History revisited—eyewitness account
 
By           Sudarshan Kumar Kapur
(660/10, Krishna Colony, Haryana)
 

I was born at a place named Jalalpur Jattan in Gujarat district, west Punjab (now in Pakistan). My native place was a flourishing town with a population of about 17,000; the Hindus and Muslims being roughly in the ratio of 1:3. The town was famous for producing Khadi, both silk and cotton, of numerous varieties—from coarse cloth to extremely fine fabric with intricate designs—and handloom woollen shawls. Gandhi once called this place as the ´little Manchester of India´. It is situated at 125 kms, 175 kms and about 625 kms away from Lahore, Amristar and Delhi, respectively but now it seems to be thousands of miles away in another country which I might not see again in my life-time. My matriculation examination had commenced in the first week of March 1947 and was to conclude on March 23 or so. There was no visible political activity in the town but the events of rioting in Rawalpindi district had created a panic throughout the region and there was a rumour that some Muslim activists were having secret meetings in the town.

The Saviour

March 14, 1947 turned out to be a fateful day in my life. On that day, a Muslim League activist came to our house in disguise, early in the morning, before dawn and warned my father of the attack that was to be made on Hindus by Muslims from surrounding areas with swords and spears that evening or the night after the Friday prayers in the local Idgah. He was sent to out house by his old father whom my father, had helped umpteen number of times in days of dire necessity, to advise my father to leave the place before the commencement of the Friday prayers. I had to take my examination in geography that day. My father picked me up from the examination hall after the examination and our family left our native place with a single suitcase on a horse-driven tonga, which was the only mode of transportation between Jalalpur Jattan and Gujarat, the district headquarter, on way to Akalgarh, district Gujaranwala, West Punjab where my maternal grandfather lived. I had to leave without completing the examination. It was extremely depressing and distressing. The present generation cannot imagine the significance and value the matriculation examination had for a student in his life at that time. It was an instant passport to service.

Akalgarh was a municipal town famous for a number of mills for processing fines quality of Basmati rice. We lived there for more than five months without any business or source of earning. In the first week of August 1947, the Muslim marauders attacked Hindus, burnt a couple of their houses, plundered and looted others in the historic town of Ramnagar, 4 to 5 miles away from Akalgarh and forced the entire Hindu population to flee and leave the place. They took shelter in the Arya Samaj Mandir at Akalgarh where a camp was set up for them. The local Hindus rendered every type of assistance they could. There was an atmosphere of extreme panic, fear and tension among the Hindus who were spending sleepless nights lest they should be attacked any moment. The prominent Muslims of the town assured them security of life and full safety and urged them not to leave the place under any circumstances. The Hindus and Sikhs of Akalgarh gathered in the local gurudwara and made a solemn pledge that they would not leave the place. However, they gave us the liberty and exempted us from the pledge as we did not belong to the place. We were allowed to go anywhere we liked.

On August 14, 1947 I was present at the function that was organised in the Municipal Committee compound, Akalgarh, to celebrate the first day of Independence of Pakistan and saw the unfurling of the Pakistani flag atop the building, signifying that my beloved motherland India had been cut into two pieces and partitioned. I was required to appear in the remaining papers of my unfinished matriculation examination commencing on August 18, 1947 at Gujarat centre but we came to know that the city was burning and about a hundred Hindus belonging to my native place, Jalalpur Jattan, had been brutally massacred. The body of the closest friend of my father Rai Saheb Suraj Parakash, of “Tansen Pills” fame, was dragged and cut into several pieces. My father was also on their ´hit list´ but our family was saved by the Muslim informer who persuaded my father to leave five months earlier. Personally, I would forever remain grateful to him as he proved to be our benefactor. Now I can reveal his name. He was, if I remember aright, Mohammed Husain Dar, son of Janab Billoo Dar. He was a fine singer of naats, the Quranic hymns, sung without accompaniment of musical instruments. I wish he could be alive still. March 14, 1947 was the last day I spent at my birth-place.

Under an understanding between the two governments, it was agreed that displaced persons living in camps at scattered places would be shifted under military cover to some central place from where they would be evacuated in a phased manner. The camp of displaced persons at Akalgarh was to be managed by the Dogra Regiment of the Indian military under Captain Desraj. Though we were living in the town, we were considered as displaced persons. On August 22, 1947 we boarded a military truck along with some other displaced persons and which formed a part of a convoy of a dozen military trucks escorted by soldiers and gun-fitted jeeps of Dogra Regiment. We passed through a number of villages on out way to Lahore via Gujaranwala. The convoy halted for a few minutes at a place near Gujaranwala. As we passed through G.T. Road at Gujaranwala, I saw scores of half-burnt uninhabited houses and about a dozen houses on fire that afternoon. A violent dance of death had also engulfed Gujaranwala, a town famous for brasswares and Basmati rice. Rather, the district was a rice-granary. Panic-stricken and without knowing what was to happen next day, we were unloaded in D.A.V. College hostel at Lahore which was turned into a make-shift transit camp, where displaced Hindus were staying for over a month or two with the false hope that they would once again return to their native places in the very near future.