Dear Khushwant Singh ji,Though there is no doubt that you know about our country and our history far better and more than I,but whenever I re-read some of your writings I feel a sort of uneasiness at your reputation for being anupright and infallible historian.One of the cruelest and most shameful wounds on the face of our recent history is the 1947 partitionriots. I was not born then but I have heard and read so much about that colossal bloodbath that I feel likealmost having lived through it. And I have spent a part of my waking time wondering why it all happened?“
Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslimswere to blame. The fact is, both sides killed. Both shot and stabbed and speared and clubbed. Both tortured.Both raped
”, these innocent looking words written by you in
Train to Pakistan
have almost become anaggressive slogan which goes blatantly against historical accuracy. I do not know what you exactly had inmind when you wrote this, probably to ensure peace in future, you sacrificed the truth. Of course it is a factthat both sides committed acts of terrors, but their motives for action were polar opposite: the Sikh attack onthe Muslims in East Punjab was
a pure retaliation
when after months of abnormally superhuman toleranceagainst the clearly preplanned and highly organized offensive to cow down Sikhs, a means to carry onamong them a total campaign of murder, arson, loot and abduction of Sikh women, Sikh patience finallybroke down. In contrast to this the Muslim operation,
totally unprovoked
, had begun as early as December 1946, as a result of what millions Sikhs and Hindus had already lost their property, ancestral homes and near and dear ones for no fault of their own.Your favorite nightmare – that famous jeepfulls of armed Sikhs which you saw on the road to Delhi inAugust ’47, who
boasted
of killing whole villages of Muslims, were doing that because they had seen their mothers, sisters or daughters literally torn apart. They were simply not in right state of mind. This is not tosuggest that they be declared totally not-guilty or what they did was justified but please let’s not put them inthe same category as those Muslims who did all this under cold command of the League to cause havoc andexodus of absolutely innocent infidels.And I don’t want to add this but I must: In fact the Muslim launch was so outrageously unrestrained thatthe only way of discouraging the massacre of Hindus-Sikhs on the western side was simply to start doingsame on this side.Now please don’t get me wrong – I am not one of your mindless anti-islamists so abundant these days,who look at everything through a prism of hatred. In fact, just like you, most of my friends are muslims. Oneof them is Mr M. A. Khan, a highly commendable person, one of the few brave people who had the courageto stand-up against the fire-spiting Dr Zakir Naik (just like you once dared to oppose Bhindrawale’s hate-preaching ! ). This is what Mr Khan recently wrote to me about you : "
I have some following of Khushwant Singh. He is big useful idiot of Islam. I have seen his other commentaries which is similarly themed.However, over last few months, I have noticed a change in his tone. Too bad, he is not going to last long at this age in order to undo part of great harm he has done by placating Islam out of his utter ignorance.
"Though unlike Khan I cannot dare to accuse you of “utter ignorance”, for your offensive against truth goesdeeper. In
A History of the Sikhs
you have even tried to apologize for what Muslims did in 1947! You havetried to shift the whole blame onto Sikhs by adjudging them culpable of “playing peace-makers” and having“professed neutral creed” and even just for being richer than Muslims ! Here it needs a really keen eye tosee the inconspicuous blow you have dealt : Sikhs may or may not have played peacemakers for all youcare, what you really wanted to impress here is that Sikhs and Hindus are
different
! This seed sown by youwould later become the kernel to the philosophy that played disaster and almost brought to the nation toanother partition. In the early eighties as the Harimandir Sahib was being fortified, Bhindrawale, anuneducated peasant, would tell a western journalist that Sikhism is a “revealed religion” and he himself isleading “people of the book” i.e. the Sikhs are not only not-Hindus but are also anti-Hindus like all abrahamiccreeds essentially are.
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you're right man