I was born in 1939 in a tiny village in the Gujrat district of what is now Pakistan. No one, even in Pakistan, seems to have heard of the village Allaha, though it is on my passport to this day. Our home was a nondescript one—a one-and-a-half room structure on one side of a dusty street; on the other side was a tall, white, mansion-like habitat with a weathercock on top, which fascinated us kids for hours.
We moved to Delhi before the Partition—perhaps sometime around 1941. My father responded to the Quit India call and was put in a Multan prison for six months. My mother passed away, perhaps in 1943 or 44, leaving behind five young children. My eldest sister, then 12 or 13, was withdrawn from school to look after her siblings. She never held it against us when we grew up and found our spaces in life.
A year or so before Partition, my father married his first cousin, his paternal uncle’s daughter, back in Allaha. The marriage procession consisted of the groom and his only son, me; the bidai procession added my new mother. It couldn’t have been simpler.
On August 2 or 3, 1947, my grandmother landed at our home in Delhi and suggested that she and my mother go back to the village and escort the rest of the extended family to Delhi, and bring with them whatever savings they had. Father was aghast at the suggestion and appealed to grandma to hold on for another 12-13 days. After independence—to which he seriously thought he had a personal claim—had been celebrated, he would go there himself, instead of two women going on such a tough mission. Even at this stage, they did not suspect any great mishap in the offing. Grandma insisted and father had to give in.
The two women left Delhi for Allaha. That was the last we ever heard about them. The members of the family they had gone out to rescue, however, found their way to Delhi. Father was heartbroken. Understandably.
Then an incident brought him some hope. He was lightly educated, but was always a stickler for reason and logic to understand and explain any phenomenon; God had no place in his scheme. One day, he was whiling away his time on the broad street in old Delhi then called Faiz Bazaar, now Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Road. A road show was on, where a boy lies on the floor “unconscious” and the master of the show keeps asking him about the problems facing members of the audience. Father was laughing away at the tamasha when suddenly the master asked the boy what his, father’s, problem was. To his great astonishment, the boy spelt out his wife’s name and announced that she was hiding in a building in our village, both of which he identified correctly without father even having to ask him to.
He was dumbstruck and his skepticism gave way to a faint hope—who knows, the boy might even be right. So he decided to take a chance. In around October, he travelled to Lahore and then on to the village. He was just short of six feet tall and, with a kullah (Afghani headgear), could easily pass off as Pathan. In Delhi, most of his friends in Darya Ganj, where we lived, were Muslims and he was familiar with their etiquette, besides knowing Urdu well. He faced no problem in looking up the particular building, but there was no trace of his young wife.
On his return, he wrote a short piece titled My visit to Pakistan, which was never published. But I remember some crucial parts of it. In Lahore he stayed with his Muslim friends from Faiz Bazar who had migrated to Pakistan. In the streets of Lahore, the real Pathans were shooting at street lights and in the air because there were no Hindus left to kill. His Muslim friends, who had given him shelter and support, risked their lives and properties for him. The slightest hint that they were knowingly hiding and supporting a kafir from India would give the Pathans the ‘legitimate’ right to wipe them out and plunder their house. But the truth remained with his hosts.
In the end, father couldn’t find his wife. But he was able to reaffirm the one faith he had: that as often as not, human relations override political, national and even religious dividing lines.
Harbans Mukhia, an acclaimed historian of medieval India and the author of a number of books on the Mughals, was Rector at Jawaharlal Nehru University from 1999 to 2002. His essay, “Was There Feudalism in Indian History?” led to an international debate in the Journal of Peasant Studies between 1985 and 1993. His collection of Urdu poems (kuch udaas nazmeiN) was published in 2025. This memoir, submitted by the author, was published on August 15, 2017 as part of the Wire’s #PartitionAt70 series.
Update by Anjum Altaf
On reading this memoir sometime after its publication in 2017, I was able, with the help of my students, to trace the village of Professor Mukhia’s birth. The village, now in Mandi Bahauddin district, is called Ahla and not Allaha as recorded on his passport, perhaps the reason it had remained untraceable for him.
In 2020 I visited Ahla to trace the home Professor Mukhia had described in his memoir with reference to the landmark across from it (tall, white, mansion-like habitat with a weathercock on top). I finally found the oldest man in the village who guided me to the most likely location. I presume this memory was retained because prior to Independence, mukhias were influential persons in each community with both civil and judicial powers. (The informant also located where the dharamshala used to be.)
During this search a tremendous amount of curiosity was generated about Professor Mukhia. Within a few hours, the headmaster of the Ahla high school had accessed the available information. One of his discoveries was the memoir published above. He had highlighted the conclusion—”My father was able to reaffirm the one faith he had: that as often as not, human relations override political, national and even religious dividing lines.”
The outpouring of pride for a son of the soil who had distinguished himself in the world was palpable as was the sentiment that “those who are so far away still care for them.” This response was driven by one single emotion—the memory of a relationship—that did indeed transcend all other associations, a verdict repeated often by many.
I sensed that Professor Mukhia was providing the village a new window to a world of scholarship and intellectual inquiry which would be invaluable for students lacking similar role models to shape their aspirations. His acceptance in the village encouraged me to revisit an idea I had been toying with—to institutionalise Professor Mukhia’s association with Ahla and link it with education. In the big city this idea had been met with much skepticism and apprehension which were all washed away when I broached it in the village. For me this was a huge lesson in the mismatch that can exist between what we assume about certain phenomena and what actually exists on the ground in the hearts and minds of human beings.
Thus was born the Harbans Mukhia Distinguished Student Award for the student who topped the matriculation examination from the government high school in Ahla. This generated a demand for photographs and biographical notes that would be displayed at the entrance to the school “as an inspiration for the students.” There was a request for copies of Professor Mukhia’s books to display for the students—I had taken along a copy of The Mughals of India all of whose covers and flaps were photographed. The principal of the degree college in Mandi Bahauddin (located in the building that used to be the Khalsa School) also asked for copies for his students.
The first award was conferred in December 2020 at a ceremony in the school grounds.
Note: Soon after, the Covid pandemic struck interrupting school examinations and travel arrangements resulting in a break in what was intended to be an annual award.
The best thing that could have happened happened.
What a lovely way to bring Dr. Mukhia back to his village. It was a great pleasure for me to practice my Urdu reading as well.