Earlier this year, at a newly opened border crossing between India and Pakistan, Sadiq Khan fell into the arms of his younger brother, Sikka, tears of joy and sadness flooding the two men as their decades apart came to an end. The brothers had not seen each other since August 1947, the year their family was torn apart by the violence and chaos of the partition of British India into two separate countries, India and Pakistan. For decades, neither man knew if the other was even alive. “I’ve been trying to find my brother forever,” Sikka Khan, 75, told CBC News last week at his home in the village of Phulewal, in India’s northern Punjab state. “Whenever someone went to Pakistan, I would ask about my brother, to see if he was there or not. I even wrote letters that never reached him, but I never learned anything about my brother.”
The search started on YouTube
The reunion in January 2022 happened by chance, via social media. A friend from Sikka’s village came across a YouTube channel, Punjabi Lehar, which has been working to reunite loved ones who have been separated since 1947. WATCHES | Brothers separated by the partition of India reunited:
Decades after the partition of India, the younger generation is helping families reunite
The partition of India that created both it and Pakistan in 1947 forced the rapid relocation of some 14 million people and left over a million dead. Now, younger generations are helping family members reunite decades after their forced removal. The channel’s founder, Nasir Dhillon, lives in the same city as the older Khan brother and helped create an initial video call between the two brothers. He then worked for months to arrange their first in-person meeting. The heartwarming video of the two brothers reuniting quickly went viral. In it, you can hear Sadiq, now in his 80s, telling his brother: “Don’t cry — God has finally reunited us.” As India and Pakistan celebrate the 75th anniversary of their respective independence, Facebook pages and YouTube channels are growing in popularity, helping to connect loved ones who were separated during the violence that accompanied the 1947 partition. PHOTOS | India celebrates 75 years of independence: There is even a push, spearheaded by younger generations, to use virtual reality to help elderly survivors who want to see the homes and villages they left behind more than seven decades ago but cannot travel.
“The inspiration came from my elders”
According to Dhillon, in the seven years he’s been online, Punjabi Lehar’s YouTube channel has been instrumental in about 300 reconnections. He told CBC News that successful reunions are what make the project worth the effort it takes to maintain the channel. “The inspiration came from my elders, my dad, my grandfather,” Dhillon, 38, said. On August 15, 1947, British rule in India ended in a hastily staged retreat and the subcontinent was divided into two nations divided along religious lines, a Hindu-majority but officially secular India and a predominantly Muslim Pakistan. It was a violent split that sparked deadly riots. About 15 million people were displaced, causing one of the largest mass migrations in history. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs on both sides of the newly created border were forced to move. Many had to board trains that were overcrowded and were ambushed en route. Some trains have reportedly pulled into stations with all passengers dead. More than a million people are estimated to have died in the riots that followed partition as sectarian tensions ended.
Running for his life
Before the bloodshed, the Khan family lived in the Ludhiana district of Punjab on the Indian side. But Sikka, not yet a year old, and his mother were visiting her village further east in India when news came that the country was to be partitioned. The fraternal reunion in January 2022 came about by chance, via social media. A friend from Sikka’s village came across a YouTube channel that works to reunite loved ones who have been separated since 1947. (Salimah Shivji/CBC) Sadiq, 10 at the time, was with his father and eight-year-old sister when they were caught up in the violence. At first they tried to hide, like other Muslims in their village, Jagraon. “The rioters broke our mud roofs with torches and many women, children and old people died,” Sadiq told the CBC from his current home in Faisalabad, northeastern Pakistan. His father was killed in the clashes. his sister got sick on her way to a refugee camp and also didn’t make it. Sadiq remembers being escorted by the Pakistani army, along with other Muslims who fled India, to the new country in the east. The only other surviving family member was an aunt. “At night, we walked over dead bodies to get to the [refugee] camp,” he recalls. This experience was made even more horrifying when he lost a shoe and was told to forget it and run for his life. He will never forget the horrors, Sadiq said, which he likened to living through hell. “What happened is deeply rooted in our hearts. The memories flash before my eyes,” he said.
“People around me came and saved me”
Sadiq only recently found out from his younger brother that in the chaos of the forced displacement, their mother – grieving and traumatized when she couldn’t find the rest of her family after weeks of violence – ended up drowning. Sikka, just six months old, was taken in by a Sikh family in his mother’s village who were helping to house their Muslim neighbours. “People around me came and saved me,” Sikka said. Until they were reunited this year, neither brother knew the fate of the parent who was with the other. The brothers are grateful to Dhillon and others behind the YouTube channel for bringing them back together. They also credit the media attention their viral video received for reducing visa wait times, which has allowed them to visit each other twice since their initial reunion for extended weeks each time. Sadiq talks to his brother on a smartphone, surrounded by grandchildren. (Naveed Mohammad/CBC) Both India and Pakistan, close neighbors with strained relations, maintain strict visa requirements that regulate who can cross the border.
He calls for freer cross-border movement
Despite the heartbreak, Sikka said he and his brother are luckier than other families torn apart by partition. He has a simmering anger towards the governments of both countries and would like to see visa restrictions relaxed so that Indians and Pakistanis can cross the border comfortably. “I don’t know why we’re still fighting. What are the reasons?” he said. “Why should families suffer?” Now that they have finally found each other, the Khan brothers make do with their physical separation by making frequent video calls. They talk at length, exchanging news, with the younger brother often asking Sadiq to tell him about his family or to point out relatives in old photographs. They fight often, just like siblings who have grown up together. But they agree on what they want now: to love the time they have left. “We are both grown up,” said Sadiq. “Our only wish is to get our visas as soon as possible so we can stay together.” “It feels like we’re staying together now, forever,” echoed his brother. “Here in India or there [in Pakistan]as long as we’re together — we don’t want to be apart.”
