Kafila

The partition of the country in 1947 continues to be a festering sore even close to eighty years after the cataclysmic events. Its effects influence the political and social discourse in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh even today, often violently. Though reams have been written on what has been called the biggest and most brutal human migration in history, involving an exchange of population on a scale unprecedented, what is often lost in the bigger picture is the fine print. Every individual who went through the trials and tribulations of that summer of discontent, every family that experienced the trauma, has its own unique tale to narrate.

Sumant Batra introduces us to one such Punjabi Khatri family from Jhang – the Dasses of Rodu Sultan, starting with Tulsi Dass, Sumant’s greatgrandfather. As the British seem in a hurry to leave, and the Congress and the Muslim League spar over the spoils of freedom, everyone in Jhang is more or less left to his own device. Overnight, the Dass family has to prepare to leave the lands that their ancestors had made their own for centuries. What follows is a harrowing journey filled with danger and deprivation at every step as they make their way, first, to Delhi and then to Hisar where the Indian government allocated land to those who had made their way from Jhang.

However, the ordeal is far from over. Uprooted from their home and hearth, starting out all over again on land that, unlike what they had left behind in Rodu Sultan, is not conducive to irrigation, the Dasses have their work cut out. Then there’s the psychological toll of the migration that is to haunt everyone all their lives, not least of all being called ‘refugees’ in their own country. Yet, drawing upon every reserve of fortitude and resilience, the family not only overcomes the vicissitudes of fate but also makes it good, with successive generations creating a successful life from the ruins of 1947.

Book details:- Publisher ‏: ‎ Om Books International; Standard Edition (1 August 2025)
Paperback ‏: ‎ 328 pages
Item Weight ‏: ‎ 340 g
Dimensions ‏: ‎ 21.6 x 13.8 x 2.2 cm
Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ India
Best Sellers Rank: #20,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1,520

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For all those who know their Anarkali only from Mughal-e-Azam, Sumant Batra’s historical novel is an eye-opening and welcome addition. He sifts through fact and fiction expertly to provide a fascinating portrait of a doomed love.

REKHA BHARDWAJ

SINGER AND SEEKER

SYED NADEEM HUSSAIN CHISHTY KHADIM, KHWAJA SAHAB, AJMER SHARIF Devotees of Sufi Saint Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti believe that he intercedes on their behalf to the almighty. Janab Sumant Batra has eloquently articulated Sufism as a paradigm of eumenical tolerance and spiritual transcendence in his book while telling this monumenal story from the sixteenth century.

SYED NADEEM HUSSAIN CHISHTY

KHADIM, KHWAJA SAHAB, AJMER SHARIF

The story of Anarkali is inextricably intertwined with facts and fiction. Even her tomb in Lahore where there is a soul-stirring inscription of Jahangir is shrouded in controversy. Sumant Batra crafts the amazing story of this beautiful and intelligent lady with consummate skill, recreating and weaving a chapter of the Mughal era.

PADMA SHRI K.K. MUHAMMED

AUTHOR, HISTORIAN AND ARCHAEOLOGIST

Is Anarkali fact or fiction? History or myth? Sumant Batra’s evocative rendition paints a portrait of this fascinating figure using a colour palette of legend, history, fiction, and rationale, deftly reimagining this enduring love story.

ASHWIN SANGHI

BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Sumant Batra’s storytelling skills and vivid description of characters, setting, and events could well ignite the imagination for another grand film on Anarkali.

RAHUL RAWAIL

VETERAN FILM-MAKER AND AUTHOR OF RAJ KAPOOR; THE MASTER AT WORK

Family histories have a special resonance, an attention to the small, everyday details, an interest in the minutiae of real lives that is often missing in dry, factual chronicles. They contain stories of suffering and endurance, pain and misery, even anger as well as vignettes of hope and renewal, of courage and conviction, of rising above the constraints of time and circumstance. Kafila is a tale spun on the loom of Time, weaving memory with history, the personal with the political, creating a tapestry of loss and hope, displacement and belonging. Sumant Batra's sweeping family saga reaffirms faith in humanity in fractured times, as well as a shared past and an inclusive future. It demonstrates the human cost of a terrible tragedy, a cost borne not by any one community but all those millions who lost their loves, homes and loved ones in one of the largest exchanges of population between two countries.

Dr. Rakhshanda Jalil

Writer, Translator, Literary Historian

Written in immaculate detail, part family memoir, part historical documentation, Kafila carefully revisits the tragedy of those millions who were called "refugees" in their own country, after being forcefully uprooted overnight in 1947. The narrative of the author's grandfather, Kesar Dass, and his extended family is an important addition to Partition literature as it traces the family's traumatic journey across the newly demarcated border. It is not only emotive, it is also brilliantly researched as it tracks these brave-hearts and their resilience through rehabilitation and resurgence, finally becoming nation builders, though they had lost everything during the violence and darkness that eclipsed the country in those troubled times.

Kishwar Desai

Author and Founder, Partition Museum, Amritsar and Delhi

When I heard that Gobind’s son (Sumant Batra) is writing a family memoir on Partition, memories buried for decades surged after some effort as age had blurred them. I was only fifteen or sixteen years old when my prosperous and happy family was uprooted from Multan one fine day. We crossed the border with nothing but fear, staying hungry for days. Our struggle for survival continued for years. With this book, the world will know what we went through and how we survived. This memoir isn’t just history; it’s our soul’s cry.