On June 3, 1947, the Partition plan was announced by the colonial British rulers. What followed was bloodshed at an unprecedented scale in which millions were killed and several million migrated towards the East and the West of the sub-continent.

Today — 78 years later in the year 2025 — we in the sub-continent seem to not care about this massive tragedy. Other people with smaller tragedies observe human sufferings for centuries. It is a part of their education, it is a part of the stories their elders tell them, it is a part of their lives. We call it ‘freedom’ and come to think of it as freedom from our own brethren whose belief system is different. To say such a thing is fatal these days where our own belief system has numerous variants.

In 2021, the Californian city of Berkeley, best known for its university, proclaimed the 3rd of June as ‘Partition Remembrance Day’ for on this day India and Pakistan were divided on communal grounds into two separate countries. This act was an effort between the City of Berkeley and ‘The 1947 Partition Archive’ movement that, last month, issued a massive collection of Partition stories – 10,000 stories as a first effort.

For many years now, the 1947 Partition Archives, headed by an amazing physicist, Dr Guneeta Singh Bhalla, since 2010, has been inspired by the Hiroshima Peace Movement, as also by the Ghadar Movement Museum, also based in San Francisco from where the armed ‘freedom’ fighters set out on the Japanese ship ‘Komagata Maru’ to free their country. Almost all the freedom fighters were gunned down on the port of Calcutta (now called Kolkata). Those who escaped were gunned down in Lohari Mandi of Lahore, where they were working on a secret newspaper. No one remembers them in Lahore, let alone the Punjab.

My connection with the 1947 Partition Archives started when Syed Babar Ali on learning that I was going to California to meet my youngest daughter, asked me to spend a day at the Partition Archive office in University of California’s Berkeley workshop. SBA, as Babar Sahib is better known, had donated a sizable amount to this effort and holds the firm belief that we must not forget our tortured past.

The emphasis was on collecting stories from those who had suffered. So, a massive effort over the years using mostly students of every possible educational institution in all the affected countries set about collecting the versions that people had on their minds. To this end, my humble contribution was nine interviews, and all of them moving descriptions.

Just one example might be useful. One day while sitting on a staircase outside a burger takeaway in Cambridge, I was talking on my mobile with my brother in Lahori Punjabi. An elderly ‘desi’ woman stopped, gave me a sharp stare and sat down next to me. “I know you are from Lahore,” she said. “I must tell you something.”

Out of Lahori politeness I said sure. She described how she and her father and family belonged to the Walled City of Lahore but lived on Montgomery Road as they had a roaring business. In August 1947, a huge crowd collected outside to burn their house down as they were Sikhs.

“My father rang his friend Dr Yusuf, who called the police and the army and cleared the mob. Then an army truck took us to Amritsar. Sadly, our two old Muslim servants were butchered, and we can never forget that.” Tears filled her eyes.

A few years ago, SBA asked me to come to LUMS from Cambridge to plan and teach two courses, ‘History of Lahore’ and ‘History of Punjab’ to Master’s students. I remember him saying “it is about time we knew our own history for other colleges have no idea of its importance”.

So, these two courses I designed and taught them to classes that were overflowing. The students realized its importance more than their elders. Maybe, our elders have still not recovered from that stunning tragedy and refuse to even talk about it. The media is also similarly stunned.

In the two classes I set aside 30% marks for an interview they all had to go out, find a Partition victim, and write a 3,000-word essay. After initial reluctance, the students, especially the females, came up with beautiful and moving descriptions. In the class, a girl actually broke into tears. Her tears convinced me that we were on the right track. All those collected essays were supposed to be printed as a book. But I left for Cambridge and I understand the courses continue.

Given all this, it was a delight to learn that in the old Amritsar Town Hall they have shifted the offices and in its place, a Partition Museum had been established. That museum is now a major venue of that famous city, where the pre-1947 family houses of both my wife – their house was burnt down in 1947 - and my father’s paternal family were in Hatti Darwaza. His maternal family house of Maulvi Noor Ahmed Chishti was in Koocha Chabaksawar inside Mochi Gate of Lahore.

Over the last few years, thanks to this newspaper and my weekly column, we have been pleading that the famous Bradlaugh Hall be converted into a Lahore Partition Museum. Though our bureaucrats did oppose it, but thanks to the former DG of the WCLA, Kamran Lashari, they agreed to save the crumbling hall on Rattigan Road.

This Bradlaugh Hall was built by supporters of the freedom movement – Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians and ‘neutrals’. Charles Bradlaugh was a Yorkshire Member of the British Parliament who refused to let the British law prevail. He was deported from British Indian soil. The witty politician sat on a boat on the River Ravi. So, a new notification was issued of ‘land and water’ being prohibited to him.

The major donations for the hall were from Sardar Dyal Singh. In 1889 the hall started functioning. Leaders of every ilk used to come here. Even Bhagat Singh was educated in a school run here. Jinnah, Iqbal, Nehru and all the leaders of the freedom movement regularly came here. It was here that the Congress passed the India’s Freedom Resolution on the 26th of January 1930. Ten years later, in the nearby Minto Park, Pakistan’s Freedom Resolution was passed on March 23, 1940.

The importance of the Partition of the sub-continent is surely the most important event in the history of our people. Their stories need to be told, just as the 1947 Partition Archives effort is continuing. Personally, I would suggest this book be in every house. Even more important for Lahore is the creation of the Partition Museum in Bradlaugh Hall.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2025