Everyone knows the “house of Fike” in Jhabal Pukhta – “drive to the hospital and take the alleyway to the fields. You’ll find it there”.
The fiqh is Shafiq Ahmed, whose family is now the only Muslim in this village of 3,000, most of them Jat Sikhs, located just 15 km from the India-Pakistan border at Wagah. In the wave of Partition of 1947, among those who migrated to Pakistan were the families of Jhabal Pukhta, including many of Ahmed’s relatives.
His grandfather left, while his grandmother was left behind with Ahmed’s father, Rafiq, who was born in Jhabal Pukhta. Rafiq married here and had three children, Ahmed and two daughters. Daughters are now married to first cousins living in Lahore; Whereas Ahmed married the mafia there about a decade ago and married Jhabal Pukhta.
Between the horrors of Partition and the tales of divided families, lies their happy story: a border that didn’t come in the way. Whenever there is an important occasion in the family – be it this side or that – they make sure to get their travel permits to attend together. By road Jhabal Pukhta is an hour’s drive from Lahore.
Sarpanch Balbir Singh Pattu says, “No special event in the village is complete without the presence of Shafiq and his family, weddings or festivals. His family from Pakistan, especially his two sisters, come here every other year. Last year, Chhota Parauna (his younger brother-in-law) had come from Lahore and spent a month with him.
Pattu’s own grandmother moved from Lahore to Jhabal Pukhta. She is no more, but she remembers her stories of the city and its neighbourhoods.
Ahmed says he personally has not faced much problem in obtaining permits and short-term visas for family functions on either side – except during times of high tension at the border, which included the Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971. Are included. That was the last time he traveled. Lahore for a family wedding many years ago. The sisters visited more regularly, although travel has since stopped. pandemic pandemic started.
Tarn Tarn district has the largest number of border villages along the 553 km long Radcliffe Line, followed by Amritsar and Gurdaspur.
Tight security arrangements are in place in many villages adjacent to the border even from Jhabal Pukhta. Pul Kanjari, the last village on the Indian side, looks like a security post. Most of the agricultural holdings are also located in no man’s land, beyond a barbed wire fence built in the 1980s to deter infiltration.
Villagers say that whenever tensions between India and Pakistan escalate, they have a habit of evacuating people quickly. To hold them back, the young seek a way out as quickly as possible – most of them move to greener pastures in Canada after selling their land. Drug use is considered common. A senior BSF officer posted at the Wagah post says, “For the past decade, youth in border villages have been dominated by drugs, most of which are smuggled through border fences.”
Not so in Jhabal Pukhta, Pattu proudly says, adding that only eight people from the village have migrated to Canada. “Most of the villagers here are self-employed and self-sufficient – either as shopkeepers or as farmers. Be it politics or Pakistan, we remain unaffected.” The village has many schools, both government and private, and good roads.
One thing lacking is good healthcare. “The government hospital neither has facilities for regular check-ups nor enough doctors. It is God’s mercy and we have strict control over the movement that the village remained unaffected COVID-19Otherwise it would have been a disaster,” says Pattu.
One of the schools in Jhabal Pukhta dates back to the 19th century, which was built under the British. Pattu says it has seen vast changes during his 19-year tenure as sarpanch.
Ahmed and Mafia live in a house in the middle of the fields with their two daughters, a younger son and their cattle. The daughters attend Sri Guru Harkishan Public School in Chabal, 2 km away, and Ahmed drops them off on his motorcycle. It is the best private school around, he says.
Ahmed’s father Rafiq, who had not gone to Pakistan, lives in his ancestral house in the village’s residential area.
“This is our village and this is our life,” the mafia says while giving cold syrup to their daughters who have returned from school.
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