Other Side Of Silence

by Urvashi Butalia

  This last wasn’t an unreasonable fear: in the general atmosphere where conversion came to represent the worst that could happen to anyone, missionaries were particularly suspect. Like the RSS, they worked in the camps, providing relief, medical care and support. But while the RSS was seen only to be drawing people into the Hindu fold — which seemed more ‘acceptable’ at the time — the missionaries were seen as ‘outsiders’ with their own private agenda of conversion to an alien faith, Christianity. And children were particularly vulnerable. Often, children were picked up by gangs and organized cartels and sold into prostitution and begging — many people remembered that there were many more children on the streets of major cities in the north than had been there before. But there are few records that shed any light on this.

  All kinds of reasons were put forward for the abduction of children. Although there is no way of confirming this, social workers from India were of the opinion that more Hindu and Sikh children had been picked up by Muslim families than the other way round. If this was true, why should it be so? Damyanti Sahgal provided an explanation:

  I was told that there was a nawab in Gujrat who would sit on his throne and abducted girls would be paraded before him and he would choose the pretty ones. The ones who were young, he used to feel them, the older ones he would give away. The girls could not do anything — protest, nothing. He would say, give such and such in category no 1, in category no 2, and the best ones, give them in the zenana. Then I heard that two boys, whose parents had been killed, they had been kept also. I heard about this, and I went and asked them to return the boys. They said, no, we will not give these boys back. I said, why, you have a family of your own. She [one of the nawab’s wives] said, yes, I have three boys of my own. Then why have you kept these? She said, there is a method behind this. We don’t just simply pick up anybody, we don’t just take the garbage. We choose who we take. Now these boys, they are studying alongside my boys, they have tuitions (the boys were brought before me and presented to me) and both of them and my children, they are all studying and then I will send them to England because I have money. These children are so intelligent that they will influence my boys, and when they marry, these two boys, their children will be very intelligent ...

  According to Damyanti, and other social workers, the myth about the greater intelligence of Hindus and Sikhs was a commonly held one. It was based, they said, on the economic and intellectual success of Hindus and Sikhs generally, and was the counterpart, I am assuming, of the stereotype of the libidinous and rapacious Muslim. Hindus, according to this stereotype, could then be weak physically, but their mental powers were strong, while the Muslims were the opposite. If it is indeed true that children were abducted for this reason, it is both tragic and ironic that, just as the bodies of women became vehicles for the honour — and dishonour — of the race, so the bodies of children, and in this case male children, became the vehicles for the passage of something as nebulous as intelligence, and a testimony to the insidious way in which stereotypes can take hold of people’s consciousness.

  If some adults had found it difficult to talk about their experiences as children, there were others who had deliberately silenced them — perhaps because they were too bitter, too difficult to remember, or perhaps because they reminded them of a time best forgotten. In the Gandhi Vanita Ashram at Jalandhar I was told about a successful woman doctor who had, according to ashram workers, been a child of the ashram. Her mother was widowed at Partition, and came into the ashram with her two children, a daughter and a son. The children spent much of their lives in the ashram, but, being of a different class than many of the children there, were at the receiving end of a number of privileges. I was told that it was the ashram that had paid for their education, that had helped the girl, particularly, to win scholarships to study medicine, and that had then provided different forms of support. Married and in a successful medical practice now, the doctor did not wish to remember any of this. She agreed to talk to me, but asked that her name not be mentioned because her children knew nothing of her past, and she did not want them to know. Not, she said, that there was anything to be ashamed of, for, according to her, she was a self-made woman and although she and her mother had lived in the ashram, they had never taken any charity from the authorities. This was, of course, quite a different story from that told by the ashram authorities.

