75th year of Partition: Saw worst tragedy of his life when he was just 11

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 17

Rajinder Singh Kumar’s (85) father was a cattle trader at Miranshah in Sahiwal district (formerly called Montgomery). His family owned 142 acres there. But losing all wealth and property in Pakistan during the Partition, he and his brothers had to do all sorts of menial jobs to start all over again and feed the family here.

Rajinder shared his hair-raising experiences of the Partition during an interaction organised at Virsa Vihar on Tuesday. At the age of 11, he saw the worst tragedy of his life. “We were still in Pakistan when our family witnessed a horrendous incident. I was the youngest of seven brothers. One of my elder brother—Amar Singh— was brutally killed by Muslims after they trapped him. The attackers took the Partition as an opportunity to settle old issues with my brother. My father was passing by and he stopped over to see what had happened. He saw his son lying before him in a pool of blood,” he said.

Rajinder gets emotional on recalling a more tragic incident, “Our family reached India by walking all the way for over two weeks. Enroute, we stopped in gurdwaras. During one such stop at a gurdwara in Mandi Tanjleyanwali in Pakistan, we faced an attack. The attackers killed around 250 people, including my mother (Laxmi), and burnt the premises. We were on other side of the gurdwara and realised what had happened only after hearing cries of people. The Indian Army came to our rescue, but it was too late.” He paused for sipping water and shared how they lost two family members within days.

A resident of Seth Hukum Chand colony, he added, “We finally reached Jawahar Camp in Ludhiana without not a penny in our pockets. We had no time to recover from emotional and financial loss. We had to restart our lives and began with whatever work we could find. I got the job and used to wash utensils. Likewise, my brothers also did jobs.”

Rajinder said, “As we had no formal education, my father started sending us all to a school in a gurdwara at the camp. So, we changed our jobs and started working in the evening. I started pulling a rickshaw and did this for almost a year. Things started getting better each day. We even got three plots in Sirsa and Fazilka as a compensation for our land in Pakistan.”

He said, “I was convinced that only education can pave a better livelihood. I went to GGN Khalsa College, Ludhiana, to pursue BA. I did masters in political science from Mohindra College, Patiala. I did BEd from Malwa College, Ludhiana, and MEd from Panjab University. I even pursued LLB from evening college at MGN campus in Jalandhar. Armed with three undergraduate and two postgraduate courses, I got the job of a lecturer at MGN College of Education in Jalandhar. I have served for 33 years, including 11 years as a principal. Later, I also served as a principal at a college in Pathankot.”

Despite his age, he walks quite comfortably and narrated the entire episode to the gathering quite well who even quizzed him for more details. Some even suggested that he should pen it all in a book for coming generations to get the firsthand account. The event was organised by vice chairperson of Virsa Vihar Maj Gen Balwinder Singh (retd). Capt IS Dhami (retd) and Channi GS Takulia among others were also present.