Going Back Home

Going Back Home

The Partition of India

A sound clip of Mr Muneer talking about going back home to India

Record Office, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland

Interview with Mr Muneer for the Legacy of Partition Project in 2008

EMOHA

1947

The copyright in this recording belongs to the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland. This sound clip should only used with permission.

.mp3

English

Oral History

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1min 38secs

96 kbit/s

Initially we thought that we'll earn some money here, like everybody else, and go back home and start some sort of business, you know, but unfortunately the circumstances there went bad to worse, day by day. Those people who went, they invested the money, their own kiths and kin, they deceived them and they came back and started working in the foundries or wherever they were working. It occurred to my mind also that, you know, I will go, but the thing that prevented me, I have seven children, six sons, one daughter, and I thought that I should get my children educated here. Luckily, five of them are graduates now. So, I thought if I went back home, the children, you know, couldn't be supervised.

When you did go back up to '96, did you recognise the place that you came from? Had it changed much?

It changed a lot. The population has got very congested now. Those fields and all that, there's built houses there, there's no green fields now. You can't recognise where the village was, you know. It's all built up areas now. Right about three, four miles from our village, further down, all built up. Population increase so much. Very few green belts there, you know, where I was brought up, you know. Yeah, you do feel sad, but again, see that population growth, you know, what can they do? They have to build the houses, you know.

Mr Colin Hyde

Mr Muneer

Leicester