Writer Mod Date & Time PARTITION: Tape 41 (cont) 255MODEM 255MODEM Mar 13 11:39 Side B HARKISHAN SINGH SURJEET interviewed at his home at 8 Teen Murti Lane, Delhi on 13 March 1997 general secretary of CPI(M); turbanned Sikh in his late seventies; full-time party worker in Punjab at partition time - hails from E Punjab; first gained prominence as Punjabi peasant leader; interviewed in his ample Lutyens-era bungalow, with a beautiful garden; comes over as fairly sincere but rather shallow his point about UP Ms in Pak still being muhajirs while India has no refugees was made to me in almost identical terms by Advani just two days earlier 2 - first in Lahore in summer of 47, then Jallundhar;7 - 'in June it started in a big way; after 15 Aug the sitn was quite difft; then it was a massacre ... humainty was being butchered on both sides; I have seen at that time even Cong'men who were supp;d to be secular ... get involved in the riots ... and only we Comms remaind on both sides to defend the minorities' 27 - staying in Lahore, being HQ of party; 34 - 'once Nehru had agreed to total migration, then you cd not imagine the scenes ... I was moving around at that time in the J'ur dist defenmding the minorities at the riskn of my life' 38 - wife and sister sheltered the 200 Ms in home village, for one month, then safely sent to Lyallpur in Pak, village is Bundalar ?? 46 - 'people were mad ... there were a few orgd groups working, behind them was the Mah of Patiala too and Akali party and Cong also, but people got involved in looting ... and a few nbands had weapons and were trained ... when N agreed to total migration of popn it was a horrible thing' 60 - 'on their way, when they're moving, with their bullock carts and belongings, they were massacred ... and trains, you cd not see the trains, people used to get the trains, they had become completely inhuman' 65 - anecdote re Moraji Desai; 'I was in the thick of the battle, I saw, even the Cong'men when scratched# were found to be the communalists; they had given up secularism' 80 - 'nobody was considered a human being; you wd not even treat the cattle the way you were treating humans; ... they mercilessly being killed, with nobody to defend them' 84 - 'where our party was strong, they were coming forward to defend them, and it's only those villages where we had strength that they were protected; but we also cd not keep them this side - they had to leave; if you see when they were moving together, to go to Pak, you wd see that wherever the people used to come and attack them, kill the inn children, women ... it is shocking ... the same thing was happening too that side' 98 - anecdote re Punjab Chief Minister of time