MARCH, APRIL AND May. The three months saw the Land of Five Rivers and its people subjected to a vicious game of fire and bloodlust. June started with a semblance of change even though there was no resolution in sight for unravelling the multiple knots that were tying up the division of India and the creation of Pakistan. Nor was there any tangible narrowing of the rift between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities. And yet, some improvement in the atmosphere could be discerned. The incidents of arson, stabbing and shooting hadn’t come to a halt, but the frequency of attacks had certainly decreased. This could be attributed to the impact of a virtually unending curfew over the last three months or possibly to the rising unemployment in the city that was squeezing the life out of its people. The fury in the hearts of the public hadn’t mellowed, and many of them still craved the very extinction of their enemy. But the relentless violence had taken its toll and there was also a yearning for some semblance of normalcy.
Conversations amongst city folks these days suggested that some ‘Goonda Party’ of notorious gangsters was responsible for much of the violence. Each fresh outrage was accompanied by the lament that it had been perpetrated by the Goonda Party. But were these allegations based on facts?
What was this Goonda Party that could wilfully carry out acts of violence without the sanction of the Hindu, Sikh or Muslim communities? How was it that the Goonda Party of each community would somehow descend from the skies, carry out their evil acts and vanish? And why weren’t the community leaders able to rein in their respective Goonda Party? These were complicated questions.
Perhaps there was no such thing as a Goonda Party! Each community had its fair sprinkling of hotheads and hooligans. There was a third category of ordinary folks who had joined them after being swayed by incendiary rhetoric or inflammatory reports in the daily newspapers. The three categories had coalesced to form what you might call the Goonda or Gangsters’ Party; the Shahidi or Martyrs’ Party; the Ghazi or Warriors’ Party. More important than the name of the party was the fact that these elements were always seen at the forefront of any communal attack.
There’s another point worth pondering over. Were these ‘martyrs’ and ‘warriors’ acting on their own steam? Who was raising the thousands of rupees needed to fund their daily needs? Who was helping them build arsenals comprising expensive arms and explosives? Raids carried out by the authorities from time to time had revealed huge armouries that included hundreds of guns and pistols, thousands of bombs and lakhs of cartridges, apart from jerry cans of petrol and other incendiary materials. Where did these come from and who was paying for them? There is little doubt that the benefactors were the very same persons who shed crocodile tears after each attack and could be heard murmuring in an anxious tone, ‘This is clearly the handiwork of the Goonda Party. If it were up to us, we would have worked out some arrangement before sunset tonight.’
On the one hand, you could see hard-working daily wagers teetering on the verge of starvation and on the other were the members of the Goonda Party feasting on chicken and pulao. To top it all, they were neither afraid of the police nor troubled by the courts. They knew that the police couldn’t really harm them, and in the rare instance that one or two were arrested, had anyone heard of a court that had sentenced anyone of their ilk to death by hanging? Didn’t they know that during the last three months, thousands had been killed and property worth crores destroyed? And yet, the perpetrators could be seen swaggering around the bazaars with impunity. No judge had seen it fit to hand the death sentence to these rogues.
Why, then, should the Goonda Party have any interest in peace? Why should they halt their violent activities? Their confidence, in fact, had grown to a point that it would be hard to stop them even if someone really wanted to. In some of the more brazen cases, members of the Goonda Party had even turned against their own benefactors, extorting funds from the same persons who had opened their purse strings to finance them. The odd one who tried to resist them soon found himself at the receiving end of threats that his house would be the next to go up in flames. They had truly been hoisted by their own petard!
Look at the irony! The Goonda Party that our society’s ‘honourable class’ had nurtured with such care had turned like the prodigal friend who smashes your nose with a stone when asked to shoo away the fly sitting on it. Despite calls for caution, the Goonda Party went ahead with random arson attacks. Occasionally, the fire spread in the wrong direction and a score of honourables found their own homes being consigned to the flames. The fires in Amritsar’s Kaathian Wala Bazaar and Baansan Wala Bazaar are a living example of the law of unintended consequences.
As a result, the chastened benefactors of the Goonda Party who had generously pulled out wads of crisp currency notes to bankroll them were now willing to spend even larger sums to dissuade them from carrying out such attacks. This, perhaps, was a key factor in the relative lull in incidents of violence. But a deeper look revealed that nothing had really changed. The fires of communal hate were still smouldering.
And let’s not forget that the religious strife was largely an offspring of the disputes over Partition and the location of borders. These disputes were as convoluted as ever and appeared no closer to any kind of resolution. The pall of gloom was occasionally pierced by a lonely ray of hope when voices were heard saying, ‘The governments of India and Pakistan have assured the minorities that their life and property will be protected … the refugees are urged to return to their homes; they will be compensated for their losses and lawbreakers will be given exemplary punishment … and so on.’
Pakistan came into being, India was divided and so was Punjab. From a political standpoint, this created more problems than it solved. The division itself turned out to be a bit like an onion; peeling off one layer revealed a second set of disputes, and removing the second layer produced a third set of wrangles. The disagreement over East Punjab and West Punjab, in particular, seemed to get more complicated with every passing day.
The Sikhs of Punjab found themselves in the wretched position of having a doubtful present and an uncertain future. Their fate was like the grains of wheat that are being crushed between two grindstones called East Punjab and West Punjab. Half the Sikh community was left orphaned in East Punjab and the other half found itself at the losing end due to the follies of its leaders. Having started with bold declarations that East Punjab would extend all the way to the Chenab river, they were now being forced to concede even the Ravi river to Pakistan. Lahore was always seen as the capital city of East Punjab and they had been confident that it would be a part of India. The decision of the boundary-makers to place Lahore in the lap of Pakistan sent a wave of despair through the Sikhs.
