THE MAKING OF EXILE

by NANDITA BHAVNANI

  Some of the discontented muhajirs began to return to their original homes in India, including central government employees from various parts of India, who had provisionally opted for Pakistan. Sri Prakasa says that he felt sympathetic towards these returning Muslims, whom he perceived as Indian and therefore his charge (more than Hindus in Sindh, whom he viewed as Pakistani). In his view, they were ‘Muslims who in a fit of excitement or enthusiasm, had migrated to Pakistan, but who not finding any place there, were wanting to go back, the call of the home obviously being stronger than the call of religion or politics.’37

  Sri Prakasa had a special soft spot for the Muslim sari weavers from his hometown of Varanasi, whom he saw as having no future in Pakistan since, according to him, Fatima Jinnah had ‘issued an edict that since the sari was the dress of Hindu women, no Muslim woman should wear it.’38 He arranged for many of them to receive permits to travel back to India, despite the annoyance that this allegedly evoked among a large section of the High Commission staff. (This phenomenon – of Muslims migrating to Pakistan and then returning to their hometowns in India – also prevailed in East Pakistan, from where many Muslims returned to West Bengal.39)

  Although most muhajirs would ultimately settle down in Pakistan, creating new homes and political identities for themselves, their dissatisfaction in those months soon after Partition was soon to reach its nadir.

  Notes

  1.Narayandas Malkani, Gandhian and Congress worker, was the elder brother of Kewalram Malkani, a staunch RSS member, and future vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Their circumstances were similar to those of Dr Choithram Gidwani, president of the Sind Provincial Congress Committee, who lived with his elder brother, Shamdas Gidwani, head of the Sindh wing of the Hindu Mahasabha.

  2.This was two months after the butchering of Muslim passengers on a train from Ajmer to Hyderabad (Sindh) in October 1947, and should not be confused with the same.

  3.Ramkrishin Advani, ‘Insaaniyat Anya Zinda Aahe (Humanity is Still Alive)’, in Virhango, pp 288-297. My translation.

  4.Lakhmichand Bahirwani, interview, August 2009.

  5.Pritam Varyani, interview, March 2013.

  6.Iqbal Mirza, interview, December 2000.

  7.J. B. Kripalani, speech delivered at the All India Congress Committee meeting held in Delhi on 15 June 1947, as quoted in My Times, p xiii.

  8.K. R. Malkani, ‘15 August’, in Virhango, pp 256-257.

  9.Motilal Jotwani, ed, Gandhiji on Sindh and the Sindhis, p 519.

  10.Motilal Jotwani, ibid, pp. 519-523.

  11.As quoted in Vazira Zamindar, The Long Partition, p 51.

  12.Baldev Gajra, Sind’s Role in the Freedom Struggle, p 4.

  13.Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition, p 169.

  14.The Times of India, Bombay, 5 February 1948.

  15.S. K. Kirpalani, Fifty Years with the British, pp 328-329.

  16.As quoted in Vazira Zamindar, ibid, p 41.

  17.R. N. Saksena, Refugees: A Study in Changing Attitudes, p 3, emphasis added.

  18.Meghna Guhathakurta, ‘Families, Displacement’ in Ghislaine Glasson Deschaumes and Rada Ivekovic, eds, Divided Countries, Separated Cities: The Modern Legacy of Partition, pp 96-97.

  19.Joya Chatterji, ‘Right or Charity? The Debate over Relief and Rehabilitation in West Bengal, 1947-50’, in Suvir Kaul, ed, The Partitions of Memory, p 75.

  20.Joya Chatterji, ibid, p 82.

  21.Kamla Hiranand, Bhin Bhin Sugandhi Phool, p 95, and Vishnu Sharma, Dr. Choithram Partabrai Gidwani ji Jeevani, pp 237-238.

  22.The Times of India, Bombay, 5 January 1948.

  23.Shaista Ikramullah, From Purdah to Parliament, p 158.

  24.M. H. Naqvi, ‘In Quest of Safety: A Refugee’s Journey to Pakistan’, in Dawn, Karachi, 19 January 1948.

  25.S. A. H. Jafri, letter to the editor, Free Press Journal, Bombay, 9 October 1947.

  26.‘Ghamzadah Gharib Clerk Ki Kahani Pakistan Mein (The Story of a Sorrowful and Poor Clerk in Pakistan)’, Jang, 6 December 1947, as quoted in Vazira Zamindar, ibid, pp 58-59.

