Death stared us in face

My village Dhudial was located on the Mundra Bhaun railway line and it was a known Sikh village in Jhelum district. Our village had a Khalsa High School, a middle school for girls and four gurdwaras. The Sikhs were traders and most of them had families in Iran. The community was very rich and three-storey buildings were a common sight. Dr Mathura Singh Kohli of our village was a prominent freedom fighter during the Ghadar movement and was hanged in 1917. Sardar Sahib Singh was a leading businessman in Iran and founded the Hind-Iran Bank in 1945.

We had good relations with Muslims, who were mostly in the army or into agriculture. The Muslim students in our schools were allowed to have separate prayers in the morning.

The Muslim League gave a call for direct action to press its demand for a separate homeland in the first week of March 1947. It emboldened the Muslims in areas where they had a majority. The population of Hindus and Sikhs in the Rawalpindi division and North West Frontier Province was less than 10 per cent. Soon after the call, Muslims in every village where they had a majority started taking out processions. Trouble started in Lahore on March 7 when at various places many Sikhs were fatally stabbed. This was a warning signal and a precursor to worse outbreaks. Attacks by Muslim mobs started in Rawalpindi and other places too.

When the elders received the news of the attack on the Sikhs, they prepared a defence plan to stop the entry of outsiders. All the houses were connected with each other through wooden planks placed on the roofs. Every household was told to keep burning oil in cauldrons, bags of red chilli powder and a stock of stones. Teams of young men were deputed to go around the village round the clock and keep watch. Two persons with .12 bore guns were kept on guard duty at pivotal points. On March 11, a Muslim mob tried to enter the village for the first time, but was beaten back. The next day, it was better armed, and in larger numbers. We were no match for them in numbers but what we lacked in numbers, we made up in courage.

Our group was led by one of my uncles, Bhagat Singh Kohli, a weightlifter and shot-putter. We had to engage them in a hand-to-hand fight on the outskirts of the village. It was a bloody skirmish but we did not lose heart. I, aged 15 then, was a witness to this fight and can never forget the horrific sight till my dying day. We suffered casualties but more than 10 Muslims also got killed. The mob retreated that day but returned with an even bigger force on March 13 and succeeded in setting a large number of houses on fire.

The fire spread in the entire area and burnt the houses like matchsticks. All the villagers were forced to seek refuge in the Santpura gurdwara, and then later in the evening, to Sunder Singh Kothi across the railway line. The huge mansion accommodated all of us who were seeking shelter. We sat there, watching the Muslim crowd advancing with burning torches. The male members, carrying swords and lathis, formed a human wall while the ladies recited Gurbani shabads.

It was a miracle that sometime around midnight, an army convoy, led by a British Major, arrived in the village. They had been alerted when they had seen flames of fire licking the sky. So, ironically, the act of arson that had set our homes on fire and forced us to flee also acted as an SOS for help that could be seen by our rescuers. Had the army unit not reached the spot when it did, it would have meant certain death for us. Upon arrival, the army unit surrounded the kothi and the mob was forced to beat a retreat.

An army officer took my father Balwant Singh Kohli and Natha Singh Anand to locate the godowns where the foodgrains were stored in order to feed the victims. The next day, a camp was opened in the gurdwara and hundreds of Sikhs from other villages were also given shelter. The main bazaar and the houses around the gurdwara were saved but the rest of the village was completely burnt down. After two days, politicians Bhimsen Sachar and Swarn Singh visited our village and were highly appreciative of the bravery of our youth.

Master Tara Singh issued a statement requesting all the Hindus and Sikhs of our area to shift to Patiala and other places. We heard an announcement made by Maharaja Yadavindra Singh of Patiala offering shelter. We decided to leave. But at that time, my father and his senior colleagues were of the opinion that this migration was temporary and we would come back after India attained Independence and the violence abated.

We, a family of five members, with only Rs 300 in our pockets, reached Rajpura by train. From there, we travelled on a tonga to Bahadurgarh gurdwara nearby where about 100 of us took shelter for the next few months.

There were more than 50 of us in a big hall on the first floor, while another group occupied the verandahs. I volunteered as a helper and also earned money by delivering large milk cans to Bahadurgarh Fort, where a camp for the Muslim refugees from Patiala had been set up. We shifted to Patiala and stayed in a car garage for almost a year.

I joined Khalsa High School, Patiala, and cleared my matriculation in March 1949. I got admission in Mohindra College, Patiala, and earned a scholarship, which proved to be a real boon. I completed my MA in Economics in 1955 from Panjab University and gradually, was able to settle down.

Other people from my village also struggled hard and ultimately rose from the ashes. One of my schoolmates, Kuldip Singh, became a Supreme Court judge, Baldev Singh Anand a Union Secretary, Kulwant Singh Sabharwal the Chief Secretary of Haryana and PS Kohli the Army Commander at Shimla. Our Headmaster Hira Singh’s son, RS Talwar, became the Chief Secretary of Punjab and later, chairman of the Tribune Trust. Another student in our school was Gurcharan Singh, father of Vikramjit Singh Sahney, the new Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab.

In business, too, our people established themselves. Mann Singh Chandhok and Sohan Singh Anand came to be known as the ‘tyre kings’; Ponty Chadha and his brother Dr Rajinder Singh Chadha emerged as donors. We have a Dhudial Higher Secondary School at Patiala as well as Akal Dhudial Academy. There is also a residential colony in Pitampura, Delhi, called Dhudial Apartments. All the people from our village are now settled in different parts of India and abroad and have contributed for the construction of Dhudial school in Patiala.

I was able to visit my village with my wife, who was born in Lyallpur. It was a very sad experience to see that Dhudial had lost all its sheen. The high school is now a middle school. All the impressive buildings are now in a shambles. The memories of those terrifying days still make us shudder but we are thankful to God that we got rescued from the jaws of death.

— The Delhi-based writer is a former Member of Parliament