In late summer of 1947, humans killed fellow humans in a frenzy, as the monsoon rains raged across Punjab. Muslim mobs killed Sikhs and Sikh mobs killed Muslims; floods and cholera epidemics plagued already suffering people. It was a time when nature and disease unleashed their combined anger, taking victims regardless of their age, creed, and gender.
Helplessness remains one of the worst human conditions. People stood powerless, watching as mobs, nature, and disease snatched their loved ones. In desperation, people abandoned their loved ones or killed their daughters, wives and mothers with their own hands to save them from a worse fate. This is the story of Ikhlaq Hussain, who was thirteen years old at the time of Partition.His family was forced to abandon him when he contracted cholera in a refugee camp outside Patiala. He miraculously survived.
Mr. Hussain, born in 1934 lived in a Muslim neighborhood in Patiala city to a large family that lived in a large urban haveli. His family held properties in Delhi and farmland in Patiala. He was in 8thgrade at The City High School in 1947 where most of the teachers were non-Muslims and the principal was Sikh. He remembers him as a benevolent and dedicated teacher.
A childless Sikh couple Genda Singh, an amy man, andhis wife Angrez Kaur lived in the same neighborhood. She lovedIkhlaq Hussain as her own child. Genda Singh took him to the local sweets shop and bought him jalebi. He remembers that the couple had to leave the neighborhood a day before riots broke out in that part of the city.
Members of the Dhanak Hindu community lived near the Muslim neighborhood. A few of the women used to work in Mr. Hussain’s haveli. During the riots, these same women tried to save the family from attacking mobs, informing them of the mob’s intentions and whereabouts.
The Muslim population ran around the city in groups after fleeing their homes, taking refuge in other Muslim neighborhoods and mosques; however, as these places grew insecure, the army took Mr. Hussain and his family to a refugee camp set up in old, abandoned Mughal ruins outside the city. On the third day of their stay, a severe outbreak of cholera began taking hundreds of lives every day. The army dug long, eight foot deep trenches outside the camp for the dead. When Mr. Hussain contracted the disease, his family tried to hide him. However, when their fellow refuges discovered the truth, they forced them to abandon him. Reluctantly, his father and brother left him at the trench among the dead and the dying. They promised to visit him in the morning. They had no hope in his survival.
His family would bring food and water from the camp, but they could not take Mr. Hussainback in. They would bathe him every day. One day his brother brought him some medicine and asked him to put it in his mouth. Later, he learned that it was opium. Miraculously, he recovered slowly and his family took him back into the camp. They stayedfor two months before travelling to Pakistan and settling in Jhang.
Mr. Hussain went on to become a doctor and served in Saudi Arabia,working closely with the royal family. He could never forget his journey to Pakistan and the love and affection of Denga Singh and Angrez Kaur.He even tried to locate the childless Sikh neighbors from Patiala when he was in Saudi Arabia. Along with some friends, he now runs a charity clinic in Lahore for the poor.
Text and pic by CAP
Published in Daily Times, June 26th, 2017.
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