So far, we have been unsuccessful in our attempts to persuade
the governments of India and Pakistan to build a suitable JOINT memorial,
at Wagah border-crossing, to ALL the victims of India’s Partition in 1947.
Therefore, this year, as a part of our India-Pakistan Peace
Day 2008 campaign, we have set up this virtual memorial.
We are using a blog format to allow an unlimited number of
authors to add their contributions.
We invite you to use it to add the names, pictures, and brief
stories of victims from your family along with their pre-Partition location,
as well as your own name and current location.
If you accept this invitation, please write to ihs@ionet.net with a request to add you to the list of authorized
contributors. You will be notified as soon as your name has been added.
Even without becoming a contributing author you can, of
course, use the comments feature to add names of victims immediately.
Please direct additional questions, comments, and concerns to
the undersigned at asiapeace@comcast.net
I wish to honor the Muslim families of Rupar, in Indian Punjab, who lost their homes, lives of loved-ones, and/or honor during the Partiton-related violence in 1947, as well as the Hidnu and Sikh refugee families, who settled in Rupar after suffering similar losses in Pakistan.
My name is Kanta Luthra. I was Kanta Gopal Singh before marriage. I was twelve at the time when communal riots erupted in Lahore. My father S.B. Madan Gopal Singh was then the registrar of Punjab University. On September 1, !947, he was brutally stabbed thirteen or fourteen times by the assassins. It was said that before he died, he recited the Kalma. A great scholar of literature, educated at Oxford University, he believed and revered all religions. His death, changed the course of my life. Instead of being the daughter of a well-known man, I became a nobody.. My mother an uneducated woman, worked as a ward servant to support me and herself. So I became the daughter of a menial servant that affected my entire life, my marriage, my education. Even now, when I think about those terrible days of bloodshed, of roasted bodies in the burning houses, of the women raped and molested, my heart fills with grief, with sadness, and also bitterness against those came up with idea of dividing a great into fragments. At those moments, I ask why we couldn't live together when we share the same culture, same language, foods, same music? I question the role of religon in our lives. For what I know and have studied, God is our father and we His children, so why my or your religion is superior?Why we can't accept and respect people for what they are than what religion they practice. Even after losing everything in the riots, I haven't forgotten my father's teaching, "Love people for what they are, not for their religious beliefs. Kanta
How long and how often will you apologise for the massacre, state sponsored in the subcontinent in the era of our Independence?
I was a citizen of Shahjehan Abad, also known as old Delhi. But when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of independent Bharat hoisted the tri colour flag of indecent Bharat on the Red Fort built by Emperor Shajehan I was not in Delhi. As an 18 year lad I had gone to the Muslim University Aligarh to seek admission to the Engineering college in the Aligarh University, set up by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. I had gone three for a stay of one week only but I was forced to stay there for 3 months.
I did not witness the rioting i.e. killing of the innocent citizens in Delhi and suburbs. I only heard about it when I returned to Delhi. The Commission of Delhi, a Sikh gentleman named Randhawa personally organised the killings.
Some months ago, an obituary of Randhawa was circulated in the Internet. The writer praised Randhawa that due to his foresight only 300 000 Muslims were killed in Delhi!
Delhi was not only a historic capital of India but it was also the capital of independent Bharat.
Unable to stop the killings in the capital Prime Minister Nehru was forced to call in the Madras Regiment just as the train drives for trains to Pakistan were called from Madras.
Why from Madras i.e.. Tamil Nadu? Because there the bulk of the population is converted Christians. Previously they were shoudre (now called Dalit) and consequent they readily converted to Christianity. And they were so to stay neutral in this holocaust.
About 5 years ago I went to Delhi to see my old house and meet my old friends of tithe school days. I also met an old school fellow of mine, Retired Major Jai Gopal Srivastwa.
After greetings I asked him the name of his past regiment: MADRAS REGIMENT was his answer. I shook hands and told him that his soldiers restored peace in Delhi when the surviving Muslim displaced persons were being dumped in the Old Fort, built by Kuro and Pandu and converted in to the Prisoner of War camp during the World War 2. As a school boy in Delhi I often visited the POW camp, which was full of the Japanese prisoners of war.
Are you apologising on behalf of Randhawa too?
* Siri Kirpal Kaur Khalsa, Eugene, OR, USA
There is nothing to be ashamed of. You were young, too young to have much power. You certainly could not have stopped the disappearance of that military escort. But when you became an adult, you used the experience to create ACHA and to work for peace. That's not a shameful thing.
* Zafar Iqbal, Germantown, MD, USA
One of many unfortunate tragedies on both side of the border...the beast within human race has a tendency to dominate when we are exploited in the name of religion, race, language, and culture, etc.
We appreciate the work Dr. Pritam Rohila and the group is doing to bring communal harmony--an integral tenet of all religions.
*Mohammed Turab, Hyderabad, AP, India
The partition episode you narrated is moving but in the present scenario where anarchy of extremism and terrorism is prevailing with the push up of global vested interests, we have to give a thought before reproducing such incidents whether they would help in promoting harmony or fuel the fanatic minds on both sides.