  It seemed to me then that part of her fear of being seen as an ashram child also had to do with her identity as a woman. Her mother had come into the ashram after Partition: the doctor was at pains to tell me that the mother had not wanted to do so, that after her husband’s death (he was apparently in the army) she had insisted on staying on in Pakistan, but that she had been advised or pushed into doing so by her male relatives. ‘She didn’t live on ashram largesse,’ she said, ‘she continued to receive my father’s pension.’ Ashram largesse, of course, consisted of more than just money — it meant a home, security, work, education for children. But the doctor did not wish to acknowledge any of this. Her desire to distance herself from other ashram children also had to do with this — most of them were children of abducted women (‘my mother had nothing to do with those women,’ she told me), and therefore somehow tainted, impure. She, on the other hand, was different.

  The Indian State mounted a massive and widespread relief operation after Partition. Women who were widowed or rendered single by Partition, were taken on by the State as permanent liabilities. Partition children were also provided facilities — education, homes, orphanages, sometimes adoption. But from the vantage point of her successful life today, the doctor did not wish to remember any of this. The denial also seemed to me to be connected with the class to which she belonged: rendered virtually assetless by Partition, she did not want to see herself as anything other than a ‘self-made woman’ — an image that is important to hundreds of Punjabis. And for that reason, the story of her childhood now did not exist — instead, it was slowly transforming itself into another, a different childhood. Her presence in the ashram could not be denied, but its nature could be transformed. The doctor, Kulwant Singh, Murad, Trilok Singh — there were many kinds of Partition children.

  The children of abducted women posed other kinds of problems. In 1954 the governments of India and Pakistan agreed that abducted persons recovered by either country could not be forced to go to the other country. This reversed their earlier decision which has clearly said that no matter what the women said they wanted, they had to go back to their respective countries, defined by their religions. The change came about because most women by now had children, and were reluctant to part with them. And many families were willing to take women back, but not their children.

  The definition of abducted persons was broad. In the Indian legislation that was passed (The Abducted Persons Recovery and Restoration Act, 1949) an abducted person could mean ‘a male child under the age of sixteen years or a female of whatever age who is, or immediately before the 1st day of March, was missing and who on or after that day and before 1st January 1949, has become separated from his or her family and is found to be living with or under the control of any other individual or family and in the latter case includes a child born to any such female after the said date.’ In other words, children picked up by either community at the time of Partition, or in the years following it, women similarly abducted, and children born to such women after Partition, or even women and/or children of one religion found living with members of the other, would be taken as being abducted.

  What about those children who were yet to be born? Many abducted women who were recovered were found to be pregnant. A way had to be found to keep them out of public view until such time as the child was born, and then to separate the child from them. Or, if the pregnancy was in the early stages, to ‘help’ them to decide what to do with the child. Damyanti Sahgal described what was done:

  All those who were recovered, we opened camps for them, in Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar ... these were young gi
rls, and it had been more than a year that we had begun to recover them. Many of them were expecting [a child]. They were pregnant. This became a real problem. What could we do? We did ask them, and often they’d become very adamant. After all, it [Damyanti is here referring to abortions, though she did not want to use the word] must be done ... but they were mothers after all, and they would often say, we don’t want to do it, this they would say to me afterwards. They said, let me have the child. So for this the government had made Sharda Bhavan [in Allahabad] a place for children.

  Children born of Musalmaan father, unwanted children ... Often a woman would say, I want to take the child with me, but I can’t keep him/her with me, how will I live? Everyone will say ‘thoo, thoo’ to me. And then those who were actually pregnant, we’d ask them, do you want to have this child taken away? You know this hospital, Kapoor hospital, we would send the girls there for ‘safai’ (cleansing) — those who were willing I mean.

