New Delhi: Lashing out at the Congress on the subject of the Partition of India, Union minister and BJP leader Hardeep Singh Puri Monday asked why the party leadership had “so easily” fallen in line with the proposal to divide the country.
“The British ruled India following broadly a policy of divide-and-rule, and I understand their motivation. But the question arises as to why the Congress leadership at the time fell in line so easily,” Puri said at an exhibition organised in New Delhi by the Ministry of Culture to highlight the struggles of those displaced by the Partition.
The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has since 2021 been commemorating 14 August as ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’ through events that include exhibitions and a silent march.
Puri said Monday that many leaders — with exceptions such as Mahatma Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan and J.B. Kripalani — did not take a public stand against the Partition.
“India and Pakistan were born out of the womb of the same mother, but see how far we have come and where Pakistan is. The same people making historical mistakes will not be around, but an Akhand Bharat will emerge, and I say this as a student of history.”
He further said that “those who were sent, in 1946, to draw the boundaries that now divide the said nations had no idea about the ground reality”, adding that anyone with an idea of governance “should have known the consequence” of executing such a decision.
“Our (my family) story is a little different from the other stories. When the rumours of Partition started to float around, even my father left to look for places to stay (in present-day India). He came out on the last frontier mail train which was safe. After this, trains together were subject to massacre, on both sides,” said Puri.
Earlier in the day, Puri addressed a gathering of Partition survivors at the Partition Museum in Old Delhi, where he said he had grown up hearing tales of horror arising from the division of India and Pakistan.
Speaking to ThePrint at the museum, 96-year-old Trilochan Singh — a Partition survivor and freedom fighter who was displaced from his home in Peshawar — said, “There were Hindus and Sikhs who were murdered, but there were Pathans from the Congress who ensured that Hindu and Sikh colonies were protected, and they helped them a lot.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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