Partition of India

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Britain's holdings on the Indian subcontinent were granted independence in 1947 and 1948, becoming four new independent states: India, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Pakistan (including East Pakistan, modern-day Bangladesh).
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Britain's holdings on the Indian subcontinent were granted independence in 1947 and 1948, becoming four new independent states: India, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Pakistan (including East Pakistan, modern-day Bangladesh).

The partition of India refers to the creation on 15th August 1947 of two sovereign states of the Republic of India and Pakistan when Britain granted independence to India. In particular it refers to the partition of Bengal and the Punjab region, portions of which became, respectively, East Pakistan and the main province of West Pakistan.

The later division of Pakistan, when its eastern wing separated into Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, is not covered by the term Partition of India, nor is the term used in reference to earlier separation of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Burma (now Myanmar) from British administration of India. Ceylon was part of the Madras Presidency from 1795 until it was made a separate Crown Colony in 1798. Burma was gradually annexed by the British during 1826-1886 and was governed as a part of the British Indian administration until 1937, when it was established as a Crown Colony separate from India. Burma was granted independence on January 4, 1948 and Ceylon was granted independence on February 4, 1948. (See History of Sri Lanka and History of Burma.)

As for the rest of South Asia, Nepal and Bhutan had treaties with the British that designated them as independent states unlike the 'treaty states' (or princely states) which are covered under "Partion of India". Burma (or Myanmar) is generally not considered part of South Asia, irrespective of the fact that it was administered as part of British India for a century or so, since its history and geography has more in common with Southeast Asia than it does with South Asia.

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[edit] Pakistan and India

Two self-governing dominions within the British Commonwealth legally came into existence at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947. The ceremonies for the transfer of power were held a day earlier in Karachi, at the time the capital of the new state of Pakistan, to allow the last British Viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, to attend both the ceremony in Karachi and the ceremony in Delhi. Pakistan celebrates its Independence Day on August 14, while India celebrates it on August 15.

[edit] Background of the partition

[edit] Reasons of partition

A train with a group of people affected by partition in Punjab
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A train with a group of people affected by partition in Punjab
Photo of a railway station in Punjab. Many people abandoned their fixed assets and left for the country of their choice.
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Photo of a railway station in Punjab. Many people abandoned their fixed assets and left for the country of their choice.

The seeds of partition were sown long before independence. First, it was the electoral process. The British, still fearful of the potential threat from the Muslims who had ruled the subcontinent for over 300 years under the Mughal Empire, followed a divide and rule policy. Using the religious differences as the base, the census categorised people according to religion and viewed and treated them as separate from each other[1]. Secondly, it was the struggle between various factions of the Indian nationalist movement, and especially of the Indian National Congress, for control of the movement. Muslims felt threatened by Hindu majorities. The Hindus, in their turn, felt that the nationalist leaders were coddling the minority Muslims and slighting the majority Hindus. There was also the issue of Hindi-Urdu controversy fuelled since 1867.

The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the mainstream, secular but Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. A number of different scenarios were proposed at various times. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer/philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that he felt a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated subcontinent. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935. Iqbal, Jauhar and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had till then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity, to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had begun to despair of the fate of minority communities in a united India, increasingly advocating the view that mainstream parties such as the Congress (of which he was once a member) were not being sensitive to Muslim interests. At the 1940 AIML conference in Lahore, Jinnah made clear his commitment to two separate states, a position from which the League never again wavered:

"The Hindus and the Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature . . . To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state."

However, Hindu organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha, though against the division of the country, were also insisting on the same chasm between Hindus and Muslims. In 1937 at the 19th session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted[2]:

India cannot be assumed today to be Unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main - the Hindus and the Muslims.

Many of the Congress leaders were secularists and resolutely opposed the division of India on the lines of religion. Mohandas Gandhi, was both religious and irenic, believing that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity. He opposed the partition, saying,

My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God.

For years, Gandhi and his adherents struggled to keep Muslims in the Congress Party (a major exit of many Muslim activists began in the 1930s), in the process enraging both Hindu and Muslim extremists. (Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by a Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse, who believed that Gandhi was appeasing Muslims at the cost of Hindus.) Politicians and community leaders on both sides whipped up mutual suspicion and fear, culminating in dreadful events such as the riots during the Muslim League's Direct Action Day of August 1946 in Calcutta, in which more than 5,000 people were killed and many more injured. As public order broke down all across northern India and Bengal, the pressure increased to seek a political partition of territories as a way to avoid a full-scale civil war.

Right until 1946, the definition of Pakistan as demanded by the League was so flexible that it could have been interpreted as a sovereign nation Pakistan, or as a member of a confederated India. A few historians believe that this was Jinnah's doing and that he intended to use Pakistan as a means of bargaining in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu dominated center.

Many other experts believe that Jinnah's real vision was for a Pakistan that extended into Hindu-majority areas of India, by demanding the inclusion of the East of Punjab and West of Bengal, including Assam, all Hindu-majority country. Jinnah also fought hard for the annexation of Kashmir a Muslim majority state with Hindu ruler; and the accession of Hyderabad and Junagadh Hindu-majority states with Muslim rulers.

