India’s first high commissioner to Pakistan was Sri Prakasa, the son of Dr Bhagavan Das, a freedom fighter and scholar. The family hailed from Varanasi. Sri Prakasa, a past member of the Central Legislative Assembly, was appointed high commissioner by Jawaharlal Nehru as late as 4 August 1947. He flew to Karachi on 12 August, and set up his one-man office in his room at the Palace Hotel. On 15 August, Sri Prakasa hoisted the tricolour outside his hotel room and sang Vande Mataram entirely on his own. Not a career diplomat, he learnt the ropes of diplomacy from Sir Lawrence Grafty-Smith, the British high commissioner in Pakistan. Only later did he acquire staff, a separate office and an official residence. Although he was nominally the Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, his sphere of influence remained confined to Sindh; the deputy high commissioners at Lahore and Dacca reported directly to Delhi.
In his memoir, Sri Prakasa recalls the initial departure of Hindus from Sindh. Although central government servants had been given the option of choosing India or Pakistan, these employees consisted not only of senior officers, but also peons and sweepers. Dozens of these government employees besieged the Indian high commission daily, expecting that travel arrangements be made for them.2
Shyam Hiranandani was a young boy of 10 when Partition took place. He recalls his last weeks in Sindh before his family migrated to Bombay:
My father was a practising lawyer in Mirpur Khas. My parents, my younger sister and my elder brother lived in a house that faced the town’s railway station. I was roughly ten years old then, but even today, as hard as I try, I still cannot erase from my memory the terrible sight of Hindus trying to get away from Pakistan into India. They were so desperate to migrate to India that I could barely see any metal on the train, it was so completely enveloped all over, by people everywhere, on the top, hanging from the windows and standing on the coupling between two bogies. It was a nightmare. I saw this sight day after day, right from the Pakistani Independence Day, August 14, 1947, through to the day I left Pakistan in October 1947. It was almost impossible to get a ticket to ride on the train. People had to wait for months! Once they had a ticket they had to undergo a subsequent ordeal: the looting of their personal belongings by the railway and police officials. It was like a never-ending nightmare.
Since my father was a successful lawyer and had several Muslim clients we were granted two full bogies to ourselves to travel out of Pakistan to Bombay. We were lucky and privileged; we even brought most of our furniture. We were not allowed to take any other person in the compartments but we managed to hide two faithful servants and get them into India.3
By mid-September, with tension escalating among Sindhi Hindus, there was a steady stream of about 4,000 refugees leaving Sindh every day. Many more Sindhi Hindus wanted to migrate but were restrained by the limited carrying capacity of steamers and the trains. The great chasm between the demand and supply of train and steamer tickets gave rise to large crowds at the docks or railway platforms. This in turn created the impression that everyone wanted to leave, as depicted in Shyam Hiranandani’s narrative. According to one account, Hindus in Hyderabad were informed by the local authorities that ‘the refugees [muhajirs] were out of control and that all the Hindus were at risk.’4 This may also have contributed to the flight of Hindus from that city. Many Sindhis from Hyderabad recall that it was next to impossible to board trains for Jodhpur in September 1947. My father, Nari Bhavnani, recollects that in mid-September, he and his extended family went to Hyderabad station two days running, but the trains were too crowded to board; the family then went to Karachi from where they took a flight to Bombay.
Other Sindhis fleeing Hyderabad recall train compartments being so full that doors became jammed and could not be opened; toilets were filled to the ceiling with luggage and could not be opened. Passengers sometimes climbed in and out through the windows, and were obliged to relieve themselves only when the train stopped, either at stations or in the bushes, if the train stopped between stations. Those few families who were lucky to have entire compartments to themselves kept the doors and windows securely locked, preferring to travel in near-darkness rather than having their compartment invaded by other Sindhis desperate to leave.
The quintessential self-made Sindhi tycoon, Ram Buxani recalls his departure from Hyderabad, Sindh at the age of six:
Chaos greeted us at Hyderabad Sind railway station. It was overflowing with people, their fear, anger and frustration a palpable thing, hanging thick in the air. They were leaving behind everything they had earned and hoarded in their lives and heading for a future of sheer uncertainty.
