THE MAKING OF EXILE: SINDHI HINDUS AND THE PARTITION OF INDIA
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As a result, many Sindhi Hindus baulked at government relief. Dr Choithram Gidwani gave a talk on All India Radio in early November 1947, wherein he appealed to local bodies and industrial and commercial organisations to cooperate with the government exchange office in resettling refugees from West Pakistan. He said:
It is not to your feelings of pity or sense of charity that I would make this appeal. The evacuees and refugees, though sorely afflicted and uprooted from their hearths and homes, are not asking or looking for charity.35
As a corollary, being obliged to live in refugee camps was looked down upon by those who could afford to live elsewhere. Those Sindhi Hindus who were financially better off, or who had relatives previously settled in Bombay to accommodate them and consequently did not have to live in camps, still consider it an insult if it is implied that they had ever lived in a refugee camp. Rita Kothari also comments on the fact that ‘campi’, the term that Sindhis have for those who lived in refugee camps, is a derogatory one.36 When the writer, Gobind ‘Malhi’, went to Kalyan camp, and with difficulty, managed to obtain a house for his wife and himself, his father forbade him from staying there. He wrote to Gobind ‘Malhi’: ‘I cannot accept you living in a camp, feeding off free rations.’37
In this respect, Sindhi Hindus were comparable to refugees in other parts of the world. Stephen Keller, who conducted a detailed study of Sikh and Hindu refugees from Western Punjab, reported a similar unwillingness to accept relief and disdain for those who did so.
While refugees respond with fear, anger and resentment to the relief efforts of others, they are also ambivalent enough to resent the absence of such help.38 Keller notes that the psychoanalyst and writer, Martha Wolfenstein, found the same phenomenon among Jewish refugees (from World War II) in the USA, as did the noted psychologist, Robert J. Lifton among the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Japan.39
Indeed, not all Sindhis considered governmental relief to be charity, and consequently, something to be ashamed of. For some, it was a service the state owed them, to compensate for their ‘sacrifice’ and ‘suffering’. This sense was heightened by an overwhelming fact: Hindus hailing from Bengal and Punjab still had a linguistic region in India that they could identify with, since both these states had been partitioned; there was a sentiment among several Sindhi refugees that they alone, among all Indians, were denied the privilege of a linguistic territory.
There were other Sindhis who viewed relief as a necessary stop-gap arrangement. Sardar Nihalsingh, whose family resettled in Kalyan camp, affirms that his family had a relatively relaxed attitude to the free supplies provided. According to him, since their time in India was expected to be temporary, nobody in the family thought of taking up a job. When they were zamindars in Sindh, the Sikhs of Naich used to have sacks of foodgrains delivered from their tenant farmers; now, in Kalyan, to meet their day-to-day requirements, they accepted free governmental rations. Gradually it dawned upon these refugees that their departure from Sindh was permanent.40
The government’s supply of free rations, medical supplies and services and blankets to the refugees proved to be a huge drain on the state’s resources, and over time, as mentioned earlier, free rations were stopped by the government, despite protests from the refugees. For a while, the Sindhi refugees began to receive a cash allowance instead. By the second half of 1949, the doles, as well as the camps themselves in places like Deoli (near Ajmer), Virar and Powai (in Bombay), Karera and Manpur (in present-day Madhya Pradesh) were closed down. However, doles continued to be given to destitute, old and infirm persons and their dependents and unattached women and their children.
Compensation
Property – landed property – played a significant role in the unfolding of events during Partition. It was the prime motivation behind the communal violence started by refugees who had crossed from one dominion to another and wanted lebensraum for themselves. Recognising the value of the property left behind by emigrating refugees, India and Pakistan began a series of inter-dominion meetings, with hard negotiations and bargains being driven.
Evacuee property spawned a veritable industry: Government agencies were set up to catalogue the evacuee properties left behind by migrating refugees; claims offices were set up to register and assess property claims by incoming refugees; agents and assessors were also appointed to visit the other dominion to assess abandoned properties and verify claims. Often, the claims officers were recruited from among refugees themselves. There was a burgeoning of legislation: the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950, the Evacuee Interest (Separation) Act, 1950, the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954, the Displaced Persons Compensation and Rehabilitation Rules, 1955, and many more.