  27.Vazira Zamindar, ibid, p 65.

  28.Baqar Mehdi, interview, August 2013.

  29.Sarah Ansari, Life after Partition, p 129.

  30.Shaista Ikramullah, ibid, p 158.

  31.Teji Bhojwani, interview, November 1997.

  32.The Times of India, Bombay, 24 October 1947.

  33.Vazira Zamindar, ibid, pp 62-63.

  34.Vazira Zamindar, ibid, pp 60-61.

  35.Sri Prakasa, Pakistan: Birth and Early Years, p 44.

  36.See Dawn, Karachi, 12 January 1948. This ‘flogging’ was pursuant to the Indian Whipping Act, 1864, and not the Shariah.

  37.Sri Prakasa, ibid, pp 53-54.

  38.Sri Prakasa, ibid, p 42 and pp 53-54.

  39.See Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition, pp 186-187.

  CHAPTER 7

  January 6

  The Karachi Pogrom

  Increasingly, a section of muhajirs began to realise that their problems of finding lebensraum in Pakistan could be easily solved if the Hindus of Sindh migrated en masse to India. The Sindh government, on the other hand, was not only making various attempts to curtail Hindu migration but was also simultaneously being strict with destitute muhajirs over the issue of Hindu property. This section of muhajirs felt that, given the lack of communal aggression among the Sindhi Muslims, and the centuries-old relatively peaceful relationship between Hindus and Muslims in Sindh, Sindhi Hindus would not migrate unless they were given a jolt. Hence it was decided to unleash violence on them, forcing them to leave for India.

  Sobho Gianchandani is a highly respected veteran communist leader, who chose not to migrate to India after Partition. Born into a landowning family in Larkana, he was educated at Shanti Niketan, and later jailed for his participation in the freedom struggle. In 1947, he was a young man of 28, working in Karachi. His narrative sheds some light on the genesis of the Karachi pogrom:

  At about 10 o’clock on the night of 5 January, some of us who worked in the trade union heard from a tailor comrade that in the Mauledina Musafirkhana some contemptuous maulvis had held a meeting in which it was decided to create a disturbance so that the vaanias would emigrate and leave behind their empty houses. Because the maulvis thought that the ‘shameless Sindhi Muslims’ were not ready to slaughter the Hindus!1

  Sobho Gianchandani survived the Karachi violence thanks to the help and protection of his friend Shaukat Ali (the younger brother of Dr Kunwar Mohammad Ashraf, the well-known Indian communist leader and historian).

  A group of muhajirs had been making these plans for a pogrom in Karachi since the communal violence in Hyderabad. The Congress worker, Kamla Hiranand, tells us that she had heard that their original plan was to initiate violence in Karachi on 12 January 1948.2 The Karachi police, getting wind of possible violence or crime, raided the Mauledina Musafirkhana, a travellers’ guest house, on 25 December 1947, arresting 12 muhajirs and confiscating their knives and daggers. Elsewhere in the city about six other criminals, mostly from Punjab, were also arrested. Again, in early January 1948, the Karachi police arrested 64 more ‘criminals and goondas’. According to Sobho Gianchandani, at a meeting at the musafirkhana on the night of 5 January, it was decided that the violence would take place the next day.

  In late December and early January, the tempo of migration of Hindus and Sikhs from Sindh had gained new momentum. After the violence in Hyderabad, many Hindus of that city had felt compelled to migrate to India. To add to this, the deterioration in Indo-Pakistan relations over the Kashmir issue had also compelled several Hindus across Sindh to migrate. About 30,000 Hindus had arrived in Karachi from various parts of Sindh, and were housed in dharamshalas while waiting for their passage to India. Almost 1,000 Sikhs from Karachi district were also brought to Karachi under armed escort, and were put up in gurdwaras; 10,000 other Sikhs awaited their transport from areas in the interi
or.

  Against a backdrop of worsening relations between India and Pakistan, the annoyance of the muhajirs had been exacerbated by two news reports that came out on 6 January. The Sindh government had passed orders for the deportation or arrest of Maulana Abdul Quddus Bihari. The maulana, who had first arrived in Sindh from Bihar in late 1946, was a prominent muhajir leader. According to Vazira Zamindar, he worked as an ‘informer’ for the rent controller’s office, informing them about properties left behind by departing Hindus, or even properties owned and occupied by Hindu men whose families were in India. On occasion, he was also not above breaking into empty Hindu properties and installing his own lock on the door. Today he is still remembered among muhajirs in Pakistan as a champion of muhajir rights.3 Maulana Abdul Quddus Bihari had also played a prominent role in the recent violence in Hyderabad. Further, on the same day, the All India Radio had announced the news that the well-known Muslim League leader of Delhi, Dr Abdul Ghani Qureshi was sentenced to death for the murder of Dr N. C. Joshi, a well-known surgeon, in the communal violence in Delhi in September 1947.

