The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab

by Marina Wheeler

On 3 June 1947, as British India descended into chaos, its division into two states was announced. For months the violence and civil unrest escalated. With millions of others, Marina Wheeler's mother Dip Singh and her Sikh family were forced to flee their home in the Punjab, never to return. Through her mother's memories, accounts from her Indian family and her own research in both India and Pakistan, she explores how the peoples of these new nations struggled to recover and rebuild their lives.

As an Anglo-Indian with roots in what is now Pakistan, Marina attempts to untangle some of these threads to make sense of her own mother's experience, while weaving her family's story into the broader, still highly contested, history of the region.

This is a story of loss and new beginnings, personal and political freedom. It follows Dip when she marries Marina's English father and leaves India for good, to Berlin, then a divided city, and to Washington DC where the fight for civil rights embraced the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi.

The Lost Homestead touches on global themes that strongly resonate today: political change, religious extremism, migration, minorities, nationhood, identity and belonging. But above all it is about coming to terms with the past, and about the stories we choose to tell about ourselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Memoir

Paperback

First published November 20, 2020

About the author

Marina Claire Wheeler QC (born 18 August 1964) is a British lawyer, author, columnist, and the ex-wife of British prime minister Boris Johnson. As a barrister, she specialises in public law, including human rights, and is a member of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal. She was appointed Queen's Counsel in 2016.

Marina Claire Wheeler was born to BBC correspondent Sir Charles Wheeler and his second wife, Dip Singh, an Indian Punjabi Sikh; her ancestry goes back to the city of Sargodha in West Punjab, present-day Pakistan, with her maternal family migrating to present-day India after the Partition of India.

She was educated at the European School of Brussels, and then in the early 1980s at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where she wrote for the student magazine Cantab.

At the European School, she became friendly with Boris Johnson, later a journalist and politician. Her sister, Shirin Wheeler, is an EU spokeswoman.

Reviews

[Jyotsna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Completed 54% of the book. This is a DNF. A very tunnel vision British perspective on the partition.

Issues with the book -

1. The book comes from an extreme place of privilege such that the author's grandparents moved into one of the poshest areas in Delhi after the partition. Also, her aunt, bought a Cuffe Parade home with servants months after the partition which just screams money. I agree there were emotional wounds and it was sad to move across, but then they had it much much better than the 99.99% of the migrating population that ultimately moved into refugee camps. There is no acceptance of acknowledgement of this privilege in the book or the mention of the partition being a bloody event.

2. It is a white washed version of the British Raj where the only atrocity mentioned is the Jalianwala bagh massacre. There is no mention of any other atrocity, not even the Great Famine of Bengal during WW2.

3. Having attended a session where the author spoke about the book in detail, she stated that the book was primarily written for her family and then the Britishers. But if it's Britishers reading this white washed version, where a lot of Indian issues like the Poona Act are being explained, won't that show a justified picture of colonialism to them? Children in the UK never learn about colonialism in the first place, and this book tends to white wash and show the British Raj in a good light. Which it was not.

4. I DNFed at the point when the Indian Railways were described as -

The same, I feel, could be said of the railways. India's huge network of railways was not a generous gift from colonial rulers to enable the population to enjoy the flOwering shrubs. Most was built after the 1857 rebellion to mobilise troops at speed But it is an asset, now used by millions of Indians to travel vast distances across their extraordinary country. Should we judge history by the motives of its protagonists or by their results? It seems to me that without the other, neither paints an accurate picture.

Let me just say that the Indian Railways were built using Indian resources and Indian labour. So when you state that - Should we judge history by the motives of its protagonists or by their results? It seems to me that without the other, neither paints an accurate picture. - why do you even need to say this? Did the Britishers have any need to colonize India in the first place?

Like please, don't make colonialism an acceptable form of rule.

Also, one of the things I realized later on, while searching more about the author on the internet is that she's the ex wife of Boris Johnson. Well, I don't want to judge, but you know where this is going.

In Conclusion -

A VERY ONE SIDED VIEW ON THE PARTITION.

[Mriga Bansal · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would highly recommend not reading this “history of her family” which has been linked with a momentous event in the history of a country.
A disingenuous effort at understanding and reporting historical events, and creating a link between the destiny of the family and that of the nation which does not exist. The account is not well- researched and talks about family members like the reader is supposed to be aware of them ( without any detailed information). Maybe the writer thinks that Indians have all been steeped in the history of her family?

