Rebel With A Cause

Mridula Sarabhai, born into Ahmedabad's celebrated industrial dynasty and nuclear scientist Vikram Sarabhai's sister, was one of those amazing women who fought for India's freedom. After the midnight hour, she grew disillusioned with the Congress, rejected the lure of high office and championed the unpopular cause of Sheikh Abdullah for the last twenty years of her life, even going to prison for defending the Kashmiri leader.

Aparna Basu, who has just published Mridula's biography, recounts Sarabhai's fearless commitment to saving human life during the horrific trauma of Partition.

Thousands of Muslim refugees were stranded at the Amritsar railway station on their way to Pakistan. Mridula selected this as one of the venues for starting her peace mission and she posted a group of workers there to prevent RSS volunteers from harassing them. It was not uncommon for members of one community to mock, jeer and poke fun at the cowed, hungry and miserable evacuees of the other community. She also posted a second batch of volunteers inside the walled city of Amritsar to protect Muslims who were isolated and to keep her informed of day to day developments.

On the basis of their reports, she asked the deputy commissioner and the senior superintendent of police to deploy more police force for their protection. As a result, the leaders of the Muslim associations in Amritsar began to look to her for support and consulted her frequently.

Conditions worsened in Pakistan by early September and leaders of all political parties began to feel that it would be folly for Hindus and Sikhs to stay on. Bhimsen Sachar, who was the leader of the Congress party in the West Punjab state assembly, along with his colleagues took refuge in Amritsar. On arriving, he contacted Mridula and narrated his personal experience and expressed his view that it had become necessary to evacuate all Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab as quickly as possible.

In September 1947, it was decided at the third meeting of the Emergency Committee of the representatives of India and Pakistan that the situation in Punjab had deteriorated so much that mass evacuation of Muslims from East Punjab and Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab had become imperative. An agreement was reached to facilitate the migration of population from both the Punjabs. The central and provincial governments were to assist in this task. Mridula was unhappy at this decision, for she was keen that Muslims should continue to live in East Punjab in amity with Hindus and Sikhs.

To evacuate the Hindu and Sikh refugees from West Punjab, one hundred trucks were placed at the disposal of the deputy high commissioner of India in Lahore. To help refugees to recover their relatives as well as their property, the East Punjab government appointed a chief liaison officer at Lahore, and a transport controller at Amritsar. Similar arrangements were made for the evacuation of Muslims from East Punjab. But these arrangements offered no protection to the refugees, because there was no machinery to prevent attacks on the convoys from hostile mobs.

sIt was, therefore, decided to entrust the work of evacuation of refugees to the military.

Panic-stricken Hindu and Sikh refugees started coming to the Amristar Hotel pleading for the early evacuation of their relatives who were stranded the West Punjab and NWFP. They were afraid that otherwise they would be butchered, or their girls abducted and forcibly converted to Islam. Many of them insisted on meeting Mridula, as they had been told that she was the personal representative of Jawaharlal Nehru.

Evacuation on a massive scale began from West and East Punjab towards the end of August and early September 1947, through special train services. With this began the attacks on refugee trains. Passengers were forced into compartments like sheep and goats and because of the heat, they often found it hard to breathe.

In the ladies's compartments, women would try to calm down and comfort their children. Looking out of the window, they could see corpses piled up on top of each other. Attacks on refugee trains were carried out with a military precision which had perhaps something to do with the role played by ex-servicemen, Hindus and Muslims, of the Indian army.

While revenge and bloodthirst were the main motives, violence was also used to ensure ethnic cleansing. On 21 August, a train carrying Hindu and Sikh refugees was attacked between Wazirabad and Godhra. On 28th August, Sikh refugees from Sialkot were attacked near Narowal railway station. An attack on a train carrying Hindus and Sikhs at Pind Dadan Khan on 21st September, 1947 in which nearly 1,500 persons were killed, caused tremendous commotion in Amritsar. In retaliation, Hindus and Sikhs attacked a train, carrying Muslim refugees, on the outskirts of Amritsar.

Mridula had warned the officials that such an attack was being contemplated and arrangements should be made to avert it. She was, therefore, very sore that no preemptive action was taken. She was firmly convinced that if the local police and military had come to the assistance of the military escort of the train, the attackers could have been repulsed.

Throughout the night between the 22nd and 23rd of September, she, along with a group of workers, attended to the wounded and the injured, amidst the groaning and wailing of women and children. With the help of officials, she made arrangements for sending those who were still alive to Lahore by motor vehicles.

Mridula brought this incident to the notice of Nehru and suggested that the deputy commissioner and the senior superintendent of police be transferred from Amritsar at once for dereliction of duty and this was done.

Excerpted from Mridula Sarabhai, Rebel With A Cause, by Aparna Basu, Oxford University Press, 1996, Rs 425, with the publisher's permission. Readers in the US may secure a copy of the book from Oxford University Press Inc USA, 198, Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016, USA. Tel: 212-726-6000. Fax: 212-726-6440.