to the Inter-Dominion Agreement but the DC has let her go. And I refuse to stay in Pakistan and continue to work there if there will be such frauds. He sent a wire that he was coming to Gujrat the next day and that Satya Devi should be brought to the railway platform to meet him. He said I’ll see what I can do. So we were there waiting for the train. The Muslims got to know that our prime minister is coming and a Hindu woman has managed to call him. The news spread everywhere ! And in this case ... they had also heard that I had got the woman away from the Pathans and she was in handcuffs. Her brothers were with me, everyone was there. It was a very frightening case. Because dacoits and people take revenge and she had also become like that. And you will not believe it, there was not one person who was not there at the station! The SP, the DC ... you name it, they were all there. They made me sit in a room. The military was also there. A captain. We were all waiting for the train. I thought how can I handle this? She’s become a Muslim, the place is full of Muslims, I am alone. What will I say to him? What can I do? Then I asked for paper and a pencil saying I wanted to write two lines and I wrote ‘Janab-è-ali, you are a sensible man, you have the reins of Pakistan in your hands ...’ I praised him, I said the very fact that you are holding the topmost position in Pakistan, that you are the prime minister, shows you are an intelligent man. I am a silly woman, I have no idea of things. I want to say just this: I have got hold of just one ordinary simple poor girl and the whole of Pakistan has come and collected here. I would like to ask you this — is this a way of helping in recovery? Is this what the Inter-Dominion agreement was about? And the people here, have they sunk so low that for one woman thousands of men have come out? Is such a powerful fire raging in their hearts? In such circumstances how can you expect me to work? I wrote this letter — a small letter — and when the train came, I went straight to it. People began saying the train has arrived, the train has arrived. And what a train — all white, and done up with Pakistan flags all over, it was a sight to see! It stopped and the police took me there. What was his name? Liaqat Ali, he came out. He said, you are the person? I said, yes. You have a complaint? Yes. Please come into the train. I said I will come into the train Sahib, but you can judge the situation. So many people, for just one woman. What is this about? I can’t understand what this is about. All I have done is to track one girl down and there’s all this commotion and confusion. He got very angry. ‘Where is the DC?’ he shouted. ‘Why are all these people here?’ ‘Sir, because of the girl.’ ‘Does it need so many people to protect one girl? Where is the girl? Have her brought here.’ The police came with the girl, in handcuffs. I was standing here, he was there. The girl shouted: ‘Who has come to take me? This bastard woman?’ That was the saving grace. ‘This woman has come to take me away? I will not go.’ She had managed to get her shoe in her hand and was shaking it at me. Oh ho, he saw red. He said throw her in jail immediately and dismiss these policemen at once. These are orders. Transfer this SP immediately. Then he gave such a lecture there on the platform. He said I am proud of the Hindu workers. There is one girl representing India and your whole police force and officers felt the need to come out here. Look at this woman, how she’s holding herself like a lion, and with no protection ... He said I am ashamed of you, what will become of you, how will you progress and reach anywhere? Instead of doing your job you are allowing her to raise her shoe at someone in front of me! Put her in chains and lock her in one compartment and the badmashes with her, lock them in the other compartment. He dismissed the policemen, transferred the SP, and also some others, then he patted me on the back, made me sit down next to him and said I am very very proud of you, not only of you but of India. He said this is amazing, you are facing this kind of thing, and what a frail person you are. Fifteen minutes we talked, then the train left, and I, all the people ... they were surprised ...