  Damyanti’s sister Kamla corroborated this story: ‘It was a government rule,’ she said:

  ... they had this programme. But abortion, it was illegal. So masi [the reference here is to Premvati Thapar, one of the senior officers in charge of the recovery operation] said to them, this is very cruel, these girls are so unhappy, if these children are born, what will they do ? She said, what can I do? It is a rule. But this Doctor Kapoor, in Karol Bagh, he was told, if you do this, if you do their abortions, I’ll pay you the money, and with that your hospital will be made, and these poor girls, they will be saved. So the girls were all sent to Kapoor hospital and he performed illegal abortions. He could have gone to jail for this ... There were women who refused to have abortions done also. They would say, on that side we now have no one, here too we will not be accepted, all we have is this child.

  While some women agreed to have abortions (and indeed, every social worker I spoke to confirmed these mass abortions, but several said they did not wish to be quoted on the subject: ‘you see,’ they said, ‘abortion was illegal at the time’) or more precisely, were coerced into agreeing to have abortions, others went through with having the children, or indeed, by the time they were recovered, had already had children. For them, ‘they would hand over their children to the home in Allahabad. With children, it was very difficult. And when women used to want to visit their children, to meet them — if, that is, their relatives would be willing to let the child live with dignity, if they would even look with respect on that child. Otherwise they had to give them up. It was a real problem. Each case was different. The mothers ... would take time off from us and go there. What they did there, we don’t know, how they felt ... we would give them a ticket and tell them go ahead and meet your children. What kind of future those children had ... who knows?’2

  And indeed, no one knows: the ‘disappearance’ of thousands of such children is one of the many tragedies of Partition history. According to Kamlaben Patel, while most women agreed to a ‘medical checkup’, older women, those who were above thirty-five or so, were often ashamed at having to do so. They felt they had reached a certain kind of status in their original families and now they were ashamed at having to go back to them after having had an abortion. Equally, if they actually had children from the new relationship, they were not keen to take them with them, for how would they explain their presence to the other children they already had? For younger women, especially first time mothers, this was not such a dilemma: most of them wanted to keep their children, but here, the problem was a different one — would they actually be allowed to do so? Kamlaben said:

  When the relatives of these women came to see them, they [the women] were reluctant to see them. They felt ashamed of themselves, and some even wept. They knew that if they went back to their parents, they could not take their babies with them, they would not be accepted into their families. And they had to make the difficult decision of whether to leave the babies and go, or to stay on in the camp. Most of them went, weeping at having to leave their babies behind.

  What happened then, to these children? Kamlaben described how the children were sent by air, gratis, in small baskets, with an accompanying letter giving their particulars.

  There was an air service between Amritsar and Delhi. We asked them if they would agree to take the babies to Delhi. They agreed. Then, we would put each baby in a basket with an envelope containing its history. The basket also had a few clothes and other things. The basket would then be handed over to the air hostess who would hand it over to one of our social workers in Delhi. From here it was sent again by plane to Allahabad. Once there, it would be taken by our social workers to the hospital. I think we sent across some two hundred or so babies in this way.

  All sorts of arguments were put forward for why children had been picked up, or indeed, why they could not be released. In May 1948, Mir Inayatullah Khan, a father whose thirteen-year old daughter had been abducted, appealed to the Pakistan High Commission in India in help for her recovery. As with many cases, he knew where the child was — the abductors were often known to families of abducted persons. In response to Inayatullah’s appeal, the Deputy High Commissioner of Pakistan in India wrote to the Chief Secretary, East Punjab:

  1. I have the honour to say that one Mir Inayatullah Khan has written to say that his daughter, Razia Begum, aged 13 years, has been kept by one Phawa Singh, District Amritsar, son of Jewan Singh of village Bhoma, P.S. Majithia, District Amritsar. In reply to his request for recovery of the girl, Mr Inayatullah was informed by the Indian Military authorites that his daughter did not wish to leave her husband. As you are aware, one of the decisions taken at the Inter Dominion Conference on 6th December 1947 was that conversions and marriages of persons abducted after 1st March 1947 would not be recognized and all such persons must be returned to their respective Dominion. The wishes of the person concerned are irrelevant.

