Anita Rani Who Do You Think You Are?

37-year-old Anita Rani is one of the new generation of presenters

changing the face of British television.

This is great, I'm driving a 180-ton truck

and I'm getting lessons by someone in Russian.

Get out of the way, is all I'm saying.

Ya-hoo! I'm driving a flipping truck!

'When I was growing up in Bradford,'

I didn't think I'd be presenting,

you know, Countryfile and The One Show

and travelling the world. It's amazing.

Whoo!

360 degrees around me, all I can see is desert.

-PIGS GRUNT

-This one is terrifying.

Whoo!

ENGINES ROAR

Agh!

Woo-hoo!

'I am not a traditional Indian girl'

and I think that is because I was aware that boys

were able to just do stuff.

And just get away with it.

And I think, with girls, there was always,

but you can't do that and you can't do this.

And my answer was always "Why?".

My mum is from a Sikh family.

But I grew up going to the Sikh temple.

I went to a Church of England school.

I can say the Lord's Prayer backwards.

You know, I just have an understanding of all religions

and yet, personally, I choose to follow none.

But my grandfather, my mum's dad, was definitely Sikh.

His name was Sant Singh.

My mum absolutely idolised her father.

I never met him.

I know that he was married before he married my nan

and that his wife and child died.

But nobody's got clear answers about how that happened.

They don't talk about that.

And I would love to have the opportunity to know more.

I've wanted to know more about this guy my entire life.

I live in London, in East London.

But I grew up in Bradford,

the glamorous bit of West Yorkshire.

My mum had an arrange marriage.

They'd found a suitable boy

in my father and he was in Bradford.

My mum's dream was that she was going to move to England

and she was going to learn to ballroom dance

and she arrived in Bradford

and my dad took her to the pub.

-IN YORKSHIRE ACCENT:

-Welcome to Yorkshire, love.

This is what we do 'ere. No ballroom dancing.

You can have half a pint of mild.

Mum's family are Punjabi.

We're from that part of India, the north.

But they were all born all over the place,

cos my grandfather was in the army.

His first family died during Partition.

Obviously, I've asked questions,

but no one really talks about it, you know?

No one talks about Partition.

Anita's maternal grandfather, Sant Singh, lost his first family

during the communal violence, which erupted across India in 1947,

when independence from British rule was declared,

and the country was split to create the new Muslim state of Pakistan.

This dramatic redrawing of India's borders was known as Partition.

Anita has arranged a family get-together

to see if she can find out any more about what happened

to her grandfather and his first family.

My mum and dad have come down from Bradford.

I haven't seen them in ages. I can't wait to see them.

My mum is a big motivation, actually, in me wanting to pursue

this story, because Grandad was her father

and she's the one who's told me all about him

and built this image I've got of him in my mind.

Anita's family have gathered in Ilford, East London,

at her uncle Sunny's house.

She calls him "mama ji", or "mum's brother".

-Hello, Mama ji!

-Hello!

THEY LAUGH

-How are you?

-I'm fine.

-Come in.

-Good to see you.

-Hello, Mama.

-Hello, darling.

-Hello, Mama.

Ah!

-How are you?

-I'm fine, thank you. Nice to see you.

-Lovely to see you.

-Lovely to see you.

-You're looking erm...

nice and colourful. Vibrant.

All right, Dad?

-Oh, Anita!

-How are you?

ALL TALK

I've come to find out some stuff, finally, about Nana ji.

-Asking questions.

-I'm here to ask you questions.

-Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You've been always asking questions.

-Yeah.

-I've always been asking...

-LAUGHTER

Yeah.

Sant Singh married Anita's grandmother in 1948

after the loss of his first family during Partition.

Anita's hoping that her mother, Lucky, uncle, Sunny

and auntie, Jasbir, can tell her more about their father's early life.

I've heard so much about my grandfather.

-He's right there.

-Yeah.

-Looking very smart and handsome.

-There's a picture of him there.

-Yeah.

-He's everywhere.

-Yeah.

-But I don't really know that much about him.

-Mm.

-The cards, Sunny.

-Yeah, I'll show you some pictures.

Let's have a look at some pictures. This is nice.

-ALL:

-Ah!

-Our family photo.

-Mum.

-Mum, yeah.

Eldest, Gurdeep.

Sant Singh, there he is. He looks really cool there.

Dad used to get posted from one station to the other.

-Cos he was in the army?

-He was in the army.

Do we know what year he joined the army?

-Erm...

-He was very young.

-Let me see if I can find him.

-Yeah, go on.

-So that's him?

-Yeah.

-He's so young!

-Yeah.

-So this was pre-Partition?

-BOTH:

-Yeah.

So he joined the army in '35.

