<div>The Partition of Punjab:
A Pakistani Perspective
Book Review by PRAN NEVILE
PUNJAB: BLOODIED, PARTITIONED & CLEANSED, by Ishtiaq Ahmed, Rupa, India, 2011, pp 808, Rs. 995. ISBN-HB: 9788129118622
There has been a spate of books on the Partition of Punjab and India in 1947. A number of authors have indulged in the blame-game holding the British government and some Indian political leaders responsible for this.
Some writers have recorded their individual experience of the tragic and horrendous bloodbath that accompanied the Partition of Punjab on both sides of the border.
Then we have a good amount of literature with fact and fiction fused covering stories with graphic details of men and women of both West and East Punjab who were forced to leave their homes for no fault of theirs and fell victims to brutal violence. Those who managed to save their lives turned into refugees in their new homelands. We come across great classic stories by Sadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Bhishan Sahni and some touching verses by poets like Amrita Pritam and Daman.
Prof. Ishtiaq Ahmed has for the first time indeed brought out in his book factual eye-witness accounts of the tragic happenings in the two Punjabs during 1947. It is the result of his dedicated research and personal interviews of more than 200 survivors of the holocaust which he conducted during the 1990s and early years of this century.
As we turn the pages we discover his extensive travels to remote villages, towns and cities in the two Punjabs. He spared no efforts to meet and collect information from some eminent Punjabis in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere. Even while travelling abroad in Europe and America, he was able to locate Punjabis who at the time of Partition were grown up enough to recall their personal experience or others who would narrate what they had heard from their elders.
The author has no doubt worked hard for nearly 15 years with a missionary zeal to collect this voluminous data on the communal riots. The book is the most comprehensive, balanced, unbiased and objective account of the tragic happenings during the Partition in the two Punjabs both of which paid a very heavy price for the country
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A Pakistani Perspective
Book Review by PRAN NEVILE
PUNJAB: BLOODIED, PARTITIONED & CLEANSED, by Ishtiaq Ahmed, Rupa, India, 2011, pp 808, Rs. 995. ISBN-HB: 9788129118622
There has been a spate of books on the Partition of Punjab and India in 1947. A number of authors have indulged in the blame-game holding the British government and some Indian political leaders responsible for this.
Some writers have recorded their individual experience of the tragic and horrendous bloodbath that accompanied the Partition of Punjab on both sides of the border.
Then we have a good amount of literature with fact and fiction fused covering stories with graphic details of men and women of both West and East Punjab who were forced to leave their homes for no fault of theirs and fell victims to brutal violence. Those who managed to save their lives turned into refugees in their new homelands. We come across great classic stories by Sadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Bhishan Sahni and some touching verses by poets like Amrita Pritam and Daman.
Prof. Ishtiaq Ahmed has for the first time indeed brought out in his book factual eye-witness accounts of the tragic happenings in the two Punjabs during 1947. It is the result of his dedicated research and personal interviews of more than 200 survivors of the holocaust which he conducted during the 1990s and early years of this century.
As we turn the pages we discover his extensive travels to remote villages, towns and cities in the two Punjabs. He spared no efforts to meet and collect information from some eminent Punjabis in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere. Even while travelling abroad in Europe and America, he was able to locate Punjabis who at the time of Partition were grown up enough to recall their personal experience or others who would narrate what they had heard from their elders.
The author has no doubt worked hard for nearly 15 years with a missionary zeal to collect this voluminous data on the communal riots. The book is the most comprehensive, balanced, unbiased and objective account of the tragic happenings during the Partition in the two Punjabs both of which paid a very heavy price for the country
More...