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PARTITION: tape 11
Writer
255MODEM
Mod Date & Time
255MODEM Sep 04 13:28
TAPE 11
Side A
RAM ADVANI - interviewed 4 July 1996 in Lucknow
bookseller; Mayfair Building, Hazratganj, GPO Post Box no. 154,
Lucknow 226 001; (0522) 223511
8 - from a Sindh family
10 - born in Hyderabad, Sindh in 1920; father migrated to
L'now; studied in L'now, but family had business in
Pakistan - and in June 1944 joined family bookselling
concern as an 'apprentice' in Rawalpindi
38 - lucky to get a large shop on the Mall in Lahore, shortly
before partition
47 - [re partition] 'the agitation started in Lahore as early
as Jan 1946 ... there was agitations every day,
processions every day on the Mall in support of Jinnah
... we felt this was pass, I never realised that
partition will take place so soon*
56 - after partition anno 'we still hoped that Lahore wd be
neutral ... no one knew what Radclyffe had said; so
there was a rumour that 48% probably Hindus and
52% Muslims, it's touch and go, we held on to that ...
altho we left R'pindi and other areas, hopng that
Lahore might still be part of India, but by June we
realised it was not possible, it was in flames,
by June 47 Lahore was in flames'
73 - 'we never realised that the agitation wd take the turn
it did ... so it was by the end of 46, if not a
little earlier, we realised it was going to be diff
to stay in that part of the coutnry'
82 - 'I was living in an area, where in the night we used
to stand with - we didn't have arms and ammo - there
was a feeling that if you were together you were
safer; we did that, but we realised that sd an attach
- cos it was half Ms half Hs - the Ms were in a
stronger hold and we realised it was imp for us ...
so we moved out to above the shop, ... and I went
and stayed there'
100 - [turmoil] 'it was pretty bad in the sense that in the
middle of the night when people are shouting Allah
o-Akbar, A-o-A, the Hindus on the other side were
shouting Jai Ram-ji or whatever it was, it gave you
a very creepy feeling ... we were friends with the
families, they kept assuring as not to worry, and
we will stand by you, but one cd see there was a lot
of hpodlums who used to come and shout ... and the
lodfl people had no control over them, and I feel
now that the police were looking the other way,
cos the police in L at that time ... was mostly Ms'
116 - 'I had nothing whatsoever except a lathi ... if they
had attacked us there was nothing we cd do; the Mall
was safer cos the army was there and thro some
common friends, ... we were secure'
124 - 'in June-July 47, even our friends told us it wd be |
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