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Muslim League propaganda has sought to blame the Punjab happenings of 1947 on the Sikhs and in a secondary degree on the Hindus. A distorted and frag… - Gurbachan Singh Talib
" "Muslim League propaganda has sought to blame the Punjab happenings of 1947 on the Sikhs and in a secondary degree on the Hindus. A distorted and fragmentary picture, drawn up with completely bare-faced lying, has been presented to the world of a Sikh “Plan” to attack and drive out Muslims from the Punjab. And for a time a part of the world swallowed the lie, and the Sikhs got an unenviable reputation. But the pendulum of opinion slowly swung round in the right direction, and the Sikh name now has been fairly cleared of the supposed crime of a “Plan” against Muslims. That the Sikh (and Hindu) attack on the Muslims in East Punjab was retaliation under terrible and unbearable provocation is now admitted to be a fact by all impartial people; though it is not known everywhere of what horrible nature, of what prolonged duration and diabolical character was the provocation offered to Sikhs by Muslims over a period of several agonizing months-beginning from December, 1946. There was a war unleashed by the Muslim population of the Punjab to cow down Sikhs, and as a means to that, to carry on among them a total campaign of murder, arson, loot and abduction of women. Sikhs passed through the experience of this war as a people for months; and not thousands, but millions of them were forced to quit their homes for safety in the process. Without a clear knowledge of this part of the story a just and balanced view of the situation cannot be formed.
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About Gurbachan Singh Talib
Sardar Gurbachan Singh Talib (7 April 1911 – 9 April 1986) was a Sikh scholar and author, who held the prestigious Guru Nanak Chair of Sikh Studies. He received the in 1985.
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Sardar Gurbachan Singh
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Additional quotes by Gurbachan Singh Talib
Of course, when the Muslim Leaguers did actually come to establish a Government of their own on August 15, 1947, they drove the non-Muslim population out of their country with scant ceremony-by a campaign of pillage, murder, rape and arson. This method effected the exchange desired much quicker and in a more thorough way than could be done by any human legislation. As a matter of fact, the driving out of minorities had begun as early as November, 1946 with Noakhali, when the whole of Northern India was flooded with destitutes begging for a morsel or a piece of cloth to cover their shivering bodies. Later this was effected in December, 1946 and January, 1947 in the Hazara District of the N.-W. Frontier Province, when Sikhs and Hindus had to flee for dear life into the Punjab. And then came March, 1947 with its horrors. August, 1947 let loose a vast flood of persecution of millions. So, the Muslim scheme was being translated into historic fact to the letter.
In dozens of places in Hindu and Sikh houses this kind of action was repeated: A group of Muslims would force open the door of a Hindu or Sikh house, no matter even though the curfew would be on. The men-folk would be led out under the pretence of interrogation by some policeman who would be in the party. Outside the men would be stabbed to death. Then the property would be systematically looted. The women were killed if they happened to be old. The younger women were abducted and raped. In the Mozang area, a Sikh family of six or seven men and as many women met such a fate. The men were led out and killed. The women jumped down from the upper store of their house to escape dishonour. They were seriously injured, though none died. But the experience was widespread.
This social arrogance made the temper of Muslim aggression grow hotter and hotter as August 15 approached. Attacks on Hindus and Sikhs everywhere, burning of their houses and shops, hounding them out of their villages and fields in every district, became the order of the day. In this campaign the police and military, which now with the partition of personnel and assets between India and Pakistan were completely Muslim on the Pakistan side, gave not only active help to the riotous Muslim mobs, but often-times led them, directed their operations and finished off the job of murder where the mobs could not succeed single-handed.
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