Prem Uncle's Story: A Family Member Murdered in Hindu-Muslim Carnage

“We didn’t have much use for these, you know: Hindus, Muslims. You live there. I live there. We were kids, then, really just kids. And neighbors.”

I could tell from the way that Prem uncle said this, with a tight frown on his face, his neck craned, and his old eyes gazing up toward the rood, that he meant it….at least once upon a time.

“We were twenty-two, twenty-three years old, like you, no?” He glanced at me, nodded, and went on without waiting for a reply. I was twenty-five at the time, about to travel to Pakistan to do a story on the ongoing conflict in Kashmir, laying over in Delhi where a lot of my family lives now, quizzing my great Prem uncle about events that took place fifty years ago

“We went to the bars and nightclubs and drank together, got drunk together -- we all loved scotch in those days -- the town, all of Lahore, it was ours. It belonged to us.”

In 1947, India had just gained independence from Great Britain. Like may colonial outposts, until that time civil tensions had taken a backseat to resistance against the more immediate problem of imperialist rule. But the unrest and brewing animosity between Hindus and Muslims that had existed in India for hundreds of years was once more at the tipping point.

“It was a crazy time. All of a sudden ‘freedom.’ What did that mean? Things from the day before hadn’t changed at all, and yet, everything -- everything -- was different.

Gotham Chopra regularly blogs at www.intent.com