First chronicler of Partition aims to ‘fix responsibility’

Chandigarh, August 11 : The first chronicler of the Partition of 1947, who started building an archive in 1954, says not one of the key figures he interviewed during the process was ready to take responsibility for the monumental human tragedy that unfolded 70 years ago.
Now 93, Prof Kirpal Singh says he aims to “fix the responsibility” for the tragedy in his final work. His journey in Partition’s historiography started in 1953 as a young lecturer at Khalsa College, Amritsar. Bhai Veer Singh called him, he recalls, and said that what happened in 1947 was unique. “It has never happened before, it will never happen again. I want to work on Partition but I am too old to do that. You write Partition’s history” — Bhai Veer Singh’s words still resonate for Prof Kirpal Singh, himself a victim of the tragedy. His assistant started visiting the refugee camps to document the stories of victims and Prof Singh himself started doing the rounds of offices in Shimla and Delhi to fish out records. This continued for two years. The turning point came in 1962, when then Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon offered to send him to the United Kingdom to collect papers related to Punjab. Over six months, Prof Kirpal Singh got a chance to interview the leading figures connected with Partition — from Punjab Boundary Commission chairman Cyril John Radcliffe to Governor of West Punjab Sir Francis Mudie, to Prime Minister Clement Attlee to Mountbatten’s Chief of Staff Hastings Ismay.