In keeping with my motto of blogging yesterday’s news, I bring you a three weeks old post by the Head Heeb about the India-Pakistan partition 57 years ago.
With such a [bad] track record [post-partition], it’s inevitable that many people would question whether partition was a wise idea in either case. Randy McDonald, for instance points to a pair of recent Outlook India articles (1, 2) arguing that a united India might have evolved into a peaceful secular state. It’s impossible to tell for certain absent travel to alternate timelines, but I’m far from sure things would have worked out that way.
The reason is that the Indian-Pakistani conflict didn’t start in 1947 – it only got a new name. Violence and rivalry between Hindus and Muslims existed during the colonial and even the precolonial era; indeed, if this were not so, partition would never have become a serious option in the first place. The division of the Raj into India and Pakistan internationalized the conflict, but it was already an old one long before.
And, poor as the track record of partition may be, the history of attempts to force antagonistic peoples into a single state against their will isn’t any more successful.
[…] It’s easy to imagine dystopic scenarios in India’s case as well. Instead of being 12 percent Muslim, a unitary Indian state including Pakistan and Bangladesh would be more than 30 percent Muslim with Islamic majorities in several states and the population growth rate likely favoring the Muslims. This sort of population balance – especially a shifting one combined with historic minority nationalism – often makes majorities feel threatened and minorities restive. Any number of flash points – a major riot, a Delhi takeover of a Muslim-majority state, an electoral victory for a nationalist demagogue on either side – could spark a Muslim insurgency to add to those India is already facing in outlying areas. Partition exacted a heavy price, both in the initial blood toll and the subsequent decades of border conflict, but a unitary solution might have resulted in a colossal failed state rather than a smaller failing state and two others that more or less work. I have no more proof of this than Amitava Kumar or Ainslie Embree have of their more hopeful scenarios, but it’s arguable that, for all the tragedy it exacted, partitioning the Raj was actually the lesser evil.
And even if Kumar and Embree are right, partition is now a fait accompli.
Conrad Barwa built on Jonathan’s post with a post of his own at The Head Heeb.
[I]t is unlikely that it [two-nation theory] formed the primary aim or goal of even supposedly separatist organisations like the Muslim League, considering that the Pakistan resolution was the result of failed attempts to reach agreements on power-sharing with Congress during the Nationalist movement. I won’t rehash history here but the failure to accept the interim proposals of constitutional safeguards and the actual record of Congress provincial governments in the period of dyarchy; particularly in the United Provinces in the late 1930s indicated that as Nehru remarked ‘there lurked many a Communalist underneath a Congressman’s cloak’ and that Congress was quite cavalier in reaching an accommodation or sharing power with the Muslim League. This pattern was repeated several times right up to the Quit India Movement’s launch in 1942 and it bespoke more than anything else not Hindu Communalism but the arrogance and the blindness of Congress elites and leadership; the problem wasn’t that Congress saw itself as a Hindu movement but the nationalist movement of Hindus and Muslims and laid a claim to speak for both the Hindu and Muslim masses. Ultimately whatever one thinks of this, such an attitude led Congress to take stands which it couldn’t back up in the politics of day and given the immensely restricted electorates that operated then; any strategy that relied on mass movements might have been good when confronting a colonial occupying power but were handicaps in an arena where the primary constituency were the landed and propertied classes of the countryside and the town. It is worth remembering that these decisions were taken on the basis of extremely restricted franchises; less than 10% of the population were eligible to vote and this meant that in the case of Partition effectively 6% of Muslims took decisions that decided the fate of the other 90%. Moreover, as Patrick French has observed, most voters were quite misled as to what they were voting for, preconceptions at the time were that Punjab and Bengal, Muslim majority provinces would go to Pakistan and that Delhi, then a Muslim-dominated one demographically would do so as well. No one voted for Partition as such, which was the outcome of a decision taken by the political elites and by the administrative colonial power.
I think support for a partition among the Muslim middle class was quite late in coming, but in 1946-47 was probably more popular among than than the Muslim League leaders who might have accepted a confederation or a loose federation with minority rights.
There is also a very interesting passage that Conrad quotes from Krishna Kumar’s book “Prejudice and Pride” about school histories of the freedom struggle in Pakistani and Indian textbooks. I’ll have to add Kumar’s book to my big reading list.
