Nirmal Joshi
Nirmal Joshi was born into a middle-class Hindu family in the outskirts of Lahore. Nirmal observed that hopes for independence from British rule were first about desh prem, love for your homeland, but soon became about love of your religion. A close Muslim neighbour told Nirmal’s parents he had attended a secret neighbourhood meeting of Muslims and that their daughters were not safe. He took Nirmal with her mother and sister in a horse and cart to Lahore station where they took a train to Jalandhar, in Indian Punjab. A Sikh man they met at the station also showed them great kindness by taking them in temporarily.
Houses in Jalandhar were supposed to be allocated to the Sikh and Hindu refugees arriving but there was corruption where families already living there were trying to seize property for themselves. Nirmal’s family were disadvantaged as they did not have a male family member with them. Eventually they were given a home and her father joined them, where they lived for the next 40 years. Nirmal volunteered at a refugee camp where she saw women who had survived sexual attacks.
She later married and moved to England with her husband and son, where racism was rife and open. She passed away 10 years ago but her story is told by her daughter, Poonam Joshi.