RAWALPINDI, Punjab: Pre-Partition Rawalpindi had shared neighbourhoods and Hindu- and Sikh-led markets before violence and migration transformed the city in 1947, according to an elderly resident’s account.
Chaudhry Muhammad Arif, an 82-year-old retired Pakistan Army officer and former additional inspector general of police, shared his childhood memories and stories passed down by relatives with Arab News.
Arif estimated that Rawalpindi had 50,000 to 60,000 residents before Partition. Hindu and Sikh merchants controlled much of the city’s commercial activity, while many Muslims worked as labourers, skilled workers and tonga drivers, he said.
He recalled accounts of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs socialising closely and respecting each other’s religious practices. His grandfather, honorary magistrate Chaudhry Waris Khan, served on a judicial bench with Hindu civic leader Lala Ram Chand Suri.
Arif said the relationship collapsed after an altercation near Committee Chowk in March 1947 left his cousin Chaudhry Haq Nawaz stabbed. Muslim mobs subsequently attacked Hindu and Sikh properties and places of worship, according to his account.
Read: 70-year-long wait over: Sikh temple reopens for worship in Peshawar
Partition violence forced much of Rawalpindi’s Hindu and Sikh population to migrate to India. A 2025 study of old Rawalpindi by National University of Modern Languages researcher Shehr Bano Zaidi documented how homes, temples and schools left by departing communities were abandoned, repurposed or occupied by Muslim migrants.
Read: Babay Da Mehal: A piece of history
Arif said the migration also removed merchants and confectioners who had shaped the city’s food culture. He associated Hindu and Sikh vendors with rewri, jalebi, patasa and chole bhature, recipes later sold by migrant families in Delhi and Mumbai.
Old districts including Bhabra Bazaar and Raja Bazaar retain buildings and neighbourhood names from that period, although their religious and commercial makeup has changed.
