User:Fowler&fowler/Partition

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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). Sikkim, then an independent country, is not shown on this map.
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). Sikkim, then an independent country, is not shown on this map.

The Partition of India refers to the creation on 14 August 1947 and 15 August 1947, respectively, of the sovereign states of Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan) and Union of India (later Republic of India) upon the granting of independence to British India from Great Britain. In particular, it refers to the partition of the Bengal province of British India into the Pakistani state of East Bengal (later East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) and the Indian state of West Bengal, as well as the similar partition of the Punjab region of British India into the Punjab province of West Pakistan and the Indian state of Punjab.

The secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War is not covered by the term Partition of India, nor are the earlier separations of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Burma (now Myanmar) from the administration of British India. Ceylon, part of the Madras Presidency of British India from 1795 until 1798, became a separate Crown Colony in 1798. Burma, gradually annexed by the British during 1826–86 and governed as a part of the British Indian administration until 1937, was directly administered thereafter. Burma was granted independence on January 4, 1948 and Ceylon on February 4, 1948. (See History of Sri Lanka and History of Burma.) The remaining countries of present-day South Asia—Nepal and Bhutan—having signed treaties with the British designating them as independent states, were never a part of British India and therefore their borders were not affected by the partition.

Two self governing countries 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 Independence Day on August 14, while India celebrates it on August 15.

Contents

[edit] Background of the partition

[edit] Maps of Prevailing Religions

1909 Prevailing Religions, Map of British Indian Empire, 1909, showing the prevailing majority religions of the population for different districts.

1909 Percentage of Muslims, Map of British of Indian Empire, 1909, showing percentage of Muslims in different districts.

1909 Percentage of Hindus, Map of British of Indian Empire, 1909, showing percentage of Hindus in different districts.

1909 Percentage of Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains. Map of British of Indian Empire, 1909, showing percentages in different districts.

1909 Prevailing Languages (Northern Region), Map of British Indian Empire, 1909, showing the prevailing (Aryan) languages of the population for different districts.

1909 Population Density, Map of British of Indian Empire, 1909, showing the population density.

[edit] 20th Century History

A train with a group of people affected by partition in Punjab
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 crossed newly formed borders.
Photo of a railway station in Punjab. Many people abandoned their fixed assets and crossed newly formed borders.

The seeds of partition were sown long before independence. Shirin Keen claims that 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.[1] Organization of citizens into religious communities was also a feature of Mughal rule. When the Indians under British rule started to organize for independence, two main communal factions of the Indian nationalist movement, and especially of the Indian National Congress, struggled for control of the movement and eventual control of the country. 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.

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, Jouhar 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 and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress (of which he was once a member) were insensitive 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. ”

Most 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.

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.

Some historians believe Jinnah (whose catch-phrase was that India would be "divided or destroyed") intended to use the threat of partition as a bargaining chip in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu dominated center. [citation needed]

Other historians claim 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. [citation needed]

[edit] State of affairs before the partition

The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There were several different political arrangements in existence:

[edit] Main political players

Political Groupings

Personalities

(In alphabetic order by last name)

[edit] The process of division

Countries of Modern Indian Subcontinent
Countries of Modern Indian Subcontinent

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. Following partition, Pakistan was added as a new member of the United Nations, while the Republic of India assumed the seat of British India as a successor state.[3]

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.[4] However, the commission took so long to decide on a final boundary that the two nations were granted their independence even before there was a defined boundary between them. Even then, the members were so distraught at their handiwork (and its results) that they refused compensation for their time on the commission.

Some critics allege that British haste led to the cruelties of the Partition.[5] 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[6]

“ 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. After World War II, Britain had limited resources, perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. A hasty exit may have been seen as preferable, and perhaps less bloody than the slow disintegration of the Raj. [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]

The Hindu Sindhis were the worst affected of all the victims of the Partition. Unlike Bengal and Punjab which were split into two, with both Pakistan and India having a share, all of Sindh was given to Pakistan.