  On 6 January, it so happened that about 184 Labana Sikhs arrived by train in Karachi from Northern Sindh on their way to India. They were supposed to be transported in police vans to the Akal Bhunga gurudwara in the Ratan Talao area of Karachi. According to Sobho Gianchandani, when these Labana Sikhs alighted at City Station, crowds began to gather.

  The situation deteriorated and people started shoving and pushing each other. The Congress MP, A. Krishnanand, who was in charge of the evacuation of Hindus and Sikhs, didn’t see police vans; so he hired tongas and hurriedly packed off the passengers on McLeod Road towards the Akal Bhunga in them. On the way, some passengers were dragged out of the tongas. Amid cries of: ‘Kill! Kill!’ approximately 100-150 Labana Sikhs entered the gurudwara.4

  The Labana Sikhs managed to reach the Akal Bhunga gurudwara, but within two hours a vast number of muhajirs assembled on the grounds in front. The size of this crowd varies according to different estimates: 8,000 according to the district magistrate of Karachi; 25,000 according to another contemporary observer;5 1,25,000 according to Sobho Gianchandani. After some time, this crowd broke through the inadequate and mostly unarmed police cordons; they set the gurudwara on fire, and stabbed and killed the Sikhs inside.

  Mangharam Karamchandani was a 15-year-old boy living in a large family in Karachi. He recalls the mayhem at Ratan Talao:

  I was standing in the balcony of our house that morning. I saw some commotion going on in a gurudwara not far away from our house in the area called the Artillery Maidan. I could see people fighting and the Sardars from the gurudwara, armed with swords, trying to protect themselves, but very soon the gurudwara was set on fire and the Sardars were either running to save their lives or were lying dead on the ground. Then a mob of roughly 300 Muslims started moving in different directions to other parts of the city. About 80 Muslims came near our house, burning and looting houses on the way. The area was under a dark cloud. There was an Arya Samaj school next to Sobhraj Chetumal Hospital right across our house. There were about 100 families residing in that school that had come from smaller towns and were waiting for ways to get out of Karachi. Oh my God, I watched their massacre from the window of my house. This mob broke the gate and went inside and killed or injured the male members who tried to stand up to them. The mob stole women’s jewellery and everything these families owned. They then vanished in a couple of hours right before [our] eyes. Rioters took away whatever they could in tongas, cars, trucks, carts and even on their heads. […] People shouting, women screaming and children crying, while there were bloodied bodies lying everywhere. Before leaving, the rioters poured kerosene oil [and] petrol [onto] tyres and let the school burn. All of Karachi was on fire! Shops were looted and gutted. There was no police to protect anyone. My brother who worked in the jail was attacked on his way home; he managed to get one [red Turkish] cap for himself, to look like a Muslim and thus was able to reach home safely. Our family members took refuge with a Muslim neighbour who informed the mob leader that there was no Hindu family on this floor.6

  The writer, Thakur Chawla, then a 16-year-old youth, lived with his family in their own five-storeyed building in Karachi. The family had an office on the ground floor, and lived in an apartment on the third floor; the other apartments were rented out. Since Chawla’s father had been the mukhi of their village, Ranipur, in Northern Sindh, many Hindus from Ranipur stayed in the Chawla home in Karachi before boarding a steamer to Bombay. Consequently, the ground floor office was filled with the luggage of these Hindus in transit. Thakur Chawla also recalls his experience of 6 January 1948:

  One morning, on 6 January, at around noon, there was great commotion on our street. Shouts and screams could be heard from the neighbouring buildings. I was about 15 or 16 at that time. Coming to the balcony, I saw looting and rioting outside. There were two trucks standing, and about 100 non-Sindhi Muslims – muhajirs – were four buildings away from us, where Dr Premchand used to live. They were looting things from that building and loading them onto the trucks. It was obvious that the Muslims who had migrated from [the United Provinces] and Bihar had come to rob and kill us. I immediately ran downstairs. The watchman, who was a bhaiya from Allahabad, was cooking daal in his quarters under the staircase, despite the great ruckus outside. I shouted at him, and got him to lock the metal grille door. I told him about what was happening outside, and quickly sent the women and children living in the four ground floor flats up to my house.