-Do we know what year he was born?

-No.

-Or where he was born?

-In Pakistan.

-Somewhere in Pakistan.

-So what's now Pakistan.

-It was during...

-Yeah.

So we don't really know much about him at all.

-I've got some medals. I'll show you.

-You've got medals?

-Oh, yes.

-Phwoar!

-This is exciting.

-Here we go.

Indian Independence, 15th August 1947.

-Yeah.

-So this is Partition?

-India and Pakistan.

-That's right.

What do we know about his life at this time?

-He was married.

-He was married, he had a wife and child.

And what were they called? Do we know their names?

-Mm, no.

-No, I don't know the name.

-Did he have a girl or a boy?

-Boy, we know, a son.

-Son, yeah.

-But you don't know his name?

-No.

-And what happened to them?

They were murdered at that time.

-They were murdered?

-Yeah.

I think the son was murdered and the wife jumped in the well.

-What? She jumped in a well?

-She jumped in a well.

I can't believe that actually happened in our own family.

That's it. My goosebumps, you know, still...

-Yeah.

-..when I talk about it.

-It's so sad.

-I know.

-So there's so many questions?

-Yeah.

Where was my grandfather when all this was happening?

-That's true.

-Because we know he's got a medal,

-so he was definitely somewhere involved in Partition.

-Definitely.

And then, who was this woman? What was her name?

This woman who took her own life.

-Mama ji, can I take these away with me?

-Yes, sure.

And, if it is all right with you,

and I promise I will bring it all back, can I take this one away?

-It is a bit fragile.

-That is fragile.

-You look after.

I will look after, I promise.

How does it make you feel, seeing him like that? Look how young he is? Have you ever seen...

We are crying already!

THEY LAUGH

This figure from my childhood has now become a little bit more real.

But there's so much that they don't know about their father.

He's a man of mystery, really.

He's had this whole life that they know nothing about.

Who was his first wife? His son? What were their names?

Who were HIS parents? Where was he born? What year was he born?

We don't know the answers to any of these questions.

Yes, I can't wait to find out.

Anita has decided to travel to India to explore her grandfather's life,

which she knows began somewhere in the Punjab,

one of the states which was bisected by Partition.

She is starting her journey in nearby New Delhi,

the capital of modern India.

MAN ISSUES COMMANDS

The minute I land in India,

the hot, intense air smacks you in the face.

The smell, the dust, and it is mixed with curry and incense,

and it is fantastic.

And you only get it in India.

Look at this place. It is incredible!

Anita has arranged to meet military historian

Rana Chhina at his house on the outskirts of Delhi.

He has been researching her grandfather, Sant Singh's, career as a soldier.

-Hello.

-Hi, Anita.

-Pleased to meet you.

-Welcome to India.

-Thank you.

It is good to be here.

So, Rana, I have come with a photograph

of my grandfather, Sant Singh.

-Mmm.

-I don't know very much about him at all.

The interesting thing about this, of course, is that's

the Kashmir Army Training School, not part of the British Army.

-Right.

-But this document actually tells us

when he enrolled in the British Indian Army in 1942.

-This is my grandfather?

-That is your grandad.

-This is Sant Singh's.

Wow, wow.

-He looks great, doesn't he?

-Yes.

-This I didn't know.

Father's name. Dheru Ram.

-Yes.

-Not Singh.

-No.

-I had no idea that was what his father was called.

Date of birth! He was born on the 26th of the seventh...

1916.

-Yes.

-Yay, we can celebrate his birthday.

No-one knew when my grandfather was born, not even his own children.

-And it says here, age of enrolment, 26.

-Yes.

I know that he was married at this time, and I know he had a wife

and child, but where was his family at this point?

There is... There is a clue to that in this.

Employment before enlistment.

As a sub overseer in...

Canal Department in Montgomery district.

-Yes.

-Where is the Montgomery district?

Montgomery district is in that part of Punjab that is now in Pakistan.

-Sounds very British, the Montgomery district.

-Yes, yes.

So I've got this, the Independence Medal.

This was awarded to anybody who had served for three years within

-the geographical confines of India.

-So where was he in 1947?

During Partition. Is there any way of finding out?

Yes, we do have something.

That's an extract of his service record.

July '47 to November '48.

-He was in Kirkee.

-Yes.

-Where is Kirkee?

It is about 1,000 miles due south, close to Bombay,

-far removed from his family and his home in the Punjab.

-Crikey.

So he's 1,000 miles away...

..Partition is taking place, chaos and hell, whatever else is going on

is happening up there.

-And his family will be right in the thick of it.

-Absolutely. Yes.

Very, very stressful time.

I have some new bits of information.

His birthday, which nobody else in the family knows,

and that his father was called Dheru Ram.

