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This is a direct testimony
of Sardarni Basant Kaur given to Urvashi
Butalia about the events in/around Rawalpindi
district from March 11-13th. Thoa Khalsa
was a village close to the current Pakistani
nuclear establishment at Kahuta on the
outskirts of the city of Rawalpindi.
My name is Basant Kaur. My husband's
name was Sant Raja Singh. We came away
from our house on March 12, and on the
13th we stayed out, in the village,
At first, we tried to show our strength,
and then we realized that this would
not work, so we joined the morcha to
go awa. We left our home in Thoa Khalsa
on the 12th. For three or four days
we were trapped inside our houses, we
couldn't get out, though we used to
move across the roofs of our houses,
we couldn't get out a bit. One of our
people had a gun, we used that, and
two or three of their people died. I
lost a brother-in-law. He died from
a bullet they fired. It hit him and
he died. So we kept the gun handy. Then
there were fires all around, raging
fires, and we were no match for them.
I had a Jeth, an older brother-in-law,
he had a son, he kept asking give me
afim(opium), mix it in water and I will
take it. My Jeth killed his mother,
his sister, his wife, his daughter and
his uncle. My daughter was also killed.
We went into the morcha inside the
village, we all left our houses and
collected together in the center of
the village, inside the sardaran di
haveli, where there was also a well.
It was Lajwanti's house. The sardar,
her husbandhad died some time ago but
his wife and other women of the house
were there. Some children also. They
all came out. Then we all talked and
said we don't want to become Musalmaan,
we would rather die. So everyone was
given a bit of afim, they were told
, you keep this with you... I went upstairs,
and when I came down there was my husband,
my jeth's son, my jethani, her daughters,
my jeth, my grandsons, three granddaughters.
They were all killed so that they would
not fall into the hands of the Musalmaans.
One girl from our village, she had gone
off with the Musalmaans and everyone
got worried that if one is gone, they
will take all our girls away... So it
was then that they decided to kill the
girls. My jeth, his name is Harbans
singh, he killed his wife, his daughter,
his son... he was small only eight days
old. Then my sister-in-law was killed,
her son and her daughter, and then on
the 14th of March we came to Jhelum.
The vehicles came and took us, and we
stayed there for about a month and then
we came to Delhi.
In Delhi there were four of my brothers,
they read about this - the camp - in
the papers and they came and found us.
Then gradually, over the period of time
the children grew up and became older
and things sorted themselves out. My
parents were from Thamali. Hardly anyone
survived from there. You know that family
Gurmeet's , they had two sisters, the
Musalmaans took them away. It's not
clear whether they died or were taken
away, but their bodies were never found...
Someone died this way, someone that,
someone died here someone there, and
no one got to know. My parents were
burnt alive.
That whole area was like a jungle,
it was village area. One of my brothers
survived and came away, one sister.
The were helped by a Musalmaan, there
were some good ones, and they helped
them - he hid them away in his house
-- and put them into the vehicles that
came, the military ones. The vehicles
went to Mator and other places. In Mator,
Shah Nawaz made sure no harm came to
them. People from Nara managed to get
away, but on the way they were killed.
Then my brothers read the papers and
got know. My husband, he killed his
daughter, his niece, his sister, and
a grandson. He killed them with a Kirpan.
My jeth's son killed his mother, his
wife, his daughter, and a grandson and
a granddaughter, all with a pistol.
And then, my jeth, he doused himself
with kerosene and jumped into a fire.
Many girls were killed. Then Mata Lajjawanti,
she had a well near her house, in a
sort of garden. Then all of us jumped
into that, some hundred... eighty-four...
girls and boys. All of us. Even boys,
not only children.. but grown-up boys.
I also went in, I took my children,
and then we jumped in -- I had some
jewelry on me, things in my ears, on
my wrists, and I had fourteen rupees
on my. I took all that and threw it
into the well, and then I jumped in,
but... It's like when you put rotis
into a tandoor, and if it is too full,
the ones near the top, they don't cook,
they have to be taken out. So the well
filled up, and we could not drown...
the children survived. Later Nehru went
to see the well, and the English then
closed it up the well that was full
of bodies. The pathans took out those
people who were at the top of the well
-- those who died, died and those who
were alive, they pulled out. Then they
went away -- and what was left of our
village was saved.
I was frightened. Of course, I was
... we were also frightened that we
would be taken away by the Musalmaans.
In our village, already, in the well
that was inside the village, girls had
jumped in. In the middle of the night
they jumped in. This happened where
the morcha was. The hundred.. eighty-four
women who jumped in they were just outside,
some two hundred yards away from Lajjawanti's
house. In the morcha, the crowd had
collected in Lajjawanti's house. She
was some seventy,seventy-five years
old. A tall, strapping woman. She did
a lot of seva of all the women, she
herself jumped into the well. Many people
were killed in the morcha, and the Musalmaans
climbed on top to kill others, and then
many came and tried to kill people with
guns, one of them put a gun to my jeth's
chest and ... and we began to jump in.
The others had died earlier, and we
were in the morcha, the well was some
distance away from Lajjawanti's house,
in a garden. There were two wells, one
inside and one outside in the garden.
My nanan and her daughter, they were
both lying there... close by there was
a ladle, I mixed afim in it, and gave
it to them, and she put it in her mouth..
she died, and I think the village dogs
must have eaten her. We had no time
to perform any last rites. An hour or
so later, the trucks came... just an
hour.
She did path, and said don't throw
me away, let me have this afim, she
took god's name and then she died. We
had afim because my jeth's son used
to eat it, and he had it with him and
he got more and gave it to everyone.
