RAWALPINDI: A narrow street in Pakistan’s garrison city Rawalpindi features a multi-story building, its upper floors featuring ornate wooden doors and typical ached openings that offer glimpses of a city transformed by the upheaval of the 1947 partition of the subcontinent.
This is Bhabra Bazaar, a crowded commercial center right now. But nearly eight decades ago, it was a bustling city that housed Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs who lived under British rule in India.
Rawalpindi grew under Sikh rule for years but after the British annexed Punjab in 1849, it developed into a strategic military outpost. The British cantonment increased the city’s importance while its civilian areas helped build a commercial link between Punjab and the Kashmir region.
Chaudhry Muhammad Arif was born in Rawalpindi on April 24, 1944. He was over three years old when Pakistan gained independence on August 14, 1947. His account of what the city used to be like is based partly on childhood memories and stories narrated by elders.
“People here lived together very harmoniously, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs. Everyone used to meet each other [warmly],” Arif told Arab News.
Arif, now 82, became a military officer after the 1947 partition and fought for Pakistan in the 1965 and 1971 wars against India. He later joined the police force and served at the additional inspector general’s post.
Rawalpindi before partition used to be a city of about 50,000-60,000 people, Arif said, where commercial wealth was concentrated largely among Hindu and Sikh merchants. Muslims worked as laborers and drivers of animal-drawn carts and tongas (horse drawn carriages) and skilled workers.
“All the shops belonged to Hindus,” he told Arab News. “It is said that in Raja Bazaar, there were only two shops owned by Muslims; all the rest belonged to Hindus and Sikhs.”
Rawalpindi was much more inclusive back in the day, Arif said. His grandfather Chaudhry Waris Khan, an honorary magistrate, served on the same judicial bench as Hindu civic leader Lala Ram Chand Suri.
Religious sensitivities were also observed to avoid conflict. Arif recalls how his elders told him that cows were not slaughtered out of respect for the city’s Hindu residents, who regarded them as sacred.
‘REVENGE OF RAWALPINDI’
But all that was to change. In March 1947, as the demand for a separate homeland among the Muslims of the subcontinent grew, one incident sparked violence in Rawalpindi.
Arif’s cousin, Chaudhry Haq Nawaz, drove near a procession by Rawalpindi’s Sikh residents at the Committee Chowk area. An altercation followed and Nawaz was stabbed. The sight of him injured enraged the city’s Muslims.
“So, as a reaction, they [Muslims] then started attacking the Hindus and Sikhs, setting fire to their temples and damaging their properties,” Arif said.
Word of the violence in Rawalpindi grew and triggered reactions from Hindus and Sikhs. Arif said trains filled with bodies of Muslim refugees from India’s Ludhiana and Jalandhar arrived. Outside the trains were a message scribbled with blood:
“Revenge of Rawalpindi,” Arif said.
The violence forced Hindus and Sikhs to flee in droves from Rawalpindi. And with them, went several merchants, artisans and confectioners who had shaped the city’s food culture over decades.
“The Hindus were masters of food items here,” Arif said, remembering their traditional rewri, jalebi and patasa sweets.
Chole bhature, a spicy chickpea curry served with flatbread, used to be prepared by Sikh and Hindu residents of Rawalpindi. Arif said when the Sikhs and Hindus migrated from the city, they took the recipes and started selling these items in Delhi and Mumbai.
Today, much like Bhabra Bazaar, Rawalpindi’s old commercial centers are still here but the social landscape has changed.
Now the city is dominated by Muslims while the Hindus and Sikhs who were an integral part of the city’s food and business communities, have largely disappeared.
Arif, however, misses the flavorful chole bhature and the mouthwatering jalebis that the Hindu and Sikh vendors prepared.
“You don’t get those here anymore,” he said.