And that during Partition, he was over 1,000 miles away,

nowhere near Punjab. But I don't know where he was born,

I don't know anything about his wife and his son.

So I've got some stuff, but there's still big potholes,

like Indian roads. Missing knowledge.

An unexpected parcel has arrived for Anita at her hotel.

Good morning, Miss Rani.

Good morning. I understand you've got a package or something for me.

Yes, we do have, just give me a moment.

-Here's the parcel.

-OK, thank you.

-Have a good day, ma'am.

-Thank you.

The package is from Sant Singh's oldest son, Anita's uncle, Gurdeep,

who still lives in India.

This is amazing.

My mum's brother has sent me my grandfather's handwritten diary.

Wow! This is his handwriting.

Can't quite get my head around this.

This is incredible.

And this is in Punjabi. Not that I can read Punjabi.

They attempted to send me to Sunday school,

but I spent all my time nattering to my mates.

And now I wish I had paid attention. Oh.

He's written an English translation. "The diary of Sant Singh, part one.

"Sant Ram was born as son of Dheru and Dhanti."

Wow. So his mum is called Dhanti.

And his name was Sant Ram, not Sant Singh.

So he is writing about himself, so this is a memoir.

Anita has discovered that her maternal grandfather was born Sant Ram,

not Sant Singh as she had always believed.

And that her great-grandfather was Dheru Ram,

and her great-grandmother, Dhanti.

"Dhanti lay unconscious with high fever.

"Perhaps God does not like poor people's joy for long.

"The notorious plague had assumed epidemic form."

Wow.

His mother died...of this plague.

"Almost everyone in the village suffered from fever

"and got bedridden. It seemed as if death had been given a free hand."

That's really sad.

So they are living in a village called Sarhali.

So that is obviously where he was born.

So where is Sarhali?

Anita's family has always believed that her grandfather

was from that part of the Punjab that is now Pakistan.

But she has discovered that he was actually born in a small

village called Sarhali, 80 miles inside India.

From Delhi, Sarhali is a day's drive into the heart of the Indian Punjab.

This is the Punjab that I know and love.

Slightly bumpy, sleepy country lanes, cutting through this

beautiful countryside. Lush, green, tree-lined lanes.

You've got hay bales in fields, brick factories dotted around.

Just very evocative.

Anita has been coming to this part of India since she was a child.

But this is the first time she has been to the village where her

grandfather was born.

She's arranged to meet journalist and author Gillian Wright,

who has been researching Sant Singh's life in Sarhali.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hi, Gillian.

-Hi, very nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you. Sarhali!

-Yes, you have come home now.

-Wow. So this is it.

-Come with me, I'll show you what there is to see.

-OK.

Sant Singh's family home was demolished many years ago,

but Gillian has discovered a neighbouring house that still survives.

God, Gillian, look at this! How old is this?

-I would imagine this is 100, couple of hundred years old.

-Wow.

Inside...

you can see all the grain stores, so...

-So they've got...

-They keep their wheat and so forth in here.

Oh, this is it. You know you're in Punjab when you've got a wheat store.

Oh, wow.

Gosh.

It feels like we've travelled back in time, being in this environment.

So...Gillian, I've brought...

some fabulous stuff that

I'd like to show you, that my grandfather wrote. A memoir.

I mean, I am totally blown away by this.

-That really is very remarkable.

-Isn't it?

The first thing I wanted to ask you about is this illness,

or this plague as he describes it, that his mother, Dhanti, died of.

This particular story is quite clear, actually.

At that time, at the end of the First World War,

there's a huge influenza epidemic.

It became known as the Spanish flu.

While no-one knows where the Spanish flu came from,

the virus first took hold in the trenches at the end of World War I.

But all reporting of it was banned for fear of damaging morale.

No such restrictions existed in neutral Spain, where

stories of its deadly and highly contagious nature began to emerge.

It spread quickly around the world, and by the end of 1920,

estimated deaths hit 50 million,

far exceeding the casualties from the First World War,

making it the worst influenza pandemic in recorded history.

Indian troops returning from the war in Europe brought the illness

back to their homeland, with devastating effect.

The disease came in waves and then it fanned across the country,

going north, east, south, in really epic proportions.

Once you get so many people together, close together,

eating, fighting, travelling, there was no way of stopping it.

So if somebody brings it back to a relatively poor village in India,

-where families are so close-knit, you haven't got a hope.

-Yes.

And its impact on India was so massive, it was

nationally reported in the British press.

And this is a report from the time your grandfather seems

to be writing about.

"Influenza in India. Nearly 6,000,000 deaths.

"Rival of the plague.

