Independence and Partition

Independence and partition
Subject : History
Lesson: Independence and partition
Course Developers
High politics
Popular movements
Srinath Raghavan
Senior Fellow, Center for Policy Research, New Delhi and
Lecturer in Defence Studies, King’s College, London
and
The violence of Partition

Urvashi Butalia
writer and Director, Zubaan Publishers
Looking beyond partition: refugees and their stories
and
Pallavi Chakravarty
Ph.D Researcher and university Teaching Assistant,
Department of History
Language Editor: Swapna Liddle

Formating Editor: Ashutosh Kumar
1
Institute of lifelong learning, University of Delhi
Table of contents
Chapter 12: Independence and Partition

 12.1: High politics
 12.2: Popular movements
 12.3: The violence of Partition
 12.4: Looking beyond Partition: refugees and their stories
 Summary
 Exercises
 Glossary
 Further readings
2
12.1: High politics

The Second World War ended in Europe on 7 May 1945. Five weeks later the Congress
Working Committee was released from prison. Soon after, negotiations for the future of
India commenced. By the time the Raj folded up in mid-August 1947, there were two
dominions of India and Pakistan. The question of why Partition accompanied
Independence has given rise to an enormous body of historical writing. Given its
tremendous human cost and its continued implications for the subcontinent, it is not
surprising that the subject invites exploration from newer angles and perspectives. The
existing literature falls into four broad categories of works: the ‗high politics‘ or the
negotiations between the British and Indian leaders; provincial politics or the study of
how the Muslim League‘s demand for Pakistan played out in Punjab, Bengal, and to
lesser extent in UP, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and Sindh; popular
movements and their impact on political negotiations at various levels; and the human
dimension of Partition with an emphasis on the victims of violence, especially women.
In this lesson, we will focus on negotiations between the British, the Muslim League and
the Congress. But in doing so, we will also consider the impact of provincial politics and
other developments outside of the negotiating chambers and committee rooms. The
literature on the high politics of Partition is large and contentious. It is large because the
causes of Partition can be traced back to several points after the mid-19th century.
Indeed, if all of these are taken on board, Partition seems a massively over-determined
historical event. The literature is contentious because of an excessive concern with the
culpability, achievement, or failures of important actors.
Nationalist historiographies in Pakistan and India have offered explanations that are
widely held in the respective countries. The former explain Partition by resorting to the
‗two-nation theory‘, which holds that the Muslims of India were always a separate and
distinctive national community. Indian nationalist accounts tend to trace it to the ‗divide-
and-rule‘ policies adopted by the Raj, and to the ‗communal‘ demand for Pakistan
propagated by Jinnah. Scholarly debates, however, have moved on—owing to more
detailed and sophisticated studies of the decade preceding Partition.
The key debate
In an important book, Ayesha Jalal argued that Jinnah used the demand for Pakistan as
a ‗bargaining counter‘ and was deliberately vague about the actual character of the
demand. Once the British accepted his demand for a separate state comprising the
Muslim-majority provinces in the North-West and North-East, Jinnah was interested in
securing one of two arrangements. Either a ‗confederation‘ with other non-Muslim
provinces on the basis of equal power (parity) in the central government; or, as a
sovereign state, to conclude ‗treaty arrangements‘ with the rest of India on matters of
common concern. In either case, Jinnah hoped to incorporate safeguards for minorities.
This was the only way to protect the interests of the large numbers of Muslims who
would remain outside the boundaries of Pakistan. Hence, he also sought to retain, within
Pakistan, undivided Punjab and Bengal with their large non-Muslim minorities. According
to Jalal, Jinnah assumed that the new Muslim state would ‗continue to be part of a larger
all-India whole‘. In short, Jinnah did not really seek partition. (Jalal 1985, 241)
3
This thesis started out as a ‗revisionist‘ perspective, but it has since become the new
orthodoxy. Building on it, other scholars have asserted that if the Muslim League did not
want partition, then it could only have come about because the Congress wanted it. (Roy
1990)
Jalal‘s argument draws our attention to important aspects of Jinnah‘s negotiating

strategy. But it remains problematic on several counts. First, it is almost entirely based
on inference, there being little direct evidence of Jinnah‘s thinking along these lines.
Besides, it ignores evidence that undercuts its own claims. For instance, as early as
1941, Jinnah was publicly and clearly stating that ‗we do not want under any
circumstances, a constitution of an all India character, with one government at the
centre‘ (Dhulipala 2007). Furthermore, there are internal inconsistencies in the
argument. Jalal‘s argument about Jinnah wanting to situate Pakistan within an all-India
arrangement does not square with her claim that he was ready to establish treaty-
arrangements. Treaties can only be concluded by sovereign entities. And a sovereign
Pakistan necessarily meant partition. Indeed, the assumption that Jinnah did want a
sovereign state built around all of Punjab and Bengal may account better for his actions
than the claim that he never sought partition.
The argument that it was the Congress that willed Partition rests on a flimsy base of
evidence. The Congress‘ approach certainly contributed to the eventual outcome. Nor
could Partition have occurred without its approval. But the claim that it was solely
responsible for Partition does not seem very convincing.
Bearing in mind these debates, let us now turn to the negotiations themselves.
Opening round and the elections
Towards the end of June 1945, the Viceroy, General Archibald Wavell, convened a
conference at Simla. 22 Indian leaders were invited to the conference. The Viceroy
sought their cooperation in reconstituting his Executive Council. He proposed ‗parity‘
between the ‗Caste Hindus‘ and the Muslims in nominating representatives to the
Council. Although the Congress was not pleased with the idea of parity, it saw the
measure as a step towards the formation of an interim government at the centre. The
Congress agreed to enter an Executive Council consisting of 5 ‗Caste Hindus‘, 5 Muslims
and 2 ‗minor minorities‘.
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Figure 12.1.1: Jawaharlal Nehru with Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Sardar Patel, arriving for
the Simla conference
Source:
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=hub081108croniclesof_india.asp
From History in the Making: The Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy, an exhibition at the
IGNCA, Delhi, curated by Aditya Arya and Sabeena Gadihoke, with Indivar Kamtekar.
Wavell was prepared to agree with the Muslim League‘s demand that the Congress
should not nominate any Muslim representative. Jinnah, however, wanted more. He
insisted on Hindu-Muslim parity in the Executive Council. Moreover, he claimed that all
the Muslim members should be nominated by the Muslim League. In doing so, Jinnah
sought to drive home two points. First, the Hindus and Muslims were two nations, and
hence entitled to equal representation in an interim arrangement. Second, Jinnah should
be the ‗sole spokesman‘ for the Muslims of India.
This was a bold, not to say extraordinary, claim. For at the time of the conference, the
Muslim League was out of office in all the Muslim-majority provinces with the exception
of Sindh. Wavell stuck to his initial formula, but suggested that of the five Muslim
members the Muslim League could nominate four. The fifth would be nominated by the
Punjab Unionist Party, which ran the provincial government in Punjab. Faced with
Jinnah‘s persistent opposition, the Viceroy decided to call off the conference. The aborted
conference proved a victory for the Muslim League. The party had shown that it was a
critical player at the all-India level and held a veto on any move towards transfer of
power.
Figure 12.1.2: Viceroy Lord Wavell and M. A. Jinnah at the Simla Conference
5
Source: http://www.storyofpakistan.com/articletext.asp?artid=A046&Pg=2
In the aftermath of the Simla conference, Wavell announced elections. The election
would serve two purposes: form governments in the provinces, and create a central
legislature that would work towards the constitutional structure for a free India. The
outcome of the elections in 1946 was a major turning point. The Congress expectedly
won the bulk of non-Muslim seats in the provinces and the centre. The Muslim League
had presented the elections to the Muslim electorate as virtually a referendum on
Pakistan. It reaped major rewards. In contrast to its poor showing in the elections of
1937, the Muslim League now proved to be a force to reckon with.
Value addition: interesting details

The elections of 1946
The Muslim League‘s performance in the elections was impressive. But its
dominance was uneven. In the Central Assembly the League won every single
Muslim seat with a total vote share of 86.6 percent. The League secured a
majority of seats in the provinces too. The only exception was the North-West
Frontier Province where the Congress had a decisive majority of 30 seats,
including 19 Muslim seats, and the League managed only 17. Even so, the Muslim
League found it difficult to form ministries on its own steam. In Assam and North-
West Frontier Province, a Congress ministry was sworn in. In Punjab, the Unionist
Party managed to hold on to power by forming a coalition with the Congress and
the Akalis. In Bengal and Sindh, the League ministries had a tenuous majority in
the assembly.
Source: Original
The Muslim League‘s performance gave substantial weight to its political position and to
the demand for Pakistan. The party‘s major achievement lay not in the number of seats
won, but in the fact that it managed both to widen its appeal and to overcome the
regional barriers that had blocked the emergence of a strong Muslim party. The League‘s
performance in provinces like Madras and Bombay was striking. These areas could in no
conceivable scheme form part of a Pakistan; but the Muslim electorate did respond
overwhelmingly to the call. In other provinces, too, Jinnah had succeeded in making the
League an important force by careful power-broking with local politicians and grandees.
Some scholars have argued that these outcomes were possible because of Jinnah‘s
refusal to spell out his conception of Pakistan clearly (Bose & Jalal 1998, 180). The
Muslim League‘s performance in provinces like Madras certainly lends credence to this
argument. But in other places, like the UP, the electorate was well aware of the broad
geographical contours of Pakistan. Indeed, this had been part of public debates for some
years now (Dhulipala 2007).
In retrospect, the elections of 1946 were significant because they reflected and
contributed to the communal polarization. In so doing, they cleared the path for Pakistan
and set the stage for the carnage accompanying Partition.
6
The Cabinet mission
By the time elections were held, a Labour party government led by Clement Attlee had
come to power in Britain. Leaders of the Labour government were sympathetic to Indian
demands for self-rule. But they were also keenly aware of Britain‘s weakened imperial
position following the Second World War. The Attlee government wished to rid itself of
the nightmare of governing India and to restructure the imperial system for the
exigencies of the post-war international order. As far as the subcontinent was concerned,
its policies were mainly shaped by strategic considerations. The large standing army; the
vast reservoir of potential military manpower; the rich natural resources and the
industrial potential; India‘s importance in securing sea lines of communication in the
Indian Ocean, and in defending the Middle East and the Far East: all of these mandated
both preserving Indian unity and ensuring India‘s continued presence in the
Commonwealth.
In pursuit of this aim, a Cabinet mission was sent to India in late March 1946 to create
a constitutional package for a united India and to plan for the transfer of power. The
Mission consisted of three senior members of the Labour government: Lord Pethick-
Lawrence (Secretary of State for India), Stafford Cripps (President of the Board of
Trade), and A.V. Alexander (First Lord of the Admiralty). The Mission spent three months
in India, holding a number of meetings with the leaders of the Congress and the Muslim
League. Neither party was able to advance suggestions that met the other side‘s
approval.
The discussions, however, made it clear that Jinnah was averse to a Pakistan that
involved partitioning Punjab and Bengal, both of which had substantial non-Muslim
minorities. Jinnah‘s stance reflected two considerations. The idea of partitioning Punjab
and Bengal was unlikely to go down well with his supporters in both these provinces.
Further, Jinnah himself attached great importance to the presence of substantial non-
Muslim minorities within the boundaries of Pakistan. This would ensure that India would
agree to provisions for safeguarding the rights of Muslims in the Hindu-majority
provinces. In fact, this idea of reciprocal safeguards (or ‗hostage theory‘ as it came to be
called) had been a recurring theme in the Muslim League‘s mobilization campaigns in
provinces such as UP since the passage of the Lahore Resolution of 1940.
Following another ineffective round of negotiations with the two main parties in Simla,
the Cabinet mission declared its own plan for a united India on 16 May 1946. Partition,
on the basis of either a large or a small Pakistan was rejected. The Mission laid out a
three-tier structure for the future Indian Union. At the top-most tier, the central
government would deal only with foreign affairs, defence, and communications, and
would have the powers to raise finances for these subjects. All other subjects would rest
with the provinces. The idea of parity at the centre was dropped. But decision on any
major communal issue in the central legislature would require a majority of each
community as well as an overall majority.
The Constituent Assembly would be elected by provincial assemblies. The latter formed
the lowest tier of the structure. The provinces would be free to form groups, and each
group could determine the provincial subjects to be taken in common. These groups
formed the middle tier of the structure. Members of the Constituent Assembly would
7
divide up into three sections. Section A would consist of Bombay, Madras, Bihar, Central
Provinces, and Orissa. Section B of Punjab, North West Frontier Province, and Sindh.
Section C of Bengal and Assam. Each section would draw up provincial constitutions for
the provinces included in that section. Each section could also decide whether any group
constitution was required.
Any province could, by a majority vote of its assembly, call for a reconsideration of the
union and group constitutions periodically after ten years. Any province could elect to
come out of any group in which it had been placed after the first general elections under
the new constitution. Till such time the constitutions were framed, an interim
government having the support of the major political parties would be set up
immediately.
The Congress and the Muslim League claimed to accept the plan. But in fact their
‗acceptance‘ was based on their own interpretations of what the plan promised and how
it would work. Anxious to secure an agreement, however weak, the Cabinet mission
played along with both sides. Eventually, after the Mission left for London, its Plan would
quickly unravel.
Revisionist historians have argued that Jinnah‘s acceptance of the Cabinet mission plan
demonstrates that he did not want a separate state. But it is equally plausible that
Jinnah went along with the Plan because the alternative would have been a sovereign
but truncated Pakistan with partitioned Punjab and Bengal. Further, it could be argued
that Jinnah considered the Plan as a preliminary step towards an independent Pakistan
with all of Punjab and Bengal. The Muslim League‘s acceptance statement claimed that
the provision of compulsory grouping laid the foundation of Pakistan and that the right of
secession of groups was provided in the Plan by implication. Indeed, members of the
Muslim League had written to Jinnah that ‗we work the Plan up to the Group stage and
then create a situation to force the hands of the Hindus and the British to concede
Pakistan of our conception‘ (Moore 1983, 123).
8
Figure 12.1.3: Members of the Cabinet mission and the Viceroy with M. A. Jinnah
Source:
http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpregion/asia/india/indianindependence/transfer/large14
227.html
Value addition: interesting detail

