Selhi Uncle: There was so much happiness. Day and night we were celebrating. There was a big park in Calcutta with iron railings and a big gate. Every few yards there would be this sign, “Indians and dogs not allowed.” I remember reading that. Us Indians weren’t allowed to play on the swings or go by the lake. Now everything belonged to Indians. We could play where we liked!

Shaffi Uncle: I grew up in Aligarh – it was a Muslim city. On the day of independence for Pakistan I was so happy, waving the flags and shouting “Pakistan zindabad!” even though we were going to stay in India. Aligarh was our home.

Rumour

Selhi Uncle: Nobody knew what was going on. What were the borders? We heard this rumour that Calcutta was going to be part of Pakistan and riots began. 5 or 6 days after independence dead bodies began to appear on the streets. My father decided to send us to the family home in Faridkhot. We knew it was staying in India.

Shaffi Uncle:There were no riots in Aligarh. The Sikhs and Hindus knew that they wouldn’t have much of a chance. But we heard about riots in the surrounding areas. Then, before the big annual mela we heard that about 70 thousand Hindus and Sikhs were gathering to raid Aligarh and attack the Muslims. My father said we should pack everything and just go.

Travel

Selhi Uncle: After going back and forth from Lucknow to Cawnpore our train stopped just outside Saharanpur. We could see massive groups of refugees all around us. The only train to Punjab was a coal train. It didn’t move for three days. The engine driver would cook for us and local villagers would give us food.

Shaffi Uncle: The safest route to Pakistan was to take a boat to Bombay but how to get to Bombay? There were 75 in our family after all. We were on the Muslim buggy of the train but at Attari, in the afternoon we noticed it was all dark outside. We realised that our section of the train had been redirected into a yard. We’d heard that they did that before a slaughter. Two Hindus, the policeman and a coolie came running to our buggy and shouted at us to get out and run on the main train which was a few yards away. They said if we stayed we would be murdered. My maamu didn’t know whether they were to be trusted. But then they started grabbing the children and stuffing them through the windows of the main train. We all ran into it and then they cleared a space where the family could be together. That’s how we got to Bombay.

Coming home

Pahuja Uncle: My dad was left behind in Rawalpindi because of his job. We were in a refugee camp. He didn’t know where we were and neither did we. But then one day I was on the platform of a little station called Khana. I was only about 5 or 6 and as I walked along I bumped into someone. I looked up and recognised my dad. It was a pure coincidence but I was so happy I started crying.

Shaffi Uncle: We were on a boat that should have occupied 1 thousand people. We were 8 ½ thousand! On it for 3 days and hardly any toilets! But when we saw Karachi from the boat we were so happy! Our life was no longer in danger.

Selhi Uncle: The day after we got to Faridkhot all the children went up on the flat roof to see our new home. The first thing we saw was a man on the street being dragged and then someone else chopped off his head. They just chopped off his head.

With thanks to my uncles Shafiqur Rahman Khan, Kulwant Singh and Joginder Nath Pahuja, for their contributions.

Shalini Sharma, Lecturer in colonial and postcolonial history, Keele University s.sharma@his.keele.ac.uk