Hindus who had migrated to India had left behind considerably more property in Pakistan than their Muslim counterparts who had fled in the opposite direction. Apart from allotting evacuee property in India in exchange for property in Pakistan, in many cases, the Indian government also gave monetary compensation to Hindu and Sikh refugees for their property left behind. This took place in the 1950s and after, and involved a great deal of paperwork. According to several accounts, it appears that urban properties,41 regardless of size or actual worth, were valued at a uniform rate of Rs 8,000 each. Sindhi Hindus who had owned agricultural property were allotted similar lands in India. However, most of them had been absentee landlords in Sindh; they had even less interest in maintaining agricultural land in India; consequently, most of these properties were soon sold off. According to Subhadra Anand:
[…] there was a Settlement Commissioner who received and scrutinized the claims. He was assisted by the Claims Officer. Many Sindhi refugees had brought valid documents of property like ownership documents, etc., which were honoured, and cash was given to them in proportion to their property. But those who did not have ownership documents had to rely on city surveys to prove their claim.42
In the minds of most Sindhi Hindus, there was a clear distinction between accepting handouts from the government – in the form of camp rations, for instance – which was often perceived as charity, and receiving compensation for their landed property left behind in Sindh, which was perceived as their rightful due. This compensation would enable the Sindhis to purchase their own homes and, for those who were living in refugee camps, to move out of the camps into better neighbourhoods.
Many Sindhi Hindus – who owned mostly urban property – were bitter about receiving only Rs 8,000 for properties worth lakhs of rupees. According to one survey, 82 per cent felt that they had not received enough compensation for the property that they had left behind.43 The government, claiming that it was too much of a financial strain to fully compensate the refugees for rural property, had allotted one acre in India for every two acres in Sindh; but it had also halved the rate of compensation, for rural property prices would be lower than urban property. The Sindhi Hindus protested against this double discrimination. A deputation comprising of Narayandas Malkani, Dr Choithram Gidwani, Ghanshyamdas Jethanand and Baldev Gajra paid a visit to Jawaharlal Nehru and convinced him to halve only one rate.44
The distribution of compensation for evacuee property was a long-drawn-out process, which lasted several decades. This unduly long process, which went on till about 1971, also caused much bitterness among Sindhi refugees, most of whom received their compensation only well after they had already gone through the arduous process of putting their lives back together.
Notes
1.Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition, p 4.
2.Vazira Zamindar, The Long Partition, p 71.
3.See Tillo Jethmalani in Lata Jagtiani, Sindhi Reflections, pp 377-378, and Krishna Utamsinghani, ‘Dr Choithram Gidwani’,
4.See Vazira Zamindar, ‘1947: Recovering Displaced Histories of Karachi’ in Michel Boivin and Matthew A. Cook, Interpreting the Sindhi World, pp 192-193, Note 20.
5.See Vazira Zamindar, The Long Partition, p 252, Note 23.
6.Government of India, Legislative Assembly Debates, vol IV, no 6, 2 April 1948, as quoted in Pia Oberoi, Exile and Belonging, p 70, Note 73.
7.Vazira Zamindar, The Long Partition, p 104.
8.As quoted in The Times of India, Bombay, 13 August 1949.
9.Free Press Journal, Bombay, 2 October 1947.
10.Verinder Grover and Ranjana Arora, Great Women of Modern India: Sucheta Kripalani, p 71.
11.As quoted in The Times of India, Bombay, 15 July 1949.
12.The First Five Year Plan, p 647.
13.Horace Alexander, New Citizens of India, pp 108-109.
14.As quoted in The Times of India, Bombay, 27 September 1947.
15.Speech at prayer meeting on 9 December 1947, as quoted in Motilal Jotwani, ed, Gandhiji on Sindh and the Sindhis, p 536.
16.As quoted in The Times of India, Bombay, 16 October 1947.
17.Nandita Bhavnani, I Will & I Can, p 17.
18.Nandita Bhavnani, ibid, pp 19-21.
19.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, Government and the Displaced Persons, pp 115- 116.
