Amritsar Partition museum & Jalianwalahbagh

Maharaja Sri Ranjith Singh Ji statue with a Sikh in the foreground at Amritsar

 When we wanted to do some “Sightseeing” in Amritsar, it was obvious that the Golden temple and the Jalianwalahbagh had to be on our schedule. 

When someone suggested to visit the Partition museum (Partition Museum | Amritsar) and being interested in history, I needed no second recommendation to do so. 

My wife and I decided to reserve 2-3 hrs at the minimum to see this museum. 

A visit to Jallianwalabagh was a must and we put that ahead in our schedule to allow more time later for the museum.

Jallianwalahbagh

Jalianwalabagh memorial in front the site

The name evokes the sacrifice done by many in our country. It brings to fore the respect that MK Gandhi ji commanded over the masses during the freedom movement. It brings out the cruelty of the British Raj and their inhumane behaviour, much against their so called Gentlemanly upbringing. 

I’ll not dig into the history about World war 1, move from the Company Sarkar to British Raj, the Rowlat act, Mrs. (Miss) Sherwood incident, General Dyer, the Mohammaden (Baluchi) and the Gorkha regiments, Lee-Enfield guns etc. 

These are well researched topics by now and people can read about them. 

I was particularly impressed by the way the Jalianwalahbagh has been preserved and the memories of the atrocities (for which the British Govt hasn’t yet apologised but expressed “Deep regret”) kept alive not just through some lovely Bollywood movie songs and movies themselves, but physically at the site of Jalianwalahbagh including that narrow entrance, the well, the walls that took those few bullets that failed to kill and maim the unarmed innocents.

It is enough to say that the authorities have done a splendid job with multiple areas showing about the run up to the massacre, the massacre itself and post massacre. One area showing Punjab’s contribution to the freedom struggle never fails to impress some like me, who doesn’t have an ancestry of such deep sacrifices for freedom that we enjoy today and take it for granted. 

I felt humbled and my awe towards the Punjabis went up several notches. They, right from Maharaja Ranjith Singhji’s time, have been guardians of our frontiers and have played a significant role in defending this land mass that we call Bharath / India. 

I pause here with a few photos from Jalianwalahbagh….

The entrance to the site - a narrow only passage that was sealed off by Gen. Dyer

The wall preserved with bullet marks

The Shaheed Smaarak in the park

Well explained exhibits in the galleries

Plaques with quotes

Partition Museum

Outside view of Partition Museum

A recent add and very conveniently placed almost next to the car parking area, is something that should not be missed. 

I had heard from some of my friends and acquaintances about the horror that they or their immediate family underwent during the partition. I had read a book in Kannada called “ಆ ಕಾಳ ರಾತ್ರಿಯ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆ” (Questions from that dark night). 

We had seen in some of the movies and TV Serials  about Partition (Bhag Milkha Bhag, Mahatma Gandhi, Buniyaad, Tamas written by Bhisham Sahni and produced by Govind Nihalani etc.)

Tamas 

Buniyaad serial, which had many of us glued to the TV in 1980s

But, nothing had prepared me for this hard hitting, punch in the gut experience at this museum. 

It appropriately starts with the story before the partition and takes us through many documentary material (News paper reports, Government documents, pamphlets of Muslim league, photographs etc.) and shows the way that the game played out leading towards the inevitability of a partition. The call for a divided nation. Various voices and reasonings which sets the agenda to unfold.

The second set in the gallery takes us through the immediate days before partition and how both in the Bengal and Punjab province, the truth started to emerge that the partition looked to be the only way out as a political solution to two sets of people who just differed by the “God that they prayed to” and the “Way that they prayed”. It also shows the underbelly at Amritsar and Lahore - the twin cities, where Bhaichaara (camaraderie or brotherhood between communities) is generally talked about, but a deep resentment existed between the communities and not all was hunky dory. 

The third set is all about how Labour Party came to power in the British Isles with Mr. Attlee at the helm and how Lord (Oh, how I hate that word and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth) Mountbatten played a role with Jinnah, Choudhury Rahmat Ali, 

 Allama Iqbal, Sardar Patel, Nehru, Gandhi, Kriplani, Sadar Baldev Singh  - all had roles - right or wrong is always a perspective and looking back now.

