Muslim league attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947

This volume is a reprint of an old book compiled in 1947 by Sardar Gurbachan Singh Talib, Principal of the Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jullundur, and published in 1950 by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. It records the story of 7-million Hindus and Sikhs who were uprooted from their homes in the West Punjab, the North-Western Frontier, Sind and parts of Kashmir, and the atrocities of this period-the carnage, killings, abductions and forced conversions that took place, forcing Hindus and Sikhs to leave their hearths and homes and start on the biggest mass migration of humanity, as the author describes it. Sardar Gurbachan Singh Talib mentions a broader dimension also and connects the events of the forties with the League politics and the League politics itself with the larger Muslim politics. He does not develop the point, but he does more than most other authors whose vision remains confined in the best of cases to the League’s activities and who provide a narrow and even distorting framework. The fact is that League politics did not initiate Muslim politics but was itself a part of this larger Muslim politics; it was neither the latter’s beginning nor its end but its continuation. Muslim politicians and scholars in Pakistan see it this way. Muslim politics, in turn, is grounded in Muslim theology. Islam believes in one God (their God) but two humanities: the believers and the infidels. Islam teaches Jihad or holy war against the infidels. It is not that the infidels have done any harm to Islam or Muslims but it is simply because holy war against the infidels is established as a divine ordinance, by the word of God, who has said in the Koran, `Slay the Infidels’. So the believers are at war with the infidels all the time, though, in practice, a war may not be possible at a particular time. For those who know this framework, the chapter of Muslim history which this book discusses is not new; to them it is an old chapter and also the one which has not yet closed, not even its carnage and exodus. Hindus have been subjected to these forces for centuries, and these forces continue to operate unabated even now. In this larger perspective, Pakistan itself is not a new phenomenon, nor does the story end with its creation, On the other hand, old politics continues under more unfavourable conditions for India. Pakistan is emerging as an important focal point of Islamic fundamentalism and it is seeking new alignments in the Middle East in conformity to its new role.