Women During Partition: Courage, Compassion, Survival

In 1947, when the Partition of India and Pakistan was announced, Subhani was living with her Mewati-speaking family in Alwar in present-day Rajasthan. She remembers that the violence of Partition spread like fire. “Anyone running from home with their belongings in large crowds was murdered by men with swords, on horses. Anyone running empty-handed and in small crowds was spared,” she says.

Recalling an incident with her maternal uncle, she says, “He wouldn’t let go of his cattle and the insurgents caught up with him. He just barely escaped with injuries to his hands. The British troops came to us and told us to leave everything and go to Pakistan immediately,” she says.

The 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan is recognized as the world's largest mass refugee crisis. Nearly 2 million died in the communal violence that accompanied Partition, and up to 25 million were uprooted through the 1950s, or 1% of the world's population at the time.

Over 75,000 thousand women and girls suffered rape, mutilation and abduction. Those who survived fought hard to overcome the trauma of Partition and rebuild their lives.

This exhibit honors the experiences of several courageous women survivors, as narrated to The 1947 Partition Archive (also referred to as "The Archive"). The stories showcased, however, provide only a small glimpse into the vast range of women's experiences. Many more stories are housed by The Archive and new ones are being recorded everyday.

Jaya Mehta spent most of her childhood in Mumbai, where her older sisters were actively involved in India's struggle for independence.

She says that following the news and advice of the Indian National Congress, her sisters bought a spinning wheel to spin as much yarn as they could and had it woven into saris.

They attended protests and rallies, and courted arrests and short jail terms. Her family would house and care for volunteers who came to attend big rallies in Mumbai. "Some of them needed extra care to get over the beating from ‘lathi charge’ (beating with a long wooden stick), a very common way of trying to disperse the crowd at such rallies and protests,” Mrs. Mehta remembers.

Mrs. Mehta describes how Mumbai changed after Partition. She says, "Whoever migrated to the big city brought with them all the positives and good things about their culture, and shared these with the city and its inhabitants.”

Badshah Begum describes the sudden changes that took place after Partition, as families moved in and out in small caravans. Many families that were leaving entrusted her family with keys to their houses. Some families, she says, did not leave their homes immediately after Partition, in the hope that the situation would settle down.

“I heard my parents talking with each other about a pistol my mother was carrying. I remember my father asking her how she was going to defend herself with one pistol against thousands of angry people outside. She told him that the pistol was not for them but for killing the children in case the mob breached the mansion,” Mrs. Babar recounts.

In 1950, when Mrs. Babar's family felt that conditions had become too unsafe for them, they left India with her father’s briefcase. He drove the family to the railway station, and boarded them on a special train to Mumbai. They then took the evening flight to London. They stayed in London for two years and then relocated to Karachi in 1952.

Ghulam Bibi's convoy was shot at several times during their journey on foot to the river bank. “Our guardians at one point asked us to drop on the ground and pretend we are dead. By the time we were close to reaching our raft amidst the constant firing, my maternal grandmother was shot in the stomach and died,” she recounts. After burying her at the bank of the river, Ghulam Bibi’s convoy was escorted to the migrant camp at Dhariwal where they spent the night.

From the migrant camp, Ghulam Bibi’s convoy was taken to the Dhariwal railway station where they boarded the train to Amritsar. “We saw Amritsar burning from inside the train. With the exception of a minaret of a mosque faraway, everything else was in flames. There were men with swords all over the station but no one harmed us,” she says. After stopping at the Amritsar railway station for a few hours, they were boarded on the train to Vehari. "Finally, we were able to go home and be with our parents, who had already arrived in Vehari in another convoy. Our father joined us a day later. He was in tears when he returned and found me alive and well,” she says.

On their journey from Lahore towards Amritsar, Mrs. Vikram Singh saw the dead lying in ditches along the road and floating in the canals. Even now, she says, the images are vivid. Her mother tried to cover her daughter’s eyes with her dupatta or shawl to protect her from the scenes. They reached her maternal grandparents’ house in Amritsar safely. Later, the family settled in Rajasthan.

Mrs. Vikram Singh's father had left everything in Nanikie, her ancestral village, expecting to return in a few days. But that day never came. He was allotted a small amount of barren land in the Punjab, in lieu of the hundreds of acres left behind. Overnight her family became refugees living off the land, eating turnips, mustard greens and spinach, wearing simple clothes, and riding bullock carts and camels instead of jeeps and cars. The family worked very hard to make ends meet.

Young Mrs. Chakraborty felt quite excited about moving to Kolkata. In 1947, shortly after Partition, her father was set free from prison and came to Kolkata to reunite with his family.

In 1948, only a few months later, Mrs. Chakraborty moved back to her ancestral home in Barisal along with her parents and younger brother, in order to escape the riots happening in Kolkata. A few months later, her father returned again to Kolkata in search of a suitable job, while the rest of the family stayed back.

Mrs. Chakraboty's mother became ill and passed away in 1949. This, along with the tense social environment in the community, caused Mrs. Chakraborty to leave her home permanently with her younger brother in 1950, immediately before riots took place. She moved back to Kolkata, reunited with her father, and stayed with an uncle who lived in a refugee colony at Belgharia. Moving from place to place for the next several years, Mrs. Chakraborty was not able to attend school. At the age of 21, she began studying at home privately. At the age of 24, she married.

It was raining heavily when the family arrived at Purana Qila. Another family at the fort helped them set up tents for shelter. The next morning, on August 15, Arghwani Begum went into labor.

She recalls that her sister-in-law cried incessantly on seeing the newborn baby, though she could not understand why. “There were no clothes for the baby,” she says simply. “We draped him in one of my daughter’s frocks.” After two days, the family traveled in army jeeps to the Nizamuddin Railway Station in Delhi. They managed to board a train to Pakistan.

The train was attacked at Wagah border. Amidst the panic that ensued, Arghwani Begum's infant son struggled to breathe. A man on the train helped the baby get some air through the main door. Arghwani Begum recalls seeing countless bodies of men, women, and children that night. The family fortunately escaped the attacks and reached Walton in Pakistan. They later settled in Lahore.

Renowned author Dr. Bapsi Sidhwa was living with her Parsi family in Lahore at the time of Partition.