Rebel With A Cause
Mridula Sarabhai, born into Ahmedabad's celebrated industrial dynasty and nuclear scientist Vikram
Sarabhai's sister, was one of those amazing women who fought for India's freedom. After the midnight hour, she
grew disillusioned with the Congress, rejected the lure of high office and championed the unpopular cause
of Sheikh Abdullah for the last twenty years of her life, even going to prison for defending the Kashmiri leader.
Aparna Basu, who has just published Mridula's biography, recounts Sarabhai's fearless commitment
to saving human life during the horrific trauma of Partition.
Thousands of Muslim refugees were stranded at the Amritsar railway
station on their way to Pakistan. Mridula selected this as one
of the venues for starting her peace mission and she posted a
group of workers there to prevent RSS volunteers from harassing
them. It was not uncommon for members of one community to mock,
jeer and poke fun at the cowed, hungry and miserable evacuees
of the other community. She also posted a second batch of volunteers
inside the walled city of Amritsar to protect Muslims who were
isolated and to keep her informed of day to day developments.
On the basis of their reports, she asked the deputy commissioner
and the senior superintendent of police to deploy more police
force for their protection. As a result, the leaders of the Muslim
associations in Amritsar began to look to her for support and
consulted her frequently.
Conditions worsened in Pakistan by early September and leaders
of all political parties began to feel that it would be folly
for Hindus and Sikhs to stay on. Bhimsen Sachar, who was the leader
of the Congress party in the West Punjab state assembly, along
with his colleagues took refuge in Amritsar. On arriving, he contacted
Mridula and narrated his personal experience and expressed his
view that it had become necessary to evacuate all Hindus and Sikhs
from West Punjab as quickly as possible.
In September 1947, it
was decided at the third meeting of the Emergency Committee of
the representatives of India and Pakistan that the situation in
Punjab had deteriorated so much that mass evacuation of Muslims
from East Punjab and Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab had become
imperative. An agreement was reached to facilitate the migration
of population from both the Punjabs. The central and provincial
governments were to assist in this task. Mridula was unhappy at
this decision, for she was keen that Muslims should continue to
live in East Punjab in amity with Hindus and Sikhs.
To evacuate the Hindu and Sikh refugees from West Punjab, one
hundred trucks were placed at the disposal of the deputy high
commissioner of India in Lahore. To help refugees to recover their
relatives as well as their property, the East Punjab government
appointed a chief liaison officer at Lahore, and a transport controller
at Amritsar. Similar arrangements were made for the evacuation
of Muslims from East Punjab. But these arrangements offered no
protection to the refugees, because there was no machinery to
prevent attacks on the convoys from hostile mobs.
sIt was, therefore,
decided to entrust the work of evacuation of refugees to the military.
Panic-stricken Hindu and Sikh refugees started coming to the Amristar
Hotel pleading for the early evacuation of their relatives who
were stranded the West Punjab and NWFP. They were afraid that
otherwise they would be butchered, or their girls abducted and
forcibly converted to Islam. Many of them insisted on meeting
Mridula, as they had been told that she was the personal representative
of Jawaharlal Nehru.
Evacuation on a massive scale began from West and East Punjab
towards the end of August and early September 1947, through special
train services. With this began the attacks on refugee trains.
Passengers were forced into compartments like sheep and goats
and because of the heat, they often found it hard to breathe.
In the ladies's compartments, women would try to calm down and
comfort their children. Looking out of the window, they could
see corpses piled up on top of each other. Attacks on refugee
trains were carried out with a military precision which had perhaps
something to do with the role played by ex-servicemen, Hindus
and Muslims, of the Indian army.
While revenge and bloodthirst
were the main motives, violence was also used to ensure ethnic
cleansing. On 21 August, a train carrying Hindu and Sikh refugees
was attacked between Wazirabad and Godhra. On 28th August, Sikh
refugees from Sialkot were attacked near Narowal railway station.
An attack on a train carrying Hindus and Sikhs at Pind Dadan Khan
on 21st September, 1947 in which nearly 1,500 persons were killed,
caused tremendous commotion in Amritsar. In retaliation, Hindus
and Sikhs attacked a train, carrying Muslim refugees, on the outskirts
of Amritsar.
Mridula had warned the officials that such an attack
was being contemplated and arrangements should be made to avert
it. She was, therefore, very sore that no preemptive action was
taken. She was firmly convinced that if the local police and military
had come to the assistance of the military escort of the train,
the attackers could have been repulsed.
Throughout the night between
the 22nd and 23rd of September, she, along with a group of workers,
attended to the wounded and the injured, amidst the groaning and
wailing of women and children. With the help of officials, she
made arrangements for sending those who were still alive to Lahore
by motor vehicles.
Mridula brought this incident to the notice of Nehru and suggested
that the deputy commissioner and the senior superintendent of
police be transferred from Amritsar at once for dereliction of
duty and this was done.
Excerpted from Mridula Sarabhai, Rebel With A Cause, by Aparna Basu, Oxford University Press, 1996, Rs 425, with the publisher's permission. Readers in the US may secure a copy of the book from Oxford University Press Inc USA, 198, Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016, USA. Tel: 212-726-6000. Fax: 212-726-6440.
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