"The epidemic, according to Major Norman White,

"assumes the proportions of a national calamity in this

"country, and he is of the opinion that no country suffered

"so severely as did India.

"The hospitals in the Punjab were choked so that it was impossible

"to remove the dead quickly enough to make room for the dying.

"The streets and lanes of the cities were littered with dead and dying people."

Oh, my God, this is terrible.

It is estimated that during the epidemic in British India,

-about 14 million people died.

-Just unfathomable figures.

It is the idea that 14 million people die in

one country of the flu!

People who survived, they must have been very tough indeed.

-Because your family also survived.

-And Sant survives. This is the thing.

Well, it is tragic that his mother died, but Sant, the little baby

who... He talks about himself as being this sickly child with fever.

-What a fighter!

-What a fighter.

-I want to show you something.

According to his autobiography, he has this name Ram, Sant Ram.

But in this certificate of discharge from the army,

-it says here very clearly, Sant Singh.

-Yes.

So when did he go from Ram to Singh, and why would that have happened?

He was born in a Hindu family. His name was Ram.

In this area it was the practice for one son,

perhaps the eldest son, to be made a Sikh in Hindu families.

-Sure.

-So he must have become a baptised Sikh and put on a turban.

-Between the time of his childhood and joining the army.

-Fascinating.

There is something else here, which is very interesting.

It says Jat, which is a farming caste that was especially

-prized by the British Indian Army as a martial caste.

-OK.

But he's not a Jat.

Your family were Taggars, so they were all,

to a man and woman, potters.

-These potters were not considered by the British to be a great martial caste...

-Warriors.

-No, they weren't warriors.

-He lied.

He lied to further himself.

SHE LAUGHS

-He definitely bent the truth a bit here.

-Yeah.

Are there any Taggars left in this village?

I think you will definitely find Taggars here.

Although India's ancient hierarchical caste system is largely

discredited today, caste-based gotras,

or clans, are still important in some small villages like Sarhali.

Anita is related, through her grandfather, to the Taggar clan,

a gotra within the potter caste.

And one of the clan elders has agreed to meet her.

His name is Harjinder Pal.

Hello.

-Taggar family. So Mr Taggar?

-Yes.

OK, so your grandfather and my great-grandfather were cousins.

There we go. The Taggar clan's heartland.

-Apparently there are lots of Taggar houses here.

-THEY LAUGH

Harjinder has asked everyone in Sarhali who is related to Anita to

meet in the centre of the village.

There we go, the Taggars. Hello, Taggars!

SHE LAUGHS

I don't how to do this.

Look at this.

Your wife?

SHE SPEAKS THE LOCAL LANGUAGE

Whoa, we are getting garlands. Thank you.

Wow, look at this.

They've just said the garlands will help me put weight on.

I thought I already had a big Indian family.

It is growing by the second.

Wow, I don't even think my mum knows that she is related to this

many people here. This is amazing.

And if I was in any doubt as to who owns this house, it says there.

Taggar.

The Taggar clan.

My extended, wonderful... Indian family.

One massive family. Hurray!

THEY APPLAUD

It is brilliant!

Harjinder was only a child when his cousin, Sant Singh, returned to Sarhali

after the loss of his first family during Partition.

So did you know that Sant was married before he married my nani ji?

Did you know his first wife?

So she died during Partition.

Do you know her name, or the name of her son?

No? What about his father, Dheru Ram?

What happened to him?

Gosh.

They must have been trying to get back here.

So after Partition, my grandfather, Sant Singh, did he come back here?

Where is that land now? Why do my uncles not have that land?

Why is it not in my family?

Who has that land?

-You have it?

-Yes, yes.

How do you have it? Why do you have it?

He paid him 30 quid for the land.

He paid him 30 quid for my ancestral homeland.

Hang on a minute.

I think my uncles might have a word about this.

Where is it?

THEY LAUGH

-Which bit?

-All this.

So that house there, with the nice blue sink and the tiles.

HE LAUGHS

Decent size.

A nice, generous man... this grandfather of mine.

HE LAUGHS

It's been fascinating, today, to see my grandfather's place of birth

and meet this huge extended family of his second, third, fourth,

fifth, millionth cousins removed, all Taggars, still living as this clan.

But it doesn't feel like I've got the answers to his story.

I still need to know about his first wife.

His son.

What happened to them? What happened to them in 1947 during Partition?

I need to know more. This isn't the end of the story.

To find out more about her grandfather's life

before Partition, Anita is heading north on the Punjab's

Grand Trunk Road, one of India's main highways.

This road is ridiculous.

It is on two different levels.

So if you want to change lanes, you go up and down, up and down.

And then... Oh, yeah - the lanes, there are no lanes.

There's no road markings whatsoever.

