Partition of India

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

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

The secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 is not covered by the term Partition of India, nor are the earlier separations of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Burma (now Myanmar) from the administration of British India. Ceylon, part of the Madras Presidency of British India from 1795 until 1798, became a separate Crown Colony in 1798. Burma, gradually annexed by the British during 1826–86 and governed as a part of the British Indian administration until 1937, was directly administered thereafter. Burma was granted independence on January 4, 1948 and Ceylon on February 4, 1948. (See History of Sri Lanka and History of Burma.)

The remaining countries of present-day South Asia—Nepal and Bhutan—having signed treaties with the British designating them as independent states, were never a part of British India and therefore not affected by the partition.

Pakistan and India

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

Background of the partition

A train with a group of people affected by partition in Punjab

File:Partion1.jpg

Photo of a railway station in Punjab. Many people abandoned their fixed assets and left for the country of their choice.

The seeds of partition were sown long before independence. Shirin Keen claims that the British, still fearful of the potential threat from the Muslims who had ruled the subcontinent for over 300 years under the Mughal Empire, followed a divide and rule policy. Organization of citizens into religious communities was also a feature of Mughal rule. When the Indians under British rule started to organize for independence, two main communal factions of the Indian nationalist movement, and especially of the Indian National Congress, struggled for control of the movement and eventual control of the country. Muslims felt threatened by Hindu majorities. The Hindus, in their turn, felt that the nationalist leaders were coddling the minority Muslims and slighting the majority Hindus.

The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the mainstream, secular but Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. A number of different scenarios were proposed at various times. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer/philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that he felt a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated subcontinent. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935. Iqbal, Jouhar and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had till then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity, to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had begun to despair of the fate of minority communities in a united India and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress (of which he was once a member) were insensitive to Muslim interests. At the 1940 AIML conference in Lahore, Jinnah made clear his commitment to two separate states, a position from which the League never again wavered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until 1946, the definition of Pakistan as demanded by the League was so flexible that it could have been interpreted as a sovereign nation Pakistan, or as a member of a confederated India.

Some historians believe Jinnah's intended to use the threat of partition as a bargaining chip in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu dominated center.

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

State of affairs before the partition

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

• Provinces ruled directly
• Princely States with varying legal arrangements

Main political players

Political groupings

• British Colonial Administration
  • British Raj
  • Secretary of State for India
  • India Office
  • Governor-General of India
  • Indian Civil Service
• Indian National Congress
• Hindu Mahasabha
• All India Muslim League
• Unionist Muslim League (mainly in the Punjab)
• Communist Party of India

Personalities

(In alphabetic order by last name)

• Mahatma Gandhi
• Muhammad Iqbal (Allama Iqbal), leader of the All India Muslim League (AIML); coined the idea of Pakistan. National poet of Pakistan.
• Mohammad Ali Jinnah (also known as Quid-e-Azam), leader of the AIML, founder (and first governor general) of Pakistan
• Liaquat Ali Khan, first prime minister of Pakistan.
• Lord Louis Mountbatten, Viceroy of the Empire of India
• Jawaharlal Nehru, popular icon and leader of the Congress Party
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, considered the "Iron Man of India," Gandhi's right-hand and Congress Party leader

The process of division

British Indian Empire after 1947

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

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

On July 18, 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that finalized the partition arrangement. The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the two new dominions. Following partition, Pakistan was added as a new member of the United Nations, while the Republic of India assumed the seat of British India as a successor state.

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

Expedited, controversial process

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

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

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. Law and order had broken down many times before Partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. After World War II, Britain had limited resources, perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. A hasty exit may have been seen as preferable, and perhaps less bloody than the slow disintegration of the Raj.

Population exchanges

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

Massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border as the newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude. Estimates of the number of deaths vary from two hundred thousand to a million. On the Pakistani side, numerous Hindus and Sikhs were kicked out of their lands, especially in the regions of Sindh and Punjab, with fear of death if they did not leave. Mahatma Gandhi, however, used his influence within the Congress to ensure that Muslims could remain within India if they so wished.

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

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

India (2006 Est. 1,095 million vs. 1951 Census 361 million)

• 81.69% Hindu (839 million)
• 13.10% Muslims (143 million)
• 2.31% Christians (25 million)
• 2.00% Sikhs (20 million)
• 1.94% Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and others (21 million)

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

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

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

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

Both nations have to a great extent assimilated the refugees.

Division of assets

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

Plight of refugees

Refugees settled in India

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

In late 2004, the Sindhi diaspora vociferously opposed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India which asked the government of India to delete the word "Sindh" from the Indian National Anthem (written by Rabindranath Tagore prior the partition) on the grounds that it infringed upon the sovereignty of Pakistan.

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

These people have now lost their refugee status and are fully integrated into Indian society.

Refugees settled in Pakistan

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

The current President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, was born in the Nagar Vali Haveli in Daryaganj, Delhi, India. Several previous Pakistani leaders were also born in regions that are in India. Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan was born in Karnal (now in Haryana). The 7-year longest-serving Governor and martial law administrator of Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan, General Rahimuddin Khan, was born in the pre-dominantly Pathan city of Kaimganj, which now lies in Uttar Pradesh. General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who came to power in a military coup in 1977, was born in Jalandhar, East Punjab. The families of all four men opted for Pakistan at the time of Partition.

