Citation

Umar M, Umar F. J. Res. Soc. Pak. 2020; 57(4): 162-169.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Research Society of Pakistan, Publisher Information Technology Centre University of the Punjab)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

The paper aims at understanding and explaining mass-suicide of Sikh women in Thoa Khalsa village during the onslaught of violence in Rawalpindi district in March 1947. It first looks into the operative beliefs that were at play behind gendered violence targeted against women, and then describe the incident of self_x0002_killings in Thoa Khalsa followed by exploring the place of Thoa Khalsa incident in Sikh memorialisation. Women, particularly the Sikh women, became vulnerable targets of familial violence because her body came to be seen as a site of family and community honour which needed to be rescued from any defilement from the religious "other". In this regard, the tragic episode of self-killings of Sikh women in Thoa Khalsa village stands out as a reference unmatched in the entire Partition historiography. In March 1947, in the wake of the attack by the Muslim rioters the Sikh women sacrificed their lives by drowning into a well to escape suffering and humiliation from the perpetrators of violence. Sikh women were treated as symbol of a macro-community and their dishonour was linked to the Sikh panth. For this reason, their act of mass-drowning was viewed not as "community-orchestrated murder"; but it was rather hailed as an act of heroism and bravery which upheld the honour and chastity of the Sikh community.

Language: en