One interesting aspect that Kumar and Conrad point out is that the subcontinental partition is often looked at as a last-minute thing, something that arose in the mid-1940s. However, there was a long history (of politics, landlords, religion, regionalism and more) behind it. In my opinion, Congress’s aloofness to the Muslim political elite in the late 1930s was probably one of the major reasons for partition.
Partition had a huge human cost. Anywhere from half a million to a million people died in the communal riots and more than 10 million had to leave their home for a new country. If a united India meant that those people would not die, it might have been worth it.
I have found too many Pakistanis who have taken the two-nation theory to heart and still dwell on the differences between Hindus and Muslims. At the same time, a number of Indians (Muslim, Hindu or otherwise) still think of the mistake of Partition. For a better future for South Asia, it is necessary to lokk beyond the problems and invented histories of the past.
Randy McDonald is thinking about an alternative history in which a united India got independence.
I’ll just observe that Bacha Khan, leader of what are now the Northwest Frontier Provinces of Pakistan at the time of Partition, strongly favoured his region’s continued allegiance to India and rejected Pakistan and the two-nation theory. Perhaps something was possible. Then again, the NWFP isn’t all of Pakistan.
NWFP was a strange place. It was (and still is) extremely conservative, religious and nationalist (of the Pashtun variety). At the time of partition in 1947, it was ruled by the redshirts of Abdul Ghaffar Khan (also known as Bacha Khan and Frontier Gandhi). The provincial government was against joining Pakistan, but a referendum vote showed overwhelming support for Pakistan in 1947.
It appears that head heeb has read only one-sided story. I was 10 years and 8 days on the day of independence but I distictly remember the happenings of 1946 and 1947. Some is recorded at the following blog.
Link
In addition I remember that one day, after playing hide and seek, we went to a nearby shop for a drink. The Hindu shop-keeper declined to sell drink to the Muslim boys and sold one to the Hindu boy. When Hindu boy requested him to give drinks to other boys, the shop-keeper said,”Tum nahin jantay yeh Muslay hain botalain brisht ho jaiy gee (You don’t know they are Mulims bottles will be rendered filthy)”. Then Hindu boy asked him to give water and the Hindu shopkeeper didn’t give tumber and poured water on to the hands of Muslim boys from a height of half a meter and standing 2 meters away from them. I didn’t like it and did not drink water.
Another time we were playing and a Muslim boy to avoid being caught rammed in to a passerby who was a Brahmin. The Brahmin shouted “Brisht ho gaya, brisht ho gaya” Meaning his clothes had become filthy. Brahmin went away cursing all the Muslims. He could not beat the boy because that way his hands would have become filthy according to his belief.
Now about, so called, Bacha Khan. He was more near Hindus than Muslims. His son Dr Khan was an agent of the British government. Dr Khan was made Chief Minister of NWFP by British government and he tried his level best to supress the Muslims of NWFP but they followed Muhammad Ali Jinnah and stayed togather as Muslims.
Continuing my above comment, I do not like to discuss any thing on the basis of what others wrote. It will be a very legthy post.
I can say one thing on the basis of my experience at the age of 9 to 10 year and life experience of my family that thinking Hindus of Congress would have respected human rights of Muslim if Muslims had not worked for partition of India is ludicrous.
Only a micro-fraction of happenings is recorded at the following blog
Read in the last papagraph of the above blog how a hindu, who should have been grateful to our family for life-long help my grand-father had given to him, tried to kill us all by poisoned milk.
INDIAN Government’s Role : If Indian government has even 1% sincerity in their reconcilliary talks with Pakistan, they should hand-over the Pakistan’s share of wealth which was to be handed-over in 1947 and has not been handed-over so far.
Concerning Sarhadi Gandhi, he never had any love for any part included in Pakistan. During 1950s, Pakiostan faced devastating floods for the first time. Some parts of India were also hit by floods. Abdul Ghaffar Khan (so called Sarhadi Gandhi) went out to countries in the west of Indo-Pakistan and collected relief funds for India and delivered those personally in Dehli but didn’t say a word of sympathy for people suffering in Pakistan.
Hey Zack…If i were to read one book on the partition, what would you recommend? Thanks, REnee
Renee: It depends on what you want to read about. If you want to read about general history of the partition, Liberty or Death by Patrick French is a good book. A couple of others are The Proudest Day by Anthony Read and Freedom at Midnight by Collins and Lapierre (my review).
If you want to read some eyewitness accounts of the partition riots, then The Other Side of Silence by Butalia is a good book. I reviewed it here.
There are some other books mentioned and some discussion in the comments to this post.