Muslim League on the Cabinet mission plan
The Muslim League‘s acceptance statement of 6 June 1946 claimed that:
‗inasmuch as the basis and foundation of Pakistan are inherent in the Mission‘s
plan by virtue of the compulsory grouping of the six Muslim provinces in Sections
B and C, [the League] is willing to co-operate with the constitution-making
machinery proposed in the scheme outlined by the Mission, in the hope that it
would ultimately result in the establishment of complete sovereign Pakistan‘.
Source: Mansergh, Nicholas, E. V. R Lumby, and Penderel Moon eds.
1970-83. Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: The
Transfer of Power 1942–7. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. vol.
7, 469.
The Congress, for its part, insisted from the beginning that the procedure of sections and
grouping could not be mandatory. The Congress‘ major concern was that the North-West
Frontier Province and Assam (both of which had Congress governments) would be
compelled to accept constitutions that would be drawn up by Sections B and C
dominated by the Muslim League. The leaders of both these provinces had made it clear
that this would be totally unacceptable to them. The Muslim League‘s acceptance
statement reinforced these concerns. On 25 June 1946, the Congress sent a cleverly
worded letter of ‗acceptance‘. It claimed that in the first instance, the provinces could
choose whether or not belong to the section in which they were placed. However, the
Congress did not make its acceptance of the Plan conditional upon the Mission‘s
acceptance of this interpretation.
9

Congress on the Cabinet mission plan
The Congress sought to circumvent the procedure for sections by claiming that
the Mission‘s Plan lent itself to such an interpretation. Paragraph 15 (5) of the
Plan stated that ‗Provinces should be free to form groups‘. But Paragraph 19
stated that the sections would first meet to finalize provincial and if necessary
group constitutions. Following Gandhi‘s lead, the Congress leadership insisted
that the provisions of Paragraph 19 were contrary to those of Paragraph 15 (5),
and hence the latter should take precedence.
Source: Moore, Robin. 1983. Escape From Empire: The Attlee Government
and the Indian Problem. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 134-41.
The Muslim League was right in claiming that the sectional procedure had to be followed;
but it was wrong in insisting that grouping was compulsory and that the groups could
secede subsequently. The Congress was right in claiming that grouping was not
mandatory; but it was wrong in insisting that the provinces could opt out of the sectional
procedure for provincial constitution-making. Each side‘s interpretation unnerved the
other. The fundamental problem was the lack of trust between the Congress and the
Muslim League.
Figure 12.1.4: Nehru and Jinnah during the Cabinet mission negotiations, 1946
Source: Gopal, S. 1976. Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, vol.1. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 257.
10
Owing to the Congress‘ open proclamation of its interpretation, Jinnah withdrew the
League‘s acceptance towards the end of July 1946. The League now insisted that it
would settle for nothing less that the immediate establishment of an independent and
fully sovereign Pakistan. The League observed 16 August as Direct Action Day. Three
days later nearly 4000 residents of Calcutta were dead and over 10,000 injured. The
violence quickly spread from Bengal to Bihar and to Garhmukhteshwar in UP. The
resulting communal polarization made some form of Partition almost inevitable.
Towards Partition
The Interim Government proved as unworkable as the rest of the Cabinet Mission‘s Plan.
In early September 1947, Wavell swore in a Congress-led ministry. The League decided
to join six weeks later, but continued to boycott the Constituent Assembly. Far from
working as a coalition, the two parties were constantly at loggerheads with each other.
Instead of acting as a bridge between the two sides, the Interim Government
accentuated the gulf between them.
Faced with the continued impasse and with the rapidly increasing communal violence
and other unrest in the country, Wavell advocated a breakdown plan for a phased British
withdrawal from India. As a consequence, the British government decided to recall
Wavell. On 20 February 1947, Prime Minister Attlee announced Lord Mountbatten‘s
appointment as Viceroy. In deference to the latter‘s wishes, Attlee also announced that
the British would withdraw from India no later than June 1948.
Figure 12.1.5: Clement Attlee with Louis and Edwina Mountbatten

Source: http://www.timescontent.com/tss/showcase/preview-buy/13988/News/Earl-
Mountbatten-Lady-Mountbatten-Clement-Atlee.html
Developments at the provincial level gave further momentum to the move towards
Partition. The Muslim League‘s agitation in Punjab forced the resignation of the Unionist-
led coalition on 2 March 1947. Now the Shiromani Akali Dal made it clear that the Sikhs
11
would press for the partition of Punjab. The province was soon engulfed in a spiral of
violence and retaliation that would assume the form of ethnic cleansing as Partition
neared.
By this time, influential sections of the Bengal Congress had begun advocating partition
of the province. The ‗great Calcutta killings‘ and the subsequent violence had marked an
important turning point. More importantly, the upper-class Hindu bhadralok saw partition
as a means to do away with the dominance of Muslims in provincial politics and to secure
their own primacy. Further, the Muslim League had managed to mobilize the support of
the province‘s largely Muslim peasantry against the landlords and money lenders. This
too threatened to undercut the bhadralok rentier class, and gave impetus to their call for
partition. Some Bengal Congress leaders, like Sarat Chandra Bose and Kiran Shankar
Roy, reached an agreement with Muslim League leaders, H. S. Suhrawardy and Abul
Hashim, on a united independent Bengal. Although Jinnah approved of it, the idea failed
to take-off owing to opposition from the Provincial Congress Committee and the
Congress High Command.
When Mountbatten arrived in India in late March 1947, he still hoped to reach an
agreement on the basis of the Cabinet mission Plan. After several rounds of meetings
with Indian leaders, it became clear that Partition was the most realistic option. And it
had to be done quickly. The Congress leadership, too, had reached the conclusion that a
partition of Punjab and Bengal was inevitable. The mounting violence showed that the
Muslim League could not be forced to remain within India against its wishes. The
experience of the Interim Government reinforced this point. Besides, they believed that
once a truncated Pakistan was conceded, the Muslim-majority provinces would realize
that it was unviable and would individually come to terms with the Congress-led centre.
Concerns about the growing violence and anarchy led the Congress to revive its demand
for immediate grant of full power to the Interim Government while the constitution was
being drawn up. Towards this end, the Congress agreed to accept Dominion status as a
device for interim transfer of power.
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Figure 12.1.6: Nehru, General Hastings Ismay, Mountbatten and Jinnah just before the
announcement of the partition plan, 3 June 1947.
Source: http://www.hinduonnet.com/af/india60/stories/2007081560020200.htm
After tortuous and prolonged negotiations, Mountbatten presented the Indian leaders
with the Partition Plan on 2 June 1947. In effect, the Plan called for a partition of Punjab
and Bengal, and for plebiscites in North-West Frontier Province and in the Muslim-
majority Sylhet district of Assam. The Congress agreed to the Plan. Jinnah accepted it
very reluctantly, for it left him with the truncated Pakistan that he had wanted to avoid.
Mountbatten also declared that the British would quit India on 15 August 1947. A
boundary commission led by the British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe, began its work with
barely a month to go to Independence. In the event, the boundaries drawn up by the
commission would be unveiled only on 17 August, after the new Dominions had come
into existence. But in anticipation, rival communal groups had taken up arms and begun
creating facts on the ground. The bloodbath of Partition was well underway.
12.2: Popular movements
The high politics of negotiations for independence and partition comprise only one strand
of a complex story. It is easy to focus exclusively on the minutiae of the negotiations—
not least because they are so well documented. But it would be erroneous to assume
that these were insulated from the wider currents of protest and mobilization in Indian
society in the aftermath of the war. Many of these movements had their own dynamics
and influenced the choices of the political elites. In this lesson, we shall examine the
nature and impact of these ‗popular movements‘.
The backdrop to the emergence of these diverse movements was provided by the
Second World War. Two and a half million Indian soldiers had served in the war. Nearly
24,000 were killed, and 64,000 injured, during the course of the war. This was the
largest volunteer army in history. A large majority of those recruited during the war
belonged to groups other than the traditional ‗martial races‘ favoured by the Raj. The
recruitment propaganda had been highly inflated and naturally raised equally high hopes
amongst the soldiers. Coupled with a less than satisfactorily organized demobilization
process, this set the stage for the emergence of widespread disturbances in the Indian
armed forces. More importantly, war-time service had given rise to considerable social
and political awareness amongst Indian soldiers and officers. Even before the war had
ended, the censors noted that the troops were saying in their letters that the world must
change. Officers were even clearer that the British must leave India soon after the war.
The war also had a major impact on the home front. The imperatives of recruitment,
provisioning the Allied armies, requisitioning and rationing decisively affected the
political economy of India. The surge in demand and enforced import substitution had
led to an expansion of certain industrial sectors such as iron and steel, cement, textiles,
and chemicals. The contraction of these industries after the war left many labourers
without jobs. Those lucky to retain the jobs found their salaries shrinking, as business
firms and state enterprises took the opportunity to reduce the ‗dearness allowance‘ paid
during the war. The inflation, black-marketeering, and food shortages produced by the
war persisted into the post-war years. The devastating famine of 1943 continued to
13
brutalize large sections of Bengal‘s population. In 1946, nearly half of India‘s population
was subject to food rationing. This in turn led to protests by farmers against forced
requisitioning and increased trading in black markets. All in all, these conditions frayed
the social fabric of communities (especially in the bigger cities), and so set the context
both for the popular movements and for the subsequent communal violence.
INA trial and protests
The first major popular movement was trigerred by the British decision to prosecute
three officers of the Indian National Army (hereafter INA). Soon after the end of the war
against Japan, the issue of the INA was on the top of the political agenda. The soldiers of
the INA were widely admired in post-war India. Even those who believed that they had
been wrong in joining forces with the Japanese tended to feel that they were true
patriots. Once it became clear that soldiers and officers of the INA were likely to face
prosecution, there was widespread demand for their release. The Congress leadership
was quick to tap into this wave of protest. A national defence fund was instituted and
some of the best Indian lawyers offered to act as defence counsel for INA men put on
trial. But Congress leaders were also concerned that the future Indian army should not
be divided by factions originating in the war.
The British initially resisted the campaign to release the INA soldiers. They were
particularly keen to prosecute an estimated 7000 men who had flogged and tortured
fellow Indian army soldiers who had refused to join the INA. They were also concerned
that the INA issue would aggravate communal tensions; for some Muslim soldiers from
the north-west looked upon Subhas Bose and his followers as traitors. But in November
1946, they decided that given the support for the INA amongst both the armed forces
and the populace, the safest option was to release all INA men except those officers who
were specifically accused of brutality against fellow soldiers. To their dismay, the
released INA men were received rapturously, garlanded and feted everywhere as heroes.
The decision to prosecute some officers was taken on two considerations. There was an
undoubted desire for retribution. More importantly, British officials including the viceroy
feared that the Congress would use the INA issue to spearhead another revolt. On 6
November 1945, the military trial against Captain Shahnawaz Khan, Captain P. K.
Sehgal, and Lieutenant G. S. Dhillon commenced in the Red Fort. They were accused of
torturing and executing INA soldiers who had tried to switch sides yet again and rejoin
the British forces towards the end of the war.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai and Tej Bahadur Sapru were among the defence
lawyers. The arguments between the prosecution and defence continued for several
days. Court transcripts were published every day and eagerly consumed by the Indian
public. The unwitting decision to try together a Muslim, a Hindu, and a Sikh officer added
to the symbolic import of the proceedings. Unsurprisingly, the trial gave rise to a
country-wide wave of protests. The government‘s intelligence agencies reported that
seldom had a matter attracted so much public attention and sympathy. They also noted
that the sentiment cut across communal barriers.
An INA week was celebrated starting 5 November 1945. 12 November was observed as
INA day. The campaign attracted a wide range of people who attended protest meetings,
14
donated money to the INA relief fund, shut down shops and other commercial outfits.
The protests turned violent following police firing on a group of protestors on 7
November. Three weeks later rioting occurred in various parts of the country starting
with Subhas Bose‘s hometown, Calcutta. Students, taxi drivers and tramway workers
clashed with the police. 33 were killed and nearly 200 injured in the clashes that went on
for three days. Anti-government riots also erupted in Allahabad, Banaras, Karachi,
Patna, and Rawalpindi among other towns.
The popular reaction against the INA trial was strengthened by the growing food crisis of
1946 and the resulting deep cut in rations. Another contributing factor was increasing
public disapproval (especially in urban areas) of the use of the Indian army in Vietnam
and Indonesia.
Value addition: did you know?

Indian army in South-East Asia
Troops from the Indian army were used in Vietnam and Indonesia after the end of
the war. The ostensible aim was to repatriate Japanese troops, and to release
internees and prisoners of war in camps established by the Japanese army. In
both cases the British also deemed it in their interest to restore French and Dutch
rule. Confronted with nationalist opposition, the British not only employed their
own forces, but co-opted tens of thousands of Japanese troops to control the
situation. In the Indonesian city of Surabaya, Indian troops under British
command fought their largest set-piece battle since the end of the war. Large
parts of the city were reduced to rubble; an estimated 15000 people were killed.
Source: Bayly, Christopher and Tim Harper. 2007. Forgotten Wars: The
End of Britain’s Asian Empire. London: Penguin.
The three officers were eventually convicted, but only of the lesser charge of rebellion
against the King-Emperor. The sentences passed were never imposed. All three officers
were later released from jail and given dishonourable discharges from the Indian army.
But the INA trial and the protests had driven a nail into the Raj‘s coffin. Not only were
the British increasingly unsure about the political reliability of the Indian army, but they
also realized that the army could no longer be taken for granted as a strategic tool of the
empire.
RIN mutiny
During the INA trials, the British were exceedingly worried that the popular feeling might
percolate into the ranks of the armed forces. Members of the Royal Indian Air Force
(RIAF) and some army personnel had openly donated money to the INA fund and
attended protest meetings in uniform. The real blow, however, was delivered by the
Royal Indian Navy (RIN) Mutiny of February 1946.
The RIN mutiny started on 18 February in Bombay. The naval ratings in HMIS Talwar
protested against the poor quality of food and racial discrimination by British officers.
The protest spread rapidly to Castle and Fort barracks on shore, and to 22 ships in
Bombay harbour. By the following evening, a Naval Central Strike committee was
elected. The mutineers took out a procession in Bombay, holding aloft a portrait of
15
Subhas Bose. Their ships also raised the flags of the Congress, Muslim League and the
Communist Party. By this time, the news of the strike had reached the naval ratings in
Karachi. In response, the ratings from HMIS Himalaya, Bahadur and Monze unanimously
resolved to launch a mutiny. The programme of protests would involve complete
abstention from work, processions through Karachi, shouting of slogans denouncing the
British and calling on the Congress and the Muslim League to unite. The strike spread to
other naval establishments around the country, and even influenced some RIAF and
army personnel. At its height, 78 ships, 20 shore establishments, and 20,000 ratings
were involved in the mutiny. The revolt at various locations was coordinated by signal
communication equipment on board HMIS Talwar.
Figure 12.2.1: Royal Indian Navy ratings‘ mutiny, Bombay 1946