20.See Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, pp 101-102 and 115-116. It should be noted that Dr Choithram Gidwani was then the Praja Socialist Party candidate from Thane, and many Sindhis from Kalyan camp voted more for him than his party. Dr Gidwani was one of the rare Sindhi Congressmen who continued to provide leadership to the Sindhi Hindus well after Partition.
21.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, pp 112- 116.
22.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, p 95.
23.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, p 101.
24.Vishnu Sharma, Dr. Choithram Partabrai Gidwani ji Jeevani, pp 276-277.
25.The Times of India, Bombay, 28 June 1948.
26.Stephen Keller also testifies to the high levels of anger, hostility and aggression among Punjabi refugees after Partition. See Stephen Keller, Uprooting and Social Change.
27.R. N. Saksena, Refugees: A Study in Changing Attitudes, p 3, emphasis added.
28.Section 2, Bombay Refugees Act, 1948, emphasis added.
29.Bombay Refugees Act, 1948.
30.Public letter written by Hiranand Karamchand in June 1948, as quoted in ‘An Archive with a Difference’ by Urvashi Butalia, in The Partitions of Memory, pp 222-223.
31.Gulab Gidwani, interview, June 2011.
32.‘Sanwaldas Gobindram vs The State of Bombay’, in Ratanlal Ranchhoddas et al, The Bombay Law Reporter Journal, vol LV, pp 478- 481.
33.Ram Jethmalani, interview, February 2012.
34.Joya Chatterji’s interpretation of ‘dependency’ in the context of the governmental approach to the refugees from (then) East Pakistan is equally appropriate for Sindhi Hindu refugees. See Joya Chatterji, ‘Right or Charity? The Debate over Relief and Rehabilitation in West Bengal, 1947-50’ in Suvir Kaul, ed, The Partitions of Memory, pp 74-110.
35.As quoted in The Times of India, Bombay, 3 November 1947.
36.Rita Kothari, The Burden of Refuge, p 144.
37.Gobind ‘Malhi’, Adab Ain Adib: Nirvaas Mein Aas, pp 74-75. My translation.
38.Stephen Keller, ibid, p 73.
39.Stephen Keller, ibid, p 103, Note 48.
40.Sardar Nihalsingh, interviews, December 1997, January 1998 and February 1998.
41.Urban property referred to property in areas under the jurisdiction of municipal corporations, town municipalities, district municipalities or notified area committees. See Baldev Gajra, Zindagi-a ja Varq, pp 144-152.
42.Subhadra Anand, National Integration of Sindhis, p 139.
43.Subhadra Anand, ibid, p 105.
44.See Baldev Gajra, ibid, pp 144-152.
CHAPTER 12
Picking Up the Pieces
Livelihoods
As the writer Hari Motwani ‘Sindhi’ says, ‘Hunger is difficult to swallow!’1 Once the permanence of their exodus sank in, Sindhi Hindu refugees in India were driven by their circumstances to provide the necessities of life for themselves and their families. They turned their attention towards finding a livelihood: looking for jobs, setting up small businesses or hawking petty goods like fruit or sweets in local trains. This need to earn a living gave rise to numerous cottage industries in which many members of the family were involved; often the women of the family would make items such as papads, pickles, pen tubes, bottle caps, soaps, biscuits, cardboard cartons etc which would then be hawked by the men of the house, on trains and on footpaths.
According to the writer Gobind ‘Malhi’, several Sindhi hawkers in Bombay city homed in on the footpaths near Azad Maidan, displaying their wares – from fast food to slippers – on cots.2
At least one of these hawkers – a pani-puri vendor – went on to do extremely well for himself. Dr Nari Kripalani came from Hyderabad to study in Bombay after Partition, although his parents continued to live in Sindh. He recalls:
I was pursuing my first year of MBBS in Karachi. Every Sunday, our mess would close. So my friends and I would have some chaat outside and then go to the movies. For chaat, we used to go to a chap near Gadi Khata [an area in Karachi]. Once, I asked the vendor, ‘How much do you earn?’ He told me, ‘I earn five rupees a day, and that’s all.’ Five rupees a day! This was in 1946-47. And on Sundays, he’d make 10 rupees a day; the moment he’d make 10 rupees, he would just pack up and go.
