Vishav Bharti
Chandigarh, August 13
Migrants from West Punjab, uprooted during the Partition, slowly and slowly stitched their life together with their unwavering courage and, in the process, left an indelible mark not just in agriculture, trade and industrial development of East Punjab, but in the social and cultural life as well.
Unwavering courage
The credit for the establishment of sports industry goes to the initiative and hard work
of the displaced industrialists from West Punjab, who had to undergo many difficulties in the beginning. —Partition of Punjab by Satya M Rai
From Jalandhar’s sports industry to brass rolling industry of Jagadhri, from Rajpura’s industrial development to changes in dietary patterns — it all came with migrants from West Punjab.
West Punjab remained the area of focus for the British for decades. As a result, East Punjab remained neglected in every economic sphere, whether it was agriculture, industry or trade.
“East Punjab compared ill with West Punjab in the development of commerce and industry, or roads and irrigation, of public amenities and of economic opportunities,” MS Randhawa noted in his book “Out of the Ashes”.
At the time of the Partition, there were about 600 factories registered under the Factories Act, employing about 30,000 people. The number of registered factories doubled in the next decade.
Satya M Rai notes in “Partition of Punjab” that the Partition facilitated the growth of certain industries in the province. For instance, Gujranwala industrialists dealing in brass installed 15 brass-rolling mills and 94 brass-utensil-making factories after migrating to Punjab. This added to the already existing brass-rolling mills and brass utensil factories at Jagadhri.
Before the Partition, there was no sports industry in the eastern part of Punjab. Now, it is one of the most important industries in the state. In 1957, sport goods worth Rs 25 lakh were exported to other states. Today, the industry is worth Rs 2,000 crore and employs over 50,000 people.
“The credit for the establishment of this industry goes to the initiative and hard work of the displaced industrialists from the West Punjab, who had to undergo many difficulties in the beginning due to paucity of accommodation, capital and skilled labour,” wrote Rai.
Not just industry, migrants from West Punjab fused new life into the culture of East Punjab as well. “Every dark cloud has a silver lining and the dark cloud of Partition has numerous such linings. The Partition has been a great leveller of humanity,” noted Randhawa.
A large number of Hindus and Sikhs from Rawalpindi and Multan divisions were shopkeepers-cum-money lenders, their resettlement in the stagnant towns of East Punjab quickened the pulse of social life.
“Bazars, with ill-kept shops, have completely changed, and instead we find well-stocked orderly shops with a large variety of goods. The townsmen in the districts of East Punjab were socially backward, and their women purdah-ridden. The vivacious refugee women, particularly from the Rawalpindi division, have brightened the town life. Refugee shopkeepers have penetrated isolated villages, and even in the villages in the desert of Bhiwani in Hissar district, bananas and oranges can be had,” Randhawa wrote.
Migrants from West Punjab also introduced new food habits, including fruits and meat. It is a popular belief that the use of tomatoes became popular with the migration of Bhawalpuris from West Punjab to East Punjab during the Partition. “Fruit shops are found in much larger numbers in all towns in East Punjab, and meat as an article of diet is finding increasing popularity with the vegetarian population of the districts of Ambala Division,” reads an excerpt from “Out of the Ashes”.
