7 - Remembering Violence

Summary

Where Are the Perpetrators?

Yasmin Khan (2017b) notes that despite the recent surge in oral historical work on the Partition, it ultimately remains ‘a history layered with absence and silences’. Khan observes that while most Punjabi families can tell a Partition-era story of loss and displacement, either of their own or of someone they know, ‘far fewer are willing to discuss the role of their own locality in contributing to the violence’). As a result, while oral histories of ‘victims’ abound, ‘guilt and silences stalk the archive’ (Khan 2017b).

This total absence of perpetrator testimonies characterises my work too. During my fieldwork, I did not encounter a single informant who admitted either their own or their locality's role in violence. The closest I ever came to a perpetrator testimony was when one of my informants admitted to having been trained for ‘self-defence’. Aged 16 and living in Dera Ghazi Khan at the time of the Partition, Dipankar became an RSS swayamsevak (volunteer) at a young age. He subsequently rose through the ranks to become a naik and then a gatanaik (group leader).

In 1947, as ethnonational tensions simmered, his RSS shakha (branch) organised its members into teams to carry out training exercises. Donning the typical RSS attire of a white shirt, khaki shorts and a lathi, they would set off early in the morning to patrol ‘their’ (Hindu) neighbourhoods. Since the RSS was a banned organisation at the time, most of their activities took place in secret. Dipankar admitted that sometimes senior members of the shakha would also organise elaborate drills to test their alertness and combat readiness.

So what we did, no one would get to know. Suppose 50-something men have come to the shakha. So there the shakha would be set up beside a gaushala [cow shelter], early in the morning. So then suddenly they would say, bhai, Muslims are coming from there, they are 10–12, we have to beat them up, we have to catch them, and they are coming to attack us. They have knives in their hands, they have daggers in their hands, and a lathi. So you 2-2, 3-3 men go do them. But afterwards when they [Muslims] would come we would use a lathi – now we knew how to fight with a lathi, we knew how to do gatka, we had also learnt to use swords.