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Forum Post
Jul 30, 2023
In Online Articles & Books
A collection of historical books on Punjab has been meticulously digitized and are available here in the Panjab Digital Library (based in Chandigarh, Punjab). There are series of books on the subject of Partition such as growing religious tensions in 1946, the Punjab Boundary Comission reports of 1947, train massacres in West and East Punjab, and personal accounts of the refugees. This library provides a wealth of information for your own research and knowledge.
http://www.panjabdigilib.org/webuser/searches/mainpage.jsp?CategoryID=1&Searched=partition&typebox=1
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Forum Post
Jun 26, 2023
In Online Articles & Books
edited by Radhika Mohanram, Anindya Raychaudhuri
Analysis of violence during Partition. A well researched book on the genesis of violence and some of the key events that took place in west and east Punjab. On the killings in Sheikhupura, here's an excerpt.
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Forum Post
Jun 26, 2023
In Online Articles & Books
Niranjan Singh, a Sikh tea merchant, had served a brew to his friend, a Muslim leather worker, for decades. However, the week after he found his shop part of a new country the man came running in one morning with a gang shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!”.
One cut Singh’s leg with his sword; others killed his 90-year-old father and only son. The last thing Singh could recall was his teenage daughter being abducted and carried off on the back of “a man to whom he’d been serving tea for 15 years”.
The tea merchant’s story took place in Lahore 70 years ago in August 1947 as Muslim-majority Pakistan was carved from Hindu-majority India, dividing the region of Punjab in half. Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/murder-migration-and-forced-conversion-in-post-partition-india-b65t8dmt9
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Forum Post
May 26, 2023
In Geography & Demographics
In his report, Justice Mehar Chand Mahajan recommended that the boundary line should be near the Ravi including Lahore in the East Punjab and Justice Teja Singh advocated that the boundary line should be near the Chenab, including parts of the districts of Sheikhupura and Gujranwala, Montgomery and Lyall- pur in the East Punjab. The Hindu-Sikh case rested on the economic conditions as the non-Muslim had played a major part in the development of the Central Punjab. The Bari Doab and more particularly the districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Lahore had been described by historians and settlement officers as the “home land of the Sikhs* who owned more than two-thirds of the ai ea and paid more than two-thirds of the land revenue of this tract.^® This Sikh peasant proprietors’ tract had been developed as a single unit along the Upper Bari Doab Canal which had been dug, it was ingeneously claimed, to resettle the disbanded Sikh soldiers after the Anglo-Sikh Wars. The districts of Lyall- pur and Montgomery had been colonized by the sturdy Sikh Jats of Ambala, Jullundur and Amritsar districts. In a tract known as Shahidi-Bar, comprising a part of the districts of Gujranwala, Sheikhupura and Lyallpur was mostly owned by the Sikh peasants who paid more than twice the land revenue paid by the Muslims.^® Historically, this was the most important tract for the Sikhs as one of their most sacred shrines, Nanakana Sahib, was situated in it.
The Hindus and the Sikhs had played a major role in the development of industry, commerce and trade of Lahore the metropolis of the Punjab. More than 75 per cent of commerce, banks and commercial institutions were in the hands of the non- Muslims. The survey of Lahore carried out by the Punjab.
Government Board of Economic Enquiry indicated that 80 per cent registered factories in Lahore belonged to the non-Muslims. Of the total capital investment in Lahore, viz. Rs. 6.29 crores, the non-Muslim’s share was Rs. 5.12 crores. Of the 90 bank branches, only 3 belonged to the Muslims. Of the 80 offices of insurance companies, only two belonged to the Muslims. Of the 36th High Schools only four were run by the Muslims.^^
It was argued that about one-third of the Muslim population was not rooted in the soil and was essentially of a floating chara¬ cter, consisting of faqirs, weavers, herdsmen, cobblers, potters, carpenters, oilmen, bards, barbers, blacksmiths, washermen, butchers and w/raj/5. According to the Census Report of 1931, out of the total Muslim population of 14,929,896, this class of
persons numbered about 45 per cent and were divided as under :—
Faqirs
...
256,533
Jullaha (weavers)
. ■ • • • •
512.579
Cobblers
••« •••
464,218
Kumhars (potters)
• • • • • •
423,617
(Chamar converts)...
412,300
Carpenters
• • • • • •
346,948
Oilmen
• • • • • •
344,927
Bards
• • • • • •
244,320
Barbers
• • • • • •
196,104
Blacksmiths
• • • • • •
241,972
Washermen
• • • • • •
162,224
Butchers
• • • • • •
127,198
Mirasis
• • • • • •
243,330
Herdsmen
• • • • • •
421,347^8
In case the line of argument followed by the Hindu and Sikh members was accepted, the main consideration would have been
economic factors rather than the population factor.
Kirpal Singh "Partition of India"
https://archive.org/details/the-partition-of-the-punjab/page/82/mode/2up?view=theater
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Forum Post
May 26, 2023
In Photographs
Sikh refugees
Seems late August or September.
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Forum Post
Nov 30, 2022
In Videos
Narinder Singh Kapoor is well known Punjabi Prose Writer from Patiala, Punjab, India. He talks about the Partition experience and its lasting impact on our lives.
