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Punjabi Refugees’ Rehabilitation and the Indian State: Discourses, Denials and Dissonances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2010

IAN TALBOT
IAN TALBOT*
Affiliation:
Department of History, School of Humanities, University of Southampton, Southampton S017 1BJ, UK Email: iat@soton.ac.uk
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Abstract

Studies of Punjabi partition-related refugee resettlement have revealed a gap between official accounts and those provided by migrants. The former seek to legitimize the state by narrating its role in the transformation of helpless refugees into productive citizens. First hand accounts on the other hand frequently write the state out of the rehabilitation process. This paper seeks firstly to illustrate these processes at work by contrasting the narrative account contained in the Government of India publication, The Story of Rehabilitation, with interview material collected amongst former refugees. It then goes on to reveal the presence of state agency in cases of rehabilitation, despite refugee denial. Finally, it explores the refugee-state tensions arising from migrants’ experience of local level bureaucratic and police services’ corruption, which goes some way towards explaining the narrative dissonances.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1: From Subjects to Citizens: Society and the Everyday State in India and Pakistan, 1947–1970 , January 2011 , pp. 109 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Rao, U. Bhaskar, The Story of Rehabilitation (New Delhi: Publications Divisions, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1967), p. 1Google Scholar.

2 For a discussion of the different experiences of migration and resettlement in Punjab and Bengal see, Talbot, I. and Singh, G., The Partition of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)Google Scholar, Chapter 4. For the state's attitude and failings in dealing with rehabilitation in West Bengal see Chatterji, Joya, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Right or Charity? The Debate over Relief and Rehabilitation in West Bengal, 1947–50’ in Kaul, Suvir (ed.), The Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001) pp. 74–110Google Scholar.

3 The greatest migration in the Bengal region occurred in 1950 rather than in 1947. By 1981 the West Bengal Refugee rehabilitation Committee put the number of refugees at around 8 millions, that is one-sixth of the total population.

4 The Story of Rehabilitation declares, for example, ‘It redounds to the eternal credit of the displaced persons from West Pakistan (that) their toughness, their sturdy sense of self reliance, their pride . . . would not submit to the indignity of living on doles and charity . . . in this hour of supreme need.’ p. 37.

5 Indeed, Bengali refugees from East Pakistan argued that they were the principal victims of Partition because of the Government's half-hearted approach to their rehabilitation. It was an important factor in the support refugees gave to the Communist Party of India, especially in the wake of the threatened legislation in 1951 to evict those who had self-settled in the squatter colonies of Calcutta. See, Chakrabarty, Prafulla, The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal (Kalyani: Lumiere Books, 1990)Google Scholar.

6 The West Punjab Government for example produced the pamphlets, The Sikhs in Action (Lahore: Government Printing Press, West Punjab, 1948); Notes on the Sikh Plan (Lahore: Government Printing Press, West Punjab, 1948); RSSS in Punjab (Lahore: Government Printing Press, West Punjab, 1948). The Indian response to these claims of deliberate genocide in West Punjab was Khosla's, G. D. work, Stern Reckoning: A Survey of Events Leading up to and Following the Partition of India, 2nd edn (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar. It was based on the researches of the Fact Finding Commission of the Government of India's Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation. It details village by village, atrocities committed on the Hindu and Sikh minority populations of West Punjab.

7 See, Hansen, Anders Bjorn, Partition and Genocide: Manifestation of Violence in Punjab 1937–47 (New Delhi: India Research Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Brass, Paul, ‘The Partition of India and Retributive Genocide in the Punjab 1946–47: Means, Methods and Purposes’, Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2003), pp. 71–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Talbot, Ian, ‘The 1947 Punjab Violence’ in Talbot, I. (ed.) The Deadly Embrace: Religion, Politics and Violence in India and Pakistan 1947–2002 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007) pp. 1–16Google Scholar; Talbot, Ian and Singh, G., The Partition of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Pandey, Gyanendra, Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Rao, The Story of Rehabilitation, p. 10.

9 For the work of the Indian Military evacuation Organisation see Singh, Brigadier Rajendra, The Military Evacuation organisation 1947–48 (New Delhi: Government of India, 1962)Google Scholar.

10 Rao, The Story of Rehabilitation, p. 19.

11 Ibid., pp. 36–37.

12 Ibid., p. 3.

13 Ibid., p. 2.

14 Government of India, Millions on the Move: The Aftermath of Partition (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, undated). See, for example, Chapter 6, pp. 44 & ff.

15 Emergency Committee 26th Meeting 7 November, 1947 MB1/D275, University of Southampton.

16 On anticipatory migration see, Talbot and Singh, The Partition of India, p. 105.

17 Ibid., p. 106.

18 Extract from Emergency Committee 20th Meeting, 3 October, 1947 MB1/D275, University of Southampton.

19 See Menon, Ritu and Bhasin, Kamla, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India's Partition (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

20 Kaur, Ravinder, Since 1947: Partition Narratives Among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 254CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Ibid., pp. 99–100.