Source: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?240266

Demands of the naval ratings
The demands advanced by the Naval Central Strike Committee combined service
grievances with wider national concerns. The latter included the release of INA
personnel and other political prisoners; withdrawal of Indian troops from
Indonesia; and the acceptance of Indian officers only as superiors. Ratings in
striking naval establishments outside Bombay echoed these themes.
Source: Sarkar, Sumit. 1983. Modern India, 1885-1947. New Delhi:
Macmillan.
The ratings‘ hesitation in opting for a full-blown mutiny enabled the British to pin them
down to their locations. Subsequently, owing both to British threats of force and to
assurances from Patel and Jinnah, the ratings in Bombay surrendered on 23 February.
Others followed suit. The most significant feature of this short uprising was the massive
outpouring of public support for the mutineers. The city of Bombay went on strike on 22
February in solidarity. The public transport network was brought to halt, trains were
burnt, road-blocks were created and commercial establishments were shut down. An
army battalion was inducted to control the situation. Three days later, Bombay was
quiet, but 228 civilians had died and 1046 had been injured. Similar strikes occurred in
16
Karachi and Madras on 23 and 25 February. Smaller strikes took place in other parts of
the country.
The RIN Mutiny had a significant impact on the British and Indian leadership. To the
former it demonstrated that the Indian armed forces were no longer entirely under
control. The ratings were not only influenced by the INA trial, but had shown
considerable political consciousness. Leaders of the Congress realized that any mass
uprising would inevitably carry the risk of not being amenable to centralized direction
and control. Besides, they were eager not to encourage indiscipline in the armed forces.
As Patel put it, ‗We will want the army even in free India.‘ The promise held out by the
INA protests and RIN Mutiny of communal solidarity proved to be short-lived. As the
elections approached, the competitive mobilization by both parties gave an edge to
inter-communal relations.
Peasant movements
Throughout 1946, urban India was rocked by continuous strikes. The year witnessed
1629 industrial disputes involving almost two million workers. An all-India railway strike
was narrowly averted in the summer of 1946. There were a number of police strikes in
places as far apart as Dhaka and Delhi, Malabar and Andamans. A great majority of this
series of strikes was owing to the rising inflation and deepening cuts in rations. Rural
India was not quiescent, however. There were some organized militant peasant
movements, mainly involving sharecroppers and poor peasants. These were given
direction by the Communist Party working through the Kisan Sabhas.
In western India, the Maharashtra Kisan Sabha extended support to the Varli tribal
agricultural labourers in parts of the Thana district. The Varlis were opposed to the
landowners and money-lenders‘ demands for forced labour. Given the spiraling inflation
of the war years, these demands were all the more unpalatable. After a failed strike by
the Varlis of Umbargaon taluka in 1944, the Kisan Sabha started organizing their
protests. As the war drew to a close, the Kisan Sabha decided to launch a sustained
campaign for abolition of forced labour and for the payment of minimum wage. The
movement spread quickly in Umbargaon. Forced labour was stopped and debt-serfs were
released. The movement then spread to the nearby Dahanu taluka, where similar results
were achieved.
In October 1945, the movement launched its second phase. As the grass-cutting season
neared, the Kisan Sabha organized a strike aimed at securing a minimum wage. The
landlords responded by seeking governmental and judicial intercession and by letting
loose a campaign of intimidation. The movement gained impetus when the police fired
on a peaceful gathering of Varli protestors, killing five. The strike was eventually almost
total, and forced the landlords to acquiesce in the peasants‘ demands. This success was
followed up with another campaign in October 1946. This time the Varlis demanded an
additional daily wage for working in the forests. The Timber Merchants Association
initially refused to accede to this demand, but faced with a crippling strike it had to give
in.
In Eastern India, the communists had gained control of the Bengal Provincial Kisan
Sabha (BKPS) during the war years. Their popularity owed much to their response to the
17
Bengal famine of 1943. In contrast to the ineffective relief operations by the government
and by groups such as the Hindu Mahasabha, the communists responded with vigour.
They organised meetings criticizing the government‘s food policy and simultaneously
undertook extensive relief work in central and northern parts of Bengal. In consequence,
they gained a major following amongst the poor peasants and share croppers. Their
involvement in peasant disputes with landlords and other local grandees enabled them to
create a sound platform for the ‗Tebagha‘ movement.
This movement aimed at securing the sharecroppers‘ longstanding demand for two-
thirds share of the produce as opposed to the customary share of half the produce. In
the context of the rising unrest following the end of the war, the Communist Party
decided to adopt a militant line on this issue. In September 1946, the BPKS kicked off
the Tebhaga movement. Soon the movement spread out to several districts all over
Bengal. The sharecroppers‘ agitation was at its most intense in the northern districts.
The peasants harvested the crop and stored it in their own storehouses. They then asked
the landlords to collect their share of a third. In eastern, central and western Bengal, the
peasants declared ‗Tebhaga ilaka‘ or liberated areas. Here they set up parallel
administrative and legal structures.
Figure 12.2.2: Wood engraving: ‗A Procession bound for Jotibari in protest against
Jotedar tyranny‘ by Somnath Hore, December 1946, Rangpore, Bengal
Source: http://www.indowindow.com/delhimagazine/sanam/shore/contents.htm
The sharecroppers mainly came from tribal and dalit groups, for instance the Rajabansis
and the Namasudras. But the movement also showed stronger mobilization along the
lines of class and a tendency to break with older community loyalties. For instance,
Rajabansi sharecroppers were not shy of attacking jotedars from their own community.
The movement, however, was not revolutionary in character. It gave prominence to the
sharecroppers‘ demands and did not look for an overthrow of the existing property
order. In January 1947, the Bengal provincial ministry (led by the Muslim League)
18
proposed a bill that aimed to satisfy these demands. But the proposed legislation was
dropped owing to opposition from within the League and from the Congress. The rapid
spread of the movement from February invited a tough response from the government.
The peasants put up strong resistance but ultimately the BPKS decided to pull back.
In South India, the communists had a strong hold on the peasant groups in the villages
of north Malabar. As in Bengal, their position was consolidated in the context of acute
food shortages during the war. During these years, they refrained from adopting a
militant policy against the landlords. In the immediate post-war period, however, the
landlords turned more aggressively to rent collection. They also began evicting peasants
who were unable to comply, and asserting their rights to forests and wastelands. This
prompted the communists to let the peasants take a more robust stance. The ensuing
struggle was not quite as violent as the Tebhaga movement in Bengal; but throughout
1946-47 the peasants periodically clashed at times of scarcity with the landlords and the
police to prevent collection of rent, to prevent sale of rice in the open market, and to
cultivate the wastelands.
A more violent popular uprising occurred in October 1946 at Punnapra-Vayalar near

Alleppey. This area had a sizeable coir industry, workers of which were unionized by the
Communist Party. In 1946, the government of Travancore state started making moves
towards declaration of independence from the Union. As a first step, an undemocratic
constitution was imposed on the state. This development coincided with serious food
scarcity and a lockout in the coir industry. The workers joined forces with agricultural
labourers and other occupational groups, and attacked a police check-post at Punnapra.
In the face of massive government retaliation, resulting in nearly 270 dead, the
movement quickly died out.
The most powerful and prolonged peasant rebellion took hold in the princely state of
Hyderabad. Under the rule of an eccentric and autocratic Nizam, agrarian relations in the
state were entirely skewed against the peasantry. Land owners, revenue collectors and
money lenders held the rural society in their vise-like grip. The rebellion took in the eight
Telugu speaking districts of Hyderabad, collectively known as Telengana. The rebels
were a diverse group forged together by the communists. They included small
landowning pattadars and rich peasants, and poorer untouchable Mala, Madiga, tribal
peasants and landless labourers. In consequence, the movement sought to achieve
numerous demands: abolition of forced labour, illegal exactions and evictions, increase
in wages, and removal of the grain levy.
The armed rebellion started in Nalgonda district and soon spread to Warangal and
Khammam districts. Meantime, in the run up to Indian independence, the Nizam
announced his decision to remain an independent, sovereign state. Whilst the Nizam
parleyed with the Indian government on the future of his state, he used the Muslim
party, Ittehad-i-Muslimeen, to control the Telengana countryside. The Ittehad and its
militia, the Razakar, let loose a reign of terror. The peasants under communist
leadership responded by forming guerrilla squads called dalams. The rebels first seized
all holdings above 500 acres, and then brought down the limit to 200 and finally 100
acres. They also abolished forced labour. More than 1000 villages came under their
sway, and they ran a parallel government in these liberated zones or ‗Soviets‘. In May
19
1948, the Nizam‘s government, fearing a confrontation with India, lifted the ban on the
communists.
After the Indian invasion of Hyderabad in September 1948, the communists persisted
with the rebellion. The Communist Party under the leadership of B. T. Ranadive declared
an open armed struggle against the ‗bourgeois‘ Indian government. Telengana, the
communists hoped, would be the harbinger of a country-wide revolution. The Indian
government responded with a mixture of overwhelming force and careful propaganda.
Eventually the movement ended in 1951.
The peasant movements of the post-war period drew on a mixture of peasant initiative
and communist guidance. But even with the urban unrest they did not amount to a
nation-wide mass revolutionary movement. Yet the movements did have a significant
impact on the course of events. They reinforced the British government‘s belief that it
would be extremely difficult to continue governing India. At the same time, they
contributed to the Congress leadership‘s belief that the country was rapidly becoming
anarchic and hence a swift transfer of power was desirable.
12.3: The violence of Partition

Introduction: an unfinished story
In 1947 Rashpal Ahluwalia was only ten months old. His family lived in Lyallpur in
Punjab. Over many generations, they had struck deep roots in their village and although
the odd family member would go away on work, or travel to Amritsar and other parts of
the Punjab to see relatives, the thought of leaving their home and village permanently
had never occurred to them. In August of 1947, all this changed. The British decided, as
they were leaving after nearly two centuries of dominance and rule, to partition India
into two countries, India and Pakistan. In doing so, they claimed they were only giving
in to the demands of Indian political leaders and political parties whose actions made it
clear to them that Hindus and Muslims could no longer live together. As proof of this
they cited the demand made by one of these leaders, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and
supported by a political party, the Muslim League, for a separate homeland for Muslims,
Pakistan.
However the British themselves had followed a policy of divide and rule and the division
that they now cited as evidence of differences between Hindus and Muslims was largely
of their own creation, even though it eventually came to be accepted, and in some cases
even seen as the only possible solution, by Indians of all communities. In the years that
have followed, historians and researchers have discussed and argued about how and
why the decision to partition the country came about, who wanted it more – the British,
the Congress Party or the Muslim League – and about whether it provided the sort of
solution that it was meant to provide – putting people of a similar religious identity
together in the assumption that they would not then fight with each other. Some people
hold that Partition was bound to happen because of the deep differences between Hindus
and Muslims (despite the fact that they had so far lived in reasonable harmony), others
lay the responsibility at the door of the leaders, and some target the rulers. This chapter
does not go into these details, which will be dealt with elsewhere.
20
For Rashpal, however, none of this had any meaning. He was an infant, and knew little.
Like many others, his family too was worried by the rumours of Partition and was fearful
and concerned about what the future might hold. If India was to be divided, where would
they go? There was talk of the Hindus wanting India, the Muslims wanting Pakistan, but
what about the Sikhs, the Parsis, the Christians, the Dalits and others – what did they
want? And if they were able to say what they wanted, would anyone even listen? In the
days and months leading up to Partition tension and fear were palpable, particularly in
north India. The British had decided that Partition was to be on religious lines, a country
would be carved out for Muslims so that the demand for a separate homeland could be
met. But where would that country be? There were nowhere within India where Muslims
and Hindus did not live together. If a separate country was to be created, would that
mean that people would have to leave their homes and go? What would happen to their
fields, their jobs, to schools, to banks? Tension grew as all these questions remained
unanswered. Many did not believe the change would be permanent, or that it would
affect them. After all, they said, ‗kings and rulers do change but when have the people
had to change?‘ But some who felt the danger was real had already begun to leave their
homes and move to safer places. Others called their family members back from where
they were, fearing for their safety.
Rashpal‘s grandparents had also taken such a decision and had called the entire
extended family together from different parts of Punjab for precisely this reason. They
felt that safety lay in numbers. However, as the tension grew, the elders of the family
were forced to acknowledge that this decision could have been wrong. So fraught was
the atmosphere that people no longer knew whom to trust, and even lifelong friends now
began to seem like enemies, especially if they belonged to the other religion. Indeed,
religion now virtually became the only way to identify a person – instead of seeing
themselves as farmers, professionals, villagers, city dwellers, rich, poor, single, married,
old, young, people began to see themselves as Hindu, Muslim, Sikh – and even the
political discussions at the time mirrored this. Early in August Rashpal‘s grandparents
decided that the family should move to Amritsar – it was becoming increasingly clear
that Amritsar would go to India – and they joined a large kafila, a column of people,
travelling mainly on foot to cross the border into India. Just short of Amritsar the kafila
was attacked by a large mob of people. Virtually everyone from Rashpal‘s family –
including his mother and sister – was killed. He too, was hit with a machete on his neck
and arm, and left for dead. But he survived because, after the attackers left, a young
boy who had hidden behind some bushes, came out and started to move away to make
his way to Amritsar when he saw that the infant lying on the ground was still alive. He
picked him up and wrapped him in his pagdi, taking him to a hospital in Amritsar where
the child was looked after and healed.
21

