Punjab

by Rajmohan Gandhi

As long as we two brothers are alive and our rifles have bullets we will never let you touch the Muslim patients in this hospital.48 Addressed to assailants storming (and, soon afterwards, leaving) their Amritsar hospital, these words spoken by Dr Parshottam Dutt on his behalf and that of his brother Dr Narain Das reflected the gallant spirit of many unknown Punjabis, Sikh, Muslim and Hindu, of March 1947. Yet, the frenzied spirit that was also abroad destroyed around 2,500 lives in Punjab in that month, including that of one of Multan’s most-respected men, Kalyan Das, a prosperous Hindu living near the railway station. A man to whom Muslims had often turned for arbitrating disputes with fellow Muslims, Das was killed in his house along with his entire family.