Thread by @IndicHistory

In the dead of the night, a young girl woke up to find her parents burn newspaper in the courtyard. She was confused. A few days ago, her elder sister was stopped on her way to college by a group of men. Her parents burning newspapers in the dead of the night made no sense.

The mother came into the house and took the girl to the courtyard. Her elder sister was standing there in a corner, trembling in fear. The half awake, confused girl looked at her parents & her sister. The next thing she knew, her mother took a fistful of burnt newspaper..

and smeared it on her face. Next the mother took another fistful and smeared it on the face of the elder sister. The mother then dressed both the sisters in old dirty clothes. Together with the parents they got on to a tonga with just one steel trunk and left.

They crossed a river, took a train and arrived at Darsana, a border town near the modern day district of Nadia in West Bengal. Having crossed safely to the Indian side, the mother asked the sisters to wash their faces and change into fresh clothes.

The young girl grew up and settled in Kurseong where her husband worked as a manager in a tea estate. It was much later that she got to know why they had to leave their home in the dead of the night with their faces smeared in ash.

Her mother told her that they feared for the safety of the girls ever since her elder sister was stopped by the group of men. There were many cases where young Hindu girls were abducted & raped. To save the sisters from a similar fate, they decided to leave.

It was a long journey and they did not want to take any risks, hence they blackened their faces with ash and dressed them in shabby clothes so as to not attract attention.

This is a real life incident that was narrated to me by the friend of that young girl in Delhi. The days leading up to the partition were brutal. We know a lot about what happened in Punjab, but the story of Bengal is lesser known.

#PartitionHorrorsRemembranceDay