It appears that head heeb has read only one-sided story.
Sir, any fault in the post is mine alone, since it was a guest post that I was kindly asked to write at the Head Heeb. You will note that the erudite author of that blog has merely made a comparative overview on the merits and drawbacks of political partition as a solution to nationalist conflicts and doesn’t side with any one side unequivocally but gives a sympathetic hearing to both. My long article however, is of a different nature and much more partisan since it reflects my own political views and is a piece of advocacy for the future not a scholarly history or account of what an objective history of Partition should read as. Any criticism, therefore, should be directed at me personally and nowhere else.
I was 10 years and 8 days on the day of independence but I distinctly remember the happenings of 1946 and 1947. Some is recorded at the following blog.
Respectfully, I must note my own dissenting notes here. History did not start in 1946 and neither did the events that led to Partition and nor were they experienced in the same way across the entire sub-continent. I think it is wise not to generalise from one particular set of occurrences to represent events across the entire region as a whole. I don’t dispute or have any contention with the very moving and important accounts of events in Jammu during this time and I think it provides an important corrective for many Indians to hear, since all too often, it is the Muslim that has always historically been represented and carved as the oppressive and violent force. In many instances, this was clearly not the case. However, I would just like to point out several areas where I feel there has been mis-understanding or selective interpretation:
Firstly, communal violence along religious lines was vicious and an inescapable fact in colonial India and it continues this day in all of the successor states. It was almost always the weaker side that was exposed to the full force of this violence and targeted; Muslims in Jammu were so exposed and attacked in 1946 and 47; as were Hindus by the Razakar militia of the Nizam in Hyderabad state. Even at the time you speak of, in Kashmir itself, the same outrages and atrocities being committed against Muslims in Jammu were being committed against Hindus and Sikhs in Poonch during the uprising against the Maharajah’s rule there. Luckily most of my family did not experience this kind of violence during partition (we were unfortunately to see this all too closely after independence) with the exception of my mother’s parents in Calcutta. I don’t think I have to tell you how the massacres of Hindus in districts such as Noakhali led to the great killings that ensued in 1946 in the city, or of Suharwardy’s exhortations to Muslims to engage in mass killings as his way of launching ‘Direct Action Day’ in the province. Fear and hatred, bred nothing but violence, which in turn begat more violence. I am sorry to say that no community can say its hands are clean or pretend that it was the sole victim; it was a question mostly of might prevailing over right; and wherever a particular community pre-dominated it fell upon the weaker community. My grandfather too, remembered the events of 1946 and 47 and like many Hindus of his generation there was much bitterness against the violence that occurred; greater violence was only averted by the presence of Gandhi who was able to force a cessation to hostilities between the two groups.
Secondly, the Dogra rule in Kashmir was an abhorrence and oppressive of the Muslim majority and rightly needed to be eliminated. However, Sir, it was not the Indian govt which negotiated a standstill agreement with the state but Pakistan; Hari Singh knew well enough what the ‘Hindu’ Congress would do to his feudal rule unlike the Muslim League with its staunch support of zamindari interests; which is why he and his Prime Minister Kak were against talking to the Congress and instead were exploring what overtures the ML could make in order for his accession to Pakistan. It is true that Nehru and the Congress leadership were pressuring the Maharajah to join India, as Jinnah and the ML were doing so to join Pakistan; but it is not mentioned that Nehru went to Kashmir in solidarity with the NC’s Quit Kashmir movement and got himself arrested. One can ask where were the ML leaders? The bulk of the Muslim population in the state eked out a miserable existence under medieval conditions of exploitation; but it was the massive land reform package of the Nyaya Kashmir programme that transferred over a million acres from the 400 or so big landlords to over 700,000 peasants, including 250,000 in Jammu who were low-caste Hindus, in the most successful programme of its kind in India. No such move would have been possible in Pakistan, which is why the NC and Sheikh Abdullah were so popular in the valley. In the valley itself without the aid of the NC volunteers and civil militia; it would not have been possible for the Indian air-lifted troops to have held the line against the marauders from the border regions. As my parent unit (50th Parachute Brigade) took part in the fighting, I have little hesitation in saying this.
I can say one thing on the basis of my experience at the age of 9 to 10 year and life experience of my family that thinking Hindus of Congress would have respected human rights of Muslim if Muslims had not worked for partition of India is ludicrous.