“Should we judge history by the motives of the protagonists or their results?” is a deleterious argument that reduces history ( of any sort) to rubble!
Stale arguments of the “positive” impacts of colonialism are mentioned, through the lens and personal history of a family that clearly benefitted from the Raj ( which in itself is a justifiable history of a family but shouldn’t be assumed to be the collective thought of a nation).
There are so many issues with a book like this, partition is a painful memory for most Indians, especially people from places like Punjab and Bengal and this book has dealt with none of them while focusing on random thoughts that the author has.
Maybe this is more suited to a family newsletter than espousing it as a book which in any way deals with the big questions that still haunt historians when it comes to the Partition of India and the colonial rule of the British.

[Puja Kamdar · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I respect the need for the author’s retelling of partition from her family’s viewpoint, her decision to use this viewpoint to brush off the factual evidence which displays blatant abuse of India by colonial leaders does make this a biased and “whitewashed” account. Apart from a very narrow, one sided view on one of the largest human migrations in history, the haphazard and disorganized writing style did not help in holding my attention for this story.

3 stars only to the personal attempt at trying to discover the author’s mother’s life pre-partition.

[Paula Maguire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this measured but personal account of a seikh family loosing everything during the partition of India. I learned a lot about the Punjab, the different factions involved in the independence movement and the basics of how it developed. It was well written with a measured voice that acknowledges that different groups have different 'takes' on what happened. Her mother's story is interesting and she was a revolutionary in her own way (leaving her first husband, disappointing her family, then marrying a white man) I could also relate to the diaspora aspect of the book - Her mother's relationship with India and how she leaned more into the British side of the family for the sake of her children as she did not want their identity to be confused. One of the saddest aspects of the story that she draws out is how history is forgotten in some places due to the ideology of the state - It seems that the community of Seikhs that lived in Sargotha have been written out of history, which is nothing new ' history is written by the victors' but she does manage to get the photograph of her grandfather with the other fonders of the hospital up in the reception of the hospital and somebody from Sargotha tells her that she's brought her grandfather back by visiting the place 70 years later.

[Noor Anand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually 2.5/5.
I have read a lot of excellent Partition related literature so my standards for this genre are extremely high. The problem with this book is that it was billed as a non-fiction Partition memoir but it really isn’t that at all. The writer’s mother is a Partition survivor but she barely shares any stories or recollections from that period.

Hence, the book ends up being only a family memoir of a British woman with part-Indian ancestry.

The portions based in Delhi were interesting to me because I know her family but their story may not interest a larger audience. Other portions - set in Pakistan and England - were kind of boring and I can imagine others feeling that way about the Delhi portions of the book too.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, a human rights barrister and daughter of Charles Wheeler, goes in search of her mother's past when her Sikh family fled Pakistan for India at the time of Partition following Indian Independence. It is a very personal history but, being a barrister, Wheeler provides as balanced a picture as she can and takes nothing at face value.

The first few chapters are a little clunky and factual laying the ground for what comes later. Once Wheeler gets into her stride and her own voice comes through more strongly it becomes a fascinating exploration of family history, what we choose to remember and what we forget - and why. Her mother was an extraordinary woman and Marina Wheeler has paid touching tribute to her in this account.

The one thing the book lacks is a family tree (for those of us unfamiliar with Indian names), and a few maps would have been helpful.

[Deborah Siddoway · Rating 3 out of 5]

I approached this book with some interest, knowing very little about India's more recent history. In fact, it would be fair to say that my knowledge is pretty limited to the uprising that occurred in 1857. As to what happened afterwards, at best what I know is random, fairly sketchy. I was therefore hoping that I would come away from this book knowing more than what I did before I started it. To be fair, I have learnt some details of Indian/Pakistani history that I didn't previously know. Unfortunately, that is the best that I can say about this book.

For me, the bottom line, is that this book lacked heart. Both the author, and the woman she predominantly focusses on - her mother Dip (pronounced Deep), seem to be hidden behind an intangible - and impenetrable - barrier. They both held back so much of themselves that it was actually hard to care about them.

To an extent I can understand why that is. Both women are so used to trying to protect themselves and their families that it is unsurprising that they have put up walls. What I didn't realise before I started reading, is that the author is the ex-wife of a British Prime Minister, well-used to having her private life paraded across the pages of the press, and there are some things she would no doubt prefer to keep herself. However, in my view, her reticence to engage emotionally with her writing - with the reader - means that her story suffers.

Much like a legal document, there is far too much setting out of what happened, when what I was aching for was more of the emotional reaction to the devastation of the events going on around them. Despite the recitation of important and historical events, I found the writing challenging to read because it was, and I hate to say this, a trifle dull.

