Karachi ….is referred to as one of the most cosmopolitan and
multicultural cities in Pakistan. Unlike Punjab, which is far more homogenous
in its identity. Sindh remains home to multiple ethnicities, religions and
castes. I can imagine that this was even more so in the early years of
Pakistan.
‘You know we Punjabis are very different people, even
different from other Indians. There is a cultural sense of not belonging here.
You feel at home in Delhi only because there are so many Punjabis here but
elsewhere, in UP and other states, you feel out of place. Most Indians are not
as flamboyant, they don’t have large gestures or the Punjabi loudness in them.
They are subdued, they don’t even share our sense of humor. We believe in
taking life by its horns and just enjoying it. We are an irreverent race and
perhaps that is another reason why Partition has also become something we don’t
take seriously, we push it aside. Our grandparents freed us of that burden, of
remembering Punjab as it existed sixty-five years ago……..Punjab has been raided
so many times during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that maybe it has
taught us to ignore invasions. Kashmiris, on the other hand, hold on, sticking
to their misery…….. That [partition]
is a tragedy but in a way I’m also free from that baggage. This is a Punjabi
thing, though. It doesn’t exist for other communities, nor for the mohajirs
(migrants) in Karachi because they were never fully accepted.’
I ask Alpana to elaborate……….. ‘Well I spent a lot of time
with the mohajirs of Karachi ………They were the people who had chosen to move, not because they
suffered violence but because that is what they wanted to do. But when they
began to suffer in Pakistan, it became their basis of looking back. It was very
difficult for them to adjust after expecting something completely different. Of
course, they knew that they were better off than they would have ever been in
India. They had arrived in a newly-made country that needed to fill a massive
number of government posts……..several migrants got jobs at posts higher than
what they had in India. They would even brag to their families back in India,
those who had chosen to stay behind…….And its true, life was indeed better for
them, in the fifties and even the sixties. While their relatives were still
stuck in the same place with the same plodding pace of life, often at low
posts, the mohajirs had catapulted ahead. But then as the second generation
started to grow up, many of them began to regret their parents’ choice of
migration. They had started to face the anti-mohajir spirit once the real sons
of the soil, the Punjabis, started dominating, garnering power and government
jobs due to their sheer numbers and the fact that they were rooted in the soil.
The mohajirs had thought they would be the chosen ones but after the initial
advantage that they had, they began to get identified with their old country, India. The second
generation started to ask. What would have happened had we stayed on the other
side? Meanwhile, the first generation had another kind of regret, that Pakistan
had never turned out to be as they had imagined.
This was similar to how a lot of the first-generation Indian
Muslims regretted their choice of staying back. They idealized Pakistan, wished
they could be there. They would clap for Pakistan and support them in all
matches and tournaments. What that eventually resulted in was Hindu resentment,
an urge to rid India of such Muslims whom they saw as traitors. And on the
other hand, back in Karachi, this led to another kind of suffering – that is,
regret – which has kept them from moving on, from ridding themselves of the
baggage of Partition. That’s the difference between us Punjabis and them. We have
let go while they continue to cling on to what happened, what they chose,
sixty-five years ago.’ ………Alpana began to interact with more and more locals,
in Lahore and Karachi. ‘I began to feel at home……It was then that I began to
see the immense similarity in our lifestyles…..the way we speak …..
You know, West Punjab is part of our civilization, our
heritage and I can never claim it. That part of my heritage, which defines me,
can never be mine again. I can never assert rights on it. It’s the same for the
mohajirs in Pakistan. When you cut off a plant from its roots, the flowers
begin to grow in different ways. That’s how we are today, each walking
aimlessly to find some sense of belonging.’
Several accounts of Partition that I have come across say
that it was the riots of Rawalpindi in the March of 1947 that triggered off
other events. Ishtiaq Ahmed………writes ………..
‘On March 5, Sikh-Hindu agitators began shouting
anti-Pakistan slogans and were challenged by Muslims. Firearms, stabbings and
arson were employed by both sides. Initially, the non-Muslims felt they had
been successful in driving off Muslims from the streets of Rawalpindi. In the
evening of March 6, however, the direction of violence changed from the city to
the villages in the district. Suddenly armed Muslims in the thousands began to
raid Sikh villages. Neighbouring villages in the Attock and Jhelum districts
were also surrounded. In some places the Sikhs fought back, but on the whole
the conflict was one-sided…In some places nearly the whole Sikh and Hindu
populations were wiped out. However, the deaths included the Sikhs killing
their own women and children rather than letting them fall in the hands of
Muslim marauders.’
‘……I had read a chapter in my Class 5 Urdu book………The Sikhs
would slaughter Muslim children with swords. They used to cut them up into tiny
pieces.’…… depicts the picture of Sikhs butchering children with their swords,
is a textbook endorsed for Class 5 by the Punjab Textbook Board, which falls
under the government of Punjab. These books are studied widely across the
province, both in private and public schools…….Tariq Rahman, a renowned
professor and researcher, further says: ‘Pakistani textbooks cannot mention
Hindus without calling them cunning, scheming, deceptive or something equally
insulting.’
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment