Prof
Dr Harkirat Singh was for long haunted by the feeling that justice
had not been done to the people of East and West Punjab who lost
so much at the time of partition in 1947. Eventually, the editor
of Daily Tribune (Punjabi) prevailed upon him to write the story
of his own ‘paradise’ in the upper semi desert areas of Multan
known as Ganji Bar, one of the bar (wastelands) along with Sandal,
Neeli and Keerana.
The area is located between rivers Ravi and Chenab on one side and
Sutlej on the other and was colonised between 1914 and 1923. The
water drawn from the Jhelum and Chenab irrigated this northern
part of the then district of Multan and here were settled Sikh
veterans of the First World War and their earlier comrades mainly
from the Jullunder and Ambala divisions where they had very small
landholdings.
Dr Harkirat’s family migrated from Gurdaspur to the far off Chak
No. 79 between Khanewal and Tulamb — a historical place where
Alexander met with tough resistance and Taimur’s forces carried
out a massacre. Five to six miles from Tulamba in the east is the
place where Ram, Laxman and Seeta came to live when they were
exiled. The area was known as Sidhnai or Sidh. Here the Ravi flows
in a straight line for almost ten miles, creating many legends in
its path.
The area where the Sikhs were assigned to break virgin land was
desert and semi-desert with shrubs and the rich trees of vann
whose fruit, peeloo, had inspired Khawaja Farid to write some of
his famous lines. The land was also replete with mirages. The
local population consisted mainly of nomad Rajput tribes who
survived on a pastoral economy. They were all Muslim and remained
semi-independent with no permanent settlements of their own.
Harkirat Singh’s story begins in the Gheeney dey Bangar village in
Batala tehsil in 1920 when his havaldar uncle — a first cousin of
his father’s — was allotted a square of land in Ganji Bar.
Harkirat was at the time in Jabalpur with his father who was also
in the army. From what he later heard from his uncles, the caravan
that set out for Ganji Bar consisted of his grandfather,
grandmother and granduncles, a couple of uncles and a servant
named Santa. Apart from the bullock in front of their cart, some
cows and buffaloes, one dog and two horses completed the
entourage.
The 225-mile-long journey was covered in about 25 days with no
familiar face to welcome them in their new home. A Muslim jungli,
the name given to the local inhabitants of the bar (jungle),
stepped up to fill the place. He extended all possible help to the
newly arrivals. The family had to live in the open for about 20
days until they made a hut for themselves. Over the next many
years Harkirat’s grandmother, Eido, played hostess to everyone who
landed in this place where hyenas and wolves roamed around.
Paradise was complete and in full bloom when partition
came. The Sikh inhabitants of the four chaks (settlements) founded
by Sikh ex-army men had no option but to leave.
The nearest settled towns like Khanewal and Tulumba were nine
miles away in the south and the west respectively. The
agricultural implements used in Gurdaspur and other areas of
Punjab could not be applied here and the plough and other
implements had to be improvised. Water for all purposes came from
a minor waterway (khaal). Snakes and venomous insects were in
abundance. The most horrible experience was that of dust storms
which were so intense that they threw up cots and young animals
and landed them many furlongs away. There was no road and the
settlers had to store water in ponds for the common use of man and
beast.
The place was waiting to be transformed. Within three or four
years the ex-army men raised their houses, a gurudwara, marrhi
(the burial place), shops, workshops and were harvesting crops the
size they could not have dreamed of earlier. The author calls it
life in paradise. In time a school came up and the villages were
now so prosperous that they frequently attracted the rahs dharis
and mundalis, theatre often associated with religion.
According to Prof Harkirat Singh of Patiala University, the
paradise was complete and in full bloom when the partition came.
The Sikh inhabitants of the four chaks (settlements) founded by
Sikh ex-army men had no option but to leave. They distributed
their household articles among the Muslim and Christian
co-villagers, which were accepted with a heavy heart. The animals
were unfastened. Mai Eido, now above 90, had to lock her house as
she had done in Gheeney dey Bangar in 1920-21.
It was September, 4, 1947 when Mai Eido was helped onto the
bullock cart which was to head to Fazilka via Khanewal, Vehari and
Sulemanki. The return journey for the grandmother of Chak 79 had
begun. Soon afterwards she breathed her last and amid the chaos
that accompanied the Partition, all her family could do was
entrust her body to the water in the Vehari canal.
Curtains were drawn on the self-made paradise. But no one could
wipe it clean of Prof Harkirat Singh’s memory.
Yaadan Ganjibar Diyan
By Dr Harkirat Singh
Published by
Pakistan Punjabi Adbi Board, Lahore
212pp. Rs200
