A look back at the partition

[svinayak]

1857 is when East India Company gave control to the British Empire. 1919 is when Empire tried force but could only keep it up till 1947. So 90 years of British rule in my opinion should have ended in 1920s i.e. around 60 years., they extended it by 30 years. These last 30 years were heavy for us.

This is correct.
They were waiting for a global advantage resulting from WWII to give up their hold on India.
During the 20-30s Europe was going thru its own churn which the British had helped start.

[Atri]

mahadevbhu

Please look up Bengal famine, how many millions died and compare it with the holocaust. Also please lookup experiments to see how few calories a man can consume before he can't do manual labor. This was in the madras presidency and killed thousands.

He could read these if he can be bothered instead of prattling mleccha nonsense about their benevolent and peaceful rule:

http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... du-empire/

http://jambudveep.wordpress.com/2011/01 ... -in-india/

Edit: To the poster varunkumar, in Haiti it was way worse than 1857, almost all goras got wiped out.

Famine of 1802 - Loss of India to British

[member_20317]

I guess these are unpalatable hence people do not look at these things.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_o ... itish_rule

These are simple wiki-able items.

The listing is for 54.18 million fatalities from 1769 to 1944.

Indian were still dying from famine well after the 47 too.

Only when the mass of people began to gain economic independence/confidence they broke free from the cycle of death.

[member_20317]

कल्-किरण. ji

It is amazing what some of you have done. Helps me re-educate myself.

You have a good grasp on history why don't you link up all the political machinations with the timelines of famines on the wiki. You can host it on your blog.

Right now it looks as if the famine deaths in the Princely states were due to Indians themselves.

[member_20292]

I guess these are unpalatable hence people do not look at these things.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_o ... itish_rule

These are simple wiki-able items.

The listing is for 54.18 million fatalities from 1769 to 1944.

Indian were still dying from famine well after the 47 too.

Only when the mass of people began to gain economic independence/confidence they broke free from the cycle of death.

how much of this is attributable to the british govt in india?

would they have happened if instead of the brits, we had the local nawab ruling ?

[member_20292]

^^^ are there regions which have not been affected by famines...and ALSO....had very little british influence, leading us to believe that the famines were caused by british incompetence???

[member_19686]

how much of this is attributable to the british govt in india?

would they have happened if instead of the brits, we had the local nawab ruling ?

You were given 2 links by me & more by others.

One I gave was about the Mleccha-Hindu military encounters you characterized wrongly.

The second link has extensive documentation showing the famines as a direct result of the Christian British Raj not some "accident". The British Empire was built on blood and bones of millions, they were hardly the peaceful democratic angels they pretend to be.

One may also compare the number of mass famines in Nepal during the same period which was under Hindu rule though subordinate to the British Raj.

We had famines under Nawabs but that is not a very good yardstick as Nawabs and Sultans were Muslim tyrants, not much different from the Christian British tyrants as far as their attitudes towards Hindus went.

The pre-Brtish famines were a direct result of Muslims destroying waterworks & taxing people to the point of starvation.

So first read those & if you want more info, refer to "Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World" by Mike Davis & "Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II" by Madhusree Mukerjee.

On pre-British famines:

As an anecdotal example of water management let us consider the case of bhojadeva paramAra. Putting into action his teachings from the samarA~NgaNa sUtradhAra, he planned and financed several hydraulic works throughout his reign not only in his kingdom but also in other kingdoms (e.g. the lake in Kashmir). But the most famous of his works was the bhoja reservoir that was south of the modern Bhopal city. This was the largest artificial lake in India and perhaps the largest in the world at that time (650 Sq km).This reservoir was a civil engineering feat indicating that the Hindu texts of the era were not mere theoretical fancies of the impractical brAhmaNa-s and kShatriya-s. The reservoir was created by damming both the vetravati (Betwa) and kaliasrotas (Kaliasot) rivers such that the surplus water during monsoons would be collected in the reservoir. In the placing of the sandstone blocks no mortar was used, showing that they had means of cutting the huge blocks so precisely that there was no gap between them for water to leak. This lake supplied water for the entire region for 4 centuries until the invasion of the Ghazi Hoshang Shah, under whom the frenzied army of Islam spent 3 months demolishing the dam in 1434 CE. This act of destruction is proudly recorded by the Mohammedan chronicler Sahib Hakim who says that after the destruction of the dams of bhoja at two places by the army of Hoshang Shah the reservoir took three years to drain completely and became a malarial marsh for another 30 years there after. The climate of mAlava itself changed in the aftermath of this Islamic vandalism with the whole place prone to drought while Vidisha was repeatedly flooded in the monsoons. In 2006 CE the newspapers reported that the people in Bhopal and Vidisha were getting water only once in 3-7 days and riots were breaking out when water tankers arrived. Thus, the ecological effects of the Islamic vandalism of the Hindu waterworks are felt to this day. Such Mohammedan acts were not just limited to the bhoja reservoir but all over the sub-continent, suggesting that their activities had a major role in decline of water management in the medieval period. Thus the very basics of human existence declined from the condemned period to the one after it...

Let us for example look at this remarkable diagram produce by Ashish Sinha et al from their research on the stalagmites from the Dandak cave, Jagdalpur in Chattisgarh. They use the temporal variations in the Delta-oxygen-18 isotope as proxy to measure the strength of the Indian monsoon, which as we saw before is a favored topic in Sanskrit literature. The central graph is the variation of this measure with time. They indicate the particularly wet periods by green bars and particularly dry periods by pink bars. On this they superimpose the records of major famines as violet stars. This graph has considerable implication for understanding key aspects of the period under consideration.



One thing that becomes apparent from this analysis is that there were more famines in the period overlapping with the incursions and occupation by the army of Islam. The period between 600-1015 CE saw 4 famines, while that between 1015-1500 saw 15 famines (the temporal division marked by Mahmud Ghaznavi’s invasions deep into India). Even if we leave out the 4 famines (including the two big ones, like the durgA-devI famine) that correspond to the onset of the “Little Ice age” we see an increase in the frequency of famines with the spread of Mohammedan destruction over the sub-continent. Further, it must be noted that though the period under consideration did not have an episode like the “Little ice age”, there were two substantially dry periods that that appear to have been weathered by Hindus with relatively few famines. Now, this observation suggests that the Hindu on the whole was much better in the period condemned by the historians than in the sultanate period.The reason for the prevention of famines becomes apparent when the evidence from the Hindu activities of the age is examined: 1) As we have seen before the ancient tradition of construction of water reservoirs and tree-plantation is a highly encouraged activity in Hindu tradition (kUpAdi dAnaM and vR^ikShaM). 2) From inscriptions it is clear that both the kShatriya-s (real or honorary) and the shaiva and, to some extent, vaiShNAva AchArya-s of major maTha-s engaged in a series of hydraulic works, the foundations of which are found in the pratiShTha tantra-s of their tradition. 3) The system of Hindu urban and rural planning by both the rulers and the maThAdipati-s was such that new settlements were concentrated in villages as against large cities. This distributed architecture allowed maintenance and governance of large agricultural lands and reduced hoarding of agricultural produce to few hubs. This distributed architecture of the network made it more resilient to attack (i.e. by events like famines)...

http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... %E2%80%9D/

[member_23629]

1857 is when East India Company gave control to the British Empire. 1919 is when Empire tried force but could only keep it up till 1947. So 90 years of British rule in my opinion should have ended in 1920s i.e. around 60 years., they extended it by 30 years. These last 30 years were heavy for us.

Many people believe British Raj would have ended 30 years earlier had Gandhi not appeared on the scene and Indian nationalists had a free run. Maybe Gandhi was inserted into India exactly for this purpose. Gandhi was convinced to go to India from South Africa by a missionary Charles Freer Andrews.

Charles Freer Andrews (12 February 1871 – 5 April 1940) was an English priest of the Church of England and a Christian missionary and social reformer in India.

He was an educator and participant in the campaign for Indian independence, and became a close friend and associate of Mahatma Gandhi. He was instrumental in convincing Gandhi to return to India from South Africa,

[Prem]

While Chruchill could not sleep for few nights after the incident , imagining Udham Singh under his bed,

In a statement to the Press, Mahatama Gandhi had condemned the 10 Caxton Hall shooting saying that "the outrage has caused me deep pain. I regard it as an act of insanity...I hope this will not be allowed to affect political judgement".[17] A week later, Harijan, his newspaper further wrote: "We had our differences with Michael O'Dwyer but that should not prevent us from being grieved over his assassination. We have our grievances against Lord Zetland. We must fight his reactionary policies, but there should be no malice or vindictiveness in our resistance. The accused is intoxicated with thought of bravery".[18]

[Atri]

कल्-किरण. ji

It is amazing what some of you have done. Helps me re-educate myself.