Aftermath

International

Since Partition, with the riots and killings between the two religious communities, India and Pakistan have struggled to maintain relations. One of the biggest debates occur over the disputed region of Kashmir, over which there have been 3 wars and the reasons for the wars have related only to the confusion over partition. There have been four Indo-Pakistani wars:

Indo-Pakistani War of 1947

Pakistani backed tribals and troops invade Kashmir which had been earlier given to India by the ruler of the Princely State, Hari Singh, despite the fact it had a Muslim majority. The United Nations established a stalemate.

Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

Pakistani backed guerillas invaded Indian administered Kashmir. India is generally believed to have had the upper hand when a ceasefire was called.

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

After India announced support for the Bengalis in East Pakistan, Pakistan launched air strikes against India. India eventually captured 13,000 square kilometres of Pakistan's territory (which it later returned as a gesture of good will) and partitioned Pakistan through the creation of Bangladesh.

1999 Kargil Conflict

Pakistani troops and militants invade Indian administered Kashmir during the winter when high mountain posts were unoccupied. India recaptures all territory lost.

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

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

Intranational

Violence between Hindus and Muslims did not end with the Partition. Bengali Hindus and Muslims alike were massacred in the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. Hindus remaining in Pakistan have been persecuted (see Hinduism in Pakistan, 2006 Lahore temple demolition and Communal violence in Pakistan). Similarly, Muslims in India have experienced repeated episodes of communal violence, such as the 2002 Gujarat violence (see Communal Violence in India).

Integration of refugee populations with their new countries did not always go smoothly. Some Urdu speaking Muslims who migrated to Pakistan have complained that they are discriminated against in government employment. Municipal political conflict in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, often pitted native Sindhis against immigrants. Immigrant Sindhis, Bengalis, and Punjabis in India also experienced poverty as they largely came empty handed. However, 50 years after Partition, many immigrants have rebuilt their lives.

All of the four nations resulting from the Partition of the British India have had to deal with endemic civil conflicts. Inside India, these have been largely due to inter-religious unrest and disruptive far left forces. Civil unrest inside India includes:

• Civil conflict in the Seven Sister States of northeastern India
• Naxalite unrest in Andhra Pradesh (India)
• The Sikh separatist movement of the 1980s which has since become almost nonexistent.
• Islamist separatist movement in Jammu & Kashmir resulting in the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus and massacres against Hindus such as the ones in Wandhama and Kaluchak. It is alleged, with some evidence that Pakistani government and its intermediaries have tacitly backed and armed these militants

The last example of unrest, the terrorism in Kashmir, is related to the ongoing Kashmir conflict and relates to the both India and Pakistan. Within Pakistan, unrest is mainly because of ethnicities, with Bengalis, Balochis and Pashtun people all vying for more representation within Pakistan and in some cases the creation of an independent state.

• In 1971, Bangladesh Liberation War and the subsequent Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 which led to further partition of Pakistan.
• The Mohajir movement in Pakistan and riots in Karachi
• The Balochistan conflict in Pakistan
• The Pashtunistan movement in Pakistan
• The Waziristan conflict in Pakistan

Artistic depictions of the Partition

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

See also

• Indian independence movement
• Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947
• Pakistan Movement
• British Empire
• East Bengal
• History of Bangladesh
• Bangladesh Liberation War
• History of India
• History of Pakistan
• Terrorism in Kashmir
• Decolonisation
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
• Artistic depictions of the partition of India
• India (disambiguation)
• Indian integration of Junagadh

External links

Bibliographies

• Select Research Bibliography on the Partition of India, Compiled by Vinay Lal, Department of History, UCLA; University of California at Los Angeles list
• A select list of Indian Publications on the Partition of India (Punjab & Bengal); University of Virginia list
• South Asian History: Colonial India — University of California, Berkeley Collection of documents on colonial India, Independence, and Partition]
• Indian Nationalism — Fordham University archive of relevant public-domain documents]

Other links

• Partition of India by A. G. Noorani.
• Pre-Partition Map of India
• Indian History (indhistory.com)
• The Story of Pakistan
• Clip from 1947 newsreel showing Indian independence ceremony
• Partition of Bengal, 1947, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh

Further reading

Popularizations

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

Memoir

• Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam: India Wins Freedom, Orient Longman, 1988. ISBN 81-250-0514-5

Academic monographs

• Butalia, Urvashi (1998): The Other Side of Silence (2nd U.S. printing). Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2494-6
• Gossman, P. (1999): Riots and Victims. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3625-2
• Ikram, S.M.: Indian Muslims and Partition of India. Delhi: Atlantic, 1995. ISBN 81-7156-374-0
• David Page, Anita Inder Singh, Penderel Moon, G. D. Khosla, Mushirul Hasan (2001). The Partition Omnibus: Prelude to Partition/the Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947/Divide and Quit/Stern Reckoning. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-565850-7
• Qureshi, Ishtiaque Hussain (1992). A Short History of Pakistan. University of Karachi Press. ISBN 969-404-008-6
• Raza, Hashim S. (1989). Mountbatten and the partition of India. Atlantic. New Delhi. ISBN 81-7156-059-8

Articles

• The Punjab Boundary Force and the Problem of Order, August 1947 - Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1974), pp. 491-520
• The Partition of India: Policies and Perspectives, 1935-1947 - Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 34, No. 1 (1971), pp. 208-209