Graphics showing what divided India would look like
Did you know that while discussions for Partition were going on, one of the ways
in which these were represented in the media was through maps. Many actual
maps of India, produced at the time, showed Muslm and Hindu majority areas
and speculated on what divided India would look like. Apart from this, there were
also graphic depictions which showed maps with a part of India cut in half, or two
tigers fighting over territory. The following two images show the covers of Time
magazine, one before and one after Partition.
Source: www.martinfrost.ws
From one story to many
Like Rashpal‘s family, hundreds of thousands of people died in the violence of Partition.
There is no accurate count of how many died, how many were abducted, how many were
wounded and hurt. Nor do we have enough information about who the attackers were,
where they came from, what role the army and the police played, and why people who
had so far lived in some sort of social contract, now began to turn on each other and do
violence to each other. Information on all of these, and other aspects, so essential for us
to be able to understand what happened and why, and how it can be avoided in the
future, is hard to come by. Although in some instances families reported deaths and
losses, many did not because their first priority was flight, and safety and shelter for
those who had survived. Further, even the records we do have, have not yet been made
fully available to scholars and researchers, perhaps because there is a concern on the
22
part of the State that the material may be too explosive and may lead to further
polarization and violence. Thus someone like Rashpal, and hundreds of thousands of
others like him, who may wish to find out more about the circumstances that shaped
their lives in particular ways, are unable to do so because of a paucity of information.
What we do know (from available records and survivors‘ accounts) is that for several
months before Partition actually happened, and increasingly as it became clear that it
was inevitable, and that the new borders would be drawn on religious lines, fear and
uncertainty took a firm grip. Incidents of mass violence began to take place in different
parts of the country – although by and large they remained confined to northern and
eastern India. Political leaders tried to dispel this growing sense of insecurity, again and
again they advised people not to panic, not to leave their homes and run away. In many
instances people heeded this advice, for no one really believed - or wanted to believe –
that the division would be permanent, and people did not want to abandon their homes.
But as the violence grew closer, and as it became clear that political leaders and parties
were not averse to using this growing violence for their own ends, whipping up passions
and trying to collect more and more supporters, people began to flee.
Soon, what was a sporadic trickle, turned into a great big stream. Millions of people,
sometimes entire Kasbahs, abandoned their homes and joined the great caravans that
were crossing borders on both sides, Hindus and Sikhs moving east to India and Muslims
moving west to Pakistan. They went by train, by car, bus, air and on foot. They left
behind divided families, destroyed homes, rotting crops, abandoned villages. It is
believed that between 10-12 million people moved or were forced to move, and that
somewhere between 250,000 to one million people died. Sexual violence too was
widespread, over 75,000 women are said to have been abducted, raped, forcibly
converted, sold into prostitution – by men of the ‗other‘ religion but sometimes also by
men of their own religion who used the opportunity provided by the general atmosphere
of violence and the breakdown of law and order, to perpetrate sexual violence. Although
we do not have much evidence from women who lived through such sexual violation –
because it is always difficult for women to talk about rape and sexual violation as often,
despite being the victims, they are the ones who are held guilty by society – we do have
fictional accounts by well known writers such as Sadat Hasan Manto, and others that
testify to this.
Incidents of mass violence spread all over northern and eastern India, with mass
migrations sometimes being caused by violence and sometimes resulting in violence.
Although Punjab was the site of some of the worst violence, the first incidents can
actually be traced to pre Partition Bengal where serious rioting preceded the provincial
elections of 1946. Some historians have argued that this violence was deliberately
created and sustained by cynical political manipulation, so that it would eventually lead
to an acceptance of Partition (Brass 2003 (2), 76-77). Others have even gone so far as
to ask whether the violence took place because of Partition or whether it was actually
used to create the conditions in which Partition could seem acceptable. (Satya Rai,
quoted in Brass 2003 (2), endnote no 8). What is clear is that on both sides, the western
and the eastern, the violence and migration of Partition radically changed the
demographics of the areas from which people fled, and those to which they fled. At one
time, as most weavers, midwives, tailors, craftspeople left the city of Delhi, it became
difficult to access the things they made. For women, it became virtually impossible to
23
find trained midwives. At another, if cultivators, peasants, sweepers, doctors,

shopkeepers left, it became virtually impossible to run other aspects of daily life.

The displaced
The graphics and figures below demonstrate the kinds of demographic changes
that took place. They also show the extent of losses in terms of land, agriculture,
and provide information about the number of relief camps, the amount of food
and clothing that was required to run them, and more. Thus, they give some idea
of the scale of the changes that took place at Partition. This kind of information is
often not easily available. What is shown here is information from the
government, and these estimates may well have been revised as time went on.
24
25
26
Source: After Partition. Publications Division of India.
Overall, we have very little visual record of Partition. For those who were affected by
Partition, safety and flight for themselves and their family members was their first
priority. Very few people thought to retain any records. But, we are lucky that at the
time, newspapers and magazines published some photographs, as well as cartoons and
other visuals. Below are some photos taken by a well known photographer called
Margaret Bourke White, who was commissioned by Life magazine. These photographs
poignantly capture the tragedy of Partition.
27
Figure 12.3.1: Partition photo by Margaret Bourke White

Source:
http://racismandnationalconsciousnessnews.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/india_partition
_genocide1.jpg
28

Source:
http://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/filmi_sangeet/media/1940s_partition.jp
g

Source: http://www.emailmarketingindia.com/UploadedImages/66/Image%204.jpg
29

Source: http://img221.imageshack.us/i/image005tc4.jpg/
Another well known photographer who travelled through India at the time was Henri
Cartier Bresson, who also produced many visual images of the time. The photo below,
taken by Cariter Bresson, shows refugees from one of the many camps that was set up
during Partition, jumping and dancing in order to get some exercise and flexibility.
Less known, but equally, if not more, important was a group of Indian photographers
who took many pictures as part of independent commissions they carried out for their
newspapers or their employers. Unfortunately, we have not been able to access their
pictures, although we do know that they took many.
30
Figure 12.3.5: Partition photo by Henri Cartier Bresson

Source: www.martinfrost.ws
Tracing the beginnings of violence
At times like this, it is always difficult to pinpoint a moment when the violence begins,
and often the small, sporadic incidents that eventually may lead to violence on a larger
scale go unnoticed. When looking at Partition riots, historians have generally pinpointed
the direct action day of 1946 as a moment which marks a beginning. In 1946 the
possibility and feasibility of Partition was being furiously debated by leaders, and other
solutions to the problem of growing differences between the Congress and the Muslim
League had not yet been abandoned. One of these was the Cabinet Mission Plan which
had seemed to be broadly acceptable to both ‗sides‘. However, the Congress, despite
having first supported the Plan, suddenly decided it was not acceptable. Angered by the
loss of this possibility, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who went on to become the founder of
Pakistan, gave a call to the Muslims of Calcutta (now Kolkata) to come out onto the
streets for direct action to press the demand for Pakistan. Given the tense atmosphere
at the time, and the fact that fear had made people resort to arming themselves as a
defense against possible attacks, the call for direct action acted as a catalyst that pushed
people into a terrible orgy of violence. Many who suffered would later recall how
organized the violence seemed.
Geeta (not her real name) from Calcutta (Kolkata) remembers Direct Action Day
somewhat differently from many others who witnessed it. It happened to be her wedding
day. The groom and his party came to Calcutta from Dhaka – which was soon to become
31
part of Pakistan – and got caught in the violence. Several members of the wedding party
were killed, the groom survived. The bride remembers hearing about the violence while
she was still participating in the pre-wedding rituals – she recalls how the marriage
ceremony had to be rushed through, and how the young couple then began their life in
the shadow of the Partition, fearing even to step out of the house. The violence also
made it impossible for the new bride and groom to leave Calcutta and go to the groom‘s
home in Dhaka. By the time things calmed down, he decided to stay on, and became a
‗ghar jamai‘, something that caused him endless worry all his life. Stories like this one
alert us to the unseen and unstated consequences of Partition violence, the ways in
which this violence enters people‘s daily lives and changes things radically for many.
Some five to ten thousand people are said to have died in Calcutta in the space of a few
days as a result of ‗direct action‘, with the number of injured being put at fifteen
thousand. Many historians, including Paul Brass, suggest that the then Chief Minister of
Bengal, Husain Suhrawardy, made the situation much worse by making inflammatory
speeches (although in her autobiography, From Purdah to Parliament, Suhrawardy‘s
sister, Shaista Ikramullah, has denied that this was the case). The Great Calcutta Killing,
as the event came to be known, created tension and suspicion among people and
completely vitiated the political and social atmosphere. It was also what finally led to the
acceptance of Partition as a ‗solution‘.
Once the violence began, it was only a matter of time before it escalated. Copycat and
revenge killings took place in different parts of the country. From Calcutta it spread in a
few months time to Noakhali in the northern part of Bengal and then to Bihar. If in one
place the victims were Hindus (as in Noakhali, a Muslim majority area that would
become part of East Pakistan), in the other they were mainly Muslims – Bihar, for
example, saw over 7000 Muslims killed. Sporadic incidents took place in other parts of
northern India and news of the violence spread rapidly across the country, leading to
further violence and revenge killings. One of the interesting things – which has puzzled
historians and others for many years – is that just as northern and eastern India were
engulfed in violence, there were other parts of the country, with an equally mixed
population, that remained completely peaceful. In some cases this was due to political
responsibility on the part of leaders, but in many places, it was the communities
themselves who worked hard to maintain peace and ensure that the violence did not
touch them.
One of the people who understood this quite early and who spoke about it frequently
was Gandhi. In March of 1946, at a prayer meeting he said: ―it has become the fashion
these days to ascribe all such ugly manifestations to the activities of hooligans. It hardly
becomes us to take refuge in that moral alibi. Who are the hooligans after all? They are
our own countrymen, and so long as any countryman of ours indulges in such acts, we
cannot disown responsibility for them consistently with our claim that we are one people.
Mankind is at the crossroads. It has to make its choice between the law of the jungle and
the law of humanity‖ (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi 90:64, quoted in Dilip
Simeon‘s lesson 9.1 in this series).
The flood of violence was not easily staunched, however, and many other places, such as
Garh Mukteshwar in Uttar Pradesh, Rawalpindi in Punjab, and others came under its
grip, until finally it spilled over into the actual moment of Partition in August of 1947 and
32
beyond and acquired a brutality and horror that so affected many who faced it, that even
today, sixty years after the event, survivors find it difficult to speak of that time.
In moments of violence like this, the first casualty is always information. For those who
become the targets or victims of violence, the culprit is always the ‗other‘ – so during
Partition Hindus will claim that all the violence was perpetrated by Muslims, and Muslims
will claim the opposite. In places where law and order breaks down and people are killed,
the police and authorities will always want to play down the figures, and sometimes even
destroy records. For researchers who wish to study these subjects therefore, it is difficult
to find accurate information. And it is because of this that people‘s accounts become so
valuable. Not only do they provide information but they also tell us about aspects of the
story that pure statistical data may not. For Partition histories, the stories of survivors,
as well as the stories written by writers, many of whom lived through the experience of
dislocation and trauma, are very valuable in helping us understand some of what
happened. Equally valuable are people‘s narratives.
Tanveer Ahmed, a young Pakistani living in London, for example, discovered fairly late in
life that his grandmother was actually a Hindu who had been found by his grandfather at
the time of Partition. Tanveer‘s grandfather was a young boy at the time. A Pathan, he
was recruited by Pathan armies to come with them to Kashmir to join in the battle for
Kashmir. When Partition took place, in theory, those parts of India that continued to be
ruled by kings and princes, could choose which country they wanted to belong to. Both
India and Pakistan wanted to bring the state of Kashmir over to their side. Fearing that
India would force the Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh, to ‗choose‘ India, Pakistan sent in
groups of armies made up of men called raiders, to stop this possibility. Many young
boys joined these armies without quite knowing why or where they were going.
Tanveer‘s grandfather was one of them, and he was ‗given‘ a young woman whom he
later married, Tanveer‘s grandmother. For many years, Tanveer‘s grandmother believed
that her family had all died in the violence of Partition. It was only recently that a chance
encounter alerted her and her husband to the fact that some members of the family, in
particular her brother, were still alive in the Indian side of Kashmir. This was what made
Tanveer decide that he wanted to bring his grandmother to India and see if she and her
brother could meet, before she grew too old to travel. Determined to do this, he spent
many years trying to get a visa for his grandmother to come to India to meet with her
relatives. It was not easy, and Tanveer even gave up his job in England to be in
Pakistan, so he could continue his campaign for a visa. After many years, he succeeded,
and his grandmother was able to come across to her village near Jammu and spend a
week in her childhood home, with her brother and his family. Stories such as this are
important because they direct our attention to the hidden histories that lie beneath the
surface – much of the history of Partition violence talks about groups of people,
particularly those belonging to different political parties. The small story, the individual
history, the minor narrative, seldom makes its appearance.
33
The causes of violence
Everywhere that violence took place, there was something or the other that sparked
things off (for example, a fracas in a mela as in Garh Mukteshwar, or a politician‘s
speeches as in Rawalpindi) and once it began, there was no controlling the violence
because the forces of law and order – the police and army – had by this time also
become communalized and divided on the basis of their religion. In Punjab, there was
another circumstance that contributed to the violence and this was that in the wake of
the Second World War, the army had demobilized its soldiers massively, and sent them
home. Many of these men were in the Punjab and in possession of weapons, and once
the conditions for violence were present, it was only too easy for them to step in with
whatever weapons they had to hand. Thus in March of 1947 when violence began in
Rawalpindi district – and it is generally believed that this was in revenge for what
happened in Bihar but also because of inflammatory statements made by the Sikh
leader, Master Tara Singh - many groups defended themselves using these weapons
and others traded weapons for freedom.
Survivors‘ accounts – and some documented evidence – have revealed another

dimension of the violence of Partition that seldom gets talked about. When looking at
what we call communal, or sectarian, violence, we tend to look only at the major
communities who are pitted against each other, and do not address the fact of how this
violence may affect others who are not part of the ‗battle‘ so to speak, or how other
stories may underlie it. During the ten days or so of violence in Rawalpindi, there were
many instances of Sikh families taking the decision to kill members of their own families
– mostly women and children – because they feared that they would be abducted,
perhaps converted, almost certainly raped, and the women possibly impregnated by men
of the ‗other‘ religion. And they saw this as a blot on their own religion, so killing the
women and children, rather than exposing them to possible conversion, rape,
impregnation, was one way of saving the ‗honour‘ of the religion.
Mangal Singh from a village near the Gurdaspur border was one such man. Together
with his two brothers, they killed some eighteen members of their family by gathering
them together in a gurudwara, praying for their souls, and then putting them to death.
Sant Raja Singh, who lived in Thoa Khalsa in Rawalpindi was another. In Thoa Khalsa the
elders got together and decided that it would be best to collect in the gurudwara so they
could defend themselves. When it became clear that they would be unable to do this,
they decided to put the women to death. Raja Singh killed his own daughter, Maan Kaur
first, and then several others, and this terrible history was followed by some eighty
women drowning themselves in the village well, in order to keep themselves ‗pure‘. Bir
Bahadur Singh, Sant Raja Singh‘s young son, was a mere boy at the time and he stood
by his father‘s side and watched, as his father killed his sister, and then other members
of his family. The memory of this violence has never left him. This incident became
iconic, and both at the time and later, is represented as an example of the women‘s
heroism and courage. And yet if we compare the two accounts below, one that appeared
in The Stateman, a newspaper, and another, the account of a survivor, we see the
difference.
The Statesman, 15 April 1947:
34
―The story of 90 women of the little village of Thoa Khalsa, Rawalpindi district… who
drowned themselves by jumping into a well during the recent disturbances has stirred
the imagination of the people of the Punjab. They revived the Rajput tradition of self-
immolation when their menfolk were no longer able to defend them. They also followed
Mr Gandhi‘s advice to Indian women that in certain circumstances even suicide was
morally preferable to submission.‖
And here is the account of Basant Kaur, a survivor:
―They brought us there [to the well]. From there…you know there was no place…nothing
to eat. Some people were eating close by but where could I give the children anything
from?...I had barely a few paise… my elder son had a duvanni (two annas coin) with
him. We thought we could use that….my brother‘s children were also hungry…but then
they said the duvanni was khoti, unusable, such difficulties… nothing to eat… we had to
fill their stomachs… today they would have been ranis… so many of them, jethanis,
children…‘ (Butalia 1998, 152)
When understanding the violence of Partition it is important we keep these histories in

