Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947

Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947 is a book by Sikh author Gurbachan Singh Talib. It was first published in 1950 by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) and has been reprinted several times.

The book consists of harrowing stories of the Partition of India between the new nations of India and Pakistan. The partition led to one of the greatest population movements in the 20th century, as Muslims in what would become India, and Hindus and Sikhs in what would become Pakistan, fled across the new borders.

This book details the sufferings of the Hindus and Sikhs who fled their homes in the western Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and parts of Kashmir. An appendix contains numerous press and eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed against the refugees during the Partition.

The book takes a position against Pakistan and the Muslim League, which it accuses of planning the massacres.

Critical reception

It has been reprinted several times and cited in various academic compilations of literature concerning the Partition of India.

Ishtiaq Ahmed, of the Department of Political Sciences at Stockholm University, has examined the book and reports that many of the incidents related in the text can be independently verified.

In one such incident, Muslim "goondas" (thugs) in Lahore received packets containing "churis" (bangles) and "mehndi" (henna) from some Muslims of Amritsar. Ahmed describes this as a "bizzare antic meant to shame them for their unmanliness and cowardice and for being women like (as women wear bangles and apply henna) at not finishing off Hindus and Sikhs", thereby inciting them into violence against Hindus and Sikhs.[1] This incident has been verified by the British political officer at the scene, a Mr. Eustace.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 'Forced Migration and Ethnic Cleansing in Lahore in 1947: Some First Person Acoounts', in Ian Talbot & Shinder Thandi (eds), People on The Move, Punjabi Colonial, and Post-Colonial Migration, Oxford University Press 2004

External links

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