In conversation with India Real Time, historian Narayani Gupta takes us on a visual journey of Delhi. After stopping in Chandni Chowk as part of our series on the city, she now takes us to a refugee camp in October 1947.
This is how large parts of Delhi – including heritage sites like Humayun’s Tomb – looked in the immediate aftermath of Partition, which saw an extraordinary migration of people across the new India-Pakistan border.
The influx of refugees changed Delhi dramatically. While it lost much of its Muslim population, the city became the new home of millions of people who came from Pakistan and made the city their own.
What are we seeing here?
This is one of the many photos taken in Delhi between the fall of 1947 and early 1948. Two sets of migrations were taking place, one to Pakistan and one from what became Pakistan. While many in the old city of Delhi left for Karachi and Lahore, there was an enormous influx into the city from many provinces of Pakistan.
Though there was an attempt by the government to create areas where these migrants could settle in the rural areas of Punjab and Haryana, most preferred to live in towns – since many came from towns to begin with. So many headed for Delhi.
Delhi was a very inviting place as there was a lot of empty land between Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi, and New Delhi. So you had people coming and taking over those areas in many different ways: some had their own little habitats, some moved into houses vacated by Muslims and later on many of them were given houses made for them by the government.
Is this how many of Delhi’s “colonies” came into being?
The word colony comes into use only after Independence. It’s a very strange word and I never quite understood why we started using it. Most of the places that they occupied were not called colonies but a very Sanskritized word: “Nagars” – like Malviya Nagar, Kamala Nagar and so on. The places were named after nationalist leaders or, in this case of Kamala Nagar, after Nehru’s wife.
Where are we here?
It’s an area near the Old Fort, a 16th century fort that can be seen on the top left. Because there was a lot of space inside it, the fort was also used to keep Muslims who were going to Pakistan. They were kept there for security reasons, to protect them from any attacks by Hindus.
The Hindus who were coming from Pakistan were located not far from there: in the Tomb of Humayun. So what today we see as two major monuments of Delhi were completely covered with tents, there were cooking arrangements and other things going on on a huge scale for them.
These were not the only refugee camps in Delhi. There were around five million people who came into Delhi around that time and they had to be somehow taken care of because they came in September and it very quickly became winter and it was very cold. So they had to be provided for. This was one of the most amazing tasks of rehabilitation taken over by any government anywhere in the world.
How long did people live in refugee camps?
By the middle of 1948, they were slowly being moved out and were given plots of lands. You can still see them, little plots with tiny little buildings that now have second and third storeys. They looked rather desolate and forlorn because many of them didn’t even have electricity at the time, as these areas were not within the city, but outside it.
But this did lead to a tradition of occupying public land in Delhi. Although today you see them much less, you still see areas that are officially public land being taken over by people who come into the city. They camp there as long as they can and find jobs for themselves. At some stage they are all meant to move on. This is all part of the adventure of coming to Delhi.
How did the refugees change the city?
There was some tension between the people who had been in the city for a long time and felt it belonged to them and those who came in from outside. There was a sense that Delhi had become Punjabi, which is a bit of generalization because apart from Punjabis there were also Sindhis and people from northern provinces. But somehow they were all seen as Punjabis, as “the other.”
The Punjabis who came to Delhi were prepared to work hard to improve their economic conditions, which they did remarkably. This left older residents feeling jealous and peeved that they’d been done out of what would’ve been their share of land or money.
Many of these refugees came from fairly comfortable homes. We hear these stories about carpets and other symbols of elegant living being left behind. But they came to Delhi and squatted on the pavement, set up little repair shops, made their money slowly and pursued greater ambitions. I think this tradition of coming to Delhi and being prepared to work your way to the top has lasted till now.
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