Separated by Partition, united by The Tribune

Vishav Bharti

The largest mass migration in human history was taking place and relatives of Congress leader Sardar Atma Singh, who lost a large number of relatives in the Sheikhupura riots, were anxious about his whereabouts. They were inquiring about him in newspapers. Almost two months later on October 6, 1947, Page Two of The Tribune “gladly” announced that he was “at Jullundur” and can be contacted through the then Chief Minister of Punjab, Dr Gopi Chand Bhargava. Atma Singh later served as cabinet minister in Punjab.

It was The Tribune’s Refugee Forum, where from a policeman to a postman, from a Tribune employee to a government doctor, from a cloth merchant to a bank manager could reach out to find lost relatives. Just after resuming its publication from Shimla after 40 days break, The Tribune started a column called Refugee Forum, where amid riots, massacres, The Tribune was offering space to whereabouts of lost and found people. Those days from Multan to Kangra, from Rawalpindi to Rohtak, The Tribune was “almost the only source of authentic and detailed news about refugees, most of whom were regular readers of the newspaper and eagerly awaited each day’s issue,” notes Prakash Nanda in A History of The Tribune published on newspaper’s centenary celebrations in 1981.   

Looking at those broadsheets printed on lino in The Tribune’s archive, one sees that these notices commonly came from Shimla and around. People for whom these pleas were made were mostly commoners, but also included prominent people who were lost and later found through the columns of the paper. Like story of Pandit Thakur Datt Multani about whom one fine morning The Tribune announced: “…The Tribune is glad to be able [sic] to say that Pandit Thakur Datt Multani the renowned Vaid of Lahore, with his sons and daughter is in Delhi….” Multani was founder of the famous modern-day Multani Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

The column continued for several weeks and was later renamed as Refugees’ Whereabouts. The column finds a special place in the works of historiography on Partition. “This feature facilitated countless reunions of cruelly separated families,” notes Nanda. True. Atma Singh’s story holds testimony to that.