The Times of India's 'Delhi Diary' and Refugees

 

Refugee Assistance Stations like the one in the picture above were established for incoming Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs arriving in Delhi after 1947 (this is a picture I came across on the internet). In many ways, the Punjabi refugee was a discursive construct. Loathed, admired, pitied and respected, the refugee was (and has been) imaginatively woven into the urban fabric of Delhi with each portrayal reflecting larger social anxieties and cultural transformations.

 

I thought I’d historicise this using The Times of India’s ‘Delhi Diary’, a segment written in the late 1940s in the wake of the Partition of India. The Delhi Diary was a series that chronicled change in Delhi, particularly the coming of refugees. It expressed the hopes and anxieties of Delhi’s older and more established elites (Hindus) in the 1940s. In 1948 for example, it complained of the recent ‘Kerbstone merchants’ (refugees) crowding Connaught Circus:

 

“During evenings, when the elite of Delhi frequent this place, it is almost impossible to move along the circular arcades on which the kerbstone merchants have entrenched themselves; frequent collisions between persons are not uncommon and a slight jerk is liable to bring upon oneself a cataract of merchandise…Right at the entrance of a first class tailoring establishment a kerbstone sartorial artist may offer a suit tailored in the best traditions of Lahore for less than half the price charged by the reputed tailoring firm…”

 

However, the refugee wasn’t just a castigated figure. The industrious Punjabi, igniting a culinary and business transformation (clichéd references today) in Delhi finds a mention too. Here is the same segment on the cultural life of the city after Partition, especially on the opening of eateries:

 

“…Eating in restaurants, which not so long ago was considered by Punjabi Hindus as a sin only next to drinking and smoking, is so popular today that one finds an eating house in Delhi at every street corner. Hundreds of hawkers with movable handcarts dotted all over New and Old Delhi have a busy time throughout the day dishing out baked bread and highly spiced cooked grams (kulcha chola) and other delicacies to eager customers.”

 

While the ‘Delhi Diary’ was a short-lived phenomenon (I can’t find a reference to it after 1949), the image of Punjabi refugee in Delhi and the many associations it invokes is enduring.

 

That’s all this week. See you next Friday.