22 Ibid., p. 99.

23 Ibid., p. 252.

24 Hindustan Times (Delhi), 3 August, 1957.

25 Rao, The Story of Rehabilitation, p. 138.

26 See, Kaur, Since 1947; Talbot, Ian, Divided Cities: Partition and its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar 1947–1957 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Ansari, Sarah, Life After Partition: Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh 1947–62 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

27 See, for example, the account of Singh, Sardar Mohan in Talbot, I. (ed.) with Darshan Singh Tatla, Epicentre of Violence: Partition Voices and Memories from Amritsar (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006), pp. 149–158Google Scholar.

28 Kaur, Since 1947, p. 117.

29 See, for example, the Diwan Chaman Lall and S. p. Mukherjee Papers at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi.

30 Tribune (Ambala), 26 March, 1950.

31 Tribune (Simla), 13 December, 1947.

32 See Tribune (Ambala), 5 and 12 June, 1950.

33 Hindu and Sikh refugees vacated 9.6 million acres of land in Pakistan, but had only 5.5 million acres of land abandoned by Muslim farmers on which to settle in India.

34 Randhawa, M. S., Out of the Ashes: An Account of the Rehabilitation of Refugees from West Pakistan in Rural Areas of East Punjab (Chandigarh: Public Relations Department, Punjab, 1954), p. 167Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. 162.

36 Statesman (Calcutta), 28 May, 1949.

37 Chatterjee, Nilanjana, ‘The East Bengal Refugees: A Lesson in Survival’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta (ed.), Calcutta: The Living City, 2 vols (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar, ii: The Present and the Past, p. 74.

38 See Kudaisya, Gyanesh, ‘Divided Landscapes, Fragmented Identities. East Bengal Refugees and their Rehabilitation in India, 1947–79’, in Low, D. A. and Brasted, Howard (eds.), Freedom, Trauma, Continuities: Northern India and Independence (New Delhi: Sage 1998), pp. 115–116Google Scholar.

39 See Kaur, Since 1947; Talbot, Divided Cities,; Butalia, Urvashi, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (New Delhi: Penguin, 1998)Google Scholar; Pippa Virdee, ‘Partition and Locality: Case Studies of the Impact of Partition and Its Aftermath in the Punjab Region 1947–61’, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Coventry University, 2005; Talbot, Ian and Tatla, Darshan Singh., (eds.) Epicentre of Violence: partition Voices and Memories from Amritsar (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006)Google Scholar.

40 It is much more difficult to follow the normal cascade approach to interviews through personal introductions with respect to lower class refugee families.

41 For details see, Sharma, Harish C., Artisans of the Punjab: A Study of Social Change in Historical perspective 1849–1947 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1996), pp.48–63Google Scholar.

42 See for example, Talbot and Tatla (eds.) Epicentre of Violence, pp.13–19.

43 Kaur, Since 1947, p. 131.

44 Ibid., p. 133.

45 Ibid., p. 133.

46 Interview with Sardar Gurcharan Singh Bhattia, Hussainpura, Amritsar, 13 November, 2002, in Talbot and Tatla (eds.) Epicentre of Violence, p. 80.

47 Ibid., p. 84.

48 Kaur, Since 1947, p. 142.

49 Talbot and Tatla, Epicentre of Violence, p. 84.

50 Kaur, Since 1947, p. 142.

51 For details, see Talbot, Divided Cities.

52 Interview with Khawaja Zubair, proprietor of Pak-Punjab Carpet House, Lahore, 22 November, 2004. I am grateful to Tahir Mahmood for conducting this interview.

53 Tanwar, Raghuvendra, Reporting the Partition of Punjab 1947: Press, Public and Other Opinions (New Delhi: Manohar, 2006), p. 473Google Scholar.

54 See, Talbot, I., Punjab and the Raj 1849–1947 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1988)Google Scholar.

55 Ian Talbot, ‘The 1946 Punjab Elections’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 14, 1 (1980), pp. 65–91.

56 Tanwar, Reporting the Partition of Punjab 1947, p. 97.

57 Ibid., p. 97.

58 Tribune (Simla), 18 November, 1947.

59 Tribune (Simla), 13 December, 1947.

60 Mamdot was a refugee himself, who according to both opponents and the Punjab Governor Mudie, personally intervened in the allotment processes to reward his supporters. He became increasingly embroiled in factional conflicts with the Finance Minister, Mian Mumtaz Daultana.

61 Dawn (Karachi), 29 September, 1952.

62 Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 17 May, 1951.

63 Kaur, Since 1947, p. 173.

64 Ibid., p. 172.