The Burly Hindu

Further Info

This story is part of Independence Stories and was made in a 5-day workshop at Easton Community Centre with members of the Asian Day Centre. The workshop focussed on the personal “Independence” stories of Bristol based people from South Asian backgrounds, reflecting life in India and Pakistan, and the legacies of partition.

The workshop was led by Bristol based digital animation artist Tajinder Dhami, Aikaterini Gegisian and Paddy Uglow from the Bristol Stories team, with extra support by Nathan Hughes.

Independence Stories was produced by Asian Arts Agency in partnership with Watershed, Bristol Stories, Asian Day Centre and Images of Empire Archive, and was supported by Awards for all and Quartet funds.

Transcript

My story about Independence in India is quite interesting and my experiences there were wonderful but nasty as well to some extent. I remember, as a boy of 13 years old, I travelled from Punjab in the north in India then to Delhi to witness the Independence celebration.

I arrived at the eve of the Independence near midnight on the 14th of August 1947. I went to the Constitution House, then called, and now called The Parliament, to witness the transfer of power and the great historic occasion, which Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, described as “when the world sleeps India awakes”.

I think that was exactly what happened. I stood there and saw large crowds – and in India crowds can be very large – and I saw the Prime Minister, the first Prime Minister, arrive and then the Governor General handing over the power to India from Lord Mountbatten, British representative at that stage.

And I witnessed that and I stood there thinking to myself that I had to be there because originally I came from East Africa so this was a wonderful opportunity. I heard all the speeches and the happiness on people’s faces and wonderful sort of decoration, multicolour bulbs and lights and all that. I enjoyed that occasion.

It was after that day that my real experience begun: I had to return to my home in Punjab and unfortunately there were no trains and no transport in the city and a curfew was imposed because some terrorist organisations were found to have been plotting to do something.

In the event of the relaxation of curfew, I found my way to the railway station, sat in the compartment, a train going to Punjab and towards Pakistan. And when I sat in the train I was surprised that as it moved there was great shouting and I found that one person had landed in the compartment, which was a second-class compartment followed by three others, who were trying to chase him.

Ultimately, I found that he was with a sword - somebody tried to kill him. Now, that was one thing that I witnessed and as a child of 13 I thought it was horrible to see that.

Later one in my journey at a place called Ambala Cantonment, which was in between Delhi and my home, I was suddenly shouted at by a burly, heavy, tall gentlemen with a turban on who challenged and wanted to know whether I was a Hindu or a Muslim. To which I replied that I was a Hindu. But he did not believe because he thought I did not wear any symbols of Hinduism: I didn’t tight my hair on the top. I wasn’t wearing the sacred thread. I wasn’t wearing the bangle, the steel bangle because I was not used to that. But he challenged me and while he challenged me I found that he had suddenly taken his sword out of somewhere and he moved his hand

As it came almost to my neck, he was stopped by another person who warned him that he could not kill a child. And this other person whom I have never seen before said that I was his next-door neighbour.

Now to my great amazement, I’d never known this other person who was my saviour. This burly gentlemen said that if I were a Hindu then I had to recite my prayers, which I did. I don’t think I ever recited my prayers so quickly in my lifetime but it was saving my life so I had to do it.

Afterwards, that burly gentlemen warned others to say they should protect me because people might think that I am not a Hindu but a Muslim. And this is how I landed back at my home to the great shock and relief of my family that I was still alive. Otherwise, I couldn’t have been here today to even tell you my story.

Credits

Indian archive pictures created by Images of Empire, used under copyright licence.

Sitar sound created by Kaiho, Freesound.iua.upf.edu, used under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 licence.