I did not say this, and I am puzzled as to where this statement comes from. The except quoted by Zack above clearly states that I held the Congress party responsible for the debacle not because of the nonsensical idea that somehow it would have tolerated the Muslims if there had been no movement for Muslim separatism but because it could not back up and did not put into practise the claims of being a truly national movement belonging to all religious communities equally as opposed to one dominated primarily by elite Hindus. My position is actually the reverse of what is cited above; which is that it was this failure that led to the rise and success of the two-nation theory; not the latter’s supposed espousal by the Muslim elite. It should be noted that the two-nation theory was accepted by the Hindu chauvinists and Sarvarkar had propounded it before Jinnah or the ML had done so. I should also add that I am talking of those areas that saw the brunt of nationalist activity and political consciousness; the birthplace of Indian and Pakistani nationalism was in the United Provinces and in Bengal; not in Kashmir or any of the Princely Kingdoms where politics followed a very different course. It was the failures and successes here in the 1930s that shaped national policies later on, and it is here where the Congress and secular nationalism saw its greatest challenge and in my opinion failed badly to meet it. I am in the dark as to from what I have written, in my original post anybody can come away with the impression that I hold either the Muslim elites who favoured partition or the ML responsible – it is the reverse that is the case. I do reject the two-nation theory, as any secular Indian would do so as well; but I locate the failure of an alternative where it lies: with the Congress and Indian Nationalism nowhere else.
Only a micro-fraction of happenings is recorded at the following blog
I do think it is unfair to take this as an example of the inherent evil nature of any group to another; I don’t deny that this was the historical case but I refuse to accept that the actions of sections of Kashmiri Hindu Brahmins somehow contaminate and tar the entire Hindu community in India. Were this the case, the Muslim minority in India would be now non-existent and the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri brahmins from the valley after 1989 would have met with massive immediate violence. I am reminded of an old family friend of my parents who were refugees from Sindh but who had re-made a new and successful life for themselves after partition. They too told many stories, of living in Sindh in the 1920s and 1930s and how initial communal amicability turned quickly into hatred, of the desecration of the Sadh Belo shrine by Muslim activists in 1939 and the Sukker riots that followed, where Sindhis were killed with impunity. They also told of deteriorating relations with fellow Muslims who had hitherto been close friends over many years but who now started spreading rumours and stories about how Sindhi amils were vampires sucking the lifeblood of the haris in the countryside; nevermind the fact that Muslim waderos were as implicated and involved in the exploitation of this labouring class as well. They recall the insults, the violence, the rape of their women and the threat of forced conversion with great bitterness too; and this experience has made them staunch supporters of Hindutva as well as implacable in their attitudes towards Muslims and Pakistan.
INDIAN Government’s Role : If Indian government has even 1% sincerity in their reconcilliary talks with Pakistan, they should hand-over the Pakistan’s share of wealth which was to be handed-over in 1947 and has not been handed-over so far.
As far as I know, the bulk of the assets were divided along the shares outlined by the Viceroy’s council; the Indian govt did indeed try to drag its foot over the handing over of financial resources but was forced to by Gandhi’s hunger strike to make the division. This was, I think the immediate proximate cause behind Godse’s assassination of the latter. Some outstanding settlements had to be made by both sides, though I think the bulk of the liabilities were on the Indian side, since they inherited the HQs and the administrative centres of the colonial govt and therefore the physical treasuries. I could be wrong and would appreciate any correction here.
I will just end with a quotation from Shuresh Kashmiri’s account of the time, experienced as a refugee himself:
Conches were blown in India. Drums were beaten in Pakistan. All India Radio proclaimed Independence by broadcasting Bande Mataram and Pakistan Radio did so with recitation of the Quran. But as day dawned, both sides began to butcher their minorities in the name of religion. In India it was the Muslims who were butchered; in Pakistan the Sikhs and Hindus. Now the riots ceased to be communal. On the contrary, it was the genocide of the minorities by the majorities.
Why would anyone think that an undivided India would be a more peaceful place? The international hatred would simply be internal, perhaps rendering India unliveable. The one significant advantage might be that there would be no international nuclear confrontation.
Thanks Zack! I’ll check those out.
No aletrnative OR route to reconciliation except to convert SAARC into a loose Federation in Name and Style of ‘United States of South Asia’or USSA.It will surely come, but lets show some Haste.Delay is only resultng in Continuing deterioration of lot of people and Economies of the South Asian Countries.
Baddsha: Before a federation, confederation or something even looser, it would be better if some of the hatred in South Asia subsided. Without that coming closer is not possible.