75 years of partition: 8,000 patwaris worked day & night to complete the task of rehabilitation

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, August 8

Braving the harsh weather, some even succumbing to it, more than 8,000 patwaris and hundreds of revenue officials worked day and night at the Rehabilitation Secretariat in Jalandhar for rural resettlement of migrants in post-Partition India.

But before setting the work of thousands of patwaris and revenue officials in motion, a mine of data was required to be analysed, hundreds of detailed instructions had to be issued and several new pieces of legislation had to be enacted.

Those who led resettlement work

PN Thapar, Financial Commissioner, Rehabilitation

His vast experience of revenue work and of rural life of Punjab provided leadership and guidance to the staff during the difficult days of 1950-51. His personal example inspired his staff to an almost superhuman effort and they worked over a long spell of time till late hours without enjoying a holiday.

Tarlok Singh, the first Director General of Rural Rehabilitation

Organised the staff and formulated the complicated scheme of quasi-permanent allotment of land. He developed a system of allotment based on the standardisation of lands on both sides.

MS Randhawa, RehabilitationCommissioner, Punjab

He took over from Tarlok Singh in 1949 and was responsible for the completionof the work.

For that, three civil servants — PN Thapar, Financial Commissioner, Rehabilitation; Tarlok Singh, the first Director General of Rural Rehabilitation; and MS Randhawa, who served as the Rehabilitation Commissioner, Punjab — burnt the midnight oil.

Randhawa later recalled those moments in his book “Out of the Ashes: An Account of the Rehabilitation of Refugees from West Pakistan in Rural Areas of East Punjab”.

He noted that such a gigantic operation had not been attempted ever before in any part of the globe.

The work of rural resettlement was handled by a huge staff. At one time, as many as 8,000 patwaris were working in Jalandhar.

“Such a gigantic operation the like of which has not been attempted in any part of the globe represented a vast cooperative effort in which the Governor, the ministers, two successive Financial Commissioners, two Directors General of Rural Rehabilitation, a large number of experienced revenue officers designated as Additional Deputy Commissioners and Revenue Assistants Rehabilitation, Tehsildars, Naib Tehsildars, and Patwaris participated,” Randhawa writes in the book.

The staff strength at the Jalandhar secretariat had been increasing progressively since April 1948, when the claims received at the tehsil offices were first brought there. In October 1948, when the revenue record was received from Pakistan, there was a marked increase in the number of patwaris, kanungos, naib tehsildars, and tehsildars for the work of extracting the holding of each claimant as given in those records, Randhawa wrote.

The strength of the staff was further increased in June 1949. During the peak period, there were 7,000 officials in the Rehabilitation Secretariat in Jalandhar — almost the population of a small town — which was protected by barbed wires.

“It was quite a job to provide residential and office accommodation for such a large number of officials. A city of tents grew up around the Secretariat overnight with regular streets and streetlights, baths and latrines, ration and cloth depots, a mandir and a gurdwara,” he mentions in “Out of the Ashes”.

In spite of adequate arrangements for the staff, some old patwaris could not stand the rigour of the winter and died of pneumonia, and became martyrs to the cause of refugee rehabilitation.

Some 30 senior officers were lodged in the newly constructed houses in Model Town of Jalandhar, and the remaining were accommodated in tents. The buildings of local schools and colleges, which were closed on account of summer holidays, were acquired, and the land allotment staff of some of the districts was accommodated in these buildings.