Partition of India and Pakistan

Pair Activities
• Throughout this PowerPoint Lecture, there are
pair activities built in that you will be
completing with your partner next to the
slides on the lines.
• This is to help review key concepts, get you
thinking critically, and give opportunities for
clarification of main points.
 1
Cause and Effect: Partition of India
Long-Term
Causes
Muslim conquest of
northern India in 1100s
British imperialism in India
Nationalists organize the
Indian National Congress
in 1885
Muslim nationalists form
separate Muslim League in
1906
Short-Term
Causes
World War II weakens
European colonial empires
Pressure from Indian
nationalists increases
Insistence by Muhammad Ali
Jinnah and the Muslim League
that Muslims have their own
state
Rioting between Hindus and
Muslims throughout northern
India
Effects
Violence erupts as millions
of Hindus and Muslims
cross the border between
India and Pakistan
Gandhi is assassinated by
Hindu extremists
India and Pakistan become
centers of Cold War rivalry
Establishment of the state
of Bangladesh
Connections to
Today
Continuing clash between
India and Pakistan over
Kashmir
Nuclear arms race as both
India and Pakistan refuse
to sign Non-Proliferation
Treaty
 Review: Religious Conflict and Partition
Religious Groups
• India had long had two main religious groups: Hindus, Muslims
• 1940, home to 255 million Hindus, 92 million Muslims
• Smaller numbers of Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists

Muslim Fears
• As hopes for Indian independence rose, so did religious tensions
• Some Muslims feared large Hindu population would dominate independent
democratic India, wanted separate nation to protect their rights

Muslim League
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah led Muslim League, worked for interests of India’s
Muslims
• 1940, Muslim League called for a partition, division of India, creation of separate
Muslim, Hindu countries
 Pair Activity
• Next to each map, write down your
observations on the major locations
of Hindus and Muslims in South Asia
in 1909.
 Map of Indian Subcontinent

Directions: Click
back and forth
quickly between
this slide and the
previous one.
Notice where
each group is
located.
Map of Indian Subcontinent
 Task  Predict what will happen after the
British leave India (decolonization). Do this next
to this slide. Explain why.
British Views on Independence
 India and WWII
Over 2 million Indians fought in WWII for the British
India raised food for soldiers at expense of its own
population, (Great Bengali Famine took over 1 million lives)
Britain owed $$ to India
Clement Attlee, new Prime Minister of Britain, sympathetic to
Indian independence
 British Colonial Policy Changes
After World War Two
• Labour came to power – more sympathetic to
Indian desire for self government.
• It had been against British colonialism for a
long time and believed that other countries
should rule themselves.
 Britain Now Wants to Withdraw
 Britain was weak and broke after the war and in no
state to rule an India that was more determined than
ever to have self rule.
 The aim of the British government was now to have a
peaceful and quick withdrawal from India.
 They did not want to be caught up in any violence so
any withdrawal and the future shape of India would
have to be negotiated with the two Indian parties.
 They needed to get agreement from both, no solution
could be imposed as the British were too weak to
enforce it.
 Why Britain Agreed to
Independence?
• Britain after some serious convincing by
Gandhi and the INC agreed to consider
independence for India
• The cost of running overseas colonies after
World War Two was too much.
• Britain agreed to grant India independence by
1947 on one condition: India had to have a
plan for dealing with the ongoing religious
issues between Hindus and Muslims
 Pair Activity

• Which of the reasons Britain

agree to independence for South
Asia do you think was the
greatest motivator and why?
Idea of Partition
 Idea of Partition
• The Muslim League had been the first to come up
with the idea of partitioning India and in 1940
presented a plan to the INC to partition after
independence.
• The INC rejected the plan because Gandhi believed
Hindus and Muslims could work out their problems.
• But after the ongoing violence and assassination of
Gandhi, partition was agreed to.
 Gandhi on Partition
• “My whole soul rebels against the idea that
Hinduism and Islam represent two
antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent
to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God.”
• Pair Activity: What does Gandhi mean by this
quote? How does this relate to the issue of
partition?
Reasons for Partition
Muslim League under Jinnah

• Leader: Mohammad Ali

Jinnah
• Worked with Nehru and
Gandhi to gain
independence from Great
Britain
• But eventually feared for
the Muslim minority in
India and pushed for
Pakistan, a separate
nation for Muslims
 Why was India partitioned?
• Jinnah’s demand for Pakistan driven by
political, NOT religious reasons
 Jinnah’s Goal
• Concern was the in a united India the Hindus would
have the majority and dominate the government
• Afraid the Hindus would severely interfere with the
Muslim ways of living as per the Quran---that the
Hindus would take away their social and religious
freedom
• Was the consistent betterment of Muslims marked
by developments in all the spheres of life...”our
spiritual, cultural, and economic consonance with
own ideals and according to the genius of our
people.”
Indian Congress Party & Muslim League cannot
agree on 1 or 2 state solution
Reason One: Ideological Divide
 Ideological Differences Lead To
Divisions
• Different ethnic traits • Intermarriage was
and languages strictly prohibited.
• Despite being • Hindus strictly forbid
neighbors, they the eating of cows,
refrained from eating or while beef was the
studying together staple meat for
• There were separate Muslims.
waters for when they • Hindus considered
traveled on trains. Muslims to be in the
Shudras class.
Reasons Two: British Treatment
of Hindus and Muslims Causes
Conflict
Role of the British in India’s Partition
WHY?