My jeth's son, his daughter-in-law and
his daughter, they died in Jhelum later,
when we were going going to the Dinia
camp, on March 15 or so. The camp was
close to the Jhelum. Four days we fought,
and we remained strong, the around the
12th we got into the morcha, on the
13th our people were killed, and then
the trucks came in the evening and took
us to Rawat, a village.
They brought us there [to the well].
From there... you know there was no
place.. nothing to eat, some people
were eating close by but where could
I give the children anything from ....
I had barely a few paise... my elder
son had a duvanni (two annas) with him,
we thought we could use that.. my brother's
children were also hungry.... but then
they said the duvanni was khoti, damaged,
unusable ... [weeping] such difficulties..
nothing to eat... we had to fill their
stomachs.. today they would have been
ranis... so many of them, jethanis,
children... I was the youngest.. now
I sit at home and my children are out
working and I kept telling them these
stories... they are stories after all
and you tell them and tell them until
you lose consciousness...
Thamali was my parent's house. They
took young girls away from there. In
our village there was one temple and
one gurdwara, but no masjid. The Muslims
came from outside. In Thamali there
were a few Musalmaans, those who ground
wheat, grain, channas... They used to
participate in some customs, it was
a sort of ritual. They did nothing (not
saved us), they used to eat our salt.
My Husband, My nephew killed him, my
nephew. Because they had killed the
girls, his daughter, sister, grandchildren,
with their kirpans, and then my jeth's
son had a pistol and he killed his mother,
his uncle... then my nephew killed my
husband with a pistol. He had a small
daughter, one and a half years old,
she also ate pistol shots. Yes, my husband
was killed by my nephew as I told you,
he killed him because my husband said
he did not want to become a Musalmaan.
Imagine... fifteen, twenty thousand
people and we had four guns. Those also
took them away. The same thing happened
at Thamali, they had collected all the
weapons, but then they had to part with
them. They they killed them. My nephew
was young and strong, my jeth's son..
he had shops. It was not this boy's
father who died from himself after this.
I have a son who killed his wife, his
daughter, a small son... one jeth came
to Rangabad, where his son was, one
died from burning, another one -- the
eldest-- kept watching all that was
going on, he did not say anything, people
thought why kill this man, he had no
children, no daughter, no son, nothing.
Two of my jeths had no children... All
this had happened before and then we
jumped into well. Four women were pulled
out of well by Musalmaans. Four women,
one was really beautiful, she had eight
children, she was saved all her children
killed.
There were Hindu houses in our village,
mayby thirty, forty of fifty. And the
rest of the village was Sardars. There
were twenty or twenty-five houses of
Bahmans. Thoa was like a town, it was
quite big. The Hindus did their work,
the same sort of things, shops, cloth
shops, hundreds of things. The sikhs
were all kattar Sikhs, they all had
pattas from Maharaja Ranjit Singh's
time.
Some time after we met Basant Kaur,
I (Urvashi Butalia) came across Bir
Bahadur Singh, her son. He gave us a
more detailed account of incidents of
community violence in Thoa Khalsa
In Gulab Singh's haveli twenty-six
girls had been put aside. First of all
my father, Sant Raja Singh, when he
brought his daughter, he brought her
into the courtyard to kill her, first
of all he prayed, he did ardaas, saying
Sachche Padishah, we have not allowed
your Sikhs to get stained, and in order
to save it we are going to sacrifice
our daughters, make them martyrs. Please
forgive us.
Then there was one man who used to
do coolie work in our village. He moved
forward and ... caught my father's feet
and he said, bhapaji, first you kill
me because my knees are swoolen and
I won't be able to run away and the
Musalmaans will catch hoold of me and
make me into a musalmaan. So my father
immediately hit him with kirpaan and
took his head off. Then Nand Singh Dheer,
he said to my father, Raja Singha, please
martyr me first because my sons live
in Lahore... do you think I will allow
the Musalmaans to cut this beard of
mine and make me go to Lahore as a sheikh?
for this reason kill me. My father then
killed him. He killed two and third
was my sister, Maan Kaur... my sister
came and sat in front of my father,
and I stood there, right next to him,
clutching onto kurta as children do,
I was clinging to him.... but when my
father swung the kirpan (vaar kita)
perhaps some doubt or fear came into
his mind, or perhaps the kirpan got
stuck in her dupatta... no one can say..
It was such a frightening fearful scene.
Then my sister, with her own hand she
removed her plait and pulled it forward...
and my father with his own hands moved
her dupatta aside and then he swung
the kirpan and her head and nect rolled
off and fell... there.. far away. I
crept downstairs, weeping, sobbing and
all the while I could hear the regular
swing and hit of the kirpans... twenty-five
girls were killed, they were cut. One
gir, my taya's daughter-in-law, who
was pregnant... somehow she didn't get
killed and later my taya's son shot
her with a pistol. but she was saved.
She told us, kill me, I will not survive.
I have a child in my womb. She was wounded
in the stomach, there was a large hole
from which blood was flowing. Then my
mother and my uncle (taya) sat together
and Harnam kaur -- her name was Harnam
kaur-- she said, give me some afim(opium).
We arranged for afim, people used to
eat it those days... in a ladle we mixed
afim with saliva... she said the japji
sahib path.. just as the japji sahib
bhog took place so did her bhog. Completely
as if she was prepared for death...
few people can do that... she had death
in her control and it was only when
she wanted it that death took her. For
nearly half an hour she did the path..
half and hour and then she spoke her
last shlok she also ended. She knew
she would die.. so much control... over
death.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Copyright © Urvashi Butalia "The
other side of Silence" pages 157
- 194
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