You have a good grasp on history why don't you link up all the political machinations with the timelines of famines on the wiki. You can host it on your blog.

Right now it looks as if the famine deaths in the Princely states were due to Indians themselves.

Thanks Ravi ji.

Will try that. its a good idea.

[wig]

Punjab’s Partition was ethnic cleansing, says Professor Emeritus at Stockholm University

For the first time, new facts have come to light about Partition, tracing Punjab's transition, from the land of pluralistic culture to a centre of horrific bloodbath and forced migration.

Put together into a book by Ishtiaq Ahmed, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stockholm University, and the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, these facts build the theory of ethnic cleansing of minorities during India’s Partition. They use secret British documents and 230 interviews with survivors in both East and West Punjab to reveal how criminal gangs operating at the time coupled with the weak stances taken by partisan politicians and the waning authority of the British led to the death of at least five lakh Punjabi Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The peak period of violence was August to November 1947 when 10 million were forced to cross the border demarcated by the Radcliffe Award.

“The first case of ethnic cleansing after World War II took place in Punjab. My work is the first academic account on the Partition of Punjab and presents evidence of what happened in East Punjab and West Punjab before and after the transfer of power. The magnitude of the testimonies presented here is incomparable,” Prof Ahmed told The Tribune after he introduced the work at a seminar in Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Considering no official documents are available from either India or Pakistan on that period, the work titled "The Punjab, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy Through Secret British Reports and First Person Accounts”, is of extreme importance. Current works on the subject are limited in scope.

The question the author answers in the new research, which chronicles week to week account of Partition, is why Punjab was partitioned considering it had 53 per cent Muslims, 30 oer cent Hindus and 14 per cent Sikhs.

“The Punjab Partition puzzle is that the division was agreed upon at an all-India level as part of the overall plan to partition India. In Punjab, the Sikh leaders were adamant that if India was divided on religions lines, so should Punjab be, this when the Punjab province was a Muslim majority province. The Muslim League agreed to the division because had they not, there would have been no Pakistan. But the question is why Punjab had to be partitioned and what led to the communal divide,” says Prof Ahmed .

The conclusion he draws is that Muslims of undivided Punjab first unleashed violence on the Sikhs and Hindus in the Muslim-majority districts of northern Punjab in March 1947. But at the end of the year, more Muslims had been killed in East Punjab than Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab.

“The British ignored repeated warnings from the Punjab Governor who said bloodbath was inevitable were Punjab to be partitioned. Yet troops were not made available. When the Partition process culminated, unwanted religious minorities had been eradicated on both sides,” Ahmed says.

He says until August 4, 1947, the Punjab administration had reported 5,200 killings. It was after the transfer of power that mass killings began and because the Muslims were attacked much later in July 1947 by Sikhs and Hindus and began migrating to West Punjab (except from Malerkotla) from August 12, they faced larger casualties than the Hindus and Sikhs who began migrating post-March 1947.

The book chronicles the decline of communal harmony in Punjab with the decline of the Punjab Unionist Party and the rise of the Muslim League. The author quotes records to show how Hardit Singh, the then spokesperson for Sikhs, declined Jinnah’s offer to join Pakistan. “Hardit Singh asked Jinnah what would happen to his word after him, and Jinnah replied that Pakistan would honour his word like the word of God. Hardit Singh knew which side to opt for,” says Prof Ahmed.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130226/punjab.htm#5

[abhishek_sharma]

Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged on 23rd March 1931.

[Sushupti]

Time to look forward for the Partition.

Special courts for Muslim youth soon, says Minority affairs minister

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/special-cour ... 804-3.html

[Prem]

Time to look forward for the Partition.

Special courts for Muslim youth soon, says Minority affairs minister

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/special-cour ... 804-3.html

Soon there will demand special territory so no kaaffar give them takleef by existing . UPA will oblige till India shrinks to Allahabad only. UPA people are true Pandav, willing to live with 5 Sq KM area .

[svinayak]

What is new about that, CRam-ji? That is what the US and NATO have been doing for the last 60 years. All the democrazy, ooman rights, is all for the right sound bytes and public consumption. Hard to go to war saying `We want to install a puppet, or failing that, we'll make a deal with the local thug.'

The Pak RAPE class which includes Mr Jihadi Sethi is equivalent to the polo-playing 'officer class' Muslims that got along better with the British than SDRE Injuns.

Mountbatten to Collins and Lapierre in Mountbatten and the Partition of India

You see, I liked the Muslim League people-they were mostly the people from the officer class of the Indian Army-much more than the Hindus. We came around to the Hindus more after I got out to India than before. I wasn't pro-anybody, but I really did like the Muslims. I had so many friends. Don't forget the history of India is basically one of conquest. When the Moghuls came along they in fact, conquered India and ran India and people like the Nizam were the viceroys of the Moghuls in the south. The Hindus were completely militarily beaten and treated as an occupied people by the occupying power.

But they were good brains, much better brains than the Muslims. I'm generalizing; Hindus were good shopkeepers, good business people, good clerks, good civil servants, and were employed by the British and they fitted in very well. They enjoyed serving the British-they preferred to serve the British, don't forget, than to serve the Muslims who were prepared to be gracious as hosts and go hunting and that sort of thing, but did not like the idea of toeing the line to the British at all. They were prepared to enter the army and so forth, but in fact the Hindus got into the whole machinery; they got into it because the Muslims weren't prepared to work in that sort of way with us.

I think you'll find this one of the things that's not completely understood. The British out there were naturally more easily friends with Muslims because they played polo, they went out shooting, they mixed freely, they didn't have any sort of inhibitions. The Hindus didn't get on so well with the British. Frankly, no Muslim ever took part in any plotting against the British. They wanted the British to remain, it secured their position.

The last thing Jinnah wanted was that we should go. He said first he didn't want a separate Pakistan, just wanted us to stay and hold the reins for them. But the Hindus wanted us to go because they had gone to British universities, they were all terribly imbued with sort of Fabian ideas and they just thought it was wrong that the British should be ruling India. I mentioned that we ruled with the consent, with the affection, of the vast masses. No doubt of that. But the intelligent, educated people didn't like it. So that this is one of the things one was up against.

So how could we meet the Congress Party's desire without transferring power? We couldn't. We were obliged to the transfer of power.

Indians simply by being more constructive in building India have become one of 'new' factors interfering in post mutiny West-martial/RAPE Muslim love-fest. Jihadis in Pak by virtue of hating Umrika are the other 'new' factor. Now resurgent Afghans have to defeat this alliance too.

[Varoon Shekhar]

^^^

And it's very presumptuous and simply jackassish, for the British, or any of their spokesmen, chroniclers, etc to harp on this garbage about the British Moslem entente or affinity, at the expense of Hindus or non-Moslems. The British were the racist, colonial, exploitative entity, and India as a country was the victim. It's not about who likes polo, hunting or swilling whiskey more. Absolute rubbish! The British cannot act as if they were helpless bystanders in that Punjab-Partition holocaust, or a disinterested party. Their support to Moslem martial ruling race chauvinism and belligerence starting in the early 20 century, was one of the largest factors in the tragedy of 1947.

A lot of the problem that this British, Canadian, Australian, and perhaps to some extent American mindset has with India, is the absence of cheerfulness, funkiness and liveliness with respect to India. Cold, correct politeness is not what Indians are looking for.

[ramana]

Memoirs of pre-Independence India

http://www.dadinani.com/capture-memorie ... s-pre-1950

.....
In his Urdu speech, I remember, Jinnah had referred to Jawaharlal Nehru, as a "Mashhoor (well known) Hindu leader". During question time after his speech, when some one asked Jinnah why he called Nehru a ‘Hindu' leader even though he was modern and irreligious, Jinnah quipped, "An arch Brahmin, with a veneer of Westernism". The meeting ended amidst tumultuous shouts of "Pakistan Zindabad". I remember wondering how the Muslims of Agra would benefit from the creation of Pakistan, which would be several hundred miles away from Agra. (Many years after the creation of Pakistan, it was realised that it was more the outcome of deliberations in drawing rooms of UP and Bombay than of any agitations on the streets of Karachi or Peshawar, which became part of Pakistan, while UP and Bombay did not become part of Pakistan.)

