'Those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it'.
For Punjab and Bengal, freedom for the country came at a heavy price. The two states, representing two distinct cultures, were cleaved into two parts based on religion. However, religion was only a part of the identity of the people of these two pre-partition provinces.
Punjab in particular had not been driven or carried away much by sectarian politics before partition. No wonder, unlike Bengal, where the All India Muslim League led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah swept to power in the provincial elections held during British Rule, Punjab never subscribed to the Muslim League. Nor did the Indian National Congress form the provincial government in Punjab, as it was a secular dispensation, the Unionist Party.
However, the secular spirit did not prevail once the partition happened. Punjab witnessed the worst kind of communal carnage with a million people estimated to have been killed. It was a holocaust in which members belonging to all three communities, the Hindus, the Sikhs and the Muslims were
butchered, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and the Muslims on the other side.
Compared to that, Bengal did not see that level of communal killings, although it did not escape the violence either. In fact, Jinnah had set Bengal on fire prior to the Independence during the “Direct Action Day”, exactly one year before the partition on August 16, 1946. when Muslim League mobs targeted
Hindus and Sikhs there leading to the killing of scores of people. But the scale of killings was far less than what it was in Punjab after the partition.
It has been 78 years since the partition took place. 78 years may not be a very long period in the history of a nation, but it definitely is a long period in the lives of men and women. So much has changed in the subcontinent, Punjab in particular, since the partition and its holocaust.
There has been a sort of bonhomie between the people of the “two” Punjabs now; the East Punjab (Indian part) and the West Punjab (the Pakistan Punjab).
Except for religion, everything, like the language, dress food etcetera are the same.
During the past several years, there have been several visits from people from East Punjab to West Punjab, primarily because of various famous and historical Sikh religious places in that part. Also, the opening up of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor has added to building further mutual trust and harmony.
Given the warmth exuded by the Punjabi community in West Punjab towards those visiting from East Punjab has started triggering a nostalgic feeling about the past, about a “united Punjab” that what if it had not been divided and people were not separate. Although this is a momentary flash of emotions, it still does prevail upon the psyche of people for some time.
People, “only” from East Punjab are “feeling” the pain of separation. There is no visible and apparent display of such emotion on the other side of the border.
Lakhs of people had to flee in the aftermath of the partition. Once people get to go there now, they search for their roots. Being the guests, they are obviously received and greeted well and with extreme warmth. The historical religious places have been restored there which leads to greater goodwill.
When people go there, they are mostly second and third-generation and not the ones who actually migrated from that place. Obviously, none of these people have undergone the trauma and faced what their ancestors had to suffer which eventually led to their exodus from there.
This sentiment of loss and longing is being widely expressed across social media platforms. Instead of celebrating the freedom of the country, a significant number of people have started expressing the feeling of loss over the “partition of Punjab”. They have started relating to the roots their ancestors left behind, without realising that it was really not like that when the ancestors had to flee. It was really very macabre and horrible. Men were brutally killed, women abducted and raped. So many women committed suicide, some jumped into the wells. Not everyone was lucky to make it to this side of Punjab.
As the saying goes, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, it is important that lessons of that tragic, traumatic and terrible history are not forgotten and lessons are well learnt, lest it get repeated.
Follow us