mind because all too often, the violence of communities towards their own people and
particularly towards women, is not seen as violence. In this case, virtually everyone who
speaks about this violence refers to the killing of the women as ‗honour‘ killing, and sees
their deaths as ‗martyrdom‘. And yet, the question is: how were these killings in any way
more ‗honourable‘ than the mass killings in Bihar, Noakhali and other places, and should
we not, when trying to understand the violence of Partition, also address the violence of
communities towards their own people?
Over the years, this incident of women jumping into the village well has acquired a sort
of iconic status and it gets represented in both fiction (Bhisham Sahni‘s novel Tamas,
later made into a television serial, is the most famous work that talks of this incident)
and historical account as some sort of heroic moment where the women came out in
defense of nationalism, the community and the religion. However, such representations
often hide other realities. We do not know how many of these women took the step of
jumping into the well voluntarily. Many of them were young, some sixteen and
seventeen. How strong is the feeling of nationalism and religion in people so young, and
even if we are to say it is strong, the question may well be asked, is it strong enough to
offer to give up their lives? Moments of trauma where people are pitted against each
other, often gather around them histories of such ‗heroism‘ in order to hide the horror of
such violence.
In some instances, as it spread, Partition violence also became a convenient cover for
people to play out old enmities and settle old scores. In Punjab (present day Haryana)
an Arya Samaj teacher, Phool Singh (1885-1942) was killed in 1942 by unidentified
people. His daughter, Subhasini, who inherited his mantle, was convinced that the killers
were Muslims, and five years later, when Partition took place, she used the opportunity
to ‗revenge‘ her father‘s killing and sent off her men to loot and decimate an entire
village of Muslims, who probably had no connection at all with Phool Singh‘s death. But
for Subhasini Partition violence provided the right opportunity to settle this score. In
this, she was not alone – there are many other such instances in both Punjab and
Bengal.
35
If the violence was widespread, which it was in northern and eastern India, so also were
attempts to contain and prevent it. In many instances, when people were threatened
with violence, friends and neighbours came out to offer them help and shelter, but these
stories find little mention in historical accounts. Sant Raja Singh‘s family, for example,
originally lived in a village called Saintha, where they were the only non-Muslims.
Wealthy because of land and moneylending, Raja Singh knew each Muslim in the village,
and when the attacks on the village seemed imminent, a delegation of villagers, led by
Sajawal Khan, the village headman, came to Raja Singh‘s house to offer shelter and
protection. Suspicious of all Muslims by now, Raja Singh refused this help offered by
people he had lived with all his life, and chose instead to leave the village. There are
many such stories that allow us to see that even in the face or terrible violence, there
was a desire among people for peace and many tried their best to ensure that peace
remained.
A key person who did this fearlessly was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It is common
knowledge that Gandhi was opposed to Partition and did his best to stop it happening.
But he was also a brave and fearless man, and in many places where the violence took
place, he did his best to stop it. Following on the violence in Noakhali and Bihar, Gandhi
did not spare Bihar‘s Congress government and exhorted Congressmen to put their
energies into stopping the violence. For several months after this, he walked through the
villages of Bihar, often accompanied by another man of peace, Khan Abdul Gaffar
(Badshah) Khan, visiting homes, offering succour, touching lives and healing by love and
compassion. This journey of Gandhi‘s became legendary – he encouraged Hindus and
Muslims to return to their homes and to live with each other in harmony. The pictures
below (Figs 1 and 2) show Gandhi, Badshah Khan and Mridula Sarabhai, the well known
activist and political leader, visiting homes and families in Bihar. As Rajmohan Gandhi,
Gandhi‘s grandson points out, this visit of his grandfather‘s is still remembered by older
people, and there is even a Gandhi museum in the area.
36
Figure 12.3.6: Badshah Khan, Gandhi and Mridula Sarabhai in Bihar - photo by Jagan
Mehta
Source: Sarabhai, Mridula. 2004. Gandhi in Bihar 1946-47: An Account of Gandhiji’s
Peace Mission in Bihar, edited and with an introduction by Aparna Basu. Sarabhai
Foundation. Unpublished.
37
Figure 12.3.7: Gandhi and Badshah Khan in a meeting with Congresspersons in Bihar.
Photo by Jagan Mehta
Source: Sarabhai, Mridula. 2004. Gandhi in Bihar 1946-47: An Account of Gandhiji’s
Peace Mission in Bihar, edited and with an introduction by Aparna Basu. Sarabhai
Foundation. Unpublished.
This was not the only time Gandhi‘s presence helped to heal and stop the violence. A few
months later, after Partition had taken place, Gandhi once again played a similar role. An
account from a memoir written by Vina Mazumdar, a well known veteran of the women‘s
movement in India describes this:
―On the 15th August (1947) my brother called from Calcutta, very excited, saying
‗unbelievable things are happening here‘. Following ‗the Great Calcutta Killings‘,
for over a year there had been acute communal tension in the city. Hindus did not
consider it safe to go into Muslim mohallas and vice versā, and periodic cases of
stabbing and other kinds of violence were always being reported.
38
While other leaders were preparing to celebrate the coming of independence,

Gandhiji started off on his journey back to Noakhali, accompanied by his chief
interpreter, Prof. N. K. Bose. Before the train reached Howrah, Shyama Prasad
Mukherjee (the Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University and one of the founders of
the Hindu Mahasabha) and H. S. Suhrawardy, the Chief Minister of Bengal, met
Gandhiji and requested him to get down at Howrah and to use his presence to
prevent the massacre of Muslims at the dawn of independence.
Sitting in his railway compartment Gandhiji struck a deal. He asked ‗Will you give
me an undertaking that no Hindu in East Bengal will die?‘ Suhrawardy said ‗yes‘.
Then Gandhiji said, ‗You will stay where I choose to stay, with me and you will go
with me wherever I go.‘ Suhrawardy agreed to that too. Shyama Prasad said, ‗We
came together to convince you that we need your presence if we are to hold back
the frenzy.‘
So the Mahatma and the Chief Minister went and lived in a Muslim basti in the
house of a woman who had lost her entire family in the riots earlier that year.
Gandhiji held prayer meetings in different places. My mother, my sister-in-law and
I attended a prayer meeting where Suhrawardy (wearing a lungi and a vest) sat
next to the Mahatma and sang ‗Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram, Patita Pavana
Sitaram. Ishwara Allah tere naam, Sab ko Sanmati de Bhagwan.‘
The peace did not last however, and by the end of the month, violence had escalated
again. It was then that Gandhi decided to go on a fast. In Vina Mazumdar‘s words:
―Then there was another flare up, and Gandhiji came out of his room, because
there was a huge crowd assembled outside. Some of them were armed with lathis
and das (sickles) and they were abusing Gandhiji. Then somebody threw a stone
which just grazed his temple, so Gandhiji said ‘Agar tum log sunne koh tayar nahi
ho to mera to ek hi rasta hai’(If you are not prepared to listen, there‘s only one
recourse open to me) I will go on a fast unto death.‘
The fast began that afternoon and quite incredibly, (till today I do not know
whether there was any planned organization because nobody could have known
that he was going to do this) within an hour, there were repeated announcements
on the radio, and bands of persons (men and women) were walking along streets
and lanes reminding people that the Mahatma was fasting. One of our relatives
who had always been very critical of Gandhiji, told my parents, ‗If the old boy dies
out here, Bengal will never be forgiven by the rest of the country.‘ The threatened
riot ended within 24 hours with the Mahatma‘s use of this unique weapon. The
same people who had come armed to threaten him came and threw all their
weapons before him and shouted ‗Eat! We have committed many crimes, but save
us from that of your death.‘ (Mazumdar, 2010)
Gandhi‘s contribution to peace was recognized also by the colonial masters, in particular
Mountbatten who sent him a telegram that read: ―My dear Gandhiji, in the Punjab we
have 55 thousand soldiers and large-scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal our forces
consist of one man, and there is no rioting. As a serving officer, may I be allowed to pay
my tribute to the One Man Boundary Force.‖
39
As the pictures above show, with Gandhi in his efforts for peace were Badshah Khan
(also known as Frontier Gandhi) and Mridula Sarabhai and many others. We know little
of their experiences because they have not recorded them, of if they have, much of the
material cannot be accessed. The letter below was written by JInnah, who, like others at
the time, also worked hard to encourage people to stop the violence.
Figure 12.3.8: Letter by Jinnah

Source: ‗After Partition‘, Modern India Series. Delhi: Publication Division of India.
Like Gandhi and Badshah Khan, many other people – several of them unnamed – were
also concerned about peace. In the mid nineties, a young woman in Lahore came across
a packet of letters in an almirah in her home. When opened these letters were revealed
to be part of a correspondence between two men, Harkishan Singh Bedi and Chaudhry
Latif, both Partition refugees. Bedi had had to leave his home in Lahore within a day and
had been unable to take many of his precious books and papers with him. Chaudhry
Latif, the new resident of Bedi‘s house did not know what to do with Bedi‘s things and
then, one day, some three months after Partition, he received a letter addressed to The
Occupant. The letter said: ―I write to you as a human being. I hope you will not be put
out that a Hindu has written to you. We are human beings first and Hindus and Muslims
only after that. I firmly believe you will oblige me by answering this letter in the name of
the human bond that we share.‖
40
In response, Chaudhry Latif meticulously assembled Bedi‘s things and sent them to him
in small packets. Over years, the two men, kept up a correspondence where they talked
about everything that had made for the division between the two countries and
reiterated their commitment to peace. No matter that neither Bedi nor Latif had been
involved in the violence of Partition, no matter that they had not taken part in riots, but
their lives were deeply affected, and their gestures of friendship therefore were, and
remain, all the more important.
Understanding Partition violence
In many ways the violence of Partition defies comprehension. Researchers and historians
have spent years asking themselves these questions: where did such violence come
from? What caused it? How did people who had lived together in reasonable amity
suddenly turn on each other and go to the extent of killing and maiming? What possible
explanation can there be for the extreme brutality? At the time, these questions were
bewildering. Today, with the kind of violence we have seen around us, for example in
Delhi in 1984, in Bhagalpur in 1989, in Gujarat in 2002, we are, sadly, much more
familiar with such violence and know how close to the surface it lies, although we are no
nearer understanding it.
Partition violence is even more difficult to understand because there are no easy
aggressors and victims here - it set people against people, neighbour against neighbour.
The moment of Partition has often been compared to that of the holocaust in Germany
but there are important differences with the holocaust where the Nazis were very clearly
the aggressors and the Jews their victims. During Partition, Hindus killed Muslims and
Muslims killed Hindus and many simply took advantage of the overall violence to kill and
harm those they saw as their enemies. Sadat Hasan Manto, the well known writer who
migrated to Pakistan after Partition (without really wanting to, but he found himself with
no other alternative) wrote a large number of powerful stories that describe much of
what happened at the time. One of his best known stories, ‗Khol Do‘, tells the tale of a
young girl, Sakina, who is raped by the very same men who are supposed to be her
protectors – this was not uncommon, for men could not have suddenly changed and
become sensitive towards women of their community just because the times were not so
normal.
The holocaust is also seen as a genocide, where one community makes a deliberate
attempt to eliminate another – this was not necessarily the case with Partition, although
in certain cases attempts were made to wipe out entire communities. Nor is the
description of ‗riot‘ enough to define Partition violence, for riots are often seen to have
an element of spontaneity about them while, as historians have shown, often the
violence of Partition was very well organized, and sometimes it even had the backing of
political parties. The truth is that seeing Partition violence merely in terms of ‗riots‘
often helps to hide our own culpability, for many ordinary people joined in the violence
and contributed to it. Some were pulled into it as part of what has often been described
as a ‗mob mentality‘ and many lived to regret it. But while many incidents of violence
were random, and some even spontaneous, there were also numerous instances of the
violence being carefully planned and executed. These many different elements make it
even more difficult to understand this violence.
41
Rashpal‘s story, with which we began this lesson, points us in the direction of another
group of people who lived through Partition violence and whose concerns have hardly
ever been addressed: children. History generally does not deal with the experiences of
children, and yet, like everyone else, children too have to live through historical
moments and particularly when these are moments of trauma, the scars remain for a
long time. In the few months preceding and following the announcement of Partition, the
terrible violence that swept across much of north India, destroyed the lives of many
children. Thousands were killed, and thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands
orphaned, while others lived with the trauma of what they had seen and experienced –
and often not even understood – for years to come. Even in this short narrative above
we have met people who were children at the time of Partition and who remember the
time vividly: Rashpal, Bir Bahadur Singh, Bir Bahadur‘s sister Maan Kaur (who died), and
there are many, many more. It is only now, more than six decades later that doctors
are discovering the long term impact of the kind of trauma these children lived through.
Just as children were impacted by Partition violence, so also, another large group of
people who faced particular forms of violence were women. They became particularly
vulnerable in the mass movement of people across borders where they were often
abducted and taken away by the attackers. The rape of women became a common
occurrence as we have seen above. In fact, rape became an indirect way for men of one
community to attack those of another, by violating the bodies of their women. In some
instances, the attackers even went so far as to cut off women‘s breasts and tattoo their
bodies with marks and symbols of the other religion. It was almost as if, in a battle being
fought between men, women somehow became the ground on which this battle was
fought. This was given as the reason by many men, for killing women of their own
community as we have seen above – they claimed that they were afraid that the women
would be abducted and raped, so they decided to protect them by killing them. Although
today we know a fair amount about these histories, the individual stories here still
remain difficult to capture, because particularly for those women who lived through rape,
the experience has been impossible to speak about, and for years they have had to live
with the silence that surrounds such violations. This has been all the more tragic because
even though the rape occurred on a mass scale, most women experienced it, and lived
with its consequences individually, and therefore there was no easy way in which they
could speak about it.
The search for definitions
The kind of violence we are talking about here does not fall easily into the definition of a
riot. The general understanding of a riot is that when people riot, it is because a situation
goes out of control and they run amuck. It is also generally assumed that riots are
spontaneous bursts of anger and frustration and they die down, often as quickly as they
erupt – although this is not always the case. But although some of the violence of the
Partition may have come out of such ‗spontaneous‘ anger or resentment, or indeed fear,
not all of it can be classified in this way. Historians have pointed out, and research has
shown, that a fair amount of planning went into the making of this violence; often the
attackers were not, as is generally assumed, ‗outsiders‘, but they were known people,
neighbours, friends, who used the lawlessness of the situation to settle old scores, to
grab property, to coerce women into marriages, to assault them sexually.
42
So if Partition violence was not a riot, what was it? By what name do we call it?
Historians have discussed whether such violence could be called genocide, or pogrom, or
civil strife, but none of these or other categories has been found to be satisfactory. One
of the things that renders this violence so complex, and makes our understanding of it
even more difficult, is the fact that it is virtually impossible to pinpoint who were the
aggressors and who the victims, who were the powerful and who the powerless. In
Bengal and Punjab, in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and everywhere else the violence
took place, if Hindus killed Muslims, then Muslims equally killed Hindus. Those who killed
and attacked were people, and they killed and attacked other people. It was not the
state against the people, or the army, or the police. Friends, neighbours, business
associates, religious leaders were all complicit in a terrible stream of violence where they
attacked each other, and where they prepared themselves for violence, where they
looted, raped, burnt. And there were thousands of others who were equally complicit
because they watched – as the police and army did – and did not do anything, or they
saw, and remained silent, or they knew, and did not talk. This is particularly true of the
violence against women, which, to this day, remains shrouded in a deep silence. Families
whose women were abducted took the initial step of reporting their disappearance
(although some did not even do that) but then, if any of the women was found (and this
happened because social workers were sent out to search for the women), their families
often refused to take them back because they felt they were now polluted, having lived
with, or been raped by a man of the other religion. Or, as we have mentioned above,
there were families who killed their own women, claiming that they were protecting them
from possible rape, impregnation, pollution, and then silenced the histories of these
women.
Why should we discuss how to categorize or name the violence of Partition? How does it
matter by what name we call it? After all, for the people who lived through it, such
violence was unspeakable, and sometimes they did not even have the language to
describe it, the words to say it. These are important questions that students of history
may well ask, and there are some possible answers to them. First of all, the categorizing
of Partition violence as riots in many ways robs it of its seriousness, and takes away the
element of planning and preparation that was surely part of this violence in many places.
Paul Brass has shown how outbursts of Partition violence were very closely connected to
political developments such as elections, and even for creating a situation of tension and
uncertainty where Partition would then seem inevitable as the only solution. A riot also
takes away culpability – for it signals that a situation was out of control, and therefore
lets off not only the people who participated in it, but also those who should have acted
to stop it. Given the kinds of tensions around religious identities that have grown in India
today, we need to be aware of this so that we do not let people off so lightly.
Understanding the nature of the violence also helps us fix the responsibility of the state.
It also helps us to see how to work towards a situation where such violence never again
arises. And to see our own culpability, for because ‗we‘ don‘t participate in riots, we
somehow have convinced ourselves that we had no hand in this violence.
43
Writing about Partition violence
This lesson on Partition focuses on Partition violence and particularly on the violence of
riots, although, as we have seen, defining Partition violence is not an easy task. It does
not fit into convenient definitions of riots, or pogroms or genocidal violence. But, if
defining it is not easy, writing about it is even more difficult. For many years historians
have found it difficult to address Partition violence, not only because of the scale of
suffering it caused, but also because of its brutality, and the ways in which it embittered
relations between communities, and also affected the lives of those who were not
directly involved (such as minorities, people on the margins of society). There has also
been a concern, or a fear, that writing about violence without exercising caution, may
lead to further violence. For example, because of the ways in which relations between
India and Pakistan deteriorated after Partition, it has been almost impossible for
researchers to work in each other‘s countries. Writing that tells only one side of the story
can therefore be very partial, and can lead to all kinds of misconceptions.
For many years, people in India and Pakistan have believed that the violence of Partition
was only perpetrated by people of the ‗other‘ community and they have not known, or
admitted, that perhaps it was also people of their own community who perpetrated
violence on the ‗other‘ and on their own people. We have shown above how Partition
violence sometimes provided an excuse to settle old scores, and also how families were
violent towards their own people, particularly women and children. In Sadat Hasan
Manto‘s story ‗Khol Do‘, referred to above, we see how men of one community can be
violent towards women of their own community. Historians have been perplexed by how
to describe such violence, and many have found that they lack the vocabulary, the
language, to adequately capture the horror of what happened. All these aspects have
made the violence of Partition more difficult to study.
Also, for too long, Partition history has only been looked at in terms of what happened to
the major communities, the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Muslims. But even though these were
the major actors, and much of the violence that took place was between these
communities, the impact of Partition was felt much more widely, and in studying it, we
need to look not only at the major communities but also at others such as women,
children, minorities such as Christians, Sindhis, Parsis, Dalits, eunuchs, mental patients
and so on. In Punjab, for example, in many places, the Dalits (then called Harijans) did
not face as much violence only because they were not seen as either Hindus or Muslims.
But although they may have escaped physical violence, they suffered considerable
discrimination in terms of relief and rehabilitation. It is not within the scope of this
chapter to discuss these. For our purposes, it is important to remember that violence,
especially the kind of violence that was part of Partition, is never only what it seems on
the surface, and if we are to understand how to avoid such violence in the future, we
need to look at every aspect of what happened in the past, in order to understand it
more fully.
44
12.4: Looking beyond Partition: refugees and their

