Scars of partition will never heal
(Anjan Bilal , Srinagar (J&K) )
For many ages, the partition of
India will be considered as one of the greatest tragedies that afflicted the
mankind. Tens of thousands of people were killed in this gruesome tragedy.
Thousands of women were kidnapped and raped and subsequently killed. Provinces
of Bengal & Punjab with a population 18 million were to be divided.
Cyril Red Cliff, the man who had never visited India before was entrusted the
task to divide the two provinces in the least possible time. Every day he had to
draw a line of division of twenty miles to complete the work in stipulated time.
The Red Cliff line was so dangerous that many a times it internally divided the
villages, some huts of the village falling in one country while other huts of
the same village falling in other country. There were many instances when a
single house was divided-the main gate of the house falling in one country while
as hind side of the same house going to other country.
An English author writes about Lahore, "In Lahore it seems death signal came
with a lightning speed." It seems that the whole city of Lahore was bent upon
committing suicide. In Amritsar the Hindus and Sikhs had invented a novel method
of destroying the Muslims. As soon as they saw a Muslim they would come from
behind and threw bottles of acid on his face. Loss of life in the partition is
estimated up to one million. The partition displaced up to 12.5 million people
across the borders whose identity was embedded in the regions where their
ancestors had lived for centuries.
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As per official reports, 72,26,000 Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan while
as 72,49,000 Hindus and Sikhs migrated from Pakistan to India. It became a daily
schedule for the trains to run across the borders carrying dead bodies of the
persons killed. These trains came to be known as "ghost trains", "death trains"
etc. These trains were sometimes stopped midway and then all inmates were looted
and killed. People destroyed each other with sticks, knives, swords, and anvils.
At many places in Punjab many Hindu, Sikh and Muslim women committed suicide to
preserve their honor and chastity.
While both Pakistan and India might have emerged two of world’s powerful
countries, the scars of partition are etched in the history forever and will
never heal.