A Land Divided

Our Grandmother Once Told Us a Story of a Land Divided

Written by Deepali Gill and Namrta Gill 

Background

The 1947 Partition of India, an event of such magnitude and upheaval, cannot be easily forgotten. Till this day, many stories are still silenced and hidden. The human consequences of the partition have been called a holocaust. The tragedies that ensued from the unprecedented occurrence of a mass migration of people in the span of just two months are still prevalent today. Just reviewing the count of bodies that were killed, slaughtered, displaced, and sexually savaged, is unfathomable to most. These statistics are often the ways of defining a tragedy and conveying the traumas that the victims endured. 

However, the way the Partition is remembered in the collective memory of the survivors is starkly distinct from what the official archives have recorded or estimated, and most importantly, where those sources originate. One of the most compelling differences in literature of the estimated death toll of the Partition varies from two-hundred thousand from the perspective of the British, and two million from estimates of those that were impacted by it. Records show that in two months, twenty million people were displaced, an estimated seventy-five thousand women were abducted and raped, countless families were divided, unrecorded properties were lost, homes were destroyed, and communities had pitted against each other. 

Furthermore, there is an absence of any public acknowledgment of how the trauma experienced can be addressed in terms of the impact on physical and mental health, or the lasting consequences of a racial and religious divide that still haunts India and Pakistan to this day. There has been deafening silence around these issues since their occurrence. This could also be due to the fact that many partition survivors were more focused on overcoming their immediate struggles and did not have the capacity to hold space for their trauma. Additionally, many individuals don’t grow up learning about the partition unless someone in their family lived through it as there are hardly any memorials or public places that discuss these traumatic events coupled with the fact there is a lack of official recognition. The focus is always on how India gained independence and not how the partition of 1947 caused unprecedented suffering, leaving many of its traumatic impacts unaddressed and ignored. However, as of August 2017, there is now a partition museum in Amritsar, Punjab where the public now has access to different galleries that display art, archival material, refugee artifacts, and oral histories. This recent development highlights just how important it is to keep the memory of those that made this journey or fell victim to this divide, alive.   

 Our grandparents and ancestors silently endured displacement and violence that often shed light on how many of us cope with tragedies in our personal lives till this day. They have gone numb by the losses they withstood. Yet, they continue to live their lives reconciling with the belief that they may not see their neighbors again and blocking out memories of the family they have lost. They do not fully register how many corpses they have seen, they suppress the feeling of missing the home they have left behind, they ignore the sexual assault they experienced or witnessed, and they try to live a new life. 

Having conversations now with partition survivors allows them to reflect on how while their trauma does not define them, their stories are important. If these traumas are not addressed or these stories are not documented, the impact will extend transgenerationally in how they think, behave, cope, and engage with others. It is up to us, the younger generation, to break these cycles in order to heal and hold those who caused these traumas accountable. This is what we aim to do by sharing the stories of Kirpal Kaur and Gurdip Singh, our maternal grandparents. 

1947 Partition as Told by the People Who Were There

Kirpal Kaur, a young woman in her teenage years without a documented age in 1947, lived through the partition. She lived a peaceful life in West Punjab, now Pakistan, with her family. She was the oldest daughter of five siblings and lived in a village by the name of “Kachiyan Laina.” The family lived a simplistic life before the clock struck midnight on August 15, 1947. Since Kirpal and her family were Sikh Punjabis, they were forced to migrate to East Punjab, now present-day Punjab, as their home would be abandoned until a Muslim family from West Punjab occupied it. They quickly left their home in their village, a land they once called their own, when they heard the news. Leaving everything but one another’s companionship, they began their journey through a wave of violence. 

Kirpal’s sister, Deepo Kaur, was only six months old. At the time, Kirpal was told by many others who had thrown their children in flowing rivers to throw Deepo away too so Kirpal’s journey could be easier. But Kirpal did not listen. Although Kirpal protected her sister, she could not protect her three-year-old brother who fell victim to harsh weather conditions on their journey to East Punjab. Kirpal and her family successfully made the journey to their new home while bearing the loss of her brother. Words could not sum up the casualties she witnessed at such a young age, from seeing corpses everywhere to constantly feeling the threat of men as a young woman. But, she somehow made it.