There was still a fair bit of uncertainty about the exact contours of the boundary, about which town or village would fall on which side. That decision was to be announced on 15th August and as that fateful date approached, the feelings of panic and rancour amongst the Muslim and non-Muslim communities were reaching a fever pitch.
The government wasn’t unaware of the fact that the knife making the final cut in the corpse of Punjab on 15th August would also be fanning the flames of communal violence. It announced a series of preventive measures to show that it was responding earnestly to the upcoming challenges. Eleven districts of Punjab that stood at the frontline of the Partition were proclaimed ‘dangerous districts’ and it was more or less decided that they would be placed under martial law.
A peek into the future that lay beyond the screen of 15th August was also revealing itself. Every Punjabi, whether in East Punjab or in the West had his eyes strained on the drama unfolding on that screen. Some had pinned their hopes on 15th August as the standard bearer for a new life. Others looked at the date as the accursed day, which would arrive as the messenger of Death.
The month of June went by in speculating over these matters. The advent of July brought dark monsoon clouds with it. But would the clouds put out the fires that were burning the body of Punjab or were they hiding some terrifying thunderbolts that would be unleashed upon the wretched landscape.
Some credit for the relative calm in Amritsar could perhaps be given to the tireless efforts of the Unity Council. Working under Satnam’s revitalized leadership, the council members were busy day and night in the bazaars and bylanes to spread their message of peace and amity. The lull, however, was temporary and the council’s valiant efforts were akin to those of a person using handfuls of water to put out the blaze consuming his house.
The activities of Muslim League supporters had gathered momentum in West Punjab and the Frontier regions. Hindus and Sikhs were still being butchered mercilessly. Their homes were still being looted and set on fire, their women were still the targets of unbridled lust. Their actions stoked the fires raging in the hearts of Hindus and Sikhs in East Punjab whose anger was bubbling like molten lava as they looked for the right opportunity to teach the Muslims a lesson.
And the Muslims of Amritsar? They could see a catastrophic situation looming before them and were busy preparing for every eventuality. It was often speculated (and the speculation was largely accurate) that the Muslims were turning the Sharifpura area into a real stronghold. Reports suggested that they had stockpiled enough weapons and explosives to destroy the entire city. In addition, the entire area from Mohalla Abbalwahiyan to Hakims’ Gate had acquired the look of a military camp. The neighbouring Sheikhs’ Mill had also been turned into a fortress.
It would be fair to say that the preparations being undertaken by the Muslims were considerably more advanced than those of the Hindus and Sikhs. This was partly because much of the city’s government machinery was in the hands of Muslim officials and the handful of English officials also appeared to be giving their tacit or overt support to the Muslims. The other key element was the active role being played by the Muslim League institutions of Lahore in sending all manner of arms, explosives and even financial support to their compatriots in Amritsar. As a result, the morale of the city’s Muslims was still quite high and they continued to target Hindus and Sikhs through arson and stabbings. The Hindus and Sikhs would pay them back in the same coin by launching even bigger attacks. There was hardly a night that didn’t witness half a dozen shops and a dozen or more homes being burnt to the ground. Nor did a day pass without a murder or two on the streets.
It might seem downright offensive to describe a situation like this as ‘an improvement in the atmosphere.’ But the description is purely in relation to what the state of affairs had been a few weeks before. At that time, we would see entire mohallas go up in flames and scores of persons being murdered every single day. To say that the position today is relatively better was not inaccurate.
Caravans of refugees were streaming out of the Frontier region and from the towns and villages of West Punjab and Balochistan with the same intensity. Refugee camps were bursting at the seams as trains and trucks were pressed into service to ferry them to Amritsar and then onwards to other districts.
The Muslim League in West Punjab, meanwhile, had launched a bizarre, two-faced game. On the one hand, the Muslim population were being incited to attack the Hindus and Sikhs and force them out of their lands. And on the other hand, several Muslim League MLAs, including a couple of members of the ministerial council, were waving the white flag as they pretended to wipe the tears of the Hindu and Sikh refugees. Their assurances that ‘the Government of Pakistan will do its utmost to protect its minorities, that there is no need for them to flee from their lands’, were as fake as laddoos made from sawdust. The claims were made at a time when attacks on refugee caravans had not merely escalated but were being carried out with the assistance of police and army personnel.
If we were to leave aside the other cities of Punjab for the time being and focus only on the situation in Amritsar, it did seem like the city was perched on a powder keg that could blow up at any moment. The central part of the walled city had a substantial Sikh and Hindu majority because of the presence of the Golden Temple, the Akal Takht, the offices of the Akali Dal, the Durgiana temple, etc. But the perimeter of the city was dominated by the Muslim community, reinforcing a de facto partition of the inner and outer parts. Both sides had good reason to feel insecure in their respective locations. The Hindus and Sikhs were afraid that the Muslims could encircle them and blockade the key arteries leading into the city, thereby confining them within a small area and depriving them of essential commodities. But from the point of view of the Muslims, the main commercial areas lay within the inner city, which was now off limits to them. They feared that in the absence of trade and employment opportunities, they would be left with no option but to flee the city. But they had also decided that they would destroy the city before they left it.
The Hindus and Sikhs were aware of those plans and had started to develop their own countermeasures. Each side was stocking up on arms and explosives and distributing them to strategic locations.