  Child, I had to stay. He gave them so many abuses, the SP, DC and others. I was so ashamed, I could hardly look up. He kept saying look at you, transfer this one, he’s a shame. When I came back, one of them came to me and said I hope you are satisfied now, you are calm, your heart is calm, but all those poor men whom you have had transferred, have you thought what will happen to their families, their children? What will they say to you? Think of you? Can you live with this? I thought this is a real problem, he’s gone off and I’m stuck with this. And he said, ‘In their houses today everything is silent and sorrowful, no food is being cooked there today, the children are hungry, and everyone is wondering who this woman from India is. Anyone who comes, she manages to prevail upon them, anyone who comes. For us she is like a monster.’ I said, have they been dismissed? What else, he said, and what do you think will happen in those homes where no food has been cooked, there is no bread-earner any longer because his job has been taken away, you think they will bless you? Apart from curses what do they have to give you? I said but what have I done? He said you are the cause after all, you have made complaints and it is on those complaints that action has been taken. I then went to the SP. I said, why don’t you do an enquiry ... oh, what is it called now? Yes, I said please suspend them, you don’t have to dismiss them. He said I can’t undo the orders of the minister. Then I went to the DC and wept before him, and said please don’t, but he was doing his duty and he said Mrs Sahgal, you saw how the minister was, what can I do? And I said yes I did see him, but how can this be, I don’t even feel like eating anything myself. Can you not somehow arrange for me to talk to him? He said, yes, that much I can do, I can get him on the telephone and if you speak to him, maybe something can be done, but you’ll have to talk to him. Then he got him on the phone and I spoke to him and thanked him a great deal and then said there’s only one thing I am sorry about and that is that — these dismissals, they are a bit unfortunate. He said but they failed in their duty. I said, yes, Sahib, but you must think, the thing is that at this time everyone’s mind is in a state of confusion, they thought it is their duty to protect Pakistan in this way, I thought it’s my duty to get the girl, so I feel very bad. He said is
this what you really want? I said yes, so he said all right. He then informed the SP that no action should be taken just yet. After that ... I don’t know where that girl went or what happened to her. But at the station I had said to her that her brothers were standing there, and she had cursed me and said you bastard woman what do I care and what business is this of yours?

  At that time, the spectacle was amazing, you can imagine, if a young woman is brought along in handcuffs, and the police is on one side, and she is presented before authority ... the brothers were on one side. But she was directing all her venom at me ... this is the woman who caught me and brought me here, she is the one who has created all this.

  No, I don’t even know what happened to her, what the minister did about her future. But they took her away from me. Whether they sent her back to India or anything I don’t know. In Gujrat I was told they had made camps. I was also told that there was a nawab in Gujrat who would sit on his throne and the abducted girls would be paraded before him and he would choose the pretty ones. The ones who were young, he used to feel them, the older ones he would give away. The girls could not do anything, no protest, nothing. He would say give such and such in category no. 1, or category no. 2, and the best ones, keep them in the zenana. Then I heard that two boys, whose parents had been killed, they had been kept also. I heard about this, and I went and asked them to return the boys. They said no we will not give these boys back. I said, why, you have a family of your own. The wife said yes, I have three boys of my own. Then why have you kept these? She said, there is a method behind this. We don’t just simply pick up anybody, we don’t just take the garbage. We choose who we take. Now these boys, they are studying alongside my boys, they have tuitions and both of them and my children they are all studying and then I will send them to England because I have money. These children are so intelligent that they will influence my boys, and when they marry, these two boys, their children will be very intelligent, and we have only one regret about the Hindus having gone away, that love has gone to the other side of the border, we want to bring that in here and multiply it. The children of these children ... they are being brought up as good Muslims ...

  I didn’t have any idea of what was happening, night and day I was caught up in this business of rescuing girls, and looking after them when they were handed over to me. I was busy and contented ... But you know there is a place in Punj, there they had opened something where they had maulvis and they used to brainwash the girls that those girls who are leaving from here, Hindus and Sikhs will not accept them because they have lived with Muslims. Or, they used to tell them that your relatives will take you from here but they will kill you at the border. And they used to tell them things are so bad in India that you have to pay one rupee even to get a glass of water. Those who have gone are starving, and they used to do all kinds of dramas to scare them. Then they used to make them read the namaz to make them into proper converts. Then there was one who used to come and say that the father of such and such girl has come, and they would take the girl and show her some people standing down below from the roof, and would ask that she be released now that the relatives had come. So the girls would be set free, and then some ten days or so later the girl would come back, crying, weeping and saying that she had run away and come with great difficulty through the fields etc. saving herself from the Sikhs who were ready to kill her. And they would mix Musalmani girls with the Hindu girls, after all if there are two hundred Hindu girls and a few Musalmanis are mixed with them, it is difficult to tell, and these girls would come and tell horror stories of how bad the Hindus and Sikhs had been — we had got them from all over the place, and we didn’t really know them, so who knew what was what. They used to get them released and then she would come back, and tell these stories. Then the others would tremble. When they actually caught them, they would separate the men and the women and I don’t know what they did with the men but they probably killed them. The girls they would . take away, and oh yes, the old women, they’d keep them aside too. Women like me, what did they want with them? But they knew, you see, they would keep these old women, kill off their sons and make themselves their sons, they’d say amma take me as your son, and then they’d get their property. If they’d let these old women get away they or their families would get compensation in India and their property here would have to be confiscated, so they would keep them back. So it was a well thought out and well worked out thing ... They had real courage and strength, they did. And the Hindus, you show them a piece of red cloth, or if there is blood on the road, out of fear they will leave the road and run away. They’ll say we don’t know who has been killed or who has killed. We are intelligent, brainy, and they are physically strong ... Musalmaans are mutton headed, we are fish headed.

