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Kartar Singh felt more aggrieved by the Partition because of the damage it did
to his village and its people. Khalra was predominantly Muslim, but there had never
been any communal enmity within the village. All Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs,
lived in harmony. There were approximately 1,500 residents in the village, out of
which 1,000 were Muslims. Only some Muslim landlords were rich. The majority
of Muslims were small peasants and artisans. The spirit of amity that bound all
communities together began to evaporate following the decision to partition Punjab.
It became obvious to all that Khalra would become a border village. No one knew
whether it would go into Pakistan or remain in India. Large-scale movement of
people from both sides had already started. The refugees from west Punjab came
with their tales of woes and violence. Killing, arson, plunder, rape were the common
strands of these stories. These stories began to vitiate the minds of the people.
Hindus and some Sikhs began to think in terms of revenge. Soon, Hindus and Sikhs
in the eastern parts of Punjab began to attack Muslims, committing the same acts of
violence and brutality that the Hindu and Sikh refugees from the west had suffered.
As the Muslim refugees from eastern Punjab, on their way to Pakistan, began to
move through Khalra, the Muslim population of the village too got agitated.
The British government deployed the largely Muslim Baloch Regiment of the
Indian Army to interfere in situations of mayhem and murder. But the Baluchi regiment
helped the Muslims and was very hostile to the Sikhs. The area under four
police stations in Patti sub-division, including Khalra, used to be administratively
under Lahore. On 14 August 1947, the Muslims of the area were under the impression,
and insisted, that the area belonged to Pakistan. The Sikhs and Hindus were
getting ready to evacuate. Many Muslims of the village, who until then had been
paragons of good neighborliness, began earmarking the properties of the Sikhs and
the Hindus they would occupy when the latter left eastwards. While some of them
began to incite violence, others even persuaded the evacuees who were pouring in
from the eastern part to stay on out of the conviction that Khalra would become a
part of Pakistan. In the end, however, the area under the four police stations remained
in India. The scales turned to the advantage of Hindus and Sikhs who now
began to get aggressive. The Indian military units arrived and soldiers of the Baluchi
regiment were sent away. Muslim residents of the village panicked and began to
flee. Many of them were killed by people who had been friendly and good neighbors
all their lives. Fortunately, the border was close by and many managed to escape.
For Kartar Singh, the Partition was an unsettling experience and unforgettable
even in his old age. He was also not able to rid himself of the thought that this
should never have happened and would not have happened if the leaders at the top
level had not been so greedy and impatient for political power. His father had been
an uncompromising revolutionary against the British imperialism. But when the
freedom came, Kartar Singh wished that the transfer of power had not been so hasty
and mindless. In his opinion, India’s freedom became Punjab’s bane. The border,
the military, the wars and now the fencing of the land, cumulatively and separately,
negated his inner imagery of freedom and independence. From his perspective, it
had been just Punjabis against Punjabis all through. Every time, India and Pakistan
went to war, Kartar Singh and all others in the village had to move away with all
their belongings. Now, after the fencing of the border villages, Kartar Singh and
many others in Khalra village could not even approach their land, across the barbed,
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