[edit] State of affairs before the partition

History of South Asia

History of India
Stone Age 70,000–7000 BC
Mehrgarh Culture 7000–3300 BC
Indus Valley Civilization 3300–1700 BC
Late Harappan Culture 1700–1300 BC
Vedic Period 1500–500 BC
· Iron Age Kingdoms · 1200–700 BC
Maha Janapadas 700–300 BC
Magadha Empire 684–26 BC
· Maurya Dynasty · 321–184 BC
Middle Kingdoms 230 BC–1279 AD
· Satavahana Empire · 230 BC–199 AD
· Kushan Empire · 60–240 AD
· Gupta Empire · 240–550
· Chola Empire · 848–1279
Islamic Sultanates 1206–1596
· Delhi Sultanate · 1206–1526
· Deccan Sultanates · 1490–1596
Hoysala Empire 1040–1346
Vijayanagara Empire 1336–1565
Mughal Era 1526–1707
Maratha Empire 1674–1818
Colonial Era 1757–1947
Modern States 1947 onwards
National Histories
Republic of India · Pakistan · Bangladesh
Bhutan · Maldives · Nepal · Sri Lanka
Regional Histories
Assam · Bengal · Punjab · Pakistani Regions
Sindh · South India · Tamil Nadu · Tibet
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The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There were several different political arrangements in existence:

[edit] Main political players

[edit] Political groupings

[edit] Personalities

(In alphabetic order by last name)

[edit] The process of division

British Indian Empire after 1947
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British Indian Empire after 1947

The actual division between the two new dominions was done according to what has come to be known as the 3rd June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.

The border between India and Pakistan was determined by a British Government-commissioned report usually referred to as the Radcliffe Award after the London lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who wrote it. Pakistan came into being with two non-contiguous enclaves, East Pakistan (today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan, separated geographically by India. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of the colony, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.

On July 18, 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that finalized the partition arrangement. The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the two new dominions.

The 565 Princely States were given a choice of which country to join. Those states whose princes failed to accede to either country or chose a country at odds with their majority religion, such as Junagadh, Hyderabad, and especially Kashmir, became the subject of much dispute.

[edit] Expedited, controversial process

The Partition was a highly controversial arrangement, and remains a cause of much tension on the subcontinent today. British Viceroy Louis Mountbatten has not only been accused of rushing the process through, but also is alleged to have influenced the Radcliffe Awards in India's favor.[3]

Some critics allege that British haste led to the cruelties of the Partition [4]. Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new state line. It was an impossible task, at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was one of the largest population movement in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds[5] "at the lowest estimate, half a million people perished and twelve million became homeless".

However, some argue that the British were forced to expedite the Partition by events on the ground.[citation needed] Law and order had broken down many times before Partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. The only way the British could have maintained law and order would have been through martial law, and that could not have prevented communal violence throughout India, or the inevitable clashes that would come with partition.[citation needed] If Mountbatten had delayed partition and independence any longer, the death toll may have been in the millions. By rushing the process through, some say, Mountbatten saved more lives than were lost in the Partition.[citation needed]

[edit] Population exchanges

Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly-formed nations in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West Punjab in Pakistan, 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to East Punjab in India; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind. The initial population transfer on the east involved 3.5 million Hindus moving from East Bengal to India and only 0.7 million Muslims moving the other way. [citation needed]

Massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border as the newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude. Estimates of the number of deaths vary from two hundred thousand to a million.[6]

[edit] The present-day religious demographics of India proper and former East and West Pakistan

Despite the huge migrations during and after Partition, secular and federal India is still home to the second largest Muslim population in the world (after Indonesia). The current estimates for India (see Demographics of India) are as shown below. Islamic Pakistan, the former West Pakistan, has a smaller minority population. Its religious distribution is below (see Demographics of Pakistan). As for Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan, the non-Muslim share is somewhat larger (see Demographics of Bangladesh):

India (2005 Est. 1,080 million vs. 1951 Census 361 million)

  • 81.69% Hindu (839 million)
  • 12.20% Muslims (135 million)
  • 2.32% Christians (25 million)
  • 1.85% Sikhs (20 million)
  • 1.94% Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and others (21 million)

Pakistan (2005 Est. 162 vs. 1951 Census 34 million)

  • 98.0% Muslims (159 million)
  • 1.0% Christians (1.62 million)
  • 1.0% Hindus, Sikhs and others (1.62 million)

Bangladesh (2005 Est. 144 vs. 1951 Census 42 million)

  • 86% Muslims (124 million)
  • 13% Hindus (18 million)
  • 1% Christians, Buddhists and Animists (1.44 million)

Both nations have to a great extent assimilated the refugees.

[edit] Division of assets

The assets of the legal entity that was “India” as of August 15, 1947, namely the British Indian Empire, were divided between the two dominions. The process became involved. Mahatma Gandhi went on hunger strike at one point to pressure the government of the Union of India to transfer funds, an action that is mentioned as one of the “grievances” cited by the group that assassinated him.