  I don’t know how many women I recovered, must be hundreds, maybe more. There was not one case I didn’t catch myself. I don’t think any worker can say that she got even one case. I caught them all myself and apart from this there were the ones who were brought to us, we had to accept them and give them receipts for these girls. They used to bring them and we used to have to give receipts. These were some fifteen-twenty cases and I used to move about so I knew about the cases.

  ‘I have got nobody’. There was perhaps more truth in this phrase than many women realized: for several of those who did allow themselves to be ‘rescued’ or who were forcibly ‘recovered’, there was another trauma to face. Their families, who had earlier filed reports and urged the government to recover their women, were now no longer willing to take them back. In early 1948, at the sixteenth meeting of the Partition Council, it was decided that both dominions should take charge of refugees in their areas and that no refugees should be forced to return to their own areas until it was clear that complete security had been restored and the State was ready to resume responsibility for them. But for women they said:

  The Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation has set up a Fact Finding Branch in consultation with the Red Cross, an enquiry and search committee with the special objective of tracing abducted women. Already, 23,000 names have been given to Pakistan. For the recovery of abducted women, the government depends at present on the active assistance of workers and prominent persons. On December 6, a conference of both Dominions was held at Lahore and it was decided that both Dominions should make special efforts to recover these women. More than 25,000 enquiries about abducted women who are in Pakistan have been received by the Women’s Section of the Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation ... nearly 2500 have already been rescued ... the main obstruction facing our rescue parties today is the fear harboured by the majority of abducted Hindu women that they may not be received again into the fold of their society, and the Muslims being aware of this misgiving, have played upon the minds of these unfortunate women to such an extent that many of them are reluctant to come away from their captors back to India. It has been mutually agreed between the two Dominions that in such cases they should be forcibly evacuated.8 (my italics)

  Forcible evacuation was one thing. The women’s acceptance into their families was another. Such was the reluctance of families to take these women back, that Gandhi and Nehru had to issue repeated appeals to people assuring them that abducted women still remained ‘pure’. ‘I hear,’ Gandhi said, ‘women have this objection that the Hindus are not willing to accept back the recovered women because they say that they have become impure. I feel that this is a matter of great shame. These women are as pure as the girls who are sitting by my side. And if any one of those recovered women should come to me, then I will give them as much respect and honour as I accord to these young maidens.’9 Later, in early 1948, Nehru made an appeal to the public. He said:

  I am told that there is an unwillingness on the part of their relatives to accept those girls and women back in their homes. This is a most objectionable and wrong attitude to take and any social custom that supports this attitude must be condemned. These girls and women require our tender and loving care and
their relatives should be proud to take them back and give them every help.10

  A number of pamphlets were published which used the story of Sita’s abduction by Ravana, showing how she remained pure despite her time away from her husband. From all accounts, the ‘purity’ of the woman was of much more importance within India, to Hindus and Sikhs — perhaps because the Hindu religion places greater emphasis on purity and pollution. Apparently, abducted Muslim women were more easily accepted back into their families, and in Pakistan, the All Pakistan Women’s Association and other organizations, worked hard at arranging marriages for many women who were recovered and returned. For Hindus, purity could, it seemed, more easily be accepted if the woman was alone, but if she had children, it became a different story altogether. The child born of a mixed union was a constant reminder of the violation of the woman, of the fact that she had had sex with a man of the other religion. So women were given a choice: keep your children with you, and stay — in all probability — in an ashram all your life, or give them up (such children were then kept in orphanages) and go back to your old family. There was also another problem: many women were pregnant. What was to be done with them? Social workers confirmed that pregnant women would either be sent away to appointed places to have their children (who were then often offered up for adoption) or they would be sent for being ‘cleansed’, in other words, to have mass abortions performed (‘safaya’, it was called). The State then financed mass abortions, out of a special budget set aside for the purpose, at a time when abortion was actually illegal. And apparently, a number of hospitals made their fortunes by doing this, as Damyanti Sahgal confirmed: