The Year of notorious Radcliffe
My schooling had to begin afresh. I was admitted in class one because Sindhi was the language I had to learn.
Our initial house in Ghotki was close to the Railway station—infact the railway line. I do have quite vivid memories of loaded trains passing before my eyes. Trains loaded with human cargo. Rooftops also overflowing with human heads. Probably those had been the goods trains used for human transportation.
At that time my comprehension of what was going on in the sub-continent was quite limited. But the midnight of the 13th and the 14th August 1947 I distinctly remember. Pakistan had been born. And there had been mood of celebration all around.
In the weeks to follow the news of the massacres had started pouring. The village of my maternal uncles had been worst hit. To understand what had happened there, my readers should pick up Nasim Hijazi’s classic Khaak aur Khoon. It is the story of Sujanpura, Dhariwal, Gurdaspur, and many many villages of the East Punjab which were transformed into infernos by marauding Sikhs who somehow got possessed by an obscenely uncontrolled urge to plunder, to pillage, to rape, to abduct and to kill.
I grew up with the pain of the memories of what had happened in East Punjab— particularly in the Distt of Gurdaspur which at that time no one thought could be awarded to India.
It is in this context that the notorious Radcliffe Award comes up in mind.
It was Lord Radcliffe who had decided about the line of demarcation between the two parts of Punjab. His Award announced on the 12th of August 1947 gave District Gurdaspur to India. The boundary line commenced on the north at the point where the west branch of the Basantar river entered the Punjab Province from the State of Kashmir. It followed the western boundary of the Pathankot Tehsil to the point where Pathankot Shakargarh and Gundaspur Tehsils met. Thence it followed the boundary between Shakargarh and Gurdaspur tehsils, between Batala and Narowal Tehsils, between Anjnala and Naroval tehsils, and between Anjnala and Shahdara tehsils, to the point on the River Ravi where the districts of Lahore and Amritsar met.