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Forum Post
Nov 19, 2022
In Online Articles & Books
Ian Talbot analysis the development trends of Lahore and Amritsar post-partition. In contrast to the resurgence of Lahore, Amritsar saw its economy deteriorate due to lack of trade links with Karachi and Central Asia. Most of the supply of raw materials and business relationships with Lahore and western Punjab were now cut-off due to Partition. This resulted in Ludhiana becoming the major industrial hub of east Punjab and Amritsar becoming a border outpost with very little economic vitality. Journal can be access in JSTOR (requires registration). Some excerpts.
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Forum Post
Nov 19, 2022
In Photographs
Sikh and Hindu refugees arriving on ships at Bombay Port, 1947. Also refer to this article for more details on how these refugees arrived from Karachi, https://www.gatewayhouse.in/bombay-karachi-linked/
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Forum Post
Nov 18, 2022
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Forum Post
May 01, 2022
In Online Articles & Books
In the book "The Great Tragedy of India's Partition" by S.S. Sharma. The idea of two-nation theory was also supported by the likes of Savarkar and Lala Lajpat Rai. The book is an essential read for those who want to learn more about this topic, and it methodically goes into the stages that led to the division of the country. Link to book review
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Forum Post
Apr 14, 2022
In Photographs
Wrecked buildings after communal riots in Amritsar in 1947 - (c) Keystone Features
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Forum Post
Apr 11, 2022
In Geography & Demographics
In this article "When Emperors turned on Gurus", author Parvez Mahmood writes about the historical injustices suffered by the Sikhs that caused a growing rift between the two communities in Punjab. Excerpt ⓒThe Friday Times: The seeds of animosity between the two communities, Muslim and Sikh, that led to the eruption of such harrowing violence were planted three-and-a-half centuries earlier by an unfortunate episode during the unsuccessful rebellion of Prince Khusrau against his father, the newly enthroned Emperor Jahangir, and nourished by bloody events during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb and later during the invasions of Ahmed Shah Abdali. As will be observed later in this article, the people of Punjab of all faiths had continued to live in peace with each other during those cataclysmic events in the 17th and 18th centuries and had suffered in equal measures at the hands of Turkic and Afghan invaders.
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Forum Post
Apr 09, 2022
In Online Articles & Books
Malwinderjit Warraich writes about his family's tragic journey from Gujranwala to Indian Punjab. "AMONG the millions caught on the wrong side of the divide was my family from the village of Ladhewala Waraich, close to Gujranwala in Punjab. A science student, I was 17 then. Gujranwala stood every chance of inclusion in Pakistan as the area was predominantly Muslim and was also geographically close to Lahore, the heart of newly-born West Punjab. Even after it was confirmed that Gujranwala would become part of Pakistan, the gloomy prospects of having to emigrate seemed remote to most non-Muslims because of the accepted thinking among Hindus and Sikhs that rulers had changed in the past, but not the ruled." Read full story here: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/our-journey-to-nowhere-375400
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Forum Post
Feb 05, 2022
In Photographs
Barefoot walking on the dusty plains of Punjab. Margaret Bourke-White 1947 Link: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/mass-migration-india/mgFC2Axc_siewg
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Forum Post
Feb 05, 2022
In Photographs
Wreckage of carts & belongings of refugees who had been camped there before the Beas River flooded over, during mass migration because of religious conflicts. Link: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/mass-migration-india/PwEwRZnMaJCFvw Details Title: Mass Migration, India Date: 1947-10 Location: East Punjab, India Photographer: Margaret Bourke-White
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Forum Post
Jan 30, 2022
In Geography & Demographics
Sargodha was founded at the turn of the 20th century as headquarters of the Jhelum Canal Colony. Too often we forget that the canal colonies of Punjab were colossal enterprises of social and economic engineering. The vast tracts of agricultural land surrounding the administrative and market centre of Sargodha were, as in other colonies, divided geometrically into chaks farmed by settlers. The town too, bounded by a new railway line on one side, and a new canal on the other, was set out on a neat grid pattern. To the north of the railway station was the city and to the south was the large rectangle of the civil station. Link: https://thewire.in/books/marina-wheeler-the-lost-homestead-review Also refer to the study here by Hassan Javid from London School of Economics and Political science http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/468/1/Javid_Class%20Power%20and%20Patronage.pdf
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Forum Post
Jan 30, 2022
In Online Articles & Books
The 1947 Sirhind train massacre was an attack on Ropar ‘s prosperous, wealthy and influential muslim clan Abbasi Shekhaan of Shekhaan Miran locality of Ropar city. It killed 2000 Muslims of this clan and only a dozen people of clan survived. Link: https://en.everybodywiki.com/1947_Sirhind_Train_Massacre
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Forum Post
Jan 30, 2022
In Online Articles & Books
On 22 September 1947, Sir Terence Allen Shone, High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to India, sends a telegram to the Commonwealth Relations Office in which he reports on the recent events in India and Pakistan after the partition of the British Indian Empire. He particularly mentions the communal disturbances, providing information about the number of victims and outlining the problems associated with refugees and population movements. Link: https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/2015/6/17/8a551bcc-fb9f-4524-81cf-6691e805cf47/publishable_en.pdf
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