.....
While going through the letters exchanged between the two leaders, released after the failure of the talks, I read that Gandhi had addressed Jinnah as Quaid-e-Azam (great leader). I do not recollect any one using this appellation for Jinnah earlier. Perhaps it became more common after the creation of Pakistan.

....
I never saw Jinnah in person again after that day in June 1945. But, I kept following his activities and statements closely through newspaper reports till 7th August 1947 (date confirmed by my 1947 diary), when he, as Governor General (designate) of Pakistan, boarded an aircraft at the Delhi airport for Karachi. As he was leaving, I remember him tersely wishing India "Good luck".

There is unfortunately no reason to believe that he really meant India "Good luck". During the few months intervening between the acceptance of his demand for Pakistan and his departure for Karachi, I do not remember a single occasion when he said any thing that smacked of a feeling of ‘forgive and forget'. On the other hand, his speeches continued to be, as before, bitter, taunting and rhetorical.

Once, on 13th June 1947, Nehru and he came face to face at a meeting, chaired by Lord Mountbatten, on the future of Princely states. Nehru accused the outgoing British officers of trying to ‘Balkanise' India by encouraging the Princes to declare themselves independent. This was an issue on which the interests of India and Pakistan were identical. However, far from supporting Nehru, Jinnah stood up indignantly, pushed back his chair and expressed his desire to quit the meeting rather than listen to ‘bombastic' speeches making unjustified accusations against British officers. He made it clear that he stood by right of the Princes to remain independent.

In my opinion, such a stand was motivated not by his belief in the right of Princes to be independent, but by a desire to further divide India by inciting Princes in general, and the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Nawab of Bhopal in particular, against acceding to India. Later, after Pakistan came into being, Jinnah not only merged Princely states (Kalat almost by force) into Pakistan territory but his troops invaded neighbouring Kashmir, in October 1947 when its ruler was still considering the future of his state.

Whenever Jinnah said that there was nothing common between Hindus and Muslims, I used to remember the way in which we used to jointly celebrate Krishna Janmashtami and Prophet Mohammed's birthday in school. But all these ended, even before the Partition, as the Muslim youth started falling prey to his propaganda.

Another aspect of his personality, which we observed till the end, was his arrogance towards not only his political opponents but also his own followers. Once he was asked, while still in India, as to who besides him had contributed to the attainment of his goal of Pakistan. He replied, "My type-writer or may be my stenographer."

In retrospect, I feel that Jinnah could have used the period between the announcement of the Partition Plan (June 3, 1947) and his departure from India (August 7, 1947) to mend fences with Indian leaders and create goodwill. Perhaps this could have laid the foundation of friendship between the two emerging nations. But alas, that was not to be.


....
On the evening of 30th January 1948, I had rushed to Birla House in New Delhi, on hearing of Gandhiji's assassination there. I could not go beyond the gate on which Nehru was standing. After listening to his tearful address, in which he announced the plan for the funeral next day, during the long tonga drive to my residence, many memories and ideas passed through my young mind. One of them was the idea that some good might come out of the great tragedy that India had suffered. Gandhiji had sacrificed his life for protecting the Muslim minority in post-partition India. He had also insisted on India paying Rs 55 crore due to Pakistan, which India had withheld as Pakistan was waging war against it in Kashmir. I thought that Gandhiji's passing away in these circumstances may bring a change of heart in Jinnah, and he may land up in Delhi the next day to mourn him - which could have ended the prevailing bitterness between the two new nations. But, it turned out to be only an empty dream of an immature mind. Jinnah was made of sterner stuff. All he did was to send a tersely worded condolence message, calling Gandhi "a great Hindu leader".

When we got the news of Jinnah's death in September 1948, some of us were sorry. The lingering hope that he might still re-appear one day in his earlier avtar as an Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity or of Indo-Pak amity (in the new reality) got finally extinguished. Years later, there were rumours that during his last days, which he spent in Ziarat, (Baluchistan) he told one of his physicians how much he missed his days in Bombay, and that when he returned to Karachi, he was going to call "Jawaharlal" and tell him "Let us start all of it afresh". The rumours have never been confirmed. In any case, Jinnah returned to Karachi only a few hours before his death, probably in a semi-conscious state.

Any narration of memories of Jinnah in India would not be complete without referring to the two houses he left behind, one in Bombay and another in Delhi. Both homes are epitomes of his luxurious life style. I learnt from newspapers soon after he left India that he had sold his Delhi home to a controversial Indian industrialist. Later, the Government of India acquired this house under the Evacuee Properties Act. I did not care to know what happened to it after that until a few years ago when a magazine published pictures of one of the most elegant houses in New Delhi's Lutyen's Bungalow Zone, currently the home of the Ambassador of an EEC country. Since then, whenever I pass by it, I try to catch a glimpse of it.

The flagship was the Jinnah House in Malabar Hills in Bombay. Like Anand Bhawan in Allahabad (residence of the Nehru family), Jinnah House of Bombay was one of the places where history was made. I had often seen it in pictures and films. Gandhiji had gone there to meet Jinnah in September 1944 for the Gandhi-Jinnah talks discussed above (see here). Once Nehru was seen ascending its steps in 1946 when he went there to meet Jinnah and invite the Muslim League to join him in forming the Interim Indian Government. Nehru was received only by Jinnah's secretary; Jinnah himself came out after some time to turn down Nehru's request, though the League did join the Interim Government later, as a hostile force to make it unworkable. Years later, Sri Prakasa, India's first envoy to Pakistan, wrote in his reminiscences that Jinnah, now Governor General of Pakistan, once turned sentimental about this house. He told Sri Prakasa, "It is my heart, please, ask Jawaharlal, to keep it properly and not break my heart."

Jinnah was dead by the time I first went to live in Bombay and could manage to have a look at this house. It was a magnificent edifice. Today, its ownership is controversial, and it is decaying fast. How I wish that this house, which in any case is a part of our history, is preserved for posterity, the way we have preserved monuments left behind by the British.

Epilogue

What is Jinnah's legacy? This remains a controversial issue, part of an ongoing debate.

I think that from 1937 onwards his overarching objective was to "save" undivided India's 9 crore Muslims from "Hindu Raj" and allow them to lead a life of dignity, in event of the British leaving India. To achieve this, he propounded the two-nation theory, and demanded a Muslim Pakistan to be carved out of India. He got it. But, did he succeed in achieving his overarching objective?

The 9 crore Muslims of 1947 have by now increased in number to just over 48 crore. Ironically, over 16 crore of them, over 33 %, continue to live in India under what Jinnah called "Hindu Raj", from which he wanted them to be emancipated, making India still the home of the second largest number of Muslims in the world, after Indonesia. This, more than anything else, demonstrates the fallacy of Jinnah's view that Muslims needed a separate country to escape Hindu persecution.

A little less than 16 crore Muslims live in Bangladesh. Their fathers and grandfathers were swayed by the two-nation theory and they helped Jinnah to create Pakistan. But, they were soon disillusioned and fought a bloody war to get out of it, and that too with India's help.

About 16 crores Muslims live in what is Pakistan today. Many of them are descendants of those who migrated from India in the hope of a better life. But they are still treated as outsiders: they are called Muhajirs (Urdu-speaking immigrants from India) and often discriminated against. I have seen their kith and kin in India, seeking visitors' visas, in order to pay them a visit, being harassed and humiliated at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi. Ironically, the High Commission treated me with due courtesy when I went there to apply for my visa to visit Pakistan in the 1990s.)

Jinnah had visualized Pakistan as a modern, forward-looking democratic state. Today, it looks a far cry from the Pakistan Jinnah had dreamt of. Some young Pakistani writers go so far as to say that the country is still in search of an identity.

Finally, India and Pakistan have still not been able to find a way to live peacefully with each other. No doubt, Jinnah cannot be held responsible for what happened after his death. But, I feel that the divisiveness that Jinnah preached still continues to divide India and Pakistan.

In this sense, Jinnah continues to live even to day, over 63 years after his death, through the spirit of divisiveness that he has left behind.

