Gurbachan Singh Talib Quotes

It is obvious from the foregoing that while the Muslim League had its ‘plan’ of elimination of minorities, the Sikhs and Hindus retaliated in the face of the inhuman attacks on their coreligionists. To talk of a ‘plan’ with regard either to the Sikhs or Hindus is fantastic; more probably deliberate falsehood.

Pakistan propaganda has sought to make the world believe that the happenings of 1947 in the Punjab were the result of what it calls ‘Some specific Plan’ on the part of Sikhs. -What this ‘Plan’ exactly was, what were the specific objectives which it set out to achieve is not made exactly clear, but nevertheless it is asserted that a Sikh ‘Plan’ existed to destroy Muslim life. Barefaced lying has been known to go quite far in the affairs of the world but such a high degree of it as has manifested itself in Pakistan propaganda against Sikhs in particular and against India in general, is a rare treat and is hard to beat. It must be a very stupid world which Pakistan expected would swallow the stuff put forth by its propagandists.

In May the attack on Hindus and Sikhs assumed very large proportions. Regular burning, murder and pillage started. On May 18, the Muslims of Mozang, a high Muslim majority area of Lahore attacked the Hindu and Sikh inhabitants. The Muslim mob is said to have been ten thousand and was supplied with rifles which report speaks of as having come from the armoury of the police station of Mozang, through the courtesy of the Muslim Sub-Inspector. The arms thus loaned were to be returned after “use”. Several Hindu and Sikh buildings were set on fire, and moving about in the Mozang area became extremely risky for any Hindu or Sikh. (97)

The Muslims themselves were mostly steel-helmeted, and so could even sally out on Hindus and Sikhs, while Hindus and Sikhs, being unprovided with any such defence, got serious and even fatal injuries from these brickbat showers.

The train stopped at Kamoke railway station for the whole of the night. At about 8 a.m. on the 8th of Asuj Wednesday the Police came to the railway station and started searching the train... 97 guns and rifles were taken away... When everybody had got into the train and as the engine was whistling to indicate that the train was going to start, a huge crowd of Muslims came from the side of the Mandi and factories. They were armed with rifles, chhuras, axes, barchas and other lethal weapons. They were shouting “Ya Ali” and came running. They entered the compartments of the train and started butchering male passengers. The police force including the Sub-Inspector and Assistant Sub-Inspector were present at the platform and they also joined in shooting down the passengers who tried to come out of the train... Those of the passengers who tried to run towards the platform out of the compartments were shot dead by the police and the military and those who went out of the compartments towards the maidan were butchered by the Muslim mob.... The women-folk were not butchered, but taken out and sorted. The elderly women were later butchered while the younger ones were distributed... The children were also similarly murdered. All the valuables on the persons of the women were removed and taken away by the mob...
During these visits I also saw a large number of Hindu women in the houses of the Muslim inhabitants of Kamoke. All of them complained that they were being very badly used by their abductors.

So, attacks on trains and buses, burning of whole quarters of towns, murders of thousands with unspeakable atrocities proceeded unchecked or uncondemned by the League. Its plan of action was succeeding admirably. Pakistan was coming within near sight by every act of lawlessness committed by the League adherents, for it was only another argument for separate states for two such hostile peoples as Hindus and Muslims.

Baoli Sahib Gurdwara, situate in Dabbi Bazar, and close to two thickly populated Muslim areas, was burned on the 4th June. The place was in flames, and such Sikhs as were inside it were shot dead or roasted alive. (108-9) (Lahore)

The Hindu and Sikh students of Lahore took out a big procession to demonstrate their resolve not to tolerate a Muslim League Ministry. This perfectly non-violent procession was fired on by the Muslim Police, which had stood hooliganism and law-breaking from Muslim mobs for over a month in the Province.

A British Officer of the M. E. O. of West Punjab reported (September, 1947) that at a place near Sheikhupura he was called to rescue a Hindu girl, who had been carried away by Muslim National Guards. He found the girl in a hut with 4 of her captors, who had raped and cut off her breasts and were now frying them. He shot the lot.

These riots were no ordinary riots, but were a war of subjugation and conquest in which the Muslim people, the Muslim police and Muslim officials worked in perfect unison, and brought widespread death, destruction and uprooting to Hindus and Sikhs in a dozen districts, killing many thousands and uprooting about a million, before the month was out.(70)

In Cambellpur lawlessness was of an especially serious nature. In the village of Dheri, on March 8, the attack was made by a large mob which advanced with drums beating. A very large number of Sikhs, among whom were women and children, were killed. Such dastardliness which spared neither sex nor age was a regular feature of this Muslim League campaign of extermination of Sikhs and Hindus. Various kinds of brutalities were committed. Hindus and Sikhs who were converted, were forced to swallow beef.

The invaders marched on to their attacks fearlessly and openly, with drums beating and with a large display of firearms, sometimes even modem automatic weapons. (80)

The conduct of the police at once changed even on the first day when the Hindus and Sikhs took out a procession in protest against the attempt at foisting Pakistan on the Punjab. The procession of Hindu and Sikh students was perfectly nonviolent. It only raised slogans, but these were in no way against Muslims as such. There was no evidence that this agitation would either grow violent or hold within itself any potentialities detrimental to peace. It was constitutional agitation. Yet the police fired on this procession and several students were killed; many were injured. This was, in the words of the Sikh leader Giani Kartar Singh ‘an attempt to crush, appositive to Pakistan with police aid.’ He further declared, ‘The police did not fire in Lahore for a single day during all the 34 days of Muslim League agitation. It is amazing they could not tolerate our meetings for a single day.’

These districts were worse situated from the point of view of the harassed and beseiged Hindu and Sikh populations, even than the districts of the Rawalpindi Division in the Punjab. These Districts backed on the tribal Afghan territory, into which the Hindu and Sikh women and others could be easily kidnapped. Flight was impossible for these unfortunate people either, for they were separated from the Hindu-Sikh areas of the Punjab by a very long belt of Muslim areas, through which no non-Muslim could travel with safety in those terrible months of anarchy in the Punjab. (75)

During the period the Muslim League was preparing, as is now evident from what happened in 1946 and 1947, for a large-scale struggle against Hindu India, and in the Punjab inevitably against the Sikhs and Hindus, the Muslim League had been gathering a private army of its own, to which training was being imparted in fighting, stabbing and assaults. Arms were being collected, and demobilized Muslim personnel of the Indian Army were freely enlisted in the League army. This army, begun about the year 1938, continued to expand and grow better equipped.