Falak
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A photo of Fatima Sughra taken in 1947 lies alongside the medal she received for 'services to Pakistan'.
Fatima Sughra, lived in the old city in Lahore in 1947, the year of partition. Her street – on the edge of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu areas – became one of the flashpoints for riots which spread across the city and country. She describes to Chiade O'Shea the build-up to violence in Pakistan.
When I took down the British flag and replaced it with our Muslim League one, I don't think I really knew what I was doing. It wasn't planned. I was rebellious at that age, 14, and it seemed like a good idea. I was not prepared for it to become such a big symbol of independence. They even gave me a Gold Medal for Services to Pakistan. I was the first ever to receive one.
I was born in Lahore, in the old walled city with Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims living in genuine harmony. We would celebrate their festivals with them and they would celebrate ours with us.
When the civil disobedience movement started in 1946 and 1947, Muslim women were thrown in jail when they protested. Then other women, simple ordinary women, came out in support and they were arrested too.
On the day I took down the flag from the civil secretariat [the Punjab Civil Secretariat Building in Lahore – the main British building in the Punjab], the men came out in support of the women. That would never happen now. The women won't take to the streets for a cause they believe in and, if they did, the men would never support them.
The men and women of today are destroying Pakistan. Women had tremendous respect at that time, but it's all gone. Things were better then, partly because people had more respect for each other and themselves. But there was also a much smaller population at that time. There are just so many people now. Everyone has children, lots of children, and they are poor and can't afford an education for them.
People used to share with their neighbours, but now nobody cares if someone dies next door. Everyone is on their own.
But even though we were close to our neighbours, people eventually turned on each other. Everybody's thinking changed because they knew something terrible was coming. People started preparing themselves. People started storing bottles full of acid and stones in their houses. My mother asked her friends what they were storing, but they said nothing – we knew they were getting ready for a fight. It was that kind of suspicion that started the bad feelings.
People in mainly Muslim, Hindu or Sikh streets started putting iron gates up to stop other people coming in. My street was on the edge of the Muslim area in the old city, right next to the Sikh and Hindu areas, so I saw these ghetto gates springing up everywhere. You couldn't walk down the next street anymore.
The riots started from my area and spread across Lahore. My family sent me to Peshawar to keep out of trouble because they knew I was a troublemaker. I really was. When I scold my children or my grandchildren these days, I always remember the trouble my mother had with me.
I went to Peshawar. I stayed with the woman who took down the British flag on their building in Peshawar. There were so many women dedicated to the cause. They taught me a lot and inspired me.
After the riots in Lahore spread to Peshawar, I decided to go back home to Lahore. Nowhere was safe and I wanted to go back to my family. I went to a Muslim major in the army and said I wanted a gun to protect my family. He asked me how a skinny little girl like me could handle a weapon. I answered that this skinny little girl hoisted the Muslim League flag in the face of the British Empire, so he let me have two. I got a rifle, a pistol and 24 bullets.
The real fighting in our area started when a Muslim man was stabbed and left outside the gates of the Muslim area. Other Muslims came to his funeral, brimming with anger. It soon spilled over into violence.
Shortly after, the tit-for-tat attacks started. A gang took over our house because it was the last house before the Sikh and Hindu areas. My father refused to let them in, but they said they would kill him. So we hid upstairs while they brought big drums of oil for burning houses and sticks for fighting.
The police were already deployed on rooftops, watching. They knew something would happen but they didn't stop it. The Muslim gang broke in and burned lots of Sikh and Hindu houses down that night. People said that most of the residents had fled by then, but I know some were still there.
The worst violence by far was the trains. They arrived full of dead and mutilated bodies, drenched in blood. No one was spared. Muslim refugees arrived in their thousands and took over the houses of the Hindus and Sikhs who had fled. They got Muslim houses in India too.
All the temples and the little shrines the Hindus had in their homes were looted. They left their musical instruments behind, which were either stolen or destroyed.
A lot of the household belongings that were left behind were distributed to the refugees in the park. The authorities did that to help them and people supported it. We also helped the refugees with food and shelter where we were able to. But we couldn't do anything to stop violence on a scale like that. What could we do?
A family that moved into our Hindu neighbour's house had left one of their daughters behind. That happened to a lot of people. Terrible things were done to them, to take away their honour. Thousands were raped, maybe more. Even the suspicion of rape was enough for them to lose their honour. Many were then rejected by their families.
My cousin Fatima Begum took a truck to India several times to try to bring back those women. She risked her life to do it. She found so many desperate women, but most of them refused to return. Thousands of women killed themselves rather than risk being raped. There was such a sacrifice. So many people died, risked their lives and were badly hurt in Partition.
Sixty years later, the dream of our founding father the Qaid-e-Azam (Great Leader) Muhammad Ali Jinnah is nowhere to be seen. God is the only one looking out for Pakistan now. They held me up as a hero for pulling down that flag, even though I didn't know what I was doing, but at least I had my heroes to teach me and correct me. In Pakistan now, there are no heroes left.