_______________________________________

© R C Mody 2011

[SSridhar]

Pakistan Movement - Myth or Reality ? - Vaqar Ahmed, DT

Recently, questions have been raised on the definition of the Ideology of Pakistan. A logical follow-up question is what exactly was the nature of the Pakistan movement?

The official view of the Pakistan movement presents a linear narration of a history beginning from the formation of the Muslim League in 1906, followed by the vision of Sir Mohammad Iqbal of a homeland for the Muslims floated in 1930, on to the Pakistan Resolution of 1940, and the League gaining strength to strength to finally attaining a separate homeland for the Muslims of India. This is the view that is taught in our educational institutions and mostly unquestioningly accepted by students.

The question posed here is: did the demand for Pakistan have the support and active participation of all the Muslims of India, or was it a strategically brilliant struggle for power by the Muslim League, led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah as its principal spokesman?

Furthermore, was the creation of Pakistan a case of ‘unintended consequences’ when tactical interim demands to achieve a different goal became a nemesis of the desired objective and eventually replaced it?

As late as 1937, when the elections were held in India for autonomous provincial assemblies, the Muslim League won only 109 out of the 482 seats allocated to the Muslims. It was in Punjab, Sindh, Bengal and NWFP that the Muslim League lost heavily. In Punjab, most seats went to the Unionist Party, a secular party of the landlords of Punjab, which included Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The government in Punjab from 1937 to 1942 was a coalition of the Unionist Party, All India Congress and Siromani Akali Dal. In Sindh, where 72 percent of the population was Muslim, the League did not win a single seat out of the 34 reserved for the Muslims. The League also failed to win a single seat in the NWFP. In Bengal, the League won only 39 out of the 82 seats that it contested. The demand for Pakistan was not on the League’s agenda in 1937.

Just three years after the debacle in the 1937 elections, the League launched the Pakistan Resolution in 1940, calling for a separate homeland for the Muslims of India. This declaration struck India like a bolt of lightning from the blue.

The author of the Lahore Resolution, Sir Zafarullah Khan’s original idea was to create two Muslim federations on the basis of existing physical boundaries of the provinces and not on communal basis. This way the interests of the Muslims in the Muslim minority federations could be protected since it would be a quid pro quo situation vis-à-vis the Muslims and non-Muslims.

Jinnah did not like this idea, as it would have meant the devolution of the power of the League at the centre. Only two months before the Pakistan resolution, Jinnah had advanced the idea of a constitution for India that recognised that there were “in India two nations...both must ‘share’ the governance of their common motherland.”

So how did the demand from power sharing change to the demand for a separate country?

Ayesha Jalal in her book The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan has explained it thus: “The Lahore resolution should therefore be seen as a bargaining counter, which had the merit of being acceptable (on the face of it) to the majority-province Muslims, and of being totally unacceptable to the Congress and in the last resort to the British also. This in turn provided the best insurance that the League would not be given what it now apparently was asking for, but which Jinnah in fact did not really want”. In addition, the vague slogan of Pakistan could be used to bring the support of the Muslims to the Muslim League.

Thus the ultimate irony is that what was not asked for became a reality due to the confluence of events beyond the control of the protagonists: a classic case of unintended consequences of short-term tactics and hidden agendas.

These events unfolded with the start of the Second World War. The British joined the war without informing the Congress or the Muslim League, assuming that unquestioning support would be forthcoming from their colony. They were rudely surprised when a very upset Congress Party put conditions on its support to the British war effort. Their key demand was that India be given independence after the war. The British desperately sought the support of the Muslims to avoid having to address the demand of the Congress. Jinnah played his Muslim card and offered no opposition to the British war effort. The British used his position to tell the Congress that it could not accept its demand since the Muslims had a different view on this issue. The unbending attitude of the British left no choice for the Congress ministries but to resign in protest on October 23, 1939. The Congress, already weakened by the internal strife between the leaders who were inside and outside the ministries, was thus dealt another blow that weakened it considerably.

Jinnah’s support to the British earned him the gratitude of Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy of India in the war years. Congress’s ‘uncooperative position’ on the war effort had riled the colonial masters. They considered Congress as anti-British and were willing to support any initiative that undermined the power of the Congress. As a result, Jinnah’s refusal to support the Congress was greatly welcomed by the British. For the League, the advantage gained was the recognition by the British that the party was on an equal footing with the Congress. In short, the League now had a veto power on any decision on India’s future form.

In 1945, after the surrender of the Germans, Lord Wavell the Viceroy was given the authority to negotiate a plan for the eventual independence of India by way of first forming an executive council that would have equal representatives of the Muslims and non-Muslims. The executive council would be the first step toward framing a new constitution of India by the Indians.

The Simla meeting failed due to the League’s insistence to nominate all the Muslims on the Viceroy council and the Congress taking the position that since it was an all-India party it had the right to nominate some of the Muslim representatives. The Unionists of Punjab also wanted one Muslim representative on the council. Jinnah knew that any sharing of Muslim seats with the Congress and the Unionists would be the death knell for the League. Sir Khizar Hayat Tiwana, the Punjab Chief Minister, blamed the failure of the conference on Jinnah’s unreasonable insistence on being considered the sole representative of the Muslims of India.

Jinnah was now running out of options to establish the Muslim League as the only Muslim party at the Centre. Following the failure of the Simla summit, Jinnah demanded that elections should be held to establish, once and for all, whether Jinnah and the League spoke for all the Indian Muslims, and that the majority of Indian Muslims supported the creation of a separate homeland. Given an opportunity to play the Muslim League against Congress, the British were all too willing to accept this demand.

[svinayak]

For the League, the advantage gained was the recognition by the British that the party was on an equal footing with the Congress. In short, the League now had a veto power on any decision on India’s future form.

How a war era alliance turned into a geo political tool to control an entire nation of more than 1B population.

[member_19686]

EDITORIAL
Exchange Of Populations
Mar 2013

Before the actual division of India took place in 1947, the British rulers made all efforts to keep the country united. Their last attempt in this direction was the dispatch of Cabinet Mission in 1946. However, there was no meeting ground between the Indian Muslim League and the Indian National Congress. Jinnah and other prominent league leaders insisted on the partition of India before the departure of the British. Since the demand for a separate homeland for Muslims of the subcontinent was based on the premise that Muslims could not coexist with Hindus, the exchange of population was not only logical but was also an integral part of the scheme of Partition. This was repeatedly pointed out in speeches made by the League leaders and also in discussions with the British rulers.

The writeup that follows is based on written records of those times particularly during the years 1946-1947:

Dr. Rafiq Zakaria

Soon after, Clement Attlee came to power in England, he announced on February 20, 1947 that Britain would hand over political power to Indian representatives latest by June, 1948. In order to expedite the change, he sent a cabinet mission to India comprising Lord Pethick Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and A.V. Alexander. On its arrival in India in March 1946, it held discussions with Gandhi and Nehru and Jinnah. What transpired between the Mission and Jinnah was told to Dr. Rafiq Zakaria by Lord Alexander soon after he returned to London. This is how the dialogue went:

The Mission asked Jinnah : "Do you realize that the Pakistan you are demanding will leave substantial Hindus under Muslim domination?"

Jinnah replied: "That will be so; but I will leave many more Muslims under Hindu domination in Hindustan."

Surprised at this reply the Mission said: "How does it then resolve Hindu-Muslim discord? It will only perpetuate the hostilities."

Jinnah persisted: "I will free at least two-third Muslims from Hindu domination."

The Mission told him: "And you will put more than that number of Hindus under Muslim domination. That is no solution."

Jinnan was adamant. He asserted: "That is the only solution if you don't want civil war."

The Mission was nonplussed at his stand and asked: "But should you adopt such a callous attitude towards the minorities in the two states, they will be in worse condition than the Muslims in united India-also the Muslims in divided India will be the worst sufferers."

Jinnah replied: "Their best protection will be the establishment of two strong states, neither of which will dare misbehave towards each other's minorities."

The Mission enquired: "You mean to say that these minorities will be hostages."

Jinnah said: "Exactly. If one state mistreats its minorities, the other state will retaliate against its minorities. It will be tit for tat."