  After about 10 or 15 minutes, the muhajir mob reached our building. Shouting ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ they made violent attempts to break the metal grille door. Seven or eight of us threw dispensable things from the office balcony, trying to prevent the mob from entering the building. Opposite were government servant quarters, where mostly Sindhi Muslims lived. They watched the spectacle quietly from their windows.

  All the dispensable things that we had, as well as bits of wood left over from making furniture, were used up in a short while. Now the mob began to break the wooden doors of the ground floor flats; the inner latch of one of the doors broke, and the muhajirs were able to enter the building through this flat. I wanted to phone the police but the phone lines had already been cut. All the people I had gathered to fight ran away to their own homes. The guests, whose luggage had been crammed into our office, were hiding with their women and children on the terrace.

  When the mob began to break down the door of our office, only three of us were left. My cousin Hardasmal, the watchman, and I. My cousin, who had eight trunks and two sacks full of utensils in our office, had steamer tickets for 7 January. When the muhajirs were about to break the inner latch of the door, my terrified cousin fell down in a dead faint. The watchman threw down his stick and went and hid in the bathroom.

  I picked up the stick but I could not use it. Hefty muhajirs attacked me with knives and sticks. One beat me with a stick, one punched me with his fists, one hit my nose with a knife and one stuck a knife into my back. My clothes were drenched with blood. I shouted, ‘Police, police! Help, help!’ But there was no policeman. The four office rooms that had been crammed with luggage were emptied. Some trunks contained trousseaus for daughters, and some contained a lifetime’s savings for a new life in India. All the hopes and aspirations of those guests were buried then and there. They became paupers overnight.

  After about two hours the police came. The wounded were taken to the hospital. The next day’s Sind Observer carried a list of those killed, and included my name, because there had been no hope for my survival. But, as luck would have it, a nurse who lived in our neighbourhood and worked in the civil hospital, happened to notice me, and through her efforts, I was able to get medical attention on time.7

  Yusuf Patel,* a well-known Pakistani stage and television actor, was a small boy of 13 when his upper middle class family moved from Nasik to Karachi in 1947. His father, a government servant, had opted for service in the Pakistan governmen
t. He had bought a house in Amil Colony No 1; Yusuf Patel lived in that house for the rest of his life. He recalls the Karachi pogrom from a Muslim child’s perspective:

  The riots were very ordinary, no big deal. […] [During the riots] I even stole a book. You see, the mobs were stealing everything from everywhere – bedding and so much else. I went along with the crowd. In one house, I saw that there were a lot of books. I took a book, only one book.8

  Like Yusuf Patel, not all those who were a part of the mobs were heartless fanatics. The writer Mohan ‘Kalpana’ was not at home when the Karachi pogrom occurred, but his mother and siblings were. He recalls:

  Some mobs came to Ratan Talao to loot, and one even came to our house. One young man unsheathed his knife and entered our home. My mother told him, ‘Does Islam teach you to attack women and children? What will you achieve? Don’t touch my children. You can kill me, though.’ If I had been there, there might have been bloodshed, but I was at the office. I heard that my mother spoke with such confidence that the young man went away. He took away my white trousers hanging on a nail on the wall.9

  The violence soon spread to all parts of Karachi where Hindus lived. From the narrow lanes of Gadi Khato to Frere Road and Burns Road to the upper class Jamshed Quarters and Amil Colonies, Hindus were surrounded, attacked, looted and sometimes murdered. Hindu strongholds such as the Arya Samaj near Ram Bagh, and Swaraj Bhavan (the Congress headquarters) at Ratan Talao, near the Akal Bhunga gurdwara were set on fire; the Ramakrishna Mission on Lawrence Road was attacked; a Hindu bazaar was also the target of arson later that night. The Hindu press was targeted; the offices of the Hindu and the Hindustan, of the Sansar Samachar and the Sind Samachar were attacked and vandalised.

  The rioters were indiscriminate about whom they targeted; the car of 59-year-old Jamshed Nusserwanji Mehta, a doyen of Karachi and eight times over the mayor of the city, was surrounded and he was about to be attacked, when some Sindhi Muslim passers-by appealed to the rioters to let the Parsi gentleman go.