Hindu Sindhis would have remained in Sindh following the Partition, if it were not for the violence that erupted when massive amounts of Urdu speaking Muslims started pouring into Sindh. They began attacking the Hindu population. Before the announcement of the Partition, there were 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis in their ancestral land Sindh. However, in a space of less than a year approximately 1,200,000 Hindus Sindhis fled their homes, most of them leaving with little more than the clothes on their bodies.

Historically, there had been some minor clashes from time to time, but, by and large, both Hindu and Muslim Sindhis co-existed without too much tension. While some Muslim Sindhis rejoiced at the departure of their rich Hindu neighbours because they felt they would gain from their departure, many Muslim Sindhis, in fact, helped Hindu Sindhis escape to India and saved them from non-Sindhi Muslim mobs. The fate of Hindu Sindhis was tragic. While most of them had been prosperous in their homeland, now they became stateless and took refuge in others parts of India, living in penury and deprivation.

The newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000.[7] On the Pakistani side, numerous Hindus and Sikhs were forcefully evicted out of their lands, especially in the regions of Sindh and Punjab, with fear of death if they did not leave.[8][9][10] Mahatma Gandhi, however, used his influence within the Congress to ensure that Muslims could remain within India if they so wished.[11]

[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 third largest Muslim population in the world (after Indonesia and Pakistan). The current estimates for India (see Demographics of India) are as shown below. Islamic Pakistan, the former West Pakistan, by contrast, has a much 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 (2006 Est. 1,095 million vs. 1951 Census 361 million)

  • 80.5% Hindus (839 million)
  • 13.10% Muslims (143 million)
  • 2.31% Christians (25 million)
  • 2.00% Sikhs (21 million)
  • 1.94% Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and others (20 million)

Pakistan (2005 Est. 162 million 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 million 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 to Pakistan, despite the fact that the two nations had already become involved in the Kashmir War. This action is mentioned as one of the “grievances” cited by the group that assassinated him.


[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. ^ Thomas RGC, Nations, States, and Secession: Lessons from the Former Yugoslavia, Mediterranean Quarterly, Volume 5 Number 4 Fall 1994, pp. 40–65, Duke University Press
  4. ^ K.Z. Islam, 2002, The Punjab Boundary Award, Inretrospect
  5. ^ Stanley Wolpert, 2006, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-515198-4
  6. ^ Richard Symonds, 1950, The Making of Pakistan, London, ASIN B0000CHMB1, p 74
  7. ^ Death toll in the partition
  8. ^ Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947 by S. Gurbachan Singh Talib - Chapter 1
  9. ^ Religious cleansing of the Hindus by Dr. Koenraad Elst
  10. ^ Panel 33 European Association for South Asian Studies
  11. ^ Gandhiserve Who's Gandhi

[edit] External links

[edit] Bibliographies

Sindhi Reflections. 140 Lives and the Indian Partition--by Lata Jagtiani published by Jharna Books, email: jharnabooks@yahoo.com

[edit] Other links

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Popularizations

  • Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre: Freedom at Midnight. London: Collins, 1975. ISBN 0-00-638851-5

[edit] Memoir

[edit] Academic monographs

  • Butalia, Urvashi (1998): The Other Side of Silence (2nd U.S. printing). Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2494-6
  • Pandey, Gyanendra (2001): Remembering Partition. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00250-8
  • Gossman, P. (1999): Riots and Victims. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3625-2
  • Ikram, S.M.: Indian Muslims and Partition of India. Delhi: Atlantic, 1995. ISBN 81-7156-374-0
  • 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 (1992). A Short History of Pakistan. University of Karachi Press. ISBN 969-404-008-6
  • Raza, Hashim S. (1989). Mountbatten and the partition of India. Atlantic. New Delhi. ISBN 81-7156-059-8
  • Jagtiani, Lata (2007): Sindhi Reflections: 140 Lives and The Indian Partition, Jharna Books, Mumbai 400005. email jharnabooks@yahoo.com

[edit] Articles

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