stories
Introduction
The Partition of India left a range of short and medium term problems in its wake. The
records of those times clearly show that no one quite imagined what this division would
actually entail for the population at large. In fact, the political leadership of both the
countries, and the British too, did not anticipate such a large-scale movement of people
across the borders. This chapter, thus, focuses on the aftermath of the Partition.
With the earliest works on Partition focusing primarily on what is termed as the ‗High
Politics‘ of the times, a need was felt for looking beyond these political negotiations. In
the works on high politics, the time period under consideration is from the 1940‘s,
ending abruptly on the 15 August 1947, which marks the birth of the two nation states—
India and Pakistan.
The next phase in Partition historiography attempted to look beyond this rigid time
frame. By focussing on the event itself, this next phase in Partition historiography tried
to describe this most tragic event in greater detail. Thus, it looked at Partition as
something more than an unfortunate endnote in the grand narrative of the otherwise
successful Indian national movement, which had culminated in the independence of our
country from British rule. Here the emphasis was on an actual description of what
Partition meant for the people directly affected by this ‗batwara‘, the vivisection of the
nation. Therefore, the correlation between Partition and violence, terms which some
historians suggest, need to be used interchangeably. (Pandey 2001; Butalia 1998)
Nonetheless, the deficiency inherent in the historiography till the early 1980‘s has been
its preoccupation with Partition alone― either the description of its causes or a brief tally
of the violence that followed it. Newer Partition studies attempt to go beyond this
description of the event itself. However, even in these works, the time-frame gets
focussed on the immediate Partition years—1947-48. Viewing Partition as synonymous
with violence and vice-versa limits the attention to the western border, for large-scale
violence was a phenomenon restricted to the western region only. Owing to the presence
of the ‗one-man army‘—Gandhi, Bengal, the other region to be partitioned, was on the
whole quiet at this time. Thus, recent Partition studies focus on what is termed as the
‗aftermath of Partition‘ (Tan and Kudaisya 2000). There is equally a broadening of
perspective on the impact of Partition upon the people directly affected, and also an
understanding beyond the region of Punjab to include the regions of Bengal, Sindh and
Sylhet (Assam) as well.
This is what the next phase in Partition historiography focuses on― the ‗aftermath of
Partition‘, i.e. not simply on the victims, but rather on survival in the face of adversities.
This includes a wide range of scholarly research done on this topic. (Zamindar 2007;
Chatterji 2007; Tan and Kudaisya 2000; Kaur 2007) The focus is now on what was the
impact of Partition, thus, looking beyond 1947. We now study not uptil Partition, rather
we look at its aftermath. It is this discussion of the aftermath of Partition that this
chapter attempts. Here the focus will be on the four main themes that recur in such
post-Partition studies: creation of a border, making of the refugees, rehabilitation of the
45
refugees, and finally, refugee self-initiative in the process of rehabilitation and in

adjusting to the new environment.
Of borders and barriers
On 3 June 1947, the Mountbatten Plan was announced. It was now clear that India
would attain independence from British rule in a few months time, however, at the cost
of the partition of the subcontinent. Hence, no time was to be wasted further. A
Boundary Commission was immediately set up on 30 June with the task of drawing up
the two borders on the western and eastern side of India. The Commission was chaired
by Cyril Radcliffe, a respected judge by profession but one who had never been to India
before. It was only upon his arrival on 8 July 1947, in India that he actually realized
what his task was. Radcliffe was to chair the two Boundary Commissions set up for
Bengal and Punjab, respectively; the final decision however, was, to be his. Each of the
Commissions comprised four members—two nominated by the Indian National Congress
and two by the All India Muslim League. The Punjab Boundary Commission was set up
on 30 June 1947, its members were: Justices Din Mohammad, Mohammad Munir, Mehr
Chand Mahajan and Teja Singh. The Bengal Boundary Commission comprised: Justices
C. C. Biswas, B. K. Mukherji, Abu Saleh Mohammad Alam and S. A. Rahman. Party
organisations and even individual groups were welcome to submit their suggestions in
the form of memoranda regarding areas which should be included in India and Pakistan.
The Commission was to go through these, and accordingly decide upon the drawing of
the border.
However, as scholarly research shows, the borders were drawn rather arbitrarily and in
great haste. Not much attention was paid to the ground realities, particularly the overall
impracticality of it in terms of the everyday lives of the people actually residing near the
borders. (Schendel 2005; Samaddar 1999; Zamindar 2007; Chester 2002). Further, as
the Radcliffe Award was released post-Independence, i.e. on 17 August 1947, there
remained an air of uncertainty among the people in these two states as to where they
would belong, whether they should migrate to the other side or not and other such
questions. Thus, as Joya Chatterji notes, ‗power was transferred on the basis of the
notional boundaries after all, and the hurry with which the Radcliffe line was drafted
turned out to have been completely—and as we shall see, tragically—unnecessary.‘ (Joya
Chatterji 1999, 195)

‘Partition’, a poem by W. H. Auden
Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on this land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
'Time,' they had briefed him in London, 'is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
46
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.'
Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day

Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.
The next day he sailed for England, where he quickly forgot

The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.
Source: Mendelson, Edward. ed. W. H. Auden: Collected Poems,
‘Partition’, Vintage International, Random House Publications (1976,
reprint 1991), 803, cited in Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, 200.
In the post-Partition scenario, borders created obstacles in routine life—for a peasant

working in a field which perhaps now fell on the other side of the border, for a woman
whose natal home was now in a different country, for a family whose outlying hut was
bisected by the border. Everyday mobility across the borders did not stop altogether—
legally or illegally—for borders could not obstruct the daily round of life for long. It is
such border issues that recent historiography on Partition looks at in some detail.
Writing on the relevance of ‗borderland studies‘, van Schendel writes: ‗The pain of
Partition fell disproportionately on the new borderlands. Here disruption was
overwhelming and almost all people were directly and personally affected. The
borderland experience of Partition was immediate and acute and therefore differed from
the experience of Partition in other parts of South Asia.‘ (van Schendel 2005, 25). To
this day there exist in the eastern region several enclaves which are actually islands of
Indian Territory in Bangladesh and vice versa. The plight of the residents in these areas
can only be imagined—on the one hand they are being harassed by the local population
on an everyday basis; and on the other, upon making an attempt to enter India, they
are arrested as illegal migrants. Joya Chatterji cites numerous examples which show how
such everyday life was disrupted. To present one such illustration—in October 1950,
Subroto Dutta and his servant Narendra Ghosh went to Mednipur across the border to
reclaim a grain loan. But on their way back they were caught and beaten up by a
Pakistani constable. Similarly, many such incidents have been noted which show how the
borders have impacted upon the everyday lives of the people residing there.
47
Figure 12.4.1: The enclaves of the India-Bangladesh borderland. Enclaves mentioned in

the text: (1) (Chand Khan) Putimari; (2) Garati, Shahebbari/Haluapara; (3) Dohala
Khagrabari, Balapara Khagrabari and Kotbhajni; (4) Dohogram (-Angorpota); (5)
Dhabalshuti Chhit Mirgipur; (6) Bhotmari, Panishala; (7) Falnapur; (8) Nolgram; (9)
Batrigachh; (10) Shibproshad Mustafi; (11) Karala; (12) Moshaldanga. Disputed border
areas: (d-1) Khudipara; (d-2) Berubari.
Source: van Schendel, Willem. 2002. Stateless in South Asia: The Making of the India-
Bangladesh Enclaves. The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 61 No. 1 (Feb).
The fact of illegal migration, however, shows that borders cannot break age-old bonds
altogether. The ill-planned border in this way cuts across essential lifelines and families
in this region, thus making national boundaries actually quite redundant, and instead
requiring heavy surveillance in this border region.
It may be argued that the conditions were different in the East and West and therefore,
the impact of the creation of the borders too, was different. In other words, whereas
there was a total exchange of population across the Western frontier, there was an
almost piecemeal migration occurring in stages in the case of the East, and that too was
not planned. This stage-wise migration, and the subsequent creation of Bangladesh,
made the situation in the East very different and much more complicated compared to
the West.
48
Making of a ‘refugee’
With the drawing of the international borders it was abundantly clear that a very large
number of people would be displaced from their homes and would be forced to make the
long journey to a distant land and an uncertain future. This mass of people have been
variously termed by the Government of India as ‗displaced persons‘, ‗migrants‘, and
‗refugees‘.
Value addition: from the sources

