Living on the Margins. Minorities in South Asia - EURAC

After the death of emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal dynasty became weak and
mutinies began in several provinces. When the government of the Punjab became weak,
the Sikhs began to increase their influence and started plundering the larger cities of the
Punjab. Lahore and Multan were plundered and looted several times by the Sikhs who
murdered the people and unleashed terror and violence upon them. Finally, the Sikh ruler
Ranjit Singh established his hold over the Punjab and the Sikhs and the Hindus together
committed many atrocities and cruelties upon the Muslims. They particularly desecrated
Muslim holy places and shrines. 18
When the hero of the textbook story, the Muslim assailed from all sides, becomes weak,
the Sikh butcher enters the stage as plunderer, looter and murderer. The Muslim takes on
the feminized posture of suffering as atrocities and cruelties are committed upon the self
by highly masculine ‘others’ who join hands to inflict misery upon the defenceless self.
In the story of the ‘independence movement’, the British collude with the Hindus against
the Muslim who is besieged from all sides. In the story of the decline of a Muslim
empire, the Sikhs collude with the Hindus against the Muslims. The ‘others’ of the self
seem to invariably collude in the conspiracy against Muslims. As all political, social and
historical dynamics are written out of the story of blood and violence, the reader is left
with no clue as to the causes of the alleged ‘collusion’. The impression that is left on the
young minds is that it is the nature of the beast to shed blood. The projection of all
violent tendencies on to the ‘other’, serves to cleanse the moral self of any aggressive
propensities.
The second appearance of the murdering, knife-wielding Sikh around the time of
partition can be viewed in the following depiction taken from the Pakistan Studies
textbook for Classes IX and X produced in March 2002:
When the Hindus and Sikhs realized that Pakistan is being established, they started riots
in parts of the Punjab. As a result hundreds of thousands of Muslims were wounded and
murdered. In this difficult time, the Muslims of the Punjab did not let go of fortitude and
strength and welcomed the refugees from Indian territory and were generous to them.
They proved that Muslims always help each other. 19
In the gory tale of wounding and murdering at partition, the story of killing and
murdering by Muslims is a silence in the text. It has been recorded by many noted
scholars, that during partition violence, rape and murder were committed by all religious
communities against all others. 20 The idea of the textbook storyteller is to underline the
sacrifice and suffering of Muslims in the blood-drenched drama of the creation of state
and nation. The wounds are reiterated lest we forget how our blood was spilt for the
homeland. This kind of reiteration of injury is a nationalist remembering, as it adds
poignancy and urgency to the tale of the making of the nation. The Sikhs perform their
‘historical’ role as those who shed our innocent blood as we departed on our way to the
homeland.
18 Social Studies Textbook for Class IV, 1998. Punjab Textbook Board. p. 82.
19 Pakistan Studies Textbook for Classes IX and X, Punjab Textbook Board, p. 32.
20 See Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s Borders and Boundaries and Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of
Silence, for details of the kinds of atrocities committed by all sides against all sides in the formation of the
nation.
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