Coolies thrived on their misery, fleecing people desperate to get away from what was once their beloved homeland. They would not permit passengers to carry their luggage to the railway platform, it had to be carried by coolies. And they charged irrational and exorbitant amounts by the standards of those days, Rs 100 apiece. It was inhuman behaviour, this act of sheer exploitation of a hapless people fleeing adversity. I remembered few of these details. These were details I gained from my grandmother.
We boarded an overcrowded train. Passengers were huddled together in the compartments like sardines in a tin. I remember Grandma standing through the night in the train, since there was no space to even drop a pin. She stood there, stoically holding up her enormous frame, clutching a wall clock presented to her by her daughter living in Hong Kong. She wouldn’t allow anybody to touch it nor would she place it on the overhead luggage rack. She was a sentimental woman, my grandmother, and there was a lot of sentiment attached to that clock for which she had left behind many valuable things.5
Yet there were also vast numbers of lower middle class Hindus in Sindh who could not afford the high costs of the long journey to India, or their resettlement there. Most of these, who lived in the smaller towns and villages of Sindh, did not contemplate exodus at this stage.
Many upper class Sindhi Hindus had long had a practice of employing cooks and domestic servants from present-day Uttar Pradesh. These servants, as also washermen who hailed from areas located in Independent India, now wanted to return to their hometowns. In early August, approximately 400 of these bhaiyas (as they were popularly known) left Sindh, and those who remained began to make arrangements to send their families back home. In early October, it appears that a large number of UP-ites from Hyderabad had ‘in desperation started on a march to India, across the inhospitable wastes that separate Sind from Rajputana, to almost certain death.’6 These UP-ites were rescued at Tando Allahyar, a short distance into their march to the Thar desert, and a special goods wagon was arranged to take them to Jodhpur State. The vacuum in services that their departure created proved to be an added incentive to migrate for some Sindhi Hindus. When an old Congress colleague of his made arrangements to leave, Sri Prakasa tried in vain to convince him to stay, reminding him of his duty as a leader of the Hindus in Sindh. The Congress leader then explained that since his servants (all of whom were from the United Provinces) were migrating, he could not possibly stay. Sri Prakasa was quite amused at the upper class Sindhi Hindus’ utter dependence on servants and cooks from outside Sindh.7
Yet, despite his amusement, Sri Prakasa himself had left Karachi for his hometown, Varanasi, shortly after the Independence celebrations, ‘to make up my mind as to whether to accept the office of High Commissioner or not, and to make arrangements accordingly.’8 This act of his engendered much disapproval among the Hindu public, in India and in Pakistan. Dr Choithram Gidwani, President of the Sind Provincial Congress Committee, sent a telegram to Nehru, urging that Sri Prakasa be sent back to Karachi. A letter to the Free Press Journal, Bombay, published in September 1947, also says:
India’s High Commissioner for Pakistan, Mr. Shri Prakasa [sic], is giving harrowing accounts (in his press conferences at Benares) about what is happening in Pakistan. Seeing that he stayed there only for a week, one would like to know where he gets all his information from. Mr. Shri Prakasa’s precipitate retreat from Pakistan followed an alleged insu
lt to the Union [of India] Flag on his car. Has the Union Government withdrawn its High Commissioner as a gesture of protest? Or is Shri Prakasa finding the climate of Pakistan too hot for his taste? Seeing that the lives of thousands of our nationals are in jeopardy in Pakistan one expects the Indian Government to keep in close contact with the affairs of that Dominion. The High Commissioner must be at his post of duty at this critical hour. If Shri Prakasa is unwilling to risk a stay in Pakistan, a substitute can easily be found. And the sooner the better.9
After leaving Karachi, Sri Prakasa paid a visit to Lahore at the end of August, to oversee the exodus of Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab. There, too, he was the target of anger over ‘abandoning’ his post as high commissioner. Later, when Sri Prakasa visited Delhi, he found senior Congress leaders such as Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel also highly displeased with him. He had flown to Delhi from Lahore with Nehru. Sri Prakasa recalls:
From the plane that was purposely flying low, we could see masses of men moving away from one side to the other in the plains below. There was no escape for me now. Whether I liked it or not, I had to take up the office of India’s first High Commissioner in the newly founded state […] of Pakistan. I told the Prime Minister that I would go home, and in about ten days’ time, pack up and put my affairs in some sort of order, and come away for a long stay in Pakistan.10
Sri Prakasa returned to Karachi to resume his post on 16 September 1947. He officiated as India’s high commissioner in Pakistan until February 1949, when he returned to India to take up the post of governor of Assam.