[edit] Refugees settled in India

Many Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis settled in the Indian parts of Punjab and Delhi. The responsibility of rehabilitating Hindu Sindhis was borne by all the states in Indian Union, but most Sindhis settled in the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Hindus migrating from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) settled across Eastern India, many ending up in closeby states like West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Some migrants were sent to the Andaman islands.

In late 2004 Sindhis vociferously opposed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India which asked the government of India to delete the word Sindh from the Indian National Anthem (written before the partition) on the grounds that it infringed upon the sovereignty of Pakistan.

Former refugees have also played an active role in Indian politics. The current Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is a Punjabi Sikh from the village of Gah in West Punjab. Two former prime ministers of India, Gulzarilal Nanda and IK Gujaral were born into Hindu Punjabi families in the cities of Sialkot and Jhelum in West Punjab respectively.The recent leader of the opposition BJP, L.K. Advani, is a Sindhi born in Karachi (his family emigrated in 1953). All were born in what is now Pakistan. Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, who has the distinction of being the longest-serving Chief Minister of India, hails from a family that migrated to India from East Bengal.

These people have now lost their refugee status.

[edit] Refugees settled in Pakistan

Refugees or Muhajirs in Pakistan came from various parts of India. There was a large influx of Punjabi Muslims from East Punjab fleeing the riots. Despite severe physical and economic hardships, East Punjabi refugees to Pakistan did not face problems of cultural and linguistic assimilation after partition. However, there were many Muslim refugees who migrated to Pakistan from other Indian states. These refugees came from many different ethnic groups and regions in India, including Uttar Pradesh (then known as "United Provinces of Agra and Awadh", or UP), Madhya Pradesh (then Central Province or "CP"), Gujarat, Bihar, what was then the princely state of Hyderabad and so on. The descendants of these non-Punjabi refugees in Pakistan often refer to themselves as Muhajir whereas the assimilated Punjabi refugees no longer make that political distinction. Large numbers of non-Punjabi refugees settled in Sindh, particularly in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad. They are united by their refugee status and their native Urdu language and are a strong political force in Sindh.

The current president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, was born in the Nagar Vali Haveli in Daryaganj, Delhi, India. Several previous Pakistani leaders were also born in regions that are in India. Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan was born in Karnal (now in Haryana). General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq who came to power in a military coup in 1977 was born in Jallundur, East Punjab.

[edit] Aftermath

Violence between Hindus and Muslims and between India and Pakistan did not end with the Partition. Bengali Hindus and Muslims alike were massacred in the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. Hindus remaining in Pakistan have complained of (see Hinduism in Pakistan, and Communal violence in Pakistan). India has experienced repeated episodes of communal violence, such as the 2002 Gujarat violence (see Communal Violence in India).

Integration of refugee populations with their new countries did not always go smoothly. Some Urdu speaking Muslims who migrated to Pakistan have complained that they are discriminated against in government employment. Municipal political conflict in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, often pitted native Sindhis against immigrants. Immigrant Sindhis and Punjabis in India also experienced poverty and discrimination. However, fifty years after the Partition such conflicts have largely subsided.

There have been several Indo-Pakistani wars:

India and Pakistan have also engaged in a nuclear arms race which has in recent times threatened to erupt into nuclear war.

The British-Tibetan border, winding as it did through the Himalayas, had never been definitively surveyed or marked. India, as the inheritor of a long stretch of the British borders, and the People's Republic of China, which reclaimed Tibet, eventually clashed leading to the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

All of the four nations resulting from the Partition of the British Raj have had to deal with endemic civil conflicts. These include:

[edit] Artistic depictions of the Partition

In addition to the enormous historical literature on the Partition, there is also an extensive body of artistic work (novels, short stories, poetry, films, plays, paintings, etc.) that deals imaginatively with the pain and horror of the event. See artistic depictions of the partition of India for further discussion and a list of relevant works.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The Partition of India, Shirin Keen, 1998
  2. ^ V.D.Savarkar, Samagra Savarkar Wangmaya Hindu Rasthra Darshan (Collected works of V.D.Savarkar) Vol VI, Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, 1963, p 296
  3. ^ K.Z. Islam, 2002, The Punjab Boundary Award, Inretrospect
  4. ^ Stanley Wolpert, 2006, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195151984
  5. ^ Richard Symonds, 1950, The Making of Pakistan, London, ASIN B0000CHMB1, p 74
  6. ^ Death toll in the partition

[edit] External links


[edit] Further reading

  • Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam: India Wins Freedom, Orient Longman, 1988. ISBN 81-250-0514-5
  • Butalia, Urvashi (1998).The Other Side of Silence (2nd U.S. printing). Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2494-6
  • Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre: Freedom at Midnight. London: Collins, 1975. ISBN 0-00-638851-5
  • Gossman, P. (1999). Riots and Victims. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3625-2
  • David Page, Anita Inder Singh, Penderel Moon, G. D. Khosla, Mushirul Hasan (2001). The Partition Omnibus: Prelude to Partition/the Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947/Divide and Quit/Stern Reckoning. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-565850-7
  • Qureshi, Ishtiaque Hussain. A Short History of Pakistan. University of Karachi Press.
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