Defining the ‘displaced persons’
‗… any person who, on account of the setting up of the Dominion of India and
Pakistan, or on account of civil disturbances, or the fear of such disturbances in
any area now forming part of Pakistan, has after the first day of March, 1947, left
or been displaced from, his place of residence in such area and who has been
subsequently residing in India, and includes any person who is resident in India
and who for that reason is unable or has been made unable to manage, supervise
or control any immovable property belonging to him in Pakistan.‘
Source: The Displaced Persons Claims Act, 1950.
Numerous autobiographies, oral testimonies, cinematic representations and scholarly

works have traced this journey of migrants from their homes in Pakistan to a transit
camp and finally to the relief camp in India. The images of long foot caravans,
overloaded trucks and overflowing trains immediately come to our mind when we
visualise the ‗journey‘.
Figure 12.4.2: On a train across the border
49
Source: http://www.indhistory.com/partition-independence.html
Figure 12.4.3: By bullock cart
Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/south_asia_india0s_partition/html/10.
stm
Borders as well as subsequent legal restrictions on mobility brought into force more
complications in the post-Partition scenario in both the countries. These restrictions,
namely the introduction of permits in 1948, and subsequently passports in 1952,
deepened the lines between the two nations with a sense of greater finality than had been
done by the borders themselves. Significantly, in the process of issuing these permits and
later passports, the State was creating its own class of citizens and aliens, unmindful of
the impact of such categorization at the ground level. Thus, in India, as Vazira Zamindar
has noted, Hindus and Sikhs from West Pakistan could easily obtain these travel permits
and by implication became natural citizens of India; the citizenship of Muslims residing in
India became rather suspect and had to be established to the satisfaction of the Indian
state. Of course, such acts were reciprocated in Pakistan as well, where Hindus and Sikhs
became aliens in their own land.
On the Eastern front, however, even the Hindu refugees had to struggle to obtain their
citizenship rights (Chatterji 2001). With the influx of refugees occurring in phases spread
over decades, the government kept setting deadlines for the accrual of the right to
citizenship in this region. Ultimately, after the creation of Bangladesh in March 1971, all
migration across the eastern border has been considered illegal.
50
Thus, whereas a certain section of the populace were becoming ‗refugees‘, and as a
corollary, potential citizens of India, another class (rather community) was becoming
aliens, or in official terms ‗intending evacuee‘. The refugees in India and Pakistan,
respectively, were to be rehabilitated at the cost of these ‗intending evacuees‘. Zamindar
brings out this distinction in sharp terms: Hindus and Sikhs were to be rehabilitated in the
homes ‗left behind‘ by the Muslims. A special Act for this purpose was enacted—the
Administration of the Evacuee Property Act of 1950—whereby the property left behind by
the Muslims in India would be taken up by the government and redistributed among the
Hindu and Sikh refugees coming from West Pakistan. Similar provisions were introduced in
Pakistan as well, rendering the Hindus and Sikhs of that country homeless in that new
nation.
Realizing the fact that such a term as intending evacuee made almost every member of
the minority community suspect, and could lead to the rhetorical question ‗Can a Muslim
be an Indian‘—a damning indictment of a clearly secular State, this clause of the intending
evacuee was soon withdrawn, and the Act (the Administration of the Evacuee Property
Act, 1950) itself, too, was later abrogated.
Partition, by creating borders and later restrictions on mobility, thus enabled the state to
distinguish between its citizens and non-citizens. But Partition not only defined citizens
and aliens, it also created a new category of ‗stateless‘ people. To this day there exist in
India, and likewise in Pakistan, individuals or whole villages which belong to this category
of the ‗stateless‘ people. These are people who on account of the many bureaucratic
hurdles are not in possession of the valid documents essential to establish oneself as a
legitimate citizen of the nation. There are also places which on account of topographical
factors are the ‗nowhere lands‘: small islets of India in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh
territory, and vice-versa as well. The residents of these villages are the ‗nowhere people‘,
yet again proving the futility of the borders which create such islets of nowhere land.
(Butalia 2002)

The chitmahals
When the border in the East was drawn, scant regard was given to the varied
topography of the region. This has left, even to the present date, certain Indian
Territory in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and vice-versa. Two kingdoms—
Cooch Behar and Rangpur—which had initially chosen to remain independent post
1947, eventually decided to join India and East Pakistan respectively. But a large
part of their conquered territories remained on the other side, forming what is
known as ‗chits‘, and thus, the term ‗chitmahal‘. There are 128 such Indian
chitmahals inside Bangladesh, covering 20,95,707 acres of land. Bangladesh has
95 chitmahals inside India which cover 11,00,000 acres of land. People living in
these enclaves are, even today, stateless people, without an identity, without
documents, without any rights or privileges. Not having passports or any identity
cards, these people are not even included in the census operations in India!
Source: Butalia, Urvashi. 2002. The Nowhere People. Seminar 510 Feb.
Having discussed citizenship in general terms, we now look at the issue of the marginal
sections—by way of gender and caste. Citizenship of a woman depended upon that of her
51
father or, if married, upon that of her husband. Examples cited by Vazira Zamindar (2007)
and Joya Chatterji (2007) show that women, by way of simply being married to a person
who wished to settle or had attempted to settle in the other country, often lost the
citizenship of India (or Pakistan) without having even stepped out of their homes.
The real problem cases were of abducted women. Partition violence included numerous
instances of abduction of women and children and their forcible conversion to the other
religion. The term ‗abducted persons‘, referred to a male child under the age of sixteen
and a female of any age, who had been separated from his/her family and made to reside
forcibly with a person/family from the other community after the date of 1 st March 1947.
It was to ‗recover‘ and ‗restore‘ such persons that after much negotiations and debates,
the Recovery of the Abducted Persons Act (1948) was passed. Elaborate arrangements
were made to get ‗our women‘ back, irrespective of their own decision to remain where
they were, and also irrespective of the fact that their families might not accept these
‗fallen‘ women back. (Butalia 1998; Menon and Bhasin 1993)
The next problem category was of Harijans or the Scheduled Castes. This category, it
appears, was absolutely ‗untouched‘ during Partition riots since they were neither caste
Hindus nor Muslims. But records show that in the post-independence period, these very
Harijans became the subject matter of long correspondences between the two nations
regarding their nationality. The Pakistanis claimed them as one of their own, keeping in
mind the useful service which the Harijans provided as sweepers and cleaners—a task no
one was willing to fill in for. The Indians, too, claimed them as their own, by arguing that
they originally belonged to the states of Punjab and the United Provinces. After much
deliberation and even intervention of the Prime Ministers, Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan,
these Harijans were finally evacuated to India.
Thus, the issue of citizenship of our country was very closely tied to the history of
Partition. By means of inclusion and exclusion the State created its constituents, but in the
process left behind many problem areas and issues unresolved.
Rehabilitating the refugee
Partition studies now also focus on rehabilitation programmes as implemented by the

two governments on both sides. Now historians also look at the role of the state in
dispensing rehabilitation benefits to the migrants. The complete success in some states
(Punjab and surrounding north Indian states) and its limited effect in other, Bengal and
eastern states, has brought out new perspectives on the state‘s role in post-Partition
rehabilitation work. (Rai 1986; Tan and Kudaisya 2000; Chatterji 2007; Chakrabarti
1990) Historians have also begun to pose the following question: Was a whole
community getting totally overlooked and also, inadvertently, being made to pay the
price for this large-scale displacement and resulting chaos? (Zamindar 2007; Chatterji
2005).
Such studies have also highlighted rehabilitation from the point of view of class,
community and gender. The Government of India had set up the Ministry for Relief and
Rehabilitation in 1948, which eventually became the Ministry of Rehabilitation, with a
Branch Secretariat set up in Kolkata for the East Pakistan migrants. Whereas the all-
India Ministry of Rehabilitation was finally closed down in 1962; the Branch Secretariat
at Kolkata continues to function to this day!
52
Keeping in mind the question of special categories, a Harijan Section and Women‘s
Section were also created within the Ministry to look into the needs of these groups.
Extensive plans were drawn up by the Ministry of Rehabilitation for providing the
refugees with the three essential needs for complete rehabilitation: housing, education
and employment. Unlike other countries which, too, were faced with displacement and
refugee issues in the post World War II period, our country did not look for any foreign
aid in this matter. Instead it did a fine job with its limited resources.
Refugee’s struggle for survival
An emerging dimension to Partition studies has been the focus on the theme of
survival—the role and activity of the refugees themselves in the process of self-
rehabilitation and adaptation to a new environment. We deal with this briefly in this
section.
The migrants who left their homes and settled lifestyle behind and crossed over into the
new nations were in a state of penury. The Government of India had realized their plight,
recognising that it was they who had made the greatest sacrifice for the nation, took
immediate steps for their relief and rehabilitation. Local people and non-governmental
organisations also helped in the process. But in this process the role of the migrants—
both Punjab and Bengal refugees—was indispensable. It is in exploring the agency of the
refugees, both men and women, that many studies have focussed on the role of the
entire refugee community (Randhawa 1954; Rai 1986; Chatterji 2001; Chakravartty
2005; Butalia 1998; Bagchi and Dasgupta 2003). Regarding the role of the refugee
women, Gargi Chakravartty makes a very important point— ‗Too often, women‘s
experience of Partition becomes a story of loss and victimhood, of violence and
oppression. While the focus is valid and deeply relevant, it does somewhat marginalize
other areas of experience that are no less relevant. These relate to the ways in which
uprooted women have faced the enormous challenge of rebuilding and reshaping their
lives in alien conditions and how some of their concerns evolved into a new women‘s
movement.‘ (Chakravartty 2005, xi). This applies more generally to the role of refugees
as a whole.
With the focus now on the theme of survival rather than victimization, Partition studies
has taken a new turn and brought into light hitherto neglected aspects of this important
theme. Further, moving beyond looking at negotiation on Partition and the violence
accompanying it, scholars are bringing to bring the other regions into focus which had
been ignored for long—Bengal, Sindh and Assam (Sylhet). By paying attention to the
‗human dimension‘ of the event that was the Partition of the subcontinent, the attempt is
to look at how Partition and post-Partition activities of the state affected the people on
the ground—of Muslims being displaced from their homes and their loyalty (read
citizenship) put under the scanner, of the struggle of refugees to find a foothold in the
new country, of the role of women as opposed to seeing them as victims only, of
regional disparities in rehabilitation programmes etc, and, finally, of the permanence of
the whole procedure of Partition in the form of the borders and the implications of it all.
53
Epilogue
This chapter has attempted to present the new areas of focus in Partition studies. It has
sought to broaden our understanding of this event beyond a simple understanding of
what led to Partition. Scholars now bring out the ‗human dimension‘, and also highlight
the repercussions of the Partition of 1947 which exist to this day—in everyday life of the
people, and also in the ‗high-politics‘ of the present times. This chapter started by
stating how Partition was not quite the solution to all the political and inter-community
problems of its time. Going through this chapter you may come to agree that Partition
was no solution to the deadly issue of communal strife.
The plight of the displaced persons has been described in the following words of Namita
Chowdhury. Though written for describing the plight of the Bengali refugees, can be
applied to all those displaced persons in India, for whom the whole process of
displacement was a painful affair and one that brought a lot of hardships. Their struggle
for survival and the element of nostalgia too, is vividly portrayed—
… one day, long ago, Ma and Baba
Gathered together all my brothers and sisters
And waited at the railway station
Thinking constantly of the uncertain future
… In the effort to bring us up well
Knocked from door to door
And went around from place to place
Half like a beggar
Secretly nursing a broken heart.
… In the hope of survival
They want to search out
Just even so small
A secure heaven.
Cited in Chakravartty 2005, 102-103.
54
Summary
 The failure of constitutional negotiations and the eventual partition of the nation
have been explained in a variety of ways: the ‗two nation‘ theory of the Muslim
League; the ‗divide and rule‘ policy of the British; the refusal of Congress to share
power with the League. None of these by themselves provides a satisfactory
explanation.
 The elections of 1946, in which the Muslim League won a majority of the Muslim
seats, were a major turning point. The mobilization during the election
considerably strengthened the movement for Pakistan.
 In 1946, the British government was keen to preserve a united India under the
Commonwealth, mainly for strategic reasons. The failure of the Cabinet mission
led them to consider Partition.
 The rapidly growing communal violence in Bengal and Punjab made the option of
Partition seem more acceptable to all the players.
 The run up to Partition was also marked by a number of popular movements. The
trial of officers of the Indian National Army resulted in an upsurge of protests
across the country, forcing the British Indian government to tone down the
sentences.
 The mutiny of the personnel of the Royal Indian Navy was important in
convincing the British that their military hold over India was no longer assured.
 Peasant movements in east, west and south India posed additional challenges to
the Raj. The most prolonged and powerful of these movements was the
communist insurrection in Hyderabad. It continued even after India had attained
independence.
55
Summary
 Rashpal‘s story: an infant at the time of Partition, Rashpal was orphaned in the
Partition riots and has still not been able to recover his history because of a
paucity of records.
 Many individual stories make up the broader reality of Partition violence on a

much larger scale. As Partition became imminent, people began to flee in fear
and this flight also led to the creation of further tensions and violence.
 Thousands of people died in the violence of Partition. Estimates show that nearly
a million were killed, some 100,000 women were raped and abducted, and about
12 or 14 million people were forced to move to places where they felt they would
be safer because they would be with their ‗own kind.‘
 It is difficult to pinpoint when the violence actually began but Direct Action Day in
Calcutta is often cited as a beginning. From Calcutta the violence spread to Bihar,
Noakhali, Garh Mukteshwar, Rawalpindi, and other areas until it finally became a
large stream and then a like a river in spate.
 It is difficult to write about this violence because in many ways everyone was
complicit in it. There were no good people or bad people.
 It is not easy to categorise Partition violence as either a riot, or a pogrom or a

genocide.
 While the violence was ongoing, several people, including Gandhi and Badshah
Khan, made an effort to bring about peace, in some instances they had some
success.
 Children and women were especially targeted during Partition.
 Historians have, for many reasons, found it difficult to write about the violence.
However, our understanding of the nature of Partition violence has been helped
by the writings of creative writers who have, often from direct experience, tried
to capture the pain and trauma of the time. As well, survivors‘ accounts help us
to reconstruct some of what happened at the time.
56
Summary
 For long, Partition historiography has focused on the factors that led to the
Partition of the subcontinent. The trend now is to look beyond this ‗high-politics‘
debate and focus on the experiences of the people who were displaced—the
refugees.
 Such studies on the ‗aftermath of Partition‘ primarily deal with the following
themes: creation of borders, making of the refugees, their rehabilitation, and
finally, refugee self-initiative in the process of rehabilitation and also in adjusting
to the new environment.
 Borderland studies show the arbitrary manner in which these borders were
drawn, paying scant regard to the ground realities and leading to a disruption in
the everyday lives of the people.
 Studies which look at the making of refugees, show that in the process of
identifying who was entitled to be a ‗refugee‘ and who was not, whole sets of
communities in the newly created states of India and Pakistan were getting
alienated.
 Studies on ‗refugee rehabilitation‘ focus on efforts of the state and of the refugees
themselves in the whole process of rehabilitation. It also enables us to
understand the extent to which the refugees had to adapt to a new home and the
trials and tribulations they had to face in the process.
 In all, a complete understanding of Partition and its meaning comes across only
when we look at not only what led to Partition, but also at its aftermath.
57
12.1 & 12.2: Exercises

