The Qadian Diary — Page xvi
viii of Muslims on the Indian side, and similar numbers of Hindus situated in Pakistan, sparking a new and terrifying chain of blood- shed and mass migration which turned the Punjab in particular into the epicentre of the Partition era disturbances. Communities that had once coexisted for centuries turned against each other in terrifying acts of sectarian violence. Murderous gangs attacked convoys of people fleeing across the new border; whole villages were set on fire; and other atrocities such as forced conversions, abductions, and acts of sexual savagery blighted the province. According to some estimates by 1948, when the chaos had finally begun to subside, more than 15 million people had been uprooted, almost a million people had been killed in sectarian violence, and also from diseases that ravaged through makeshift refugee camps, and some seventy-five thousand women had been raped. No place was spared, including the then headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and the birthplace of the founder of the movement, the town of Qadian. It was against this backdrop that Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad MA ra , a son of the founder of the community, began to keep a regular diary of the Partition era disturbances. Spanning from March 1947 to February 1948 the diary charts the violence and horrors that gripped the Punjab in the lead up to the Partition, and Qadian and the areas surrounding it in particular. While the initial outbreak of violence did not reach the town, events took a dramatic turn after the announcement of the Radcliffe Award. There had existed a general assumption that Gurdaspur, the district Qadian is situated in, would fall within the territory of Pakistan, and indeed according to most contemporary accounts from the time Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the chairman of the Boundary Commission, had originally earmarked the district for the new Muslim-majority nation. A last minute change of heart, however,