I wish that I had liked this book more than what I did. There was an opportunity to really explore some of the more devastating aspects of the history, especially the impact that they had on women. But instead, we get a simple statement - 'women experienced a particular trauma.' I also found myself getting a trifle would up by her description of the events of 1857 as a 'rebellion', whereas I preferred to think of it as an 'uprising'. This got me thinking of the meaning of the words we use, and whether our choice to use a particular word matters. So clearly, there were some aspects of the book that generated thought. However, not enough to warrant the price of the book. I can almost guarantee that I will recall little of this book 12 months from now, which as those who read my reviews know, means that this is not a book I would recommend.

[Brenda Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and very moving. I can certainly relate to events, as the same thing happened to my husband's family, except that they were from Bengal, not the Punjab. As a result of Partition, they lost everything.
Marina Wheeler gives a well-balanced account of what actually happened without going into too many gory details(of which there were, obviously, many, witnessed, alas, by people that I know). Yes, it is a personal account of what happened to her own family too, but that does not detract from the overall picture. I know quite a few people who have been totally uprooted from everything they knew, in Spain, as a result of the Civil War, as well as in India, also in Kenya and Uganda more recently, not to mention Occupied Europe before that. It's amazing how quickly history can be re-written, not to say whitewashed.
It's a well-written and compassionate account and well worth reading, whether you already know much about the Partition or not. Like some other readers, I did get a bit confused as to who was who, family-wise, but I suppose that's inevitable, as the book covers a long period of time and many people. In our own family, stories have become more hazy over the years as the older generation have now gone and in any case were often too traumatised to talk about it. One needs to remember and one needs to forgive. Both are difficult.

[Richard Knott · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the cover of Marina Wheeler’s book The Lost Homestead is a family photograph. There is one Englishman in the group and he is standing proudly amongst a group of Indians – an old man with a white beard and turban, and ten women and children. The Englishman is the one-time BBC correspondent Charles Wheeler whose lined face, gravelly voice and measured tones I well remember from the time when BBC news was still in the mode of ‘Nation Shall Speak Peace unto Nation.’ I admired and respected him. I now admire and respect his daughter. Marina Wheeler’s book is a moving, beautifully written account of how the Partition of India affected her family. The ‘lost homestead’ of the title is the family house in what is now Pakistan and from which the family was obliged to flee in the immediate aftermath of Partition in 1947. They were not alone of course – millions of people became refugees as India became divided in two and a poverty-stricken British Government chose to leave. There are two main characters in the book: the writer herself and her mother Dip whose life forms the central thread of the book, as the sub-title My Mother, Partition and the Punjab suggests. The book is moving and its author handles a complex story with great skill. It is also beautifully illustrated. Highly recommended.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept of this book is great, Wheeler explores her mother's family history and through it the larger story of partition and post-colonial India and Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the book fails to deliver. Leaving aside the baffling quirk of the writing switching randomly between past and present tense surprisingly little of this book seems focused on the story of the family history. The most interesting aspect of this book is the sikh perspective on partition and modern India but receives relatively little attention.

The family narrative is covered in the first half of the book alongside a remarkably generic recounting of late colonial India and partition which is poorly connected to the family history and honestly doesn't hold anything new if you are already familiar with the broad strokes partition. Wheeler mentions that the standard narrative she grew up with paints Jinnah as the villain is contested but makes no further attempt to explore this. Likely because one gets the sense that Wheeler does hold the Muslim league as responsible for partition. There is a prolonged discussion of the inaccuracies of a history of partition she receives in Pakistan with no recognition of the fact it is easy to lay hands on equally skewed histories from the Indian view. She does concede that there was violence on both sides but qualifies this by saying forced conversion was something only done by Muslims in what is now Pakistan (this is straight-up inaccurate there is also documentation of forced conversion perpetrated by Hindus as well).

The second half of the book covers Wheeler's exploration of modern India and the legacy of partition and it suffers from the fact that Wheeler has no depth of experience/knowledge on any of the subjects and is trying to cover a lot leaving it feeling like the book is bringing up a lot of issues without genuinely exploring any of them; the massively complex topic of Kashmir is discussed across 2 pages and then receives nothing more than passing mention in a handful of places, gendered violence comes up and then vanishes just a quickly (in a spectacularly weird choice Wheeler bemoans the fact no one uses Jyoti Singh's name when discussing her horrific rape and murder in 2012 and yet never actually uses Jyoti's name - I had to look it up afterwards), the koh-i-noor and legacies of empire receive similarly glancing references. Ideas that would be interesting consequently receive very little attention - her comment that newer generations of Indians hold either a much less negative view or a far deeper antipathy of the English than the previous generations is a fascinating observation but does not get any further exploration.