         Gurdip Singh was just six years old when he and his family made the journey from West Punjab to East Punjab. He was a Sikh Punjabi so he had no choice but to leave his home in Lahore, Pakistan which would be claimed by others with a Muslim identity in 1947. Gurdip and his family were not the only ones to migrate from Lahore. He recalled that most of the individuals living in that area were also Sikh Punjabi, so it felt as if the entire village was packing to leave and live a new life. Individuals that made the journey through the new border traveled however they could; some by train, some by foot, and Gurdip’s family traveled by horses attached to a carriage. Although many individuals left their belongings, were robbed of them, or simply disposed of them, Gurdip remembered his father’s admiration for books and how he was somehow able to pack them up for the journey ahead. By some means, the books survived to see the other side. Gurdip, just like Kirpal, remembers witnessing the number of corpses every step of the way –in trains, homes, carriages, rivers, or piled on. There was nowhere you could look away without seeing dead people, displaying the new “independence” of India and Pakistan. When Gurdip and his family arrived in East Punjab, they settled in a village called Mehlan. They came to know that Mehlan was previously composed predominantly of Muslim-identifying families, and they too had embarked on a similar journey of leaving their homes behind and making their way to a new Pakistan while falling victim to the violence of the 1947 partition. Gurdip and his family, along with those who  survived the journey from Lahore, settled into whatever homes that were left abandoned.

         Kirpal lived on to marry Gurdip in 1952 and together they had five children, eleven grandkids, and presently two great-grandchildren. They lived a peaceful life in Mehlan and started from humble beginnings. Gurdip would farm and be a milkman for the village, and Kirpal would help him while also attending to tasks around the house along with raising their five children. Though they witnessed mass death, they found life in a little corner of East Punjab. A world so unfamiliar somehow became home, strangers became family, and struggles that most can only fathom in nightmares were their reality. But they never folded. While they endured the atrocities of violent colonization, they maintained a new life free of British rule. Though they might not have gotten the chance to fully rationalize the tragedy, they somehow survived and were able to find hope through their children. They prioritized their three sons and two daughters to receive a formal education or entrepreneurship, and find financial stability in ways they could not. They did not make excuses for their humble beginnings, and they did not collapse at the sight of adversity for the rest of their lives. They contended with life with a spirit of hope, peace, and strength. 

Although they did not have the option, they never looked back. And when they did, they used the art of storytelling to make their experiences palatable for their offspring who would then go on to tell their own children. For instance, they would recount their experience of living through the partition as bedtime stories about brave individuals who endured great hardships. These bedtime stories were used to subtly impart life lessons about perseverance but as their children grew older, they would come to the realization that these weren’t just fictional characters - they were reflections of their parents’ lived experiences. Eventually, they would share these stories with their own children, ensuring that not only life lessons are passed down but also a piece of their family history that embodies strength and survival. They instilled the values of resilience, hope, and joy in their children as if their life was lived peacefully without adversity. They were patient, consistent, loving, warm, and incredibly compassionate regardless of what history had done to them. 

This is the story of Kirpal and Gurdip. Our Biji and Bapuji. 

Our Story

As Kirpal and Gurdip’s grandchildren, we are forever inspired by their resilience but we also recognize that maybe they did not have a choice. Perhaps it would have been easier to give up and throw everything into the river. It was far more difficult to endure surviving but they did, and so will we. Their sacrifices have influenced how we navigate our daily lives, and the professional pursuits each of us has while informing the decisions we make in our personal lives. We have both deliberately pursued careers centered on giving back to our community through different avenues, and personally, we are deeply committed to living a life devoted to helping others and making a meaningful impact. Being a part of their lineage is being rooted in strength, love, and, above everything else, sacrifice. 

We are proud to be their granddaughters with a commitment to keeping their legacy alive as we create our own timelines with our respective challenges and joys. There is a photograph of both Biji and Bapuji standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, alongside our mother, and us as an infant and toddler that astounds us till day. How did they get here? How did we get here? 

War, genocide, rape, displacement, oppression, misogyny, and racism have been ingrained in Punjab’s history. To be two generations away from our grandparent's experience and one generation away from the 1984 Sikh Genocide endured by our family, how could we not feel or acknowledge everything that has happened to Punjabi Sikhs? Now more than ever, it is crucial to keep these stories alive – not just to honor the memory of our grandparents, but to remain grounded in our origins and to remind ourselves that the fight for freedom is ongoing.

Bios:

Deepali Gill 

Deepali currently lives in San Francisco, California and holds a J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law and a B.A. in English from California State University, Sacramento. She has cultivated a career that is focused on helping others through advocacy, legal change, and compassion. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her family, friends, and pet cat (Ivory). She also enjoys reading, cooking traditional Punjabi meals, and crocheting. Deepali is a Californian and a Central Valley native who cherishes her community deeply. She is ambitious about giving back to the community that raised her and her ancestors whose legacy she strives to keep alive. 

Namrta Gill 

Namrta is presently a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at University of San Francisco. Along with her classes, she is a trainee at Portia Bell Hume Behavioral Health and Training Center in Fremont, CA for the South Asian Community Health Promotion Services (SACHPS), a population she is passionate about serving. She completed her B.S. in Biology and M.S. in Biomedical Sciences at UCLA. She wishes to become a Psychologist, and researcher combining the intersectionality from both fields of her academic and professional training. Namrta has a profound connection to her ancestors, family, friendships, Iris, and the power of healing together.