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Colonial India
In the aftermath of Partition, the princely states of India, which had been left
by the Indian Independence Act 1947 to choose whether to accede to India
or Pakistan or to remain outside them,[1] were all incorporated into one or
other of the new dominions. The question of the choice to be made in this
connection by Jammu and Kashmir led to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 and
other wars and conflicts between India and Pakistan.[2]
The secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 is not covered by the
term Partition of India, nor is the earlier separation of Burma from the
administration of British India, or the even earlier separation
of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). 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. [3] Burma was granted independence on January 4, 1948 and
Ceylon on February 4, 1948. (See History of Sri Lanka and History of Burma)
The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a princely state after theAnglo-
Sikkimese Treaty of 1861, however, the issue of sovereignty was left
undefined.[4] In 1947, Sikkim became an independent kingdom under
thesuzerainty of India and remained so until 1975 when it was absorbed into
India as the 22nd state.
The remaining countries of present-day South Asia are Nepal, Bhutan, and
the Maldives. The first two, 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.
[5]
The Maldives, which became a protectorate of the British crown in 1887
and gained its independence in 1965, was also unaffected by the partition.
The partition displaced up to 12.5 million people in the former British Indian
Empire with estimates of loss of life varying from several hundred thousand
to a million.[6]
Contents
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Background
Late 19th and early 20th century
1909 Prevailing Languages (Northern Region), Map of 1901 Population Density, Map of British
British Indian Empire, 1909, showing the prevailing Indian Empire, 1909, showing the
(Aryan) languages of the population for different districts. population density in 1901.
1920–1932
Train to Pakistan being given a warm send-off. New Delhi railway station, 1947
The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims
who were suspicious of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. They
complained that they were not given same rights as a Muslim member
compared to Hindu members. 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. The 1932 communal award which seemed to
threaten the position of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces catalysed the
resurgence of the Muslim League, with Jinnah as its leader. However, the
League did not do well in the 1937 provincial elections, demonstrating the
hold of the conservative and local forces at the time.
1932–1942
In 1940, Jinnah made a statement at the Lahore conference, which seemed
to be calling for a separate Muslim 'nation'. However, the document was
ambiguous and opaque, and did not evoke a Muslim nation in a territorial
sense. This idea, though, was taken up by Muslims and particularly Hindus in
the next seven years, and given a more territorial element. All Muslim
political parties including the Khaksar Tehrik of Allama Mashriqi (Mashriqi
was arrested on March 19, 1940) opposed the partition of India[7]
Rural Sikhs in a long ox-cart train headed towards India. 1947. Margaret Bourke-
White.
Most of the Congress leaders were secularists and resolutely opposed the
division of India on the lines of religion. Mohandas Gandhi and Allama
Mashriqi believed that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity.
Gandhi 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. ”
An old Sikh man carrying his wife. Over 10 million people were uprooted from their
homeland and travelled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new
home.
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 Nationalists and Indian Muslim Nationalists.
(Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by Hindu NationalistNathuram
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.
1942–1946
The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There
were several different political arrangements in existence: Provinces were
ruled directly and the Princely States with varying legal arrangements,
like paramountcy.
The British Colonial Administration consisted of Secretary of State for India,
the India Office, the Governor-General of India, and the Indian Civil Service.
TIME Magazine October 27, 1947 cover depicting the partition of India. The caption
says: “INDIA: Liberty and death.”
The actual division between the two new dominions was done according to
what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.
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. The union formed from the combination of the Hindu states
assumed the name India which automatically granted it the seat of British
India (a UN member since 1945) as a successor state.[10]
The 625 Princely States were given a choice of which country to join.
Geography of the partition: the Radcliffe Line
An aged and abandoned Muslim couple and their grand children sitting by the
roadside on this arduous journey. "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan
has gone on," wrote Bourke-White.
Two Muslim men (in a rural refugee train headed towards Pakistan) carrying an old
woman in a makeshift doli or palanquin. 1947.
A map of the Punjab region ca.1947
The claims (Congress/Sikh and Muslim) and the Boundary Commission Award in the
Punjab in relation to Muslim percentage by Tehsils. The unshaded regions are the
princely states.
The communities in the disputed regions of the Upper Bari Doab in 1947.
Independence and population exchanges
Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly-formed
states 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.[citation needed]
"With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of
Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi." Margaret Bourke-
White, 1947
A crowd of Muslims at the Old Fort (Purana Qila) in Delhi, which had been converted
into a vast camp for Muslim refugees waiting to be transported to
Pakistan.Manchester Guardian, 27 September 1947.
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.[12]
Punjab
This section requires expansion.
The Indian state of Punjab was created in 1947, when the Partition of India
split the former Raj province of Punjab between India and Pakistan. The
mostly Muslim western part of the province became Pakistan's Punjab
Province; the mostly Sikh and Hindu eastern part became India's Punjab
state. Many Hindus and Sikhs lived in the west, and many Muslims lived in
the east, and so the partition saw many people displaced and much
intercommunal violence.Lahore and Amritsar were at the center of the
problem, the British were not sure where to place them - make them part of
India or Pakistan. The British did make a decision to hand both cities to India,
but due to lack of control and regulation for the border Amritsar became part
of India whilst Lahore became part of Pakistan. Areas in west Punjab such as
Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujart, had a large Sikh population and many of
the resident were either attacked or killed by radical Muslims.[citation needed] On
the other side in East Punjab cities such as Amritsar, Ludhiana,
and Gurdaspur had a majority Muslim population in which many of them
were wiped out by Sikh guerrillas who launched an all out war against the
Muslims.
Bengal
The province of Bengal was divided into the two separate entities of West
Bengal belonging to India, and East Bengal belonging to Pakistan. East
Bengal was renamed East Pakistan in 1955, and later became the
independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of
1971.
Sindh
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might
be found on thetalk page. (November 2007)
Hindu Sindhis were expected to stay in Sindh following Partition, as there
were good relations between Hindu and Muslim Sindhis. At the time of
Partition there were 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis, though most were
concentrated in the cities such as Hyderabad, Karachi, Shikarpur,
and Sukkur. However, due to an uncertain future in a Muslim country, a
sense of better opportunities in India, and most of all a sudden influx of
Muslim refugees fromGujarat, UP, Bihar, Rajputana (Rajasthan) and other
parts of India, many Sindhi Hindus decided to leave for India. Problems were
further aggravated when incidents of violence instigated by Indian Muslim
refugees broke out in Karachi and Hyderabad. As per the census of India
1951, nearly 776,000 Sindhi Hindus had poured into India.[13] Unlike
the Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs, Sindhi Hindus did not have to witness any
massive scale rioting; however, their entire province had gone to Pakistan
thus they felt like a homeless community. Despite this migration, a
significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan's Sindh province
where they number at around 2.28 million as per Pakistan's 1998 census
while the Sindhi Hindus in India as per 2001 census of India were at 2.57
million.[citation needed]
Perspectives
Some critics allege that British haste led to the cruelties of the Partition.
[16]
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 movements in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds[17]
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.[18] 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, [19] perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order.
Another view point is that while Mountbatten may have been too hasty he
had no real options left and achieved the best he could under difficult
circumstances.[20] Historian Lawrence James concurs that in 1947
Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run. The alternative
seemed to be involvement in a potentially bloody civil war from which it
would be difficult to get out.[21]
Photo of a railway station in Punjab. Many people abandoned their fixed assets and
crossed newly formed borders.