Lahore

Mahen Das studied mechanical engineering at IIT BHU. He retired from Shell International, in 2002, after 43 years of work in their petroleum refineries and gas plants. He practiced as an independent consultant until 2009. His learning and experience has been acquired from hands-on work, at all levels of asset management, at 40 sites in 22 countries. This includes Process Management, Maintenance Management, Engineering Management and Optimisation of reliability, Integrity and availability of plants. Mahen is a co-author of Case Studies in Maintenance & Reliability. He plays golf and bridge.

I was born on October 12 1937 in Kila Gujjar Singh, Lahore, which was then a part of India. My ancestors came, a few generations ago, from Afghanistan and settled in Leiah, a village in district Dehra Ismail Khan, North Western Frontier Province. They owned land which was tilled by hired labour. Leiah was on the bank of river Sindh. They were also de facto leaders of the minority Hindu community in the predominantly Muslim province. Because they had built a Krishna temple in Leiah and did other services to the community, they were awarded the title of Gosain.

Born in Lahore on 5th January, 1930, to Savitri Devi and Shanti Sarup and brought up in an open environment, without any mental conditioning by a denominational commitment. He imbibed a deep commitment to democracy and freedom because his family participated actively in the freedom struggle. In 1947, together with his family, he went through the trauma of losing all, and then participating in rebuilding a new status and identity. He Joined the IAS in 1954 and retired in 1988 as Education Secretary, Government of India. Later, he became Chairman, National Book Trust. Also co-authored, with Sulabha Brahme, Planning for the Millions.

Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a three-part story. Part 2 describes the the family’s move to India, while Part 3 is the story of their rehabilitation in Ludhiana.

I do not know the date. One evening in early 1947, when our family went up to the roof, we found the sky lighted with a huge fire in the direction of the walled city of Lahore.

Next morning, the news that one of the oldest settlement of Hindus (inside the Shah Aalami Gate) had been set on fire was circulating in the city.

Indira Kumar, born Indira Anand in 1929, was the daughter of C. L. Anand, constitutional lawyer and principal of the Law College of Lahore. She married Rajendra Nath Kumar, Colonel in the Army Corps of Engineers, and professor at the College of Military Engineering in Kirkee, Pune. Indira has two daughters, Nalini and Anjali, and two granddaughters, Manali and Ananiya.

 

Lahore - 1929

I was born in Lahore, in 1929, in a large joint family. Lahore was the seat of the British Governor of the Punjab, and was considered an advanced and progressive centre of the richest state in Northern India.

It was indeed a fashion and culture centre as well and had a number of theatres, libraries, cinema halls, museums and an Open Air Theatre for the Performing Arts. All sorts of persons would converge on Lahore in the winters for its cultural season. The British visitors would stay in hotels, but the Indian visitors stayed with their friends or relatives.

Editor's note: The Indian National Congress met in Lahore in December 1929. The following pledge was  approved by the Congress  just before midnight on December 31, 1929. The pledge was taken by the public on January 26, 1930. One option before the Congress was to demand Dominion Status, under which India would have still remained at least nominally under British rule. The Congress rejected this option, and instead asked for Purna Swaraj, which means Full Independence.

Editor's note: The All India Muslim League met in Lahore in March 1940. The League adopted a resolution that has become known as the Lahore Resolution. March 23, the date on which this Resolution was adopted, is celebrated in Pakistan every year. The resolution was moved in the general session by A.K. Fazlul Huq, the chief minister of undivided Bengal, and was seconded by Choudhury Khaliquzzaman, a leader from what was United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). The full, unedited text of the resolution is reproduced below.

A silent black-and-white video is available here.

Born in Lahore on 5th January, 1930, to Savitri Devi and Shanti Sarup and brought up in an open environment, without any mental conditioning by a denominational commitment. He imbibed a deep commitment to democracy and freedom because his family participated actively in the freedom struggle. In 1947, together with his family, he went through the trauma of losing all, and then participating in rebuilding a new status and identity. He joined the IAS in 1954 and retired in 1988 as Education Secretary, Government of India. Later, he became Chairman, National Book Trust. Also co-authored, with Sulabha Brahme, Planning for the Millions.

There were a lot of problems with my schooling, but, in the end, none of them mattered much.

The first memory I have of a school is in Lahore when I was about three years old. I was all spruced up, wearing a round gold-embroidered cap, on the wicket gate, waiting for my guardians to come and pick me up and take me back home.

My next memory is of a school in Okara, later identified as the M.B. High School, where I had gone perhaps for a few days. I remember it because one of my teachers had brought me to grandfather's house and casually reported that I was making good progress. My teacher showed my grandfather how well I had written the Urdu alphabet on my Takhti, a wooden board covered with Gajini mitti (clay soil).

Abdul Hameed was born in 1928 in Amritsar. He migrated to Pakistan after the partition of India. After working at Radio Pakistan for several years, he joined the Voice of America. He wrote novels, short stories, columns for national newspapers, and programmes for radio and television. He passed away in Lahore in 2011.

Editor's note: This story originally appeared at http://www.apnaorg.com/columns/ahameed/column-40.html

There were 300,000 Hindus and Sikhs living in Lahore as Independence approached.

By August 19, 1947, that number had sunk to 10,000, and by the end of the month to just 1,000. The majority moved to India. Many were killed, though there is no knowing their number. Some neighbourhoods of the city were entirely Hindu and Sikh, others were mixed, while some were solely Muslim. Gumti Bazaar was a purely Hindu neighbourhood, with the exception of one resident: Maulana Salahuddin Ahmed, editor of Adabi Duniya, the leading Urdu literary journal of its time.

Abdul Hameed was born in 1928 in Amritsar. He migrated to Pakistan after the partition of India. After working at Radio Pakistan for several years, he joined the Voice of America. He wrote novels, short stories, columns for national newspapers, and programmes for radio and television. He passed away in Lahore in 2011.

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared at http://www.apnaorg.com/columns/ahameed/column-1.html

Lahore — the very name is magic to me. There is something inscrutable about this name.

It is like a spell that casts itself even on those who do not believe in spells. I do not see Lahore as just a city: it is more like a feeling. As you walk through its dimly lit streets and its ancient gardens, this mysterious feeling that is Lahore grips your heart. You feel that your relationship with this city and its spirit has been there forever, and nothing will ever break it.

R C Mody is a postgraduate in Economics and a Certificated Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. He studied at Raj Rishi College (Alwar), Agra College (Agra), and Forman Christian College (Lahore). For over 35 years, he worked for the Reserve Bank of India, where he headed several all-India departments, and was also Principal of the Staff College. Now 81 years old, he is busy in social work, reading, writing, and travelling. He lives in New Delhi with his wife.

Lahore

I was a student at Lahore in early 1947. While large parts of India were suffering from communal violence, starting with the great Calcutta killings of 16 August 1946, Lahore was singularly free from it.

Until, all of a sudden, riots broke out on the morning of 4th March 1947, and soon took a virulent turn. My hostel warden advised us to go home until the situation became normal. 

My hometown Alwar, a Princely State at that time, was some 400 miles away, and a long rail journey to get there was considered unsafe.