  2. I should be grateful if arrangements are kindly made for the recovery of the girl so that she may be restored to her father in Lahore. The particulars of the girl are enclosed. An early reply is requested.3

  In the altered circumstances of Partition, then, a thirteen-year old child, defined by the Indian State as a child, and listed thus in State lists of abducted persons, suddenly became capable of making an independent, adult choice about a ‘husband’, a choice that also implied rejecting a parent.

  Partition children were now joined by another problematic category: ‘post-abduction children’. From January 1, 1954 to September 30, 1957, some 860 children were left behind by Muslim women who were ‘rescued’ and ‘restored’ to Pakistan, and 410 children were taken with them. On the other side, a 1952 figure of children born to Hindu and Sikh women in Pakistan and brought back along with them stands at 102. Clearly, these numbers only touched the tip of the iceberg. Thus, there were two kinds of post-abduction children: those born to Muslim women who had been abducted in India and then recovered, and those born to Hindu and Sikh women who had been abducted in Pakistan and then recovered. In both cases the children were of mixed blood — where then, did they belong? The problem did not end there: the agreement arrived at between the two countries (and the subsequent legislation) had fixed a cut-off date, finalized after considerable discussion: March 1, 1947. March was fixed because the first disturbance had taken place in Punjab at this time. Any liaisons, marriages, conversions after this date were not recognized as voluntary. Naturally then, the children born of such unions also entered a troubled space, but what kind of date could be put to fix the ‘legitimacy’ of the children? A child born in, say June or July 1947, and of mixed parentage, had to have been conceived before the cut off date so he/she entered the ambivalent space of illegitimacy. Or, the mother may have been pregnant when she was abducted and the child in her womb could well have been legitimate, but her arrival in the world after the cut off date would then brand her as illegitimate.

  By this token then, to whom did the child belong, the mother or the father? And accordingly, where should he/she be sent — to the
land of the mother or the father? A child born of a Muslim mother and a Hindu father, what was there, asked one member of the Constituent Assembly, where a debate raged on these issues, to guarantee that that child would not be made to live like a ‘kaffir’ if he/she was sent off to Pakistan? Let us look, he said, at the question ‘from the point of view of the abducted woman. The children to her are a sign of the humiliation to which she has been subjected for a year or two. From her point of view, the children are unwanted and if she returns to Pakistan with these children, I think we may be almost certain that they will not be treated as members of their mother’s family. In all probability they will be sent to an orphanage.’ Why then, the speaker went on to ask, should the children not be kept back in India since ‘their father, whatever his original conduct might have been, (my italics) is prepared to claim them as his own and to bring them up the best way he can ...’4

  No matter, then, that the father was an abductor. His claim was stronger than that of the mother. Similar thoughts were expressed at a conference held in Lahore to discuss the fate of post-abduction children. The majority of social workers attending the meeting felt it made more sense to leave children (of abducted women) who were born in Pakistan with their fathers, instead of allowing the women to bring them to India. For in India, the chances were that they would end up in homes and orphanages, presumably because of the purity pollution taboos in Hindu/Sikh society. This view was, however, countered by others who insisted that women should be allowed to take their children with them. Two of the key women involved in recovery work, Rameshwari Nehru and Mridula Sarabhai, also had strong differences of opinion on the subject, with Rameshwari Nehru being more sympathetic to the women. After much discussion a compromise was arrived at by which it was agreed that women could take their children with them to India for fifteen days during which time they could decide whether they wished to keep them or not. The questions that remained shrouded in uncertainty were: what would happen to the child if the woman decided not to keep him/her? Would the child be sent back to Pakistan? Over there, would the police or social workers make an attempt to relocate the father? If they did manage to find the father again — which was doubtful — would he be willing to take the child back? If he was not, who would take responsibility for the child? In actual fact, many women had to leave their children behind — they were more acceptable to families without them, and the children ended up, in all likelihood, in orphanages anyway. In Kamlaben’s words: