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The decision to carve Pakistan from India in 1947 led to the migration of around 15 million people across the newly-formed border. Millions of Hindus and Sikhs fled south while many of India’s Muslims headed to Pakistan, a migration that was fraught with religious violence. This dampened the jubilation that came with independence from British rule on Aug. 15, 1947.
Many of the refugees who left Pakistan found a new home in Delhi. Between 1941 and 1951, the city’s population nearly doubled to around 1.7 million people.
This influx of people redefined the city’s topography and its commercial life. New neighborhoods were built to house them, giving rise to most of what is present-day south and west Delhi. Having left their jobs and most of their belongings behind, the refugees who came to Delhi had to start from scratch. Many went on to build thriving businesses.
As part of our series on 100 years of New Delhi, India Real Time brings you the stories of two refugees-turned-entrepreneurs.
Bahrisons
Balraj Bahri Malhotra, left, seen with his son Anuj at the Bahrisons Bookshop in Khan Market.
The first is Balraj Bahri Malhotra, the founder and owner of Bahrisons Bookshop in Khan Market, one of Delhi’s best-stocked bookshops. Mr. Malhotra, who is now 84, moved to Delhi from a small Pakistani town when he was a teenager. Now Bahrisons Bookshop has three branches and his son Anuj runs the shop. Here is his story. Edited excerpts.
My family came from a small town in Pakistan called Malakwal. I was 19 years old when we moved to Delhi after Partition.
Partition was painful and we witnessed the worst atrocities. We had to leave our ancestral home before Aug. 15, 1947. Riots began, forcing us to take refuge in a local police station for a few days. A cotton factory had been set up as a temporary camp for the fleeing Hindus. We stayed there for almost 10 days.
We left everything we had behind and set off from Malakwal railway station. We were relieved to have left the violence and the riots behind, but we feared for our security until we reached Amritsar, a city that suddenly was no longer part of the same country.
The train we took was overloaded and we were herded onto it like buffaloes. There was barely room for anyone to breathe, many people traveled on the roof of the train. The move was tough, but the most painful memory was when my father was pulled off the train by his colleagues at the bank. They wanted to take him away because they needed his expertise to run the bank. We begged them not to, but they insisted. We were told that our father would soon be allowed to join us and so my father stayed back. We feared we would never reunite.
My mother and my siblings went back on the train and as we approached Amritsar, it gradually dawned upon us that we were now refugees. After a brief stay in Amritsar, our father joined us and we made our way to New Delhi, which we heard had better arrangements for refugees. Once in Delhi, we settled in the refugee camp at Kingsway Camp. It resembled army barracks and the toilets were shared. It took us a while to adjust.
Bahrisons
In this picture, Mr. Malhotra’s family is seen at their home in Delhi, in early years after the partition.
Starting a life from scratch was even harder than the move itself and we had to grab whatever odd job came our way. We had no choice. My brother and I first worked at a railway platform and on our first day of work we made 16 rupees ($0.31), a significant sum in those days. That night my mother celebrated the fact her sons’ earned their first salary!
Then I joined an institute in Safdarjung, which was six miles from our camp. I was required to get there early in the morning. I walked the entire distance on foot until my mother put together some money to get me a bicycle. That is a memory that will always be etched in my mind. I had a lot of temporary jobs, I worked as a salesman and for a while I loaded and unloaded government books at a railway station. But there were days when we had no work at all and we lived off rationed goods provided by the government.
A few years down the line, while working at a shop in Chandni Chowk, I heard that shops in Khan Market were being allocated to refugees. But I had little money. With the help of my employer, a politician, in 1953 we got a shop in Khan Market. We were given a space that was roughly a third the size of our present shop.
No one in my family had any experience selling books and we had little money to start off with. We made an initial investment of 800 rupees ($15.68), which was quite a lot for those days. We took a loan from a friend and started the business. That was the foundation of what became Bahrisons.
I used to open the shop at 9 a.m., take requests from customers and work until 1 p.m, when I would close the shop for lunch. I would then take my bicycle to meet a friend, who was also a book seller. He introduced me to the business of book-selling and would either supply me titles from his own shelves or take me to the Old City to look for them. At 5.30 p.m. I would open the shop again. This was my routine for years. I have seen Delhi change over the years. Khan Market went from being a refugee market to a posh market.
Bahrisons
Mr. Malhotra with his wife, on the right, on their wedding day.
I met my wife in the refugee camp. We became friends and our parents arranged our marriage in 1955. We had little money in those days, but we loved going to India Gate and Chandni Chowk.
When we were still struggling, we often remembered our time in Pakistan, where we lived like princes. While in Pakistan we had vast agricultural lands, in Delhi we were the paupers of the city, struggling to make ends meet. We wished Partition never happened, and our minds often wandered to the other side of the border.
The people here in Delhi helped us rebuild our lives. But there was also a lot of resentment: many locals accused refugees of taking their share of jobs and rations. But Delhi eventually became our home. Our hearts are now here. I never thought of returning to Pakistan.
m.us.wsj.com/articles/BL-IRTB-13671
Many of the refugees who left Pakistan found a new home in Delhi. Between 1941 and 1951, the city’s population nearly doubled to around 1.7 million people.
This influx of people redefined the city’s topography and its commercial life. New neighborhoods were built to house them, giving rise to most of what is present-day south and west Delhi. Having left their jobs and most of their belongings behind, the refugees who came to Delhi had to start from scratch. Many went on to build thriving businesses.
As part of our series on 100 years of New Delhi, India Real Time brings you the stories of two refugees-turned-entrepreneurs.
Bahrisons
Balraj Bahri Malhotra, left, seen with his son Anuj at the Bahrisons Bookshop in Khan Market.
The first is Balraj Bahri Malhotra, the founder and owner of Bahrisons Bookshop in Khan Market, one of Delhi’s best-stocked bookshops. Mr. Malhotra, who is now 84, moved to Delhi from a small Pakistani town when he was a teenager. Now Bahrisons Bookshop has three branches and his son Anuj runs the shop. Here is his story. Edited excerpts.
My family came from a small town in Pakistan called Malakwal. I was 19 years old when we moved to Delhi after Partition.
Partition was painful and we witnessed the worst atrocities. We had to leave our ancestral home before Aug. 15, 1947. Riots began, forcing us to take refuge in a local police station for a few days. A cotton factory had been set up as a temporary camp for the fleeing Hindus. We stayed there for almost 10 days.
We left everything we had behind and set off from Malakwal railway station. We were relieved to have left the violence and the riots behind, but we feared for our security until we reached Amritsar, a city that suddenly was no longer part of the same country.
The train we took was overloaded and we were herded onto it like buffaloes. There was barely room for anyone to breathe, many people traveled on the roof of the train. The move was tough, but the most painful memory was when my father was pulled off the train by his colleagues at the bank. They wanted to take him away because they needed his expertise to run the bank. We begged them not to, but they insisted. We were told that our father would soon be allowed to join us and so my father stayed back. We feared we would never reunite.
My mother and my siblings went back on the train and as we approached Amritsar, it gradually dawned upon us that we were now refugees. After a brief stay in Amritsar, our father joined us and we made our way to New Delhi, which we heard had better arrangements for refugees. Once in Delhi, we settled in the refugee camp at Kingsway Camp. It resembled army barracks and the toilets were shared. It took us a while to adjust.
Bahrisons
In this picture, Mr. Malhotra’s family is seen at their home in Delhi, in early years after the partition.
Starting a life from scratch was even harder than the move itself and we had to grab whatever odd job came our way. We had no choice. My brother and I first worked at a railway platform and on our first day of work we made 16 rupees ($0.31), a significant sum in those days. That night my mother celebrated the fact her sons’ earned their first salary!
Then I joined an institute in Safdarjung, which was six miles from our camp. I was required to get there early in the morning. I walked the entire distance on foot until my mother put together some money to get me a bicycle. That is a memory that will always be etched in my mind. I had a lot of temporary jobs, I worked as a salesman and for a while I loaded and unloaded government books at a railway station. But there were days when we had no work at all and we lived off rationed goods provided by the government.
A few years down the line, while working at a shop in Chandni Chowk, I heard that shops in Khan Market were being allocated to refugees. But I had little money. With the help of my employer, a politician, in 1953 we got a shop in Khan Market. We were given a space that was roughly a third the size of our present shop.
No one in my family had any experience selling books and we had little money to start off with. We made an initial investment of 800 rupees ($15.68), which was quite a lot for those days. We took a loan from a friend and started the business. That was the foundation of what became Bahrisons.
I used to open the shop at 9 a.m., take requests from customers and work until 1 p.m, when I would close the shop for lunch. I would then take my bicycle to meet a friend, who was also a book seller. He introduced me to the business of book-selling and would either supply me titles from his own shelves or take me to the Old City to look for them. At 5.30 p.m. I would open the shop again. This was my routine for years. I have seen Delhi change over the years. Khan Market went from being a refugee market to a posh market.
Bahrisons
Mr. Malhotra with his wife, on the right, on their wedding day.
I met my wife in the refugee camp. We became friends and our parents arranged our marriage in 1955. We had little money in those days, but we loved going to India Gate and Chandni Chowk.
When we were still struggling, we often remembered our time in Pakistan, where we lived like princes. While in Pakistan we had vast agricultural lands, in Delhi we were the paupers of the city, struggling to make ends meet. We wished Partition never happened, and our minds often wandered to the other side of the border.
The people here in Delhi helped us rebuild our lives. But there was also a lot of resentment: many locals accused refugees of taking their share of jobs and rations. But Delhi eventually became our home. Our hearts are now here. I never thought of returning to Pakistan.
m.us.wsj.com/articles/BL-IRTB-13671
