India won its Independence from the British on August 14, 1947. Within a few months, an ancient and stable multicultural society lay in tatters, with close to two million innocent people dead, either murdered or dead of disease and starvation. Nobody has ever been charged for this mind-numbing calamity.

I was ten years old then. This is the story of events as I witnessed, leading to and following the Independence.

I am deeply grateful to my brother Rafiq who is the only other living survivor of our family from 1947. His phenomenal memory has filled many gaps

M. Zahir

M. Zahir was born in Ludhiana in the Indian Province of Punjab in 1936. His father was a doctor in the Punjab Medical Service and at the time of the Indian Independence was in charge of the Government Hospital in the small town of Mukerian. Zahir describes the ancient multicultural society he lived in, and its sudden and complete destruction in 1947 when India achieved its Independence.

India’s independence from the British Raj was accompanied by division of the country into India and Pakistan, a divide which resulted in unspeakable violence with the death of close to two million people. Caught on the wrong side of the dividing line between India and Pakistan, Zahir’s family tried to leave by train to Pakistan. The train was ambushed and almost all the Muslim’s were killed on the spot. Miraculously, a young Hindu put his own life in grave danger to save most of Zahir’s family.

As a boy, Zahir witnessed firsthand what is described as the ‘the greatest loss of civilian life in human history in the absence of war or famine’.

Now, over sixty years later, in this meticulously remembered memoir, Zahir describes the events leading to Indian Independence, the catastrophic train journey, and his life in the new country of Pakistan. The legacy of those events still haunts the world.

Zahir, a Rhodes Scholar and a retired physician, now lives in Victoria, Canada.