This shows also the pressure that Mount Batten had to divide in a hurried manner and finally his decision to bring in a Barrister from London Mr. Radcliffe (who had never been to India) to the sweltering hot and humid summer in India and allocated two judges each from each of the major community (who never agreed to the proposals and it was Radcliff who had to ultimately “decide”) to “help” him with his decisions and he had a limited time to prepare and “Draw the line” based on faulty maps, outdated and incorrect census data. Absurd arguments were made to hand over Lahore to West Pakistan as a barter to having Calcutta in India and not in the east Pakistan (Journalist Sri Kuldeep Nayar talks about this in an interview, which is played at the gallery). 

Then comes the eerie, but a well lit area in the museum. You are greeted by sounds of steam railway engine and hooting of that train. I cannot ever erase that from my memory. It will stay to haunt me till my death perhaps and I cannot but tear up every time that I hear and think of that situation (Happening even now, as I write these sentences)

If it does not move or shake you up, either you are too stone hearted or have a higher calling as a philosopher to overlook such a human tragedy as a mere triviality, a footnote in the pages of time and history. This is the train which often brought just dead bodies across the border. The train connected Lahore to Amritsar and passed through Wagah and Attari.

This section shows the horror of partition with well documented interviews of family members and people who were young kids then and now perhaps in their 80s / 90s. It talks about women treasuring their honor and committing sati with all their new dress and jewellery on. Ladies jumping into wells to drown themselves and the well getting filled up that some could not die even by jumping into it. 

It exhibits the items that they wished to carry with them as they had to go from one area to another other area separated by an invisible line that no one knew what it was and where it was. 

The tragedy documented is so graphic that it is sufficient to say it makes one think if this could have been avoided? Did our so called leaders fail us or knowingly or unknowingly whipped up passions of fear and pure existential needs, hit on the primordial survival instincts of an animal within a human being? How can one section of society be so cruel to an other section and all in the name religion.

This area also show a few but noble acts done by people in some of the bordering villages, who through their action saved many in their village. 

It covers migration in the East in Bengal, west at the Wagah border and also covers migration from Sindh province by ship to Bombay. 

Shaken from this experience you move into an administrative horrors of Partition. 

It’s all the way in the middle - A administrative nightmare, Civil Administrative services, Armed forces, police, Railways, RBI and currency, music (Gharanas split), places of worship, be it a temple, Mosque or a Gurudwara. It talks about even the museum artefacts like the Mohenjadaro bead necklace being split!

It shows the split in the sports area (Hockey, Cricket,..). This horror of Partition did not leave any area not scorched. It showed its sword mercilessly cutting the culturally once interwoven single nation who the British thought they had unified, but through their divide and rule policy had effectively left behind a problem.

After looking at all these, I recollected a poem by Dr. Siddayya Puranik (Kavyananda) in Kannada, 

ಏನಾದರೂ ಸರಿಯೆ - ಮೊದಲು ಮಾನವನಾಗು

ಹಿಂದು ಮುಸ್ಲಿಮನಾಗು ಬೌದ್ಧ ಕ್ರೈಸ್ತನೆ ಆಗು

ಚಾರ್ವಾಕನೇ ಆಗು ಭೋಗ ಬಯಸಿ

ಏನಾದರೂ ಆಗು ನೀ ಹಾರೈಸಿದಂತಾಗು

ಏನಾದರೂ ಸರಿಯೆ – ಮೊದಲು ಮಾನವನಾಗು

Be a Hindu, be a Muslim, be a bouddha or a Christian, be a materialistic chaaravaaka and pursue materialistic pleasures and be an atheist. 

Be whatever you want to be, but be a Human being first. 

The last portion of the museum is all about what is beyond this partition and the reality of the two nation theory put in practice. It has interviews from people like the flying Sikh Sri. Milkha Singh ji. 

This was worth the time and visit. 

I do not know how many of us will learn from history and what do we learn from it. One is for sure that this potent mixture of religion, nationalism can be a firecracker that can go wrong. 

While I do not want to be frivolous, I cannot help but recollect a famous stanza from Sri Harivansh Rai Bachchan from his collection of poems “Madhushaala”. 

मुसलमान औ' हिन्दू है दो, एक, मगर, उनका प्याला,

एक, मगर, उनका मदिरालय, एक, मगर, उनकी हाला,

दोनों रहते एक न जब तक मस्जिद मन्दिर में जाते,

बैर बढ़ाते मस्जिद मन्दिर मेल कराती मधुशाला!

We need some sort of a Madhushaala. 

(And I will not dare to translate this). 

My apologies as I haven’t put any photographs as it was prohibited to click any photo inside the museum.