People just go and do what they want to do, like this little old lady.

Driving in India is not for the faint-hearted, it's frankly mental.

Get in the car, hope and pray

that you get to your destination in one piece.

Why are people not sticking to the lane?

Why is no-one wearing a helmet on a motorcycle?

Why are people carrying an entire family on a scooter?

Wow. Amazing.

What a building.

The maharaja's palace.

Khalsa College, founded in 1892

is now part of one of India's leading universities.

Anita has arranged to meet Dr Rakesh Ankit,

an expert on 20th century Indian history.

Hi, Rakesh.

-So nice to meet you. Welcome to Khalsa College.

-What a place.

-It's amazing, isn't it?

-Indeed, it's a pre-eminent seat of learning.

So I've got this brilliant...

You'll like this, being a historian! ..document.

A discharge document.

Yeah, so this is my grandfather and it tells me that

he lived somewhere called the Montgomery district

and he was a sub overseer in the canal department.

Now, can you shed some light on this?

-I'm going to show you a map.

-A map!

Ah, brilliant.

So this is a map of pre-independence,

-pre-Partition Punjab.

-Mm-hm.

There are five rivers, which is what gives its name.

Punjab, the land of five rivers.

And this whole region is the Bari area...

-And it says here, "Montgomery".

-And it says here Montgomery.

-Yes.

So, starting from the 1880s,

the Bari area was part of this huge project where the British

government of the day created nine canals, to bring irrigated

water supply to this region,

-which was formerly a wasteland.

-Wow.

I'll show you how some of these canals were created,

-so as to get a better sense of what was happening.

-There we go.

This was a canal being built in a hitherto, as you can see,

uncultivated land,

inhabited by tribal, semi-nomadic,

pastoral communities.

-The British had a word for them, they used to call them junglies.

-Oh!

That's not a very nice word, is it?

"Of the jungle", junglies.

I sometimes call my husband a jungly.

And junglies were quickly pushed to the margins

of this new society that was coming up in Punjab.

-Six million acres was irrigated.

-Six million acres?

The figures that we're dealing with...

-Are humongous.

-Humongous.

-Yes.

-It was literally going to be a land of prosperity.

-Yes.

-A fabled land of...

-Milk and honey.

-Milk and honey, absolutely.

I'm going to show you some pictures.

This is great, washing the buffaloes!

And you can see the canals reach right to the field,

which took the water right to where the cropping was being done.

-Fantastic.

-Literally, down to the last village.

-It must have just changed everybody's life.

-Absolutely.

Punjab became the biggest irrigated province.

So over a 40-year period, almost a million people made

journey from the east and southern Punjab, across the river.

The picture is starting to form, because I know that Dheru,

my great-grandfather, he'd lost his wife to the Spanish flu,

he had a small child at home - Sant, my grandfather -

and that's the story of migration - come for a better life.

Pop over the river and here you go.

And the canal colonies provided lots of opportunity.

After his wife's death in the early 1920s,

Dheru Ram, Anita's great-grandfather,

left Sarhali to establish himself as a successful trader in the

Montgomery district and then sent for his young son, Sant, to join him.

Sant's new life was very different

to the one he'd left behind in Sarhali.

The family's increased wealth meant that he was able to get an education

and by his early 20s, he'd married,

started a family and found work.

As we know, your grandfather was employed as a sub overseer

in the Canal Department.

So this chap here, he's got his arm out,

he looks very authoritative. That potentially could be the sort

of role that my grandfather would have been in?

Absolutely, and anything to do with the upkeep,

maintenance of the canals. It was no mean position.

So the 1920s and 1930s,

his existence in the canal colonies must have been quite a few

notches higher than what his father's existence in the Jalandha

district would have been, so there was an upward

movement in the society at large and they were part of it.

Good on 'em.

By the 1930s, the canal districts were

one of the British Empire's great success stories

and their inhabitants were some of the Crown's most loyal subjects.

Having already trained as a soldier in Kashmir, Sant Singh was

a perfect candidate for the British Indian Army's recruitment drive

at the outbreak of World War II.

He joined the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Division

and five years later, by the time of Partition,

in August 1947, he was

serving in the south of India, far away from his family in Montgomery.

I know about my grandfather, I know that he was married

and he had a son.

The story in the family is that his wife,

his father and his son...

died.

They perished, that they were either killed or...

During Partition.

-Partition violence.

-Yes.

Well, the violence was largely in exactly these areas.

In this arc from Rawalpindi to Multan.

And Montgomery especially was the district where

some of the first waves of violence against Hindus and Sikhs happened.

There is a family story that...

..the son was murdered and the wife

jumped into the well,

would that fit with what was happening at the time?

Yes, and unfortunately Punjab became the epicentre of Partition violence.

On the 15th of August, 1947,

89 years of British rule in India came to an end

when the country declared independence.

Two days later,

the British government announced the line of partition.

It cut the Punjab in two, with millions of Muslims, Hindus

and Sikhs finding themselves trapped

on the wrong side of the new border.

Montgomery, where Sant Singh's father, wife and child were living,

had overnight become part of Pakistan.

Anita has come to Amritsar, the spiritual capital of the Sikh world,

to discover what happened to people who found themselves

stranded on the wrong side of the partition line.

She's here to meet 84-year-old Bihir Bahadur Singh,

who, like Sant's family,

lived in the Western Punjab, where some of the worst violence occurred.

SHE GREETS HIM

How are you?

Good.

Wonderful to meet you.

I'm on a journey to try and find out about my grandfather.

I know that you lived through Partition.

I was wondering if you could maybe tell me where you were,

what happened to you at that time?

Seven brothers?

That's a big family!

I just need to understand what you've just said.

Your father said to the village,

rather than let the Muslims

take our daughters,

we will kill the girls ourselves?

Gosh.

This is really...

Basically, you're telling me...

I'm trying to process what you're telling me.

It's...

Gosh. And when you hear it...

So, basically your father took the decision that him

and a couple of other men of the village would murder their own

wives and daughters...

It's so cruel.

It is so cruel.

They jumped in the well?

So the rest of the women who were left,

they made the decision that they

would jump in the village well

and you're saying that the well

was full of bodies?

I can't stop crying.

I'm not a crier!

But this is the most horrific...

And I guess because I'm here on my grandfather's journey

and I know that his father and his wife

and son would have gone through something very similar...

It's the most shocking,

horrifying account of what humans are capable of.

It's bonkers.

That was full-on.

Erm, I feel really angry, actually, if I'm really honest,

because I'm angry that the menfolk of this village

felt that that was the decision that they could take and that they took

that decision and killed their own daughters.

I hate that the world was in such a way that that's the only

choice the women had, that the men would just decide their fates.

I feel that for the women to just go to that fate would have taken

a lot of courage.

I don't think I could do it.

No way I'd let my dad behead me!

God! Even just SAYING it sounds so mental.

But, um...

So, I'm angry.

I'm angry at the choice that the men took and I'm also

so in awe of these women who just went to their death willingly.

It's really... I'm really confused right now.

Really confused.

The partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 caused the largest

forced migration in human history,

with over 14 million people

forced to flee their homes as neighbour turned on neighbour.

Almost a million people, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh,

died in the communal violence that was unleashed.

The horrific treatment of women at that time was largely ignored

in the years after 1947, but more recently,

testimony from victims has begun to emerge.

Anita has come to a suburb of Amritsar

to meet Ritu Menon, an author

who has documented the experiences

of women involved in Partition.

-Hello, Ritu.

-Hello, Anita.

-Pleased to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Lovely to see you.

ANITA SIGHS

So, Ritu, my grandfather,

Sant Singh, I know he was married before he married my nan

and that his wife died during Partition by jumping into a well.

Now I've discovered that there were so many acts of barbarism -

fathers killing their own daughters -

and it's been quite difficult for me to process.

At that time,

there's an impression that a lot of the women actually committed

what we call suicide by jumping into wells.

The men will say the women took their lives,

they sacrificed themselves, rather than be kidnapped,

raped, abducted.

But the women don't tell it as a story of bravery or of martyrdom.

The women tell it as a story of no choice.

One of the women whom we spoke to, this is what she told us.

"Hindus threw their young daughters into wells, dug trenches

"and buried them alive.

"Some were burned to death, some were made to touch electric wires

"to prevent the Muslims from touching them.

"The Muslims used to announce that they would take away our daughters.

"They would force their way into homes and pick up young girls

"and women. We saw many who had been raped and disfigured, their faces

"and breasts scarred and then abandoned.

"They had tooth marks all over them.

"Their families said, 'How can we keep them now?',

"saying it would have been better if they hadn't been born."

Ah, gosh - Ritu.

It could be Muslims who were taken by Sikhs and Hindus,

it could be Hindus who were taken by Muslims.

I mean, it was across community.

And the stories that you hear,

you think are particular to a village, perhaps,

or a family,

but then when you hear of them again and again and again...

you realise that's not the case.

They are particular to women.

Just listening to you, it's making my blood boil.

It makes me think that if you were a cow at this time,

-you would have more of a chance of surviving...

-You probably did.

-This is only two generations ago.

-Mm.

Ritu has been researching what happened to Sant Singh's family

during Partition and has unearthed a document with information about them.

This is something from the army archives -

I think your grandfather was in the army?