(The Man Who Divided India, 2001)

Justice G.D. Khosla

Once, during the discussions with the Governor General, when the un-wisdom of cutting up the country and setting up two widely separated and attenuated States of Pakistan was pointed out to him he picked up a box of matches and, striking a dramatic pose, exclaimed with considerable heat: Even if I get so much territory for a separate State of Pakistan I shall insist on Partition

Demand for Pakistan : Justice Khosla says that the demand for the Partition of India was a logical corollary to the loyal and inspired Address presented by Muslims to Lord Minto in 1906. Forty years of separate electorates and British favoritism had brought about a state of affairs from which it was impossible to escape. The Muslim League demand for Pakistan was based on the hypothesis that Hindus and Muslims constitute two separate nations, each entitled to a separate and exclusive homeland where they would be free to develop their culture, tradition, religion and polity. On any other ground, the partition of the country and the setting up of a separate independent State for the Muslims would have been indefensible.

No matter where the line of demarcation was drawn, there would be Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs on either side of it, in a majority or in a substantial minority; and, whatever the geographical boundaries of Pakistan, large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs would, overnight, become aliens and foreigners in their own homes. Mr. Jinnah made desperate efforts to evade the issue by promising protection and rights of citizenship to the minorities, but the nature of his demand was wholly inconsistent with these promises. How could millions of foreigners acquire rights of citizenship and equal status with the nationals of Pakistan: and if they could, why divide India, why not let Muslims continue as nationals of India? Mr. Jinnah could find no answer to these questions and he was finally compelled to suggest an exchange of population. (Stern Reckoning, OUP, 1949)

Qaid-e-Azam's statement

On November 25, 1946, Mr. Jinnah, addressing a Press Conference at Karachi expressed the opinion that "the authorities, both Central and Provincial, should take up immediately the question of exchange of Population".

To the Muslim League, however, it was a matter of great urgency as it offered a complete answer to the opponents of Pakistan. Exchange on a voluntary basis was an impossibility. The non-Muslims of the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Bengal could never consent to leave their lands, the industry and commerce they had built up with their money and labour, and become beggars and nomads to satisfy a whim of Mr. Jinnah's. The dream of exchanging populations on a voluntary basis was impossible of realization and the Muslim League had to find another way of resolving the difficulty.

A change of tactics, better organization and more favourable conditions enabled the Muslim League to strike terror into the hearts of the non-Muslims, destroy their property, their self-respect and the honour of their women, and convert them wholesale to Islam. This was a more effective way of dealing with the minorities and obviated the difficulties involved in an exchange of population.

It was now taken up by the League leaders and put forward in all seriousness and with all the vehemence at their command. They became more and more uncompromising on this issue and answered all criticism by uttering scarcely veiled threats, and predicted a horrible doom for those who disagreed with them.

Statement of Mamdot, President of Punjab Muslim League

He declared, with great enthusiasm, that "the exchange of population offered a most practical solution of the multifarious problems" of the Muslims. "We are not going to ask Sardar Patel or Dr. Khare for it, but we will get it by our own inherent strength. The exchange of population will wipe out the most important argument against Pakistan which has been persistently fired from the Congress armoury."

Statement of the Sind Premier, Ghulam Husain
Statement of Raja Ghaznafar Ali Khan

"After what has happened, the present position cannot be accepted with equanimity and minorities which are too scattered and helpless owing to the smallness of their numbers must not be left as a tempting prey to those who can arrange organized lawlessness."

Sir Evan Jenkins, the Governor of the Punjab, observed that by advocating an exchange of population the Muslim League was thinking of forcibly driving away the Hindus from the Punjab.

Sir Feroze Khan Noon : had already threatened to re-enact the murderous orgies of Changez Khan and Halaqu Khan if the non-Muslims took up a refractory attitude.

Professor M. Mujeeb, Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi: had an interesting experience in 1949. In his words, quoted from his book Islamic Influence on Indian Society, (Meenakshi Prakashan, Meerut, 1972.) : At a party given during the U.N. General Assembly Session in 1949 I had the pleasure of being placed next to the Turkish representative. He looked at my name card, saw that I was a Muslim and at once asked, are there still any Muslims in India? The impression then created does not yet seems to have been removed and it is believed that the sub-continent had been divided between Muslims and Hindus, with all Muslims on the one side and all Hindus on the other.

What the politicians said was confirmed by Professor M. Mujeeb, in his erudite work. He said that the Muslim League demanded the creation of a separate homeland for Indian Muslims. He further stated that in the elections held early in 1946, the League, whose dominant manifesto was the creation of Pakistan, secured 425 seats out of 492 reserved for Muslims. The League insisted that the right to a separate homeland should be conceded first and other negotiations could be held thereafter.

Sardar Swaran Singh said, "the Sikhs in the Punjab would not tolerate any move to this end." The Muslim League leaders, on the other hand, expressed their wholehearted approval of the scheme.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar

The Hindus can never be expected to consent to the inclusion of Hindus in a Muslim state deliberately created for the preservation and propagation of Muslim faith and culture.

If the Musalmans are bent on having Pakistan then it must be conceded to them. In my judgment there are two governing factors which must determine the issue. First is the defence of India and second is the sentiment of the Muslims.

(Thoughts on Pakistan, 1940 by B.R. Ambedkar)

COMMENTS : As regards the remarks made by the Union Minister for Minority affair and Grish Karnad that Hindus who were opposed to the setting up of Tipu Sultan University at Sringapatnam were biased, it may be pointed out that both Haydar Ali and Tipu Sultan persecuted Hindus. This is what Professor Sir Thomas Arnold who taught at the Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College Aligarh (now Aligarh Muslim University) in the last quarter of the 19th Century has written about the atrocities perpetrated on Hindus by Haydar Ali and Tipu Sultan : Tipu Sultan is probably the Muhammadan Monarch who most systematically engaged in the work of forcible conversions. In 1788 he issued the following proclamation to the people of Malabar: From the period of the conquest until this day, during twentyfour years, you have been a turbulent and refractory people, and in the wars waged during your rainy season, you have caused number of your warriors to taste the draught of martyrdom. Be it so. What is past is past. Hereinafter you must proceed in an opposite manner, dwell quietly and pay your dues like good subjects; and since it is the practice with you for one women to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are there all born in adultery, and more shameless in your connections than the beasts, of the field, I hereby require to forsake these sinful practices and to be like the rest of mankind, and if you are disobedient to these commands, I have made repeated vows to honour the whole of you with Islam and to march all the chief persons to the seat of Government. In 1789, Tipu Sultan ordered that every being in the district without distinction should be honoured with Islam, that the houses of such as fled to avoid that honour should be burned, that they should be traced to their lurking places, and that all means of truth and falsehood, force or fraud should be employed to effect their universal conversion. Thousands of Hindus were accordingly circumcised and made to eat beef. Most of the Brahmans and Nayars who had been forcibly converted, subsequently disowned their new religion.
- Thus the missionary spirit of Islam is supposed to show itself in its true light in the brutal massacres of Brahmans by Mahmud of Ghazna, in the persecutions of Aurangzeb, the forcible circumcisions effected by Haydar Ali, Tipu Sultan and the like (The Preaching of Islam, London 1913)

It may also be mentioned that no less a person then Sir Aga Khan has given all credit to Aligarh Muslim University for the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The setting up of Muslim Universities in different parts of the country by the Government of India may in due course lead to the balkanization of this nation.

http://janasangh.com/jsart.aspx?stid=533

[vishvak]

^Shows how tit-for-tat, or any other tactis, are applied selective by one side in short time to grab what it can while other has to show magnanimity. Tit-for-tat, exchange of population and later infiltration too across the border are all done selectively and even then the side gets away since other side has to be magnanimous.

[Prem]

Transfer of Population will soon become the necessity. With better transport infrastructure now in place , this can be done safely and fast without bloodshed .Like the Muslims under Jinnah , Non Muslims in india were never asked about their choices, option and preference. Home of Islam, Paskistan will be better of by accepting at least 10 Crore Muslims from all over the world , mainly India . This will strengthen Paki claim of being leader of Ummah and based only on Islam.

[sanjaykumar]

Yeah, they can begin with the "Biharis" (there is nothing Bihari about them) in..uh...East Pakistan.

