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September 10, 2006
Inbox
The excerpt from the book Role of Minorities in Nation Building by Ahmed Salim (Books & Authors, August 13) spoke of services rendered by Deevan Bahadur S.P. Singha. Singha was for many years registrar of the University of Punjab. In 1945 he resigned from there to enter politics. He was elected a member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, and eventually its speaker, where he succeeded the legendary Sir Shahab Din. Like his predecessor, Singha was also a Punjabi poet. In 1944 he presided over a Punjabi Kavi Darbar in the Central Model School, where many prominent Punjabi poets of the time recited their poetry.
But how did we treat this scion of Pakistan? Soon after Partition, a leading Urdu daily of Lahore editorially expressed its shock at a Christian occupying the office of the speaker of the provincial assembly in a Muslim country. The gentleman that he was, Singha resigned to make room for Faiz Mohammad. Thus he was the first high profile victim of prejudice which has since only spread deeper and grown violent. The initiative in his case was taken not by a semi-literate village mullah, but by a respectable newspaper editor.
Singha’s son-in-law, Mangat Rai, an ICS officer serving in the Punjab, opted for Pakistan. But he soon realised that he was not being treated fairly, and that things were not likely to improve. So he revised his option before it was too late. His educationist sister, Miss Mangat Rai, however, stayed back in Lahore and was for many years the principal of Kinnaird College (but subsequently settled in Scotland).
Singha’s successor as registrar, Professor Madan Gopal Singh, was stabbed to death just outside his official residence on Kutchehry Road in March, 1947. His younger son, Krishan Gopal, a class-mate in the Central Model School, met me in 1991 for the first time since we left school. He had come to Lahore to show his family house to his wife Sneh Lata. In 1947 theirs was the only house on Walton Road. It was located just across the Boy Scouts Association. Its setting at an angle lent it further prominence. Unfortunately in the labyrinth of the new city-scape Krishan Gopal could not locate his house. On my next visit to Lahore, I located the house, and informed my friend, who had by then settled in USA. I doubt though if at 74 he will travel half the globe to see a house where he may not be as welcome.
Referring to Singha’s stand before the Boundary Commission, it is stated in the excerpt that “the Punjab Boundary Commission comprised Justice Din Muhammad, Sir Zafarullah Khan and Sardar Baldev Singh.” Both the Punjab and Bengal Boundary Commissions were headed by Sir Cyril (later Lord) Radcliffe. Members of the Punjab Commission were justices Din Muhammad, M. Munir, Mehar Chand Mahajan and Teja Singh. Zafarullah Khan appeared before the Boundary Commission as the Muslim League’s senior counsel, but he was not a member of the Commission. He was assisted by Sahibzada Nawazish Ali and Chaudhary Nazir Ahmad Khan. Baldev Singh was not in any way connected with the Boundary Commission and was not in Punjab in 1947. Having been a minister in the Punjab cabinet for several years, he joined the interim government in the summer of 1946 as defence member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council.
Justice Teja Singh (who was a member of the commission) belonged to Kallar Kahar, where 80 members of his clan were murdered in March, 1947. The riots that started in Lahore had quickly engulfed the other two Muslim majority divisions of the Punjab, namely, Rawalpindi and Multan. I once met Justice Teja Singh’s daughter at a dinner. She remembered the carnage, but was not as bitter as I feared she would be.
Reviewing the role of minorities, it will not be out of place to recognise the services and achievements of two prominent members of our latest minority, namely, Zafarullah Khan and Dr Abdus Salam. I have Salam’s biography written by a Sikh mathematician and published in India. Is there one written in Pakistan?
K.M. CHIMA
Islamabad
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