After Partition, these people came to Bombay and began selling pani-puri opposite St Xavier’s College. There used to be stalls there, manned by Sindhis, on the road.
I had come to Bombay and was enrolled in Grant Medical College. I saw a pani-puri vendor opposite St Xavier’s. I said to myself, ‘I have seen this chap before, I’m sure have seen him.’
I asked him, ‘Are you the same person who used to sit in Gadi Khata and sell this?’
He said, ‘Yes, but how do you know?’
I said, ‘I think I have seen you.’
Later, I began frequenting a restaurant called Kailash Parbat. Once, when I went to Kailash Parbat, I saw the same man – from Gadi Khata – sitting there and taking cash from people. I asked somebody who he was, and I was told that he was the owner of the shop.3
As mentioned earlier, those Sindhis who lived in refugee camps, in far away suburbs or even outside the city, found the distance between them and their workplace or markets an added obstacle to their rehabilitation. Some Sindhis found business opportunities in the needs of their own community in the refugee camps; some became employment agents, others set up retail businesses catering to local demands in camps, still others helped set up schools for refugee children. Since many refugees would commute daily from Ulhasnagar to Bombay for their jobs, or in search of jobs, some enterprising Sindhis made a business of illegally renting out their monthly train passes on a daily basis. Vocational training centres were also set up in refugee camps by the government as well as by social service organisations such as the Sind Hindu Seva Samiti in Bombay. According to Vakil and Cabinetmaker, there were about 3,000 shops in Kalyan camp, with about 30 customers per shop.4
Sindhi refugees in Kalyan camp found altogether new avenues of business. Horace Alexander, a British teacher and writer, was a good friend of Gandhi and played an important role as a behind-the-scenes intermediary between Indian freedom fighters and the British government. According to Horace Alexander, Kalyan camp was surrounded by an expanding economy of increasingly affluent villages. He found that shopkeepers in Kalyan bought goods cheaply in Bombay, and sold them cheap as well, in Kalyan, which only boosted the volumes of sales.5 Indeed, several refugees hit upon the ploy of undercutting the prevailing local market price, and made their living from wafer-thin profit margins on the ensuing large volumes of sales. This gave rise to the apocryphal story of the Sindhi trader who bought fruit (or soap or matchboxes) in bulk and then sold his goods at cost price only to make his profit by selling the empty sacks (or boxes or containers) that the goods had
come in.
The recovery of their ability to provide for themselves also helped restore in some measure the refugees’ sense of self-esteem. This was especially crucial to the Sindhis. The impoverishment of the Sindhi Hindus – their loss of land and property, of their assets and wealth, and of their livelihoods – was a major blow to the self-esteem of a business community for whom wealth was a primary and conspicuous standard of success.
In this context, Hassaram Ramchand,* who ultimately settled in Kalyan camp, is indignant at any implication that Sindhi Hindus were impoverished and came to India ‘empty-handed’. He takes pains to explain how his family brought their valuables hidden in the folds of their turbans: ‘It wasn’t as though we Sindhis came empty-handed. Each brought according to his capacity – money or gold or whatever – a little or a lot.’ More often than not, these valuables were sold off over the early years after migration. Vakil and Cabinetmaker tell us that while 220 families out of a total of 240 were able to bring their gold and jewellery with them, most were compelled to sell these valuables in the years immediately following Partition in order to provide for their daily needs.6
The survey conducted by Vakil and Cabinetmaker found that while the refugees’ mean income before Partition had been Rs 600, it had dropped to Rs 200 by 1952-53.7 As a result of this blow to their self-esteem through the loss of their financial standing, many Sindhi refugees were not only prepared, but eager, to take on any work that would help them rehabilitate themselves. However this willingness came with limitations: an aversion to manual labour.
In Sindh, the Hindus had looked down on manual labour. As the writer Kavita Daswani also observes, ‘A Hindu Sindhi… would rather be a streetseller or shopkeeper than a barber, washerman or shoe-maker.’8 The Bombay government, in its efforts to rehabilitate the Sindhis, had set up a vocational training centre in Kalyan camp. Yet Vakil and Cabinetmaker report: