New tensions between India and Pakistan stir up old memories of past wars

For villagers living close to the frontier that divides Kashmir, having to leave their homes because of tensions between India and Pakistan is nothing new. They've been here before.

Indian villagers board a bus as families are evacuated from their homes near the Pakistan border to a safer place. Jaipal Singh / EPA

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NAUSHERA DHALLA, INDIA // As he surveyed his largely deserted village along India’s border with Pakistan, Kuldeep Singh cast his mind to his childhood when his home was on the front line of a full-blown war between the two arch rivals.

“All of this reminds me of when I was a boy back in 1971 and I can now understand what my father must have felt like sending me away to live with his relatives back then,” he said.

“My wife and kids are already getting restless to come back home after three days. I’m also missing them but we don’t yet know what’s going to happen, so it’s better to wait another day or two.”

The 54-year-old farm labourer sent his wife and three children to live with relatives after a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals this week which saw India carry out a series of strikes on the Pakistani side of the de facto border in divided Kashmir.

The evacuation order was delivered over the loudspeaker from the local gurdwara (temple) in the mainly Sikh village.

Naushera Dhalla in the northern Punjab state, where the Singh family live, is about 40 kilometres from the Sikh holy city of Amritsar and barely a kilometre from the border.

Like Kashmir, Punjab was also divided between India and Pakistan when both gained their independence at the end of British colonial rule seven decades ago and parts of the state became the battleground when the two countries went to war in 1965 and most recently in 1971.

While India says it has no desire for a further escalation of hostility, it has nevertheless ordered thousands of villagers to move away from the border in case they once again become a theatre of war.

Most of Naushera Dhalla’s 4,500 residents have sought shelter elsewhere, but a few men have stayed behind to look after their land and livestock and protect their property from looters. But they have no illusions about what is at stake.

Lakhvinder Singh, a 58-year-old tailor, said he too had vivid memories of the 1971 war when Naushera Dhalla also emptied in a matter of hours and soldiers took over their rudimentary mud-hut homes.

“The shelling and firing started around 5.15pm in the evening and we left by around 9.30pm the same night,” he said. “We could see the light of bombs and gunfire in the dark night from both the sides. It is tense at the moment but I don’t think there will be war. There shouldn’t be a war. But if there is, it’s people like us who will lose the most. Even though we are happy for what our government has done with an attack on terrorists, we don’t think war will do us any good.”

The 1971 war, which began after India intervened in the war of separation which led to the independence of Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan. Since then, both India and Pakistan have become nuclear powers, meaning any sharp downturn in relations sets alarm bells ringing in diplomatic circles.

In Danoi Khurd, a village even closer to the border, Sohan Singh said he could remember even further back to partition when Punjab witnessed the largest mass migration in history before becoming a war zone.

Sohan Singh, who gave his age as “about 85”, said there was no way that he would abandon his home.

“Where would we go? If we leave, we will starve,” he said as he discussed the tense situation with two dozen fellow villagers. “I’ll be here for as long as I am alive.”

* Agence France-Presse