According to the observations made by G.D. Khosla during the Indian government’s Fact Finding mission, honor killings of the kind previously mentioned occurred across several districts of the Punjab throughout the tumultuous months of Partition. But the honor killings that seem to be most ingrained in the South Asian psyche are those that occurred in March 1947, before the official division of the former British Indian Empire, in Rawalpindi. Whether this is due to a higher availability of sources for this area (this is unlikely, though, given the military reports claiming that entire villages of this district had been wiped out), or because the violence committed in Rawalpindi truly was “unparalleled” anywhere else in the Punjab, as Khosla claimed it to be, most of the personal testimonies of witnesses and survivors to honor killings are Sikhs from this district.
[It is important to note that most honor killings have a disproportionately higher occurrence in Sikh communities than in either Hindu or Muslim communities. This does not mean that it did not occur in the other two religious communities; indeed, Hindu women who were later rescued by Indian government social workers as part of the Rescue and Rehabilitation program claimed that they had narrowly escaped their own family’s violence only to be kidnapped by the “Others.” But there is an undeniable Sikh majority in the available testimonies concerning this facet of Partition history, which merits a more detailed look at Sikh culture in another study, if not in this one.]
One village in particular has attained a certain infamy in this regard. In Thoa Khalsa on March 13th, the last day of a nine-day long siege on various Sikh villages in the Rawalpindi district by Muslim mobs, dozens of women decided to commit mass suicide by jumping into a well. The Statesman, an English-language broadsheet newspaper founded in India in 1875, reported on this incidence, so notable was it amongst the other news reports of communal violence.
The story of 90 women of the little village of Thoa Khalsa, Rawalpindi district…who drowned themselves by jumping into a well during the recent disturbances has stirred the imagination of the people of the Punjab. They revived the Rajput tradition of self-immolation when their menfolk were no longer able to protect them. They also followed Mr. Gandhi’s advice to Indian women that in certain circumstances, even suicide was morally preferable to submission.
…About a month ago, a communal army armed with sticks, tommy guns and hand grenades surround the village. The villagers defended themselves as best they could…but in the end they had to raise the white flag. Negotiations followed. A sum of Rs. 10,000 was demanded… it was promptly paid. The intruders gave solemn assurance that they would not come back.
The promise was broken the next day. They returned to demand more money and in the process hacked to death 40 of the defenders. Heavily outnumbered, they were unable to resist the onslaught. Their women held a hurried meeting and concluded that all was lost but their honour. Ninety women jumped into the small well. Only three were saved-there was not enough water in the well to drown them all.
-The Statesman, March 15, 1947
Though the violence that occurred in Thoa Khalsa between March 6th and March 13th, 1947 was certainly notable, this village was not the only site of such honor killings. We do, however, have at least two testimonies of survivors of the events in Thoa Khalsa, which has attained a certain legendary quality in India. One of these two testimonies is especially notable in that it is that of a woman; and not just a female witness, but one of the few survivors of the mass drowning. Her testimony, as well as of a number of other women and girls of different villages who were either subjected or witness to honor killings, provides us with a unique perspective on this type of gender-based violence. The female testimonies differ from the male testimonies (of which there is, unsurprisingly, significantly more) in very unique and telling ways, perhaps most so between Basant Kaur and her son, Bir Bahadur Singh, both of whom can testify to the tragedy of Thoa Khalsa.