Liquidation
Many middle class or upper middle class Hindus who now decided to leave for good began to sell their moveable assets – furniture, fans, etc – in order to raise cash for their uncertain future. Entire streets in cities like Karachi and Hyderabad would be lined with cupboards, tables and swings.11 The Sindhi Muslims’ economic resentment of the Sindhi Hindus now played a significant role in driving prices down in these distress sales.
Manohar Bhambhani was then a young boy living in Larkana. He recalls that when his mother attempted to sell some of their small household possessions to local Muslims, some of them claimed that they did not need to purchase these things since they would take them for free after the Hindus left.12
On the other hand, the writer Jamal Abro recollects that in Larkana, his mother tried hard to dissuade her Hindu women friends from leaving and so refused to buy any of the furniture and other household goods that they wanted to sell.13
Arjun Menda, from a landowning family in Shikarpur, recalls the lengths that one of his friends went to, in order to liquidate his family’s assets. His friend lived on the second floor of a building, and every day he would lug his furniture down to the ground floor and try to sell it. In the evening, he would haul the unsold furniture back upstairs again. He says, ‘An article of the value of Rs. 50 went for Rs. 2, but it was still something.’14
After liquidating their assets, Hindus were targeted by thieves and pickpockets who may have gotten wind of the sudden increase in their cash. Several Hindus who were known to have sold their belongings were robbed. Some were then thrown out of trains, and some were murdered.
Atu Lalwani was then a young man of 26 doing business in Lagos. He had left his flourishing carpet business in Karachi to his elder brother, Kishinchand, then a 32-year-old. Atu Lalwani recalls how his brother Kishinchand was murdered:
In 1947, after the creation of Pakistan, Sindhi Muslims began to take over. A few desperate Sindhi Muslims brought a knife to my father and told him, ‘Get out, otherwise we will kill you.’ They wanted to take away the house and the furniture. So my family decided to leave Sindh. […]
In October, my brother sent my entire family by air to Bombay: my parents, my two sisters and his pregnant wife. He stayed behind to wind up the carpet business. He sold his car, too, before leaving. The buyers told him that they would let the car drop him to the airline office from where he could go to the airport, but he refused.
After he sold the car, he went to the bank and took out a draft in my sister’s name. He went all over town during the day, to the bank and elsewhere, and the next morning, he decided to go to the airline office, in order to buy a ticket for Bombay. There was a gaadiwala, a Victoria carriage-driver, who took him everywhere. That man knew that my brother was carrying the draft.
My brother was travelling in the Victoria, and the gaadiwala with a few other people shot him. And they took away all the money. Later, the police arrested the gaadiwala and recovered the draft.
Then the bank refused to give us the money. We sued them and finally, after two to three years, they gave us the money. It was Rs 18,000, not a big deal.15
In the troubled times of Partition, a new class of brokers – both Hindu and Muslim – sprang up in Karachi; it was they who negotiated the sale and exchange of properties between refugees crossing the border in both directions. While furniture and other movable assets may have been disposed of in distress sales, property was a different matter altogether. Given the housing shortage in Karachi in 1947, for many months Hindu houses were able to command high prices.