He was, yes.

Take a look.

Um... OK.

Wife...

Oh, we've got her name!

Oh, wow!

I'm doing a lot of crying, aren't I?

So Balbir Kaur is my nan,

so that's my nani,

-and Pritam Kaur was his first wife.

-Yes.

And it says, "Died due to Pakistan disturbances".

So then her name is crossed out, so this must be... Oh, gosh.

It's got her birthday, the first of the seventh, 1922.

This is incredible.

So his father, Dheru Ram, born...

It's everyone's birthday!

Born in 1880.

Rajpal Singh,

1937.

His son, his first son.

So this is Pritam's son.

And then it says, "Daughters".

Who's Mahindra?

1941.

She had a daughter.

Yes, it seems they had a daughter as well.

No-one knew this.

Nobody in my family...

Nobody talks about a daughter.

-But they talk about the son.

-They talk about the son.

Mm. Well...

Perhaps she died with the mother?

She would have been quite young, I think. What's the date?

-'41, so she was six.

-Six or seven.

-Yeah.

So he had a daughter.

As well as a son.

Although the document does not reveal how Mahindra died, Anita now

has proof that her grandfather's first wife, Pritam Kaur, was

one of the hundreds of thousands of women who perished during Partition.

There's just so much going on in my head.

To find out Pritam Kaur's name...

is really important.

I know her name, I know she had a son and I know she had a daughter.

Nobody talks about my grandfather having two children,

they talk about a son and they don't talk about a daughter.

He HAD a daughter.

Mahindra was her name.

And now, to come and discover

just how brutal

and barbaric Partition was and how little power women had at that time,

I don't know what I'm going to do, but it's changed me.

I feel like it's...

It's made whatever was going on in the pit of my stomach,

it's made it... It's turned it into a rock.

If that makes any sense.

I don't even know what I'm saying right now,

but I know that this moment has changed who I am.

Anita has come to the Golden Temple in Amritsar,

the holiest shrine in the Sikh world

and a place where her grandfather, Sant, often came to pray.

I've heard so much that I wasn't expecting to hear on this journey.

So much that's really shocked me to the core

and I'm just trying to process it all.

I'm trying to come to terms with what Sant Singh,

my grandfather, went through.

He lost his entire family in Partition. He had nobody.

No mother, no father, no wife.

He lost two children, he was totally alone.

I'm not surprised that my grandfather didn't

talk about his life before he married my grandmother.

No wonder that generation just didn't talk about it.

How can you, where do you even start?

But now that I've got this knowledge, now that I've

learned what I've learnt, I have to talk to his children about it.

They need to know.

By 1961, 14 years after the horrors of Partition,

Sant Singh had remarried and settled with his new wife, Balbir,

and their six children in the village of Sofi Pind in eastern Punjab.

Gurdeep Singh, Sant's oldest son,

still lives in the family house there.

Anita knows it well from her childhood

and she's decided to pay him a visit.

There he is.

SHE CHUCKLES

There we go.

I'll get out.

Hello, Mama ji!

Thank you.

It's so good to see you.

Welcome.

Yes, let's do it. This is amazing.

It's Sofi Pind.

We are back.

The first time I remember playing with a puppy here.

-I'll take you to the house?

-Yes.

Oh, gosh, photographs.

Mama ji, which ones have you got here.

Argh!

-There they are.

-How embarrassing!

We've got all the girls of the family, all with our degrees.

Yes.

-Look, there's my mum and dad.

-Yes.

All Sant Singh's family.

So Mama ji, I've been on quite some journey

and I got this document. I really want to show you this.

This is a list of all Nana ji's dependents.

-Yeah.

-So here you have got "wife" - Balbir Kaur.

-Yeah.

But his first wife was called Pritam Kaur.

-Pritam Kaur?

-Pritam Kaur.

Did you know her name?

No, I didn't know the name.

It's amazing, isn't it, Mama ji?

-Very good.

-Isn't that amazing.

-I never knew the name.

But look, Mama ji, this is what I'm really interested in.

Here it says "daughters"

and here it says, 1941, Mahindra.

Mahindra.

-It says that he had a daughter.

-This is amazing.

-She was six.

-Six, eh?

-When partition happened in 1947.

-She was six years old.

-Six years old.

-Mmm.

I never knew about this.

I knew very well that I had an elder brother, his name was Raj.

-You knew that?

-Yes, Rajpal Singh.

I'll show you the photograph of my brother, Raj.

This is photo of my brother.

-No!

-Rajpal Singh.

-No way!

Oh, my God, he's so cute.

There, you see.

-This is Rajpal Singh?

-Rajpal Singh.

Where did this photo come from?

It was kept by my father.

-So he always had a picture of Raj?

-Yeah.

-And he always kept it.

-Yes, always kept it.

He used to see this photograph,

only when nobody was watching.

-You know, he used to see this.

-He used to look at it.

-Yes.

That's sad, Mama ji.

I'll show you some more pictures.

-You told me the name.

-I told you the name.

-I'll show you her photograph.

-No way!

-There she is.

-Pritam Kaur.

-Pritam Kaur.

I can't believe it.

Look at her.

Wow!

This is brilliant, Mama ji, this is amazing. Pritam Kaur. Pritam Kaur.

Oh, wow, I can actually see your face.

Fantastic that I've seen a picture of her.

So Nana ji never spoke of what happened to

Pritam Kaur during Partition. Did he ever talk about it?

No, he never told me.

We knew they were all slaughtered, all butchered, but my dad,

you know, your grandfather, Nana ji, he never used to discuss.

One thing he used to tell me, everybody was moving towards India.

My grandfather, Dheru, was riding the horse

and Rajpal, my brother, was sitting in front of him

and they were surrounded there.

The people, you know... Junglies.

Tribal people?

One of them he threw a spear

which pierced first Rajpal

because he was sitting in front of the horse.

Then they brought my grandfather and they butchered him

and they started killing everybody.

So, Mama ji, how long have you known this story?

I was eight or nine years old when my father, he told me this story.

So you heard this story when you were a child

and I've been on this journey trying to find out the story of what

happened to Dheru Ram and here you are, Mama ji,

-and you know this story.

-Yes.

You've never spoken about it, you've never told...

-You never asked me.

-I never asked you, this is the truth.

Mama ji, thank you so much.

Oh.

-And all the care.

-Thank you, Mama ji.

Sant Singh and his second wife, Balbir,

live happily in Sofi Pind for the rest of their lives.

Sant died in 1975,

less than two years before the birth of his granddaughter, Anita.

Seeing the photos was amazing.

I wasn't expecting to see a picture of my grandfather's first wife

and I feel an instant connection.

It sounds weird to say that you feel connected to

a photo of somebody you never knew but I feel connected to that woman.

And to see a picture of her son, Rajpal, my grandfather's first son.

It's a shame I didn't get to see a picture of his daughter,

Mahindra, but at least I know that she existed.

I feel that she deserves to be remembered.

Before she leaves India, Anita has come to Haridwar,

on the banks of the River Ganges.

People come here from all over the country to honour their ancestors

and to bathe in what is for Hindus and Sikhs

the most sacred of all Indian rivers.

Many families keep their ancestral records here with local priests.

Anita has come to record the deaths of Sant's first wife, Pritam,

and their children, Rajpal and Mahindra.

Thank you.

So the family village is Sarhali,

which is in Jalandhar district.

And the family name is Taggar and it's very important that

I register what I found.

Thank you.

Family records here are organised by village and region

and stretch back hundreds of years.

Oh, gosh. Wow!

Wow!

Wow!

How do you know what's what? That is...

That was quite something to see.

And people say Indians are disorganised.

OK.

-Sant Singh.

-Yes!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

-He's got the whole history here.

-Sant Singh.

My grandfather came here?

No!

There's his signature. 1948.

So he came here to register his family.

Sant Singh, there it is.

Oh, so Sant Singh came here

and he did a prayer, he did a Hindu prayer

for the four people that died.

Dheru Ram came?

He's been here.

1928 is when Dheru got here. Wow!

OK. How far back can we take this?

He's getting there.

What?

1878, Sondhi came.

So Sondhi, Dheru's father came here.

Dheru came here.

Sant Singh came here

and the next person is me.

I came here.

Not his son, his granddaughter through his daughter came.

No-one has yet recorded Sant's second family, Anita's line.

Oh, he's going to write it down?

You're going to do it?

Sant Singh

settled in Sofi Pind.

I can't believe I'm actually doing this.

He had two sons, Gurdeep Singh.

Raminder Singh.

Manjit Kaur.

Sukhjit Kaur.

My mother, Lakhbir Kaur.

-Lucky.

-Put Lucky in brackets.

And then the youngest is Jasbir Kaur.

My mum and my aunts are going to be so proud of this.

OK.

Anita Rani.

I wasn't expecting to see Sant Singh's name in the book

and it's really important that I saw that name

because it shows you what kind of man he was.

In March 1948, a month before he married my nan,

he came here to honour his family that had died.

So I know about my grandfather's first family.

But it's weird because had they survived I wouldn't exist.

It's because of the tragedy that happened to them in 1947

that my grandfather then went and embarked on a new life,

and a new journey, and had this whole new family

that I exist.

His story will continue...

through me.

And that's wonderful.