Classification and division was

the only way they knew to
make sense of India’s
overwhelming diversity
 Reasons for Partition: Origins of Religious
Conflict
• The British had followed a divide-and-rule
policy in India.
• Even in the census they categorized people
according to religion and viewed and
treated them as separate from each other.
• They had based their knowledge of the
peoples of India on the basic religious texts
and the intrinsic differences they found in
them instead of on the way they coexisted
in the present.
Reason Three: British Fear the
Muslims
Reasons for Partition: British Fears
of Muslims
• Some people felt that the very nature of Islam
called for a communal Muslim society.
• Added to this were the memories of power
over the Indian subcontinent that the Muslims
held on to, especially those in the old centers
of Mughal rule.
 Reasons for Partition: British Fear of Muslims
• The British were also still fearful of the potential
threat from the Muslims, who were the former
rulers of the subcontinent, ruling India for over
300 years under the Mughal Empire.
• In order to win them over to their side, the British
helped establish the Aligarh Muslim University
and supported the All-India Muslim Conference,
both of which were institutions from which
leaders of the Muslim League and the ideology of
Pakistan emerged.
Reason Four: Mistakes Made by
Indian National Congress
 Reasons for Partition: Mistakes of Indian
National Congress
• Congress made several mistakes in their
policies which further convinced the
League that it was impossible to live in a
undivided India.
• One such policy was the institution of the
"Bande Matram," a national anthem
which expressed anti-Muslim sentiments,
in the schools of India where Muslim
children were forced to sing it.
 Lyrics
• Mother, I salute thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
bright with orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams,
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I salute.
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands
When the swords flash out in seventy million
hands
And seventy million voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and
stored,
To thee I call Mother and Lord!
Though who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foeman drove
Back from plain and Sea
And shook herself free.
• Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou art heart, our soul, our breath
Though art love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nerves the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.
Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
Here there
With her hands that strike and her are two
swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned, references
And the Muse a hundred-toned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
to Hindu
Mother lend thine ear, goddesses!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleems,
Dark of hue O candid-fair
In thy soul, with bejeweled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Loveliest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I salute thee,
Mother great and free!
Reason Five: Riots and Acts of
Violence
 Direct Action Day-Becomes
Calcutta Riots
• Jinnah decided it was time to push for a
separate Muslim State by using mass
(large groups of people) protests.
• The 16th of August was to be direct action day.
– A strike by Muslim workers and a meeting of
100,000 through the streets of Calcutta.
 Violence Erupts
 Jinnah had wanted a peaceful demonstration but
trouble flared up leading to three days and nights
of rioting and killing.
 6,000 killed, 20,000 injured, 100,000 homeless.
 The violence spread to other areas, Gandhi was
horrified and travelled to areas of conflict to call
for peace.

 This made any chance of togetherness and unity

between Muslims and Hindus seem impossible.
 Calcutta Riot
• August 16 1946 the Calcutta Riot was fueled by the Muslim League
which was called the Direct Action Day.
• All the Muslims shops were closed to support the strike for a
separate Muslim state.
• It started when the league members asked the Hindu business men
to close their stores and the Hindus retaliated.
• When the Hindu owners opened their stores they were beaten and
they fought back in their defense.
• Hindu nationalists who were political leaders of Bengal opposed the
idea of Pakistan and moved Hindu people to commit violence
against Muslims who wanted Pakistan
• In Calcutta Hindus were the main victims.
• In Bihar the main victims were the Muslims.
• The riots continued to Punjab.
 Punjab Riot
• At first there was no rioting in Punjab
• Unionists Muslims, Hindu and Sikhs landlords held the
peace.
• The Muslim League and the Sikh political party Akali Dal
opposed the unionists. They wanted rioting.
• The unionist were forced out of the office
• The violence shifted from east India to north west India.
• 4014 people were killed in riots in India between 18
November 1946 till 18 May 1947.
• 3024 were killed in Punjab alone.
• Other crimes against humanity such as rape, was
committed during the partition.
 Pair Activity
• Rank in order of importance from
number one being most important to
number five being least the five
reasons for why Britain created two
nations in South Asia.
• Next to each ranking, explain your
thinking/why.
Work of Lord Mountbatten
Lord Mountbatten against the backdrop of the
count-down to Indian Independence
 Lord Mountbatten – Vice-Roy
February 1947
• He was sent to get agreement on a one state
government within the British
commonwealth.