Nimmi Vasvani’s father, Partabrai Punwani, was a prominent criminal lawyer, and also the advocate-general of Sindh in 1947. When M. A. Khuhro had been accused of the murder of Allah Baksh Soomro, it was Partabrai Punwani who had acted as the public prosecutor in the famous case.16 Although Khuhro had been acquitted, he maintained a deep hostility towards Punwani, and sent him threatening messages, according to Nimmi Vasvani. She recalls that one day, Governor Hidayatullah privately told Punwani that his house was going to be requisitioned the very next day. He advised him to sell it immediately, or he would get nothing for the house. Punwani had had numerous offers for the house but had turned them all down. Now, he accepted the next offer that came along. He had already sent his wife and children to Bombay. With not much time to pack, he sent for his sister-in-law and the two hurriedly took bedsheets and made bundles of all the family’s personal effects. The house was sold to a Muslim from Bombay. Nimmi Vasvani recalls that the buyer later sent a message through a common friend to Punwani’s family that they were welcome to come and stay at the house as his guests whenever they next visited Karachi.17
Clearly, even in these times of deep friction and animosity, some Hindus continued to receive help from Muslims. Chetan Mariwala was a young man of 31 in 1947, and taught History at the D. J. Sind College in Karachi. In his memoir, Mariwala writes of how his Muslim postmaster friend helped him:
One day, even though I was late coming home from college, I recalled in the bus that my mother had reminded me to get her something. I had completely forgotten about it, but when I remembered, I got off the bus, and turned towards Gandhi Bazaar. It was afternoon, and even the crows didn’t want to be out in the scorching sun. When I passed the post office, there was a crowd gathered there. There were so many people there that they could not be accommodated inside and many were standing outside in the sun. Among those standing outside, the face of an old woman seemed familiar to me. When I looked at her closely, it did not take me long to recognise her – she was Kaka Sukhramdas’ wife. Kaka Sukhramdas had passed away a long time ago. His wife looked vexed today, and the sun shone down like fire. I felt quite bad that in her old age she should be troubled like this. So I went forward and asked her with a smile, ‘Ammi, why are you standing here at this time?’
In response, she burst forth: ‘A snake must have bitten me the day I put my money in the post office. I have been coming here every day for a month, but I am yet to get my money.’
‘Why so?’ I asked her.
‘The wretches think that my signature is not right. I keep changing the signature, but until now not one of my signatures has been deemed proper. God knows whether I will get my money, or whether the wretches will eat it up!’
On hearing Ammi’s complaint, I immediately understood the reason for the crowd outside the post office. Money came from the main po
st office in the afternoon, and everyone was keen to withdraw his or her money.
I reassured Ammi and, urging her to wait a while, entered the post office. The postmaster was known to me, so I reproached him severely. ‘Wah, wah! The previous postmaster, Badrinath had recommended me to you. And now you reciprocate by making that old lady from my village rot in the sun, without even making bare arrangements for her?’
The postmaster heard my complaint and smiled. He said, ‘Do you want to bring friendship into this matter? You will take the money and go away, but who will stand with me in the fire, when I am accused of paying money to the wrong person? This old lady’s signature simply does not match. On top of that, she signs in Gurmukhi, which makes our job more difficult. You tell me what to do!’
Initially I, too, stood there, confused, but soon I figured out how to persuade him. I told him, ‘You call yourself Muhammad Ahsaan, and yet you avoid doing any ahsaan, favour. This is an opportunity to do a good deed, you will not get such a chance again.’
He laughed, ‘Okay, whatever you say. If you confirm that this is the lady’s signature, I will give her the money right away, on the strength of that.’ So saying, he rose from his chair, came out into the scorching afternoon sun outside and handed the lady a fresh form for withdrawing her money. He said, ‘With God as your witness, sign here and I will give you your money immediately.’ The lady had about Rs 5,000 credited in her passbook. I tried hard to persuade her to withdraw the entire amount, otherwise she would lose it all; but she just wouldn’t listen. She said, ‘Rs 2,000 will be enough. If my sons get wind of this, they will not leave me even a farthing. With Rs 2,000, they will take me to Bombay. I will withdraw the rest of the money there.’
‘Your signature doesn’t match over here; what good will it be over there?’
‘I will do my best, and leave the rest to fate.’
The postmaster was as good as his word. Immediately, he withdrew the money and gave it to the old lady, who placed the notes over her eyes. Blessing him, she went home.18
THE MAKING OF EXILE: SINDHI HINDUS AND THE PARTITION OF INDIA Page 12