Essay questions
1) How convincing is the argument that it was the Indian National Congress that
sought Partition?
2) What factors explain the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan?
3) What was the impact of communal violence on the constitutional negotiations?
4) Why did the RIN mutiny occur in 1946?
5) What was the influence of the INA trials on the move to grant independence to
India?
6) What was the cumulative impact of the peasant uprisings in the run up to
independence?
7) How do we explain the strength and longevity of the Telengana revolt?
Objective questions
Question Number Type of question LOD
1 True or False 1
Question
a) In the elections of 1945-46, the Muslim League won all the Muslim seats in the
Central Assembly.
b) By dispatching the Cabinet Mission, the British Government sought to evolve a

plan for partitioning India.
c) The Muslim League chose not to join the Interim Government.
d) Jinnah supported the plan for an independent and united Bengal evolved by Sarat
Bose and H. S. Suhrawardy.
e) The British Indian government prosecuted all INA personnel accused of torturing
fellow soldiers.
f) The Tebagha movement was strongest in southern Bengal.
58
Correct Answer /
a) True b) False c) False d) True e) False f) False
Option(s)
Justification/ Feedback for the correct answer

a) Under the separate electorates the Muslim League all the reserved seats in the
central assembly, although the Congress had an overall majority.
b) The Attlee government was keen to preserve the unity of India primarily for
strategic reasons. The main proposal advanced by the Cabinet Mission was designed
to avoid partition.
c) The Muslim League initially refused to enter the interim government, but
subsequently joined it.
d) The plan did have Jinnah‘s support – it also accorded with Jinnah‘s attempt to
weaken the Indian union by encouraging some princely states to stay out of India.
e) The government decided to prosecute only those who were alleged to have
committed crimes against fellow soldiers and officers. Eventually only three officers
were tried.
f) The movement was strongest in the eastern, central and western parts of the
province.
Resource/Hints/Feedback for the wrong answer
Reviewer‘s Comment:
2 Multiple choice question 2
Question
At the time of Partition, the government in North-West Frontier Province was from:
a) Congress Party
b) Muslim League
c) Unionist Party
d) A coalition of Congress and the Unionists.
Correct Answer /
a)
Option(s)
59

The Congress government led by Dr. Khan Sahib (brother of Ghaffar Khan) was
dismissed by Jinnah once Pakistan came into existence.
Question
The Radcliffe Boundary Award was announced on:
a) 18 August 1947
b) 13 August 1947
c) 17 September 1947
d) 17 August 1947
Correct Answer /
d)
Option(s)

It was announced on 17 August. The delay in announcement led to allegations of
tampering with the boundary.
Question
The RIN Mutiny began in which of the following ships:
a) HMIS Bahadur
60
b) HMIS Talwar
c) HMIS Himalaya
d) HMIS Monze
Correct Answer /
b)
Option(s)

The mutiny on the other ships followed and was inspired by the events in HMIS
Talwar.
Question
Which of the following was NOT on the demands advanced by the Telangana rebels:
a) Abolition of forced labour
b) Removal of grain levy
c) Increase in wages
d) Two-thirds share of the produce
Correct Answer /
d)
Option(s)

This was the key demand of the ‗Tebagha‘ movement.
61
12.3: Exercises
Essay questions
1) Is it possible to categorize Partition violence easily?
2) Was all Partition violence the same?
3) Did people use the cover of Partition violence to settle other scores that had
nothing to do with Partition?
4) Is it possible to easily identify victims and perpetrators in the violence of

Partition?
5) Have historians found it difficult to write about Partition violence?
12.4: Exercises
Essay questions
1) Explain the varied trends in Partition historiography, citing significant departures

made in every phase.
2) Borders disrupted everyday lives of the people residing there. Explain.
3) How did the process of creating ‗refugees‘ alienate entire communities in the
newly formed states of India and Pakistan?
4) Discuss the impact of Partition on women.
5) How was the experience of Partition in Bengal different from that in Punjab?
Objective questions
1 True or False 1
62
Question
Which of these statements is false regarding the Radcliffe Award?
a) It was announced on the eve of independence, i.e. 15 th August 1947.

b) It was this award which demarcated the borders of India and Pakistan.
c) Cyril Radcliffe had chaired the Boundary Commission set up for both Punjab
and Bengal.
Correct Answer /
a)
Option(s)
The Radcliffe Award was released post-independence, i.e. on 17th August 1947. It is
believed that Mountbatten felt that had the Award been released prior to, or on the
eve of independence, it would have hampered the ‗smooth‘ transfer of power by
escalating violence and rioting.
2 True or False 1
Question
Which of these statements is false regarding ‗abducted persons‘?
a) The term referred to all persons (male and female) below the age of 16 and
who had been forcibly converted to the other religion and were made to
reside forcibly with a person or family from the other community.
b) The Government of India passed The Recovery and Restoration of the
Abducted Persons Act (1948) to recover such persons. An elaborate
government machinery of dedicated officers and social workers were
employed in this huge task.
c) The cut-off date for identifying people as such was kept at 15 th August 1947.
63
Correct Answer /
c)
Option(s)
The cut-off date was kept at 1 March 1947, since it was from the month of March
onwards that large-scale violence, the one which is particularly categorized as
‗Partition violence‘, escalated to an unprecedented scale.
As per definition, a female of any age and a male child under the age of 16 were to
be considered as ‗abducted persons‘ if they had been converted to the other religion,
or were made to reside forcibly with a person or family from the other community.
The Act was intended to recover all such persons. For this purpose, initially it was
the Military Evacuation Organization that was given this job, along with its main task
of evacuating the Hindus and Sikhs from West Pakistan. However, soon under the
aegis of Mridula Sarabhai, the Women‘s Section was made to directly involve itself in
this process. Apart from an elaborate administrative machinery (Search Service
Bureau and police officials), which was employed exclusively for this purpose,
several women social workers were also used.
3 True or False 1
Question
Which of these statements is false regarding the long term impact of Partition?
a) The hastily drawn borders, which paid scant regard to ground realities,
actually disrupted everyday life of the people residing there.
b) Partition has been the apt solution to all communal strife.
c) By this process of demarcating borders, setting restrictions on mobility, and
also in the post-partition refugee rehabilitation policies, both the states were
creating its classes of citizens and aliens.
Correct Answer /
b)
Option(s)
64
The metaphor of Partition continues to be used quite often to describe the incidents
of communal violence in India.
a) and c): This chapter and the suggested readings, as cited in parenthesis therein,
would prove these assessments.
Question
On account of his very significant role in preventing large-scale communal rioting in
Bengal on the eve of partition, who was referred to as the ‗one-man army‘?
a) Lord Mountbatten
b) Mahatma Gandhi
c) Pandit Nehru
Correct Answer /
b)
Option(s)
The unprecedented violence on the western border could not be prevented inspite of
the presence of the Punjab Boundary Force in that region. However, Gandhi‘s
presence in Calcutta and his emphasis on Hindu-Muslim unity, on the eve of
Partition, spared the eastern region of such violence.
This title was given to Gandhi by Mountbatten who accepted the failure of the Punjab
Boundary Force in curbing violence.
65
Question
Who was the chairman of the Boundary Commission?
a) Mountbatten
b) Justice din Mohammad
c) Cyril Radcliffe
Correct Answer /
c)
Option(s)
Radcliffe was made to chair the two Boundary awards for both Punjab and Bengal,
respectively.
It was Mountbatten who had appointed Radcliffe to this position. Justice Din
Mohammad was one of the members in the Punjab Boundary Commission.
66
Glossary
Cabinet Mission: a three-member British mission sent to India in late March 1946 to
create a constitutional package for a united India and to plan for the transfer of power
Parity: the demand for equal representation for Muslims and Hindus in the interim
government
Plebiscite: a procedure to determine the wishes of the people of an area on whether
they wished to be part of India or Pakistan
Tebhaga movement: a peasant movement in Bengal aimed at securing for the
sharecroppers two-thirds share of the produce as opposed to the customary half share of
the produce
Two nation theory: the theory advanced by advocates of Pakistan, which held that the
Hindus and Muslims of India constituted two separate nations, and hence the Muslims
were entitled to their own state
Glossary
Genocide: a deliberate attempt to wipe out, by violent or other means, a particular
group or community
Holocaust: destruction or death on a mass scale, the term is usually used to describe
the mass killing of jews by the Nazis in Europe
Riot: a disturbance of peace by a crowd, often resulting in violence
67
Further readings
Bayly, Christopher and Tim Harper. 2007. Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain’s Asian
Empire. London: Penguin.
Bose, Sugata and Ayesha Jalal. 1998. Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political
Economy. London: Routledge.
Chatterjee, Joya. 1994. Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cooper, Adrienne. 1988. Sharecropping and Sharecroppers’ Struggle in Bengal, 1930-

1950. Calcutta: K P Bagchi.
Deshpande, Anirudh. 2005. British Military Policy in India, 1900-1945: Colonial

Constraints and Declining Power. Delhi: Manohar.
Dhanagare, D. N. 1991. Peasant Movements in India, 1920-1950. Delhi: Oxford

University Press.
Dhulipala, Venkat. 2008. ‗Rallying Around the Qaum: The Muslims of the United
Provinces and the Movement for Pakistan, 1935-1947‘. Ph. D Thesis, University of
Minnesota.
Fay, Peter. 1993. The Forgotten Army: India’s Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-
1945. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Jalal, Ayesha. 1985. The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand
for Pakistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mansergh, Nicholas, E. V. R Lumby, and Penderel Moon eds. 1970-83. Constitutional

Relations between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power 1942–7. 12 vols. London:
Her Majesty‘s Stationery Office.
Menon, Dilip. 1994. Caste, Nationalism and Communism in South India, Malabar, 1900-
1948. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moore, Robin. 1983. Escape From Empire: The Attlee Government and the Indian
Problem. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Parulekar, S. V. 1979. The Liberation Movement among Varlis: The Struggle of 1946. In
A.R. Desai ed. Peasant Struggles in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Roy, Asim. 2001. The High Politics of India‘s Partition: The Revisionist Perspective. In
Mushirul Hasan ed. India’s Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press.
68
Sarkar, Sumit. 1983. Modern India, 1885-1947. New Delhi: Macmillan.
Talbot, Ian. 1996. Khizr Tiwana, the Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India.
Richmond, Surrey: Curzon.
Further readings
Butalia, Urvashi. 1998. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. New
Delhi: Viking.
Brass, Paul R. 2003. Riots, Pogroms and Genocide in Contemporary India: From Partition
to Present; and The Partition of India and Retributive Genocide in the Punjab 1946-47:
Means, Methods and Purposes. Journal of Genocide Research 5 (17).
Kaur, Ravinder. 2007. Since 1947: Partiton Narratives Among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Kidwai, Anis. 1983. Azadi ki Chaon Mein (Hindi). New Delhi: National Book Trust.
Pande, Ira ed. 2009. The Great Divide: India and Pakistan. New Delhi: India
International Centre and Harper Collins India.
Talbot, Ian. 2006. Divided Lives: Lahore, Amritsar and the Partition of India, Karachi:
Oxford University Press.
Zamindar, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali. 2008. The Long Partition and the Making of Modern
South Asia. New Delhi: Viking.
Further readings
Bagchi, Jasodhara and Subhoranjan Dasgupta. 2003. The Trauma and the Triumph :
Gender and Partition in Eastern India. Kolkata: Stree.
Butalia, Urvashi. 1998. The Other Side of Silence: Voices From the Partition of India.
New Delhi: Penguin.
Chakrabarti, Prafulla. 1990. The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political
Syndrome in West Beangal. Kalyani (WB): Lumiere Books.
Chakravartty, Gargi. 2005. Coming Out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal. New
Delhi: Bluejay Books.
Chatterji, Joya. 2007. The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India 1947-1967. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Chatterji, Joya. 2005. Of Graveyards and Ghettos. Muslims in Partitioned West Bengal,
1947-1967. In Mushirul Hasan and Asim Roy eds. Living Together Separately. Cultural
India in History and Politics. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
69
Chatterji, Joya. 2001. ‗Rights or Charity? The Debate over Relief and Rehabilitation in
West Bengal 1947-1950‘ in Suvir Kaul ed. Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the
Partition in India. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
Chatterji, Joya. 1999. The Fashioning of a Frontier. The Radcliffe Line and Bengal‘s
Border Landscape, 1947-1952. Modern Asian Studies 33 1.
Kaur, Ravinder. 2001. Since 1947. Partition Narratives Among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Pandey, Gyanendra. 2001. Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in

India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rai, S. M. 1986. Punjab Since Partition. Delhi: Durga Publications.
Randhawa, M S. 1954. Out of the Ashes: An account of the Rehabilitation of Refugees

from West Pakistan in Rural Areas of East Punjab. Bombay.
van Schendel, Willem. 2005. The Bengal Borderland. Beyond State and Nation in South
Asia. London: Anthem Press.
Tan, Tai Yong and Gyanesh Kudaisya eds. 2000. The Aftermath of Partition in South
Asia. London: Routledge.
Zamindar, Vazira. 2007. The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia:
Refugees, Boundaries, Histories. New York: Columbia University Press.
70

Independence and Partition

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Independence and Partition

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Independence and partition

Lesson: Independence and partition

The violence of Partition

Language Editor: Swapna Liddle

Chapter 12: Independence and Partition

12.1: High politics

The key debate

Jalal‘s argument draws our attention to important aspects of Jinnah‘s negotiating

Opening round and the elections

Value addition: interesting details

The Cabinet mission

Value addition: interesting detail

Value addition: interesting detail

Figure 12.1.5: Clement Attlee with Louis and Edwina Mountbatten

12.2: Popular movements

INA trial and protests

Value addition: did you know?

Figure 12.2.1: Royal Indian Navy ratings‘ mutiny, Bombay 1946

Value addition: interesting detail

A more violent popular uprising occurred in October 1946 at Punnapra-Vayalar near

12.3: The violence of Partition

Value addition: did you know?

From one story to many

find trained midwives. At another, if cultivators, peasants, sweepers, doctors,

Value addition: did you know?

Source: After Partition. Publications Division of India.

Figure 12.3.1: Partition photo by Margaret Bourke White

Figure 12.3.2: Partition photo by Margaret Bourke White

Figure 12.3.3: Partition photo by Margaret Bourke White

Figure 12.3.4: Partition photo by Margaret Bourke White

Figure 12.3.5: Partition photo by Henri Cartier Bresson

Tracing the beginnings of violence

The causes of violence

Survivors‘ accounts – and some documented evidence – have revealed another

The Statesman, 15 April 1947:

And here is the account of Basant Kaur, a survivor:

When understanding the violence of Partition it is important we keep these histories in

While other leaders were preparing to celebrate the coming of independence,

Figure 12.3.8: Letter by Jinnah

Understanding Partition violence

The search for definitions

Writing about Partition violence

12.4: Looking beyond Partition: refugees and their

refugees, and finally, refugee self-initiative in the process of rehabilitation and in

Of borders and barriers

Value addition: interesting detail

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day

The next day he sailed for England, where he quickly forgot

In the post-Partition scenario, borders created obstacles in routine life—for a peasant

Figure 12.4.1: The enclaves of the India-Bangladesh borderland. Enclaves mentioned in

Value addition: from the sources

Numerous autobiographies, oral testimonies, cinematic representations and scholarly

Figure 12.4.2: On a train across the border

Figure 12.4.3: By bullock cart

Value addition: did you know?

Rehabilitating the refugee

Partition studies now also focus on rehabilitation programmes as implemented by the

Refugee’s struggle for survival

… one day, long ago, Ma and Baba

Gathered together all my brothers and sisters

And waited at the railway station

Thinking constantly of the uncertain future

… In the effort to bring us up well