Dardan Di Pand — Ujaada 1947: This Sikh man’s ‘Partition Library’ is an ode to his displaced ancestors

Anand’s father’s handwritten diary from 1947 inspired him to dig more. (Express Photo)

They together now form what Anand calls his “Dardan Di Pand — Ujaada 1947 (A bundle of pain — Partition of Destruction 1947)” — a library with a collection of over 1,500 books, documents and other published works dedicated to the Partition, including rare texts describing the horror people on both sides of the border went through.

“Collecting these fragments of memories has been a task that not everyone can understand. I wanted to understand and preserve those circumstances, which forced my family to leave their home, their roots,” says Anand, whose mother was from Gujar Khan and father from Rawalpindi.

They shifted to Delhi after partition.

Born more than a decade after the dust had settled down on the two sides of the newly-created border, Anand, sitting among the books at his Mira Bagh residence in Delhi, recalls that his tryst with Partition began in in the early 1960s while listening to stories of Rawalpindi, Murree, Kallar, Peshawar and Lahore from elders in the family.

Old postcards addressed to his family in 1947. They were displaced from Murree in Rawalpindi. (Express Photo)

In 2004, he visited Pakistan for first time and located his paternal homes in Murree and Rawalpindi. “I carried old property documents. When I went to tehsildar’s office in Murree, he got very excited as the properties were still in my grandfather Ram Singh Anand’s name. In Pindi, at our ancestral house in Saidpuri Darwaza, the present occupants told me that my grandparents had lived in a room in that house till December 1947 — something that I was unaware of till then. My grandparents gave the house to the present owner’s parents and left for India. I kept digging more and more and never realised that I had become a story gatherer,” says Anand.

Recalling Jawahar Lal Nehru’s speech delivered at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, Anand says India’s “tryst with destiny” changed the “destiny of millions of people of Punjab, Sindh and Bengal who were uprooted” and many whose lives were extinguished. “The nation celebrated throwing the British yoke while Punjabis were devastated forever,” says Anand, whose one constant force and inspiration behind collecting rare Partition literature has been his father’s handwritten diary of 1947.

Old newspaper clippings his father preserved in his 1947 diary. (Express Photo)

“My father Gurcharan Singh Anand was in jail till August 8, 1947 for his active participation in Rawalpindi Communist Party’s anti-British and anti-Partition plan. As per his diary, he took Frontier Mail to reach this side. All that he brought from his Pindi and Murree homes were two trunks of books of party literature including Marx Lenin, Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh among others,” says Anand.

It has not been easy collecting the books that now form part of his library. He once paid $61.44 for a book costing Rs 2 originally. Another time, he paid $30 shipping for a book costing $8. “Sourcing these books has been an uphill task. Prior to 2009, most books had to be sourced from Amazon US or UK. I used to place order from here and my friends living abroad would bring them to India on their visits,” says Anand.

“My effort to collect and keep these pieces of history is my prayer to the roots of our ancestors. I believe, this pain can never be understood or explained. Whenever someone asks me from where I belong… I say ‘paida Dilli vich hoeya par rooh othey hi hai (I was born in Delhi but the soul is still in land of my ancestors),” he adds.

Qissa Khwani Bazar in Peshawar in 1942

Some good reads from Anand’s Partition collection

–Rape of Rawalpindi (By Prabodh Chandra)

One of the most difficult books to get was “Rape of Rawalpindi”, which records the happenings in Thoa Khalsa and other villages of Rawalpindi district, says Anand. “A very few copies existed of which one was in a Toronto library. I requested my cousin to get it photocopied, but they did not allow. However, he managed to take photos of the entire book,” says Anand, adding the book has photos which are too horrid and describe atrocities on Hindus and Sikhs. “Governments on both sides haven’t let such photos come out in public domain so the importance of this document increases manifold. Researchers ought to check this book to understand the vengeful motives of Jinnah’s Muslim Guards who executed his plan of cleansing the other side of Sikhs and Hindus. Same pattern was adopted in Multan, Sind, Balochistan etc,” he says.

The 48-page book was published by Riot Sufferers’ Relief Committee (1946). Late Prabodh Chandra was the father of former union law minister Ashwani Kumar.

(L-R) Gurpreet Singh Anand’s father’s diary in 1947 ; some rare titles on Partition in his library.

Punjab Uprooted (J Nanda)

Anand says he searched for this book for a decade, before finding a copy in Denmark. “It was of Rs 2 only originally but I had to pay $61.44,” says Anand. “The books gives a graphic and dignified picture of the greatest tragedy of modern India. The author points out how people have not realized the grim intensity and magnitude of the tragedy,” reads an excerpt.

Anand’s father at a gurdwara in Peshawar in 1942. (Express Photo)

Stern Reckoning — A survey of events leading up to and following the Partition of India (Gopal Das Khosla)

Published by The Oxford University Press in 1989, the book is written by Gopal Das Khosla, former Barrister-at-Law, East Punjab High Court, who later also served as the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court. Khosla himself was displaced from his ancestral place in Lahore. The book intended to “give a survey of events that led to partition and and an account of widespread disturbances which took place in Punjab, North West Frontier Province and Sindh during 1947.”

“With the riots began the genocide of non-Muslims. The victims were mostly invariably Hindus and Sikhs…In May and June there was another flare-up in Lahore. It was not till the end of July that reprisals began in eastern districts and mass killings of Muslims took place between August 15 and September 30, 1947…. when the arrival of large number of refugees from West Punjab and tales told by them provoked non-Muslims to retaliate…. It is not possible to make an accurate estimate of total loss of life or extent of damage to property caused by these riots…. The Fact Finding Organization examined nearly 15,000 witnesses and they bear testimony to the murder of 50,000 non-Muslims… these however represent only a fraction of total devastation caused… Rough estimates of total number of refugees do not give a true picture,” read an excerpt from the book.

Letter heads that Anand’s grandfather carried along after Partition. (Express Photo)

Wichhada Watan–Memories of Mianwali, My parted homeland (Harish Chander Nakra)

Author Nakra, who retired as executive director of Punjab National Bank (PNB) and later joined World Bank as consultant, was born in Mianwali of Pakistan and had to migrate to Delhi. “Wichhade watan tey umran langhian, bhawen wat assan miley nan…Mianwali, a dikhan jo kehdi galon, hun tak tainu bhulley nan (Mianwali, my homeland, we parted ages ago. Never, perhaps, to meet again. Yet, why do I miss you so much),” he writes in this memoir. From turre wali pag (turban) to Hindu marriage celebrations, he writes of the times before entire Sikh and Hindu community was uprooted from Mianwali and everything changed.

The booklet “Rape of Rawalpindi” was the earliest pictorial collection depicting brutality of riots.

While there are several titles in his collection which can be categorised as classic Partition literature works, Anand says that his love for Potohari dialect (also spelled as Pothwari), mainly spoken in Rawalpindi division, made him add two exceptional titles — ‘Kiss Peh Kholeyo Ganthari’ (Whom to Tell my Tale), written by Kartar Singh Duggal who was born in Rawalpindi and later worked for All India Radio (AIR) — and ‘Mera Pakistani Safarnama’ by actor Balraj Sahni.

Holding close to his heart the newspaper clippings preserved by his father from 1945, of the life that was before the Partition, of the movies playing in local theatres and dance shows in hotels during enviable evenings of Lahore, Murree and Rawalpindi, Anand says: “Puttian jadaan tey turr paye ujdey kafiley (We uprooted our roots, and the uprooted caravans started moving).”