Guest Post by A. H. Cemendtaur
In the history of South Asia, 1947 was a blood-soaked year – hundreds of thousands got killed while millions were uprooted from their ancestral lands. Prior to 1947 Sikhs lived everywhere in North-Eastern area of what is today Pakistan. I hang my head in shame knowing that presently there is only a small number of Sikhs left there.
I have been a great fan of Sardars – more so after a community of them saved my life in Lusaka, the year was 1992. I got sick while traveling and sojourned at a Gurdwara (Singa Singa Mesquita). The family that took care of the temple took me to the hospital and fed me. I don’t recall their names, but I remember there was a young man who pursued a modeling career and wanted to go to the US.
Compared to followers of other faiths, a practicing Sikh must find it very hard to conceal his identity. And that is the reason I always wondered what professions Sikhs in Pakistan took, and how they kept a low profile in the rising tide of hollow religiosity of the majority.
In my last trip to Pakistan I ran into a very colorful Sardar. He was a hakim who ran a Yunani matab called “Khalsa Dawakhana.”
Here is video footage of Hakim Sarber Singh.
“Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki Fateh.”
Besides writing fiction, A.H. Cemendtaur writes on contemporary issues, both in Urdu and English. This post was originally posted at Karachi Photoblog; thanks to iFaqeer for suggesting it for ATP.
My son just told me about this because he often hears me speaking about the old days. I remember that when in 1949, two years after partition, we left our mohalla in Ludhiana we were the very last Muslim family there. When we came to Lahore to stay with my brother there were no Sikh families left in that mohalla which has also once been a mixed mohalla. The bloodshed and violence was great at partition but the odd thing is that Sikhs and Muslims across Punjab have largely gone past those memories. It seems that the rest of India and rest of Pakistan has not. I pray that they will too and this will become a would on history only rather than a daily reality.
Yes, the Sikhs were all over the Frontier province during the Sikh rule and their footprints can be found even today, much as we have tried to erase them.
Several towns and places in the province are named after Sikhs. Haripur, where President Ayub Khan came from, was named after Hari Singh, a powerful and ruthless governor of Ranjit Singh. Similarly, a place on the road to Khyber, between Islamia College Peshawar and Jamrud, is called Burj Hari Singh. It is supposed to be the spot where Hari Singh was killed in a battle. A mud tower or a burj commemorates that spot. Mansehra, another town in Hazara district, is said to be named after Mahan Singh or Maan Singh. A beautiful old gurdwara, much neglected and misused, though, still stands in the main bazar of Mansehra.
By the way, in the last provincial assembly even an MPA was a Sikh.
I too was immediately thinking of Ranjit Singh who was probably the city’s most illustrious political leader at least (we have written about him at ATP here and here).
By the way, he is also – at least in part – the reason why you find many Sikhs in Peshawar. His empire included much of today’s NWFP, nearly to Kabul I beleive, and Peshawar was a major power center for his; supposedly he himself spent cconsiderable time there and left significant impacts also on teh architecture.
The first time I saw the sikh community in Peshawar was on the famous Geo TV show called “George ka Pakista”. It was quite a surprise to me, since I used to think that they are all concentrated in Punjab.
Alvipervaiz,
Thank you for adding to my information. But I was counting only the illustrious sons and daughters of Gujranwala.
I did not include Ranjit Singh in my comment because I was thinking of poets and intellectuals at that time. He was an illustrious son, no doubt.