Honestly, there are much better books about partition and modern India and Pakistan.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book a while back but found it rather hard going so rested it for a while. Having picked it up again at the beginning of January I found I was in the right headspace to read it. I’m glad I did as it was really interesting.
I have read a few books on partition and this one was slightly different in that the lovely lady the book was written about, Dip, was quite a force to be reckoned with!
She was quite inspiring, although didn’t see herself as such! Written by her daughter the book has a very personal take on how partition impacted peoples lives. She goes back in search of her mother’s home and the journey there is informative, emotive and reflective.
It is important to note, however that this book tells the story of a family that we’re not impacted by partition in as violently as many. They were a family of wealth and as such escaped relatively unscathed in comparison to many thousands of people. So as positive as this story is, it is vital to hear other people’s experiences which on the whole were a great deal worse.
Nevertheless it is an interesting read.

[Danial Tanvir · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a book by marina wheeler.
it is about the partition of india and pakistan
she is a sikh and her father is english and mother is indian.
her mother is dip singh.
she is from a sikh family.
she goes to lahore and from there goes to sargodha after the partation and visits sargodha.
she wants to visit her home land.
it is about mahatma gandhi and about muhammad ali jinnah and about how both were educated in england.
mahatma gandhi is assassinated.
she then goes to berlin and from there to washington dc.
it is about how women are raped in india.
it is about asma jahangir and salmaan taseer and about pakistans blesphemy laws.
in the end there are details given about sargodha and about the history of sargodha.
this book could have been better and then in the end i had to read the index.

[Vishal Shah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Lost Homestead traces the journey of Dip Singh—Marina Wheeler’s mother—from her privileged childhood in pre-Partition Punjab to her family’s sudden displacement after the division of British India. The narrative follows Dip’s migration through Delhi, Berlin, and Washington, as she rebuilds life after immense loss, seeking freedom both personally and politically amidst the backdrop of global change.

Interwoven with historical events, Wheeler reflects on generational trauma, the silence surrounding painful memories, and the process of reclamation, drawing meaningful parallels between family upheaval and national transformation. The book combines archival research, travels, and personal anecdotes, culminating in a meditation on identity, belonging, and the stories families tell to understand their past.

[Louise Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to reading this after reading a fictional account of Partition. Unfortunately the author cannot seem to decide if this is a History textbook, a memoir or a biography.
If I hadn't persevered through the first chapters I would have missed the rich descriptions of India and Pakistan but I'm not sure the ploughing through historical documents and dates so early on helps the narrative.
If the History had been interwoven with each part of her mothers life it may had had more context.
Subjects like womens lives and freedoms are touched upon but not explored in depth so left me a bit lost, and with not enough resources to research these areas myself.
Sadly not a book I'll be recommending to others.

[Alice Kuzzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated this book as an introduction into the issues revolving around Partition. It is of course written from a particular family's perspective. For this, it is biased in some respects. However, in my view, Marina identifies where those opposing views are. As such, this book is an insight into an interesting and idiosyncratic time in history, and is enjoyable and informative. It will understandably not provide the whole picture, as that is not what this book intends to do, but it will give direction for further research for those keen to learn more.

[Amina Ahsan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a moving heartfelt family story. I have read many books about partition, but this is the first from a Sikh perspective. She has done a good job in being impartial which is hard to find whenever India/Pakistan or Hindu/Muslim/Sikh issues are discussed.

What a bonus it was to read about my family as they host the author. Her description of my Aunts home bring back so many memories. Make me want to go back home.

Definitely recommend !!!

[Caroline Repton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very moving, unputdownable memoir, told in such a personal way that it wears its painstakingly researched history lightly. Marina Wheeler retraces the steps of her mother and grandparents who, as Sikhs, were forced to flee their homeland after the partition of India at the end of British colonial rule. This is a rare book - combining a lovingly related and relatable life story with a fascinating history lesson.

[Sheherzad Kaleem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was excited about reading this book but was left disappointed. The writing is all over the place, and the story seems forced. The author jumps from describing key historical moments, to talking about her family without making real connections between these. There is some vague commentary on partition- but nothing new is shared. The only thing I appreciated was the description if Sarhodha and what happened there. All in all, can’t say I’d recommend this book.

[Alison Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was keen to find out more about Partition and thought this would be a good introduction to it, but I just didnt gel with the writers voice.
If anyone can recommend a book that would be a good addition to discover this remarkable period of history I would be very grateful. But this is not it.

[Jonathan Lancashire · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of two halves. It doesn’t purport to be a balanced history but does introduce some of the partition-era issues with a personal slant.

[Judith Bowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An I arresting take on Empire, Partition, and my h more...family, loyalty, loss...I enjoyed this book and learned more.