Suffering, Survival and Sustenance: Meos’ Post-Partition Experiences in Pakistan

Abstract

More than half a million Meos from the former princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur and the Gurgaon district of the former province of East Punjab, facing discrimination, hostility and violence in the wake of the 1947 Partition, opted to trek to Pakistan. Arriving there six weeks later, bedraggled and bereft, they faced further travails as disease swept through the refugee camps. Many died, while the survivors were eventually settled along the newly created international Punjab border between India and Pakistan. A decade later, however, they were displaced by the Pakistan state in the name of border consolidation. This article traces the Meo experience of multiple state displacements, survival and re-establishing lives in the early years of Pakistan’s history when the postcolonial state was still working out its responsibilities in the process of nation formation and border consolidation. In reconstructing the story of the state’s interpreting of Meos through its files in the hitherto untapped archives, supplemented with first-hand accounts from members of the community, this article provides new insights into the existing situation of the Meos and their relationship with both the local population and the authorities and, as such, reveals many dichotomies in state and community interactions.