A Memoir
1947: Memoir of the Partition
1947: A Memoir of Indian Independence is about Indian independence from the British in 1947 and the frightful bloodshed which accompanied the partition of India into two countries, India and Pakistan. The author, M. Zahir, who was ten-year-old in 1947, vividly describes the circumstances leading to that bloodbath. Zahir, growing up in a small town in Punjab, describes the stable, friendly, multicultural society which, goaded by the Indian leaders, became increasingly polarized and politicized. Zahir’s Muslim father, who was a government doctor in the small local hospital, wanted to stay in India where his ancestors had lived for centuries. However, faced with increasing violence, which flooded the hospital with the injured, he decided to send his and his brothers’ families to Pakistan by train on August 23, 1947. The train was ambushed by hundreds of armed Sikhs at a small railway station on its way to Jalandhar where the families were planning to take another train to Lahore in Pakistan. Almost all the Muslims were killed, either in the carriages or on the platform. At the very last minute, Zahir was recognized by his Hindu schoolteacher, Dharam Pal, who was also travelling on that train. Dharam Pal put his own life in grave peril to save Zahir’s immediate family, though one of Zahir’s sisters was lost in the melee.
Zahir, a Rhodes Scholar and a retired physician now living in Canada, waited over sixty years to write this meticulously-remembered memoir. He describes the destruction of the old Punjabi society in 1947, and the catastrophic train journey which he can never forget. He describes the family’s new life in the increasingly conservative Pakistan, giving us a glimpse of the impending storm of militant Islam.
There are very few published accounts of personal experiences of the 1947 exodus. This book is a must read for contemporary historians.
Purchase 1947: A Memoir of Indian Independence
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$15.34 (US) – Softcover
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