Legacy of Partition 1947-2009

“Amid the ‘madness of killing and looting and burning’, there were people of all faiths who refused to go along with it. Hindus and Sikhs protected Muslims, and Muslims protected Hindus and Sikhs. They said ‘If you are going to kill them you will have to go over my dead body ’. A sense of humanity was existing while all that butchery was going on. We should never forget that.” Zafar Mirza, interviewed in the Leicester Mercury, 15 Aug. 2007

“… I  remember in the front of our house [in Ludhiana] there was a Mohammadan family living there. He was working in the police. One night that fellow came to our house and told my father that so many people are after me, they want to kill me. So my father said don’t worry. He brought him into our house and he kept him in the back room. He said, don’t worry … and he kept him nicely. But he went to Pakistan afterwards when the big caravan of the people was going.”     Mrs. Raj Kumary Bowry

“...4 very wealthy and elegant Pathans got on (the train).  There were 2 men and 2 women in the most beautiful saris … They didn’t want the British to be turned out of India – they were not happy

about it and they said it was dreadful that we were in this state, and when they got out at Karachi they turned to my father and said ‘here is a present for your wife’ and they gave him 4,000 rupees.” Mrs Jacqueline Barker and Mrs Josephine Orchison

“When my father told... the story of how he protected a busload of Sikhs from Muslim hoodlums, Master Tara Singh thanked him for his kindness on behalf of the whole community. He could not control his emotions and hugged him.” Shaukat Ali Awan

“ My father had very good Muslim friends, but the ones who entered the village, they were not from their village. My father’s best friends in Pakistan, two of them, they were very close to my father and used to write letters to him for many years and one of my elder brother’s name was given to him by my father’s Muslim friend. So my father, he never hated Muslims, but he did hate the yobbos who came into the village, he said, with flashing swords, very cruel people and he never forgot that.... “ Mrs Harbins Kaur Thiaray