[abhishek_sharma]

President Rajendra Prasad's book "India divided" is available on archive.org

http://archive.org/details/indiadividedthir029134mbp

[abhishek_sharma]

The Pity of Partition: Manto’s Life, Times, and Work Across the India-Pakistan Divide

Saadat Hasan Manto (1912–55) was a leading Urdu writer who attracted controversy in prepartition India and early postpartition Pakistan for his short stories and film scripts that dealt with sex and politics in a daring manner. Jalal, his grandniece, uses his published writings and family letters and her interviews with relatives to portray his complex relationships and turbulent career. Interweaving stories from his fiction and events from his life, she produces a rich, if somewhat disjointed, tapestry of a complex society and the tensions that built up to the explosive violence of partition in 1947. In the aftermath, Manto, dying from the effects of alcoholism, directed his last sardonic barbs at the martyrdom-peddling mullahs and U.S.-allied cold warriors who were taking control of his young country.

[Yayavar]

Manto's Toba Tek Singh; and Mohan Rakesh's 'Malbey ka Malik' are two good stories that show the effect on common folk. And Kale Kos by Balwant Singh.

[Abhi_G]

Pain of the Bengal partition is vividly depicted in Ritwik Ghatak's film trilogy.
1, Meghe Dhaka Tara
2. Komal Gandhar
3. Subarnarekha
All deal with the pains during the aftermath of partition in free India.

Long back, I also saw a Bangla film of a pandit who faces partition violence in East Bengal, migrates to India, continues his work on a Sanskrit to Bangla dictionary (abhidhaan), loses his son, gets no recognition from Govt., leads a life of penury in free India, yet finishes his scholarly work. The work is acknowledged by a corrupt minister after his death who claims full credit for discovering it.

[Mukesh.Kumar]

To understand the human cost of the Bengal Famine, and how it rended the social fabric of Bengal, I would suggest this movie by Satyajit Roy- Ashani Shanket

[Mukesh.Kumar]

OT Alert On:

One more thing. After all these years I finally visited Amritsar last month. Lying so close to the border the city is a true testament of what our country went through.
1) Visiting Jallianwala Bagh, one cannot but feel moved as to how 'nervous'/ jittery the British administration would have felt at the gathering on the outskirts of the Golden Temple. And how trapped the people would have felt in the small park when faced with British troops. The bullet holes on the wall and the well where people jumped in to save themselves left me feeling so desolate. I think that we owe it to our next generation to keep the memory alive. It's a pilgrimage for us to make, to take our children and show them what happened.
2) Maybe moved by the visit to Jallianwala Bagh the Golden temple seemed to me the most poignant symbol of Indian nationhood standing apart as a symbol of our tolerance, inclusiveness and resilience. Whatever happened in Operation BlueStar, the '84 riots, and in Punjab subsequently, we as a nation survived. Our leaders faulty they maybe played their part, but it was the will and hope of us as ordinary Indians who chose to live and grow together that made us survive.

While explaining to my SHQ ( ), Roman Catholic- European- never been to India before why I was so pensive, I found my melancholy disappearing, replaced by hope and joy at being lucky to be born in our motherland.

OT: Alert off. Sorry could not help sharing, the last month's trip back home was memorable in more ways than one. Trying to explain my country anew to someone from outside brought a fresh appreciation of my motherland.

[disha]

Mukeshji, Congratulations on making the pilgrimage to Jalianwala bagh.

OT: And again congratulations in being "acquired" by your SHQ. .

[Yayavar]

Mukesh: if you like poetry there is one by Subhadra Kumar Chauan 'Jalianwala bagh me vasant'. You might appreciate that.

[ramana]

A book review of interest to how the British viewed the Romans an how they took steps to continue the conquest after they left India!!!

Stuart Laycock, Miles Russell, "UnRoman Britain: Exposing the Great Myth of Britannia"
ISBN: 0752455664, 0752462857 | 2011 | 288 pages |

When we think of Roman Britain we tend to think of a land of togas and richly decorated palaces with Britons happily going about their much improved daily business under the benign gaze of Rome. This image is to a great extent a fiction. In fact, Britons were some of the least enthusiastic members of the Roman Empire. A few adopted roman ways to curry favour with the invaders. A lot never adopted a Roman lifestyle at all and remained unimpressed and riven by deep-seated tribal division. It wasn't until the late third/early fourth century that a small minority of landowners grew fat on the benefits of trade and enjoyed the kind of lifestyle we have been taught to associate with period. Britannia was a far-away province which, whilst useful for some major economic reserves, fast became a costly and troublesome concern for Rome, much like Iraq for the British government today. Huge efforts by the state to control the hearts and minds of the Britons were met with at worst hostile resistance and rebellion, and at best by steadfast indifference. The end of the Roman Empire largely came as 'business as usual' for the vast majority of Britons as they simply hadn't adopted the Roman way of life in the first place.

Replace Rome with UK and Brittania with India.

[ramana]

In search of Punjabiyat

In search of the punjabiyat
Sunday, 22 September 2013 | Utpal Kumar
12345 3
Was there indeed a shared identity that united Muslims and Sikhs of Punjab? Rajmohan Gandhi thinks so. In an interaction with Utpal Kumar, he bemoans the loss of Punjabiyat in India and Pakistan, and why it failed to withstand the horrors of Partition

Punjab

Author: Rajmohan Gandhi

Publisher: Aleph, Rs 695

Want to understand India and Pakistan? “Read the history of Punjab,” says Rajmohan Gandhi, in a way justifying his latest book, Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten. He, however, has one more reason to write this book. “No history of Punjab has been written in the past 125 years,” says Gandhi. So much has been written on Sikh history and Partition, he affirms, but Punjab remains an ignored bystander.

Gandhi’s decision, however, to start the history of Punjab with the death of Aurangzeb is contestable. After all, the the process of Punjabiyat, which he so fondly remembers, began with the advent of Islam in the region. It was the result of constant interactions — at times harmonious but often violent — between Hinduism and Islam. The decline of the Mughals could only ensure the rise of political Punjab.

That apart, the book is a product of labour and love. And of course nostalgia. Ask him about Punjabiyat, and he says with a tinge of sadness: “It hardly exists today. I often visit Pakistan and in cities like Lahore very few people remember those good old days. The younger generation is completely oblivious of this past. But why just Lahore, people in cities like Amritsar don’t know that not very long ago a large population of Muslims used to reside there.”

In an interaction with Agenda, Gandhi talks about the book and its principal protagonists. Excerpts:

What encouraged you to write this book on Punjab?

This has been a semi-conscious wish for a long time. The seed was sown in my boyhood when I was growing up in Delhi. Before Independence, Punjabi elements were hardly noticeable there. Partition changed it all. So, the desire to write about Punjab was there for long. Moreover, I believe you cannot understand modern India and Pakistan without understanding the history and culture of Punjab. Also, I was provoked to write this book because very few, if any, histories of undivided Punjab have been written so far. One may find excellent books on Sikh history, but these largely leave out Punjabi Muslims, who are three times the population of Sikhs. It’s my humble attempt to fill this gap.

Why does the book start with the death of Aurangzeb and end with Lord Mountbatten?

With the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the glory of the Mughal empire ended, and with Mountbatten the British empire bade a goodbye to the subcontinent. In between existed — and thrived — the Sikh kingdom. This explains why the book begins and ends the way it does. If Akbar has been seen as a paragon of virtue, Aurangzeb is painted in a villainous light. This book adopts a more balanced approached...Aurangzeb is not a central character in this book. But since the book starts with his death in 1707, I wanted to present a complete picture of him, not in black and white. No doubt, he was a fanatic, but there was more to him than his fanaticism.

You have written that the Muslim majority of Punjab failed to fill the vacuum after the Mughal decline. What made you think this?

After the decline of the Mughals, Sikhs across Punjab had a common purpose. They had sorted out the issue of social hierarchy. They became not just single people but also equal people. Muslims in Punjab, on the other hand, saw themselves as belonging to a clan, tribe, locality, etc. They did not come together even when they faced a common enemy. These two factors led to the rise of Ranjit Singh. It was the first time since the arrival of Muslims in the region more than 800 years ago that Punjab was ruled by one of its own. This also meant that for the first time in several centuries, Punjab’s Muslims were being governed by a non-Muslim establishment led by Jat Sikhs.

Tell us about Ranjit Singh and how he helped create Punjabiyat.

