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Khurshid Sultana

Khurshid Sultana, a Muslim woman, grew up in Delhi where her best friends at schools were two Hindu girls. They regularly used to visit each other's homes and did everything together, though the girls would not eat in Khurshid’s home. At school in the early 1940s she joined processions alongside Hindus, Sikhs , Muslims and Christians  demanding that the British leave. Together they sang patriotic songs for their homeland Hindustan, which forms part of present day Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

Khurshid never imagined that independence would involve partition or violence, but eventually her family were forced to flee Delhi. They first lived in a tented refugee camp by the train station in Karachi then moved to army barracks where her father started a business supplying office machines to companies. Khurshid was originally from the Punjab – where she had family members at the time of partition. The village they lived in became part of India so they had to flee to Pakistan. Some of her   were killed, others were protected by the Sikhs in the village.

Khurshid never felt completely welcomed into Karachi society, and said there was little mixing of the newly arrived refugees and Sindhis who already lived there. She was called a Muhajir, meaning migrant, which still upsets Khurshid. Despite this, Khurshid still feels that partition was the best solution. She later left Pakistan and now lives with her family in Hertfordshire, where she has worked as a gynaecologist and a community health office.