Sikhs had filled the political vacuum before Ranjit Singh came to power. Already there were Sikh chiefs in different pockets of Punjab. Ranjit Singh unified them all. While the Khalsa Sarkar, as his administration was called then, bore a clear Sikh-Hindu imprint (in those times Sikhs and Hindus were mostly seen as one), Ranjit Singh desired Muslim loyalty as well. During his first takeover of Lahore, Ranjit Singh’s earliest public acts had been to pay homage to two mosques — the Badshahi Mosque, which Aurangzeb had built, and the Wazir Khan Mosque, constructed by one of Shahjahan’s generals. Also, he made a Muslim, Imam Baksh, the city’s kotwal, along with a few others in the affairs of administration.

Yet, Muslims did not have much say in the kingdom’s management. The Maharaja’s favourite officers were Dogras, Sikhs and Brahmins. Also, the kingdom was not entirely free of religious tension. Bans on slaughter of cows and restrictions on public calls for the Islamic prayer (azaan) were imposed in many places. Even the Badshahi Mosque was later turned into a storeroom for keeping arms.

These restrictions apart, the fact remains that there was a fair amount of tolerance and freedom, and people of all faiths were, on the whole, free to do whatever they wanted to do. This is evident from the fact that many descendants of Ranjit Singh’s Muslim officers were in prominent positions during Partition. The ancestors of Sir Khizar Hayat Tiwana, Premier of Punjab between 1942 and 1947, had served Ranjit Singh. So were the forebears of Sir Fazli Husain, a prominent Punjab politician of the 1920s. Had Ranjit Singh been deeply anti-Muslim, then these officers wouldn’t have become what they eventually became.

I find a bit of contradiction in the book. You have mentioned how “not a single Muslim chief of standing” in Punjab didn’t support the jihad of a Barelvi ideologue from the United Provinces against the Sikh kingdom. Yet, when British came, most leading Muslim families of West Punjab supported the East India Company. How do you explain this?

What appears as contradiction at the first sight is actually a complexity of the situation. We need to understand that Muslims in Punjab had some sort of restrictions, and they were not very happy with the situation. Yet, when a Muslim ideologue issued a call for jihad against the Sikh kingdom, it failed to inspire Muslims in the region. It’s because even if they had succeeded in uprooting the Sikh kingdom, there was no viable alternative available to replace it. People, thus, preferred the safety of the Sikh kingdom rather than the uncertainty of a post-jihad scenario. But when the British emerged in the Indian political horizon, things became different. Here was an alternative to the Sikh rule and so most leading Muslim families supported the British.

During the 1857 mutiny, we find Punjabis helping the British subdue what they called poorbiya troops. It’s understandable why Sikhs joined hands with British as they were uneasy about the rise of the Mughals. But why were Punjabi Muslims indifferent to the revolt?

This proves that people don’t always see themselves as Hindus and Muslims. This also explains that Islam isn’t one-dimensional, as some of us would like to believe. We need to understand that the Mughals were perceived as outsiders in Punjab. Even Punjabi Muslims didn’t like them much, as they had disrupted lives in the region. Also, Muslims were grateful to the British for dislodging the Sikh rule in Punjab. The memory of the Badshahi Mosque not being a mosque, ban on azaan and cow slaughter, etc, was still fresh in their minds.

How do you explain the rise of the Unionist Party in Punjab?

The Unionist Party was an interesting phenomenon. True, it was a feudal party, but it had one good thing: It was not confined to a particular religion and had Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs as its members. This was not true of other political parties, including the Congress, which was largely seen as a Hindu party in Punjab. The Unionist Party was against Partition, but the Congress refused to deal with it. Agreed, the Congress had fundamental differences with the Unionist Party (the latter supported the Raj, while the former opposed it; the latter was a landlord’s party, while the former believed in land reforms), yet the two should have joined hands for the sake of bigger causes like Partition. The Congress should have engaged a lot more vigorously with the Unionist Party. Sadly, this didn’t happen.

The idea of Punjabiyat, which you espouse so intensely in the book, failed at the very sight of Partition. Why did this happen?

The seeds of discord were sowed by the British empire, which emphasised on creating good relations with Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs on a one-to-one basis. The British dealt with them separately and, thus, prevented any meaningful Hindu, Muslim, Sikh dialogue to take place. This explains why the concept of Punjabiyat couldn’t withstand the horrors of Partition.

Partition is a fiercely debated subject with some blaming the Congress, others the Muslim League, and a few questioning the role of the British. How do you see this tragic event?

It was a collective failure. The Congress failed to engage with the Unionist Party, thus providing the Muslim League a chance to sneak away with its sinister design. The British were responsible for following the divide-and-rule policy. For me, however, it was the local leadership of Punjab that disappointed the most. They were mostly looking towards London and Delhi for orders, or Mahatma Gandhi or Mohammed Ali Jinnah for guidance. Punjabiyat failed because of the failure of the Punjabi leadership.

Punjabiyat is very alive in India.

As I said to Jhujar once "There is Punjabi in every Indian. Only its well hidden in others!"

[Rahul Mehta]

Google search ad -- what a cruel mockery of refugees from Pakistan. One would remember relatives/friends who were killed/abducted, not some lost friends.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE

In 1946-1948, over 10 lakh were murdered in Pakistan + Bangladesh , over 20 lakh were kidnapped and over 2 crore had to flee in a short span of few months with just their clothes. The population of Hindus in Pakistan in 1931 was about 23% (no census was taken in 1941). And in 1951, it came down to 7% and it is 3% now. And population of Hindus in Bangladesh in 1931 was about 35% which came down to some 21% in 1951 and is now 7%.

My mother was 6 years old in Karachi when whole family came from Karachi to Mumbai in 1947 and eldest mama was about 16 years old back then. And I have spoken to MANY MANY refugee victims. Almost all refugees have some relatives or close friends or close neighbors who were murdered. ALMOST ALL REFUGEES HAVE MEMORY OF RELATIVES AND CLOSE FRIENDS WHO WERE BRUTALLY MURDERED IN PAKISTAN IN 1947. Incidents of being burnt alive, buried alive, skinned alive, killed after mutilations were all common across Lahore, Karachi, Ravalpindi and whole of Pakistan. After all, if % population of Hindus came down from 23% to 7%, something earth shaking would have happened.

The neighbors in some cases helped in saving lives and escape. But they did take the house etc as "charge" for protecting lives. eg in case of my mother/mama/nana/nani etc, the neighbors helped them to escape from inner Karachi to the port from where they came to Mumbai. But the house was kept by the neighbors as "charge".

So it was sickening to me to see an advertise where a refugee victims doesnt talk about his relatives, neighbors, friends etc who were murdered or abducted, but talks about "child friend" nonsense. This ad is just a mockery of all refugee victims.

It would have been better use of Google search if one can find the murderers and abductors.

The advertisement has been huge success because paid-textbook-writers and paid-columnists in India have written NOTHING about violence and abductions during partitions. Which is why, so many Indians can believe that people can have "pleasing memories" about partition. In fact, the advertisement PROVES that today's youth knows nothing about partition violence and so can like such an advt. IMO, we activists should STOP donating money to useless organizations like RSS, BJP, AAP, Congress etc, and instead spend money in giving newspaper advertisements informing citizens about events of partition.

[brihaspati]

Rajmohan Gandhi somehow spins it all as a "failure". But there were very specific steps that each of the three forces mentioned, took - much before - that almost inevitably forced the outcome eventually.

Muslim leadership in Punjab had always, always been conscious of their geopolitical situation as a frontier bewteen "Hindu" lands to the east and south and the pure lands fanaticism and sadistic genocide of Islamyiat that lay to the west and north. They had always invited in more genocidal and foreign elements on behalf of their own precarious hold on power - from the west - and had never really integrated with the traditions and roots of Bharat. Islam taught them that any opportunistic bending of principles and any level of deception was okay as long as it contributed to future capture of power over a society.

So their tolerance of the Sikhs or catching the hands of the Brits is as much within the military-philosophical doctrine of Islam as is the welcoming that the very same Punjabi Muslims accorded to Babar to overthrow Delhi Sultanate - something that Rajmohan seems to forget in the quoted discussion - when he says that Punjabi Muslims did not like the Mughals.

Punjabi Muslim leadership represents the predatory nomadism within Islamism that allows the predator not to grow roots, to uproot traces of the older cultures rooted to the land and its geography, and remain detached at the psychological level from all concepts of nationhood and continuity with culture - so that raping and looting of that very land creates no psychological trauma, or betrayal and constant looking out for opportunistic other predators to ally with in raping the land comes naturally.

The Congress did not know this? In fact it systematically eliminated those voices from its early days that had warned about this and cautioned against trusting the Islamists in any way. Warnings were given as early within the Gandhian dominance as with the start of the Khilafat shenanigans in the 1921-24 phase. This was ruthlessly suppressed through the English language press which had more or less switched over to supporting the Gandhian "sweep" from late WW1 phase, and Congress's own internal organizational intrigues. In most such internal fights - typically the more idealistic and ethical faction loses to the less scrupulous. But that does not mean that the Gandhian leadership can cry about not knowing and never being able to imagine or claim that no-one thought that the Islamists could do what they did. They had full 25 year's early warning.

The Brit of course had always had a sadistic mindset, and what it could not use anywhere - it spoiled. That too was very much known for a long time. It would be natural that the two most consistently sadomasochistic and predatory cultures would shake hands over Partition.

As for Local Punjabi "seculars" failing by waiting for mullahs or Gandhiji and Delhi - well mullahs had always destroyed any independent thought in Muslim societies through explicit use of violence, coercion, sadism, and deception together with male sexual jealousy and greed [women become a focal point of contest - both defensively and offensively]. So any political force, like that of the INC or the Brits - who revived the mullah or rehabilitated the mullahcracy and thereby gave it legitimacy - were actually removing any chance for independent thought within the common Muslim.

As for people relying on Gandhi - yes that was something Gandhiji had been allowed to appropriate for himself and of course encouraged by the coterie culture of long entrenched Sultanate-Mughal courtly culture in the north that saw advantage in giving absolute power to an individual, so that latchers on could bypass the difficult processes of grassroots mobilization and democratic acceptance by all and sundry.

Congress systematically removed democratic processes from within the org under MKG, with MKG himself strongly in favour of trusteeship model and once openly expressing his desire that the delegates be handpicked/selected for their dedication and that he preferred a much smaller number of "dedicated" delegates to org elections than a wider and more democratic one. So muchs o that gradually provincial congress orgs were systematically weakened in favour of the "centre", [in fact the term "High Command" emerged in the Gandhian phase], the Congress presidentship became a gift of MKG - who was even no longer a Congress party member. The perfect representation of the model of the apparatus of state power being dependent on the apparatus of personal pwoer.

And Rajmohan Gandhi expects suddenly the Punjabi "secular" "nationalist" to not wait for "Gandhi"+"Delhi"?!!!!

[Abhi_G]

There is new google ad doing rounds. Old Indian man Baldev recounts his days in Lahore and his friend Yusuf. Grand daughter finds the sweet shop he owns in lahore using Google aps and contacts him. Yusuf ultimately comes to delhi to surprise him on his birthday with his grandson who also coordinated the trip using Google aps. It is a feel good ad. But do things change on the ground? Here's what I wrote to a colleague when he forwarded this youtube video.

Thousands of ads, concerts and candle waiving may turn eyes moist but the
ground realities do not change. Pakistan continues its terrorist agenda
against India unabated. Pakistan cocks a snook brazenly since it's
shielded by ex and current powers from being implicated for genocide and
war crimes in 1971 - a feat it has repeated in Balochistan. So while the
ad is fine but ultimately it's the perspective that is important.

Added later: why is the granddaughter Indian and the grandson pakistani? Why not the other way round? some psych-ops here!

[brihaspati]

Regarding Partition literarure:

I had from my childhood been taught this myth about literature being a mirror of contemporary society. I was uneasy about it, but did not have the cumulative perspective of going through thousands and thousands of books cross checking with historical data - to challenge this strongly. But if anyone has seriously gone through literature should be able to notice that literature is most often a highlighting and focusing on what the author wants to highlight and construct. It need not be representative of actual society.

For Partition literature and representation of trauma and its absence :

(1) usually historical trauma is not reflected very strongly in contemporary literature.
(2) the reasons can be two fold - the known and observed tendency in humans to suppress traumatic memories, or avoid them. The second - social, peer, and wider state/ideological/political institutional vigilance that such memories do not sustain or get widely circulated if it is seen as politically problematic for those in power.
(3) authors who write on Partition usually avoid the explicit representation of violence and trauma. But how they avoid it and what they choose to highlight is very revealing.

Both the Muslim root author and the non-Muslim roots author will usually indicate/hint of the violence but will focus more on love, sex, and male female relationships, romance and eroticism. The Muslim author will however have an overwhelming tendency to represent Muslim man - Hindu/Sikh woman dynamics. The Hindu/Sikh author will have a lesser tendency to do so - but the Hindu author will have a greater tendency to represent the non-Muslim woman deciding to submit/rationalize the rape or abduction/changing the abduction rape into "love"/ than the Sikh. The Sikh author will be more comfortable in representing Sikh man - Muslim woman dynamic in the same mirror/reverse dynamics a sthat by the Muslim or hindu author.

The device of shifting the narrative and focus of the other violent aspect into sexuality and eroticism or romanticism, is perhaps a more comfortable zone for subcontinental authors to symbolically deal with genocide and slaughter in the language of rape and eroticism, and hope in the form of romanticism.

The eventual "marriage" of the Hindu/Sikh girl - married woman abducted/falling in love with the muslim captor, is a symbolic acceptance of a hoped for solution by which the Hindu submits and by submitting to Islam, hopefully produces a future peaceful "child" hybrid civilization.

I think we should separate out our so-called admiration of oh-so-beautiful literature and literature for literature's sake - which is perhaps in turn an acquired taste guided by early childhood conditioning by society and education, and which we do not question as to roots ["why is it good/beautiful - since beauty is not so obvious in words as in say a picture or sculpture?" - from analyzing the potential manipulation of our feelings through literature. Or that literature could be reflections of rather sick minds of masochism that has been filtered for that very same purpose by rulers to be popularized.

Or that when we appreciate certain literature we might be indulging in our own latent masochisms.

There are many regional authors who have perhaps not gained national level circulations - not translated - who retained an alternative more vigorous and less masochistic rendition of Partition. Maybe we should explore more in that direction?

[Abhi_G]

There are many regional authors who have perhaps not gained national level circulations - not translated - who retained an alternative more vigorous and less masochistic rendition of Partition. Maybe we should explore more in that direction?

Brihaspati, it's time. Some names please.

[brihaspati]

AbhiG mahashay,
The man in the Muslim-non-Muslim erotic/romantic representation is always or more - Muslim. The submitting/pursued partner is the non-Muslim one. The basic theme is the feminization of the non-Muslim. The female in the post-sultanate post-Mughal culture is effectively the passive one - on whom the man can do whatever he wants. The woman should submit and try to "win" over the man, and tame him to "peace" through erotic/romantic submission and providing pleasure.

This is the theme that ran in JLN's speech also - the feminized nation giving "birth" and therefore the Partition violence and pain becomes a natural - to be borne without protest and complaint, as natural punishment/consequence [the pain punishment concept for birthing is Abrahamic - one of the punishments for Ava/Eve's transgressions].

In a way, this absolves the male of the non-Muslim from its responsibilities in allowing its culture and civilization to be emascualted, fine-tuned exquisitely under MKG. The whole post-Partition genre of feminized nationhood literature is about denial of their acceptance of this emasculation under MKG. note that MKG's whole concept of passive resistance to rape and violence, is a feminization argument - a way for the woman facing rape to cope with her situation psychologically, not accepting mentally the degradation but not fighting back and killing/skinning alive/decapitating the rapist.

Going through this genre of literature, I often wonder as to whether the latent homosexuality/transgenderism within the subcontinent that got suppressed under Islam and the Brits, had been taking its revenge through literature.

[Prem]

There is new google ad doing rounds. Old Indian man Baldev recounts his days in Lahore and his friend Yusuf. Grand daughter finds the sweet shop he owns in lahore using Google aps and contacts him. Yusuf ultimately comes to delhi to surprise him on his birthday with his grandson who also coordinated the trip using Google aps. It is a feel good ad. But do things change on the ground? Here's what I wrote to a colleague when he forwarded this youtube video.

Added later: why is the granddaughter Indian and the grandson pakistani? Why not the other way round? some psych-ops here!

Because this represent the Secular, Congi psychological weakness. Remember Gandhi's advise regarding Muslims and Of course Poaq represent Muslims of South Asia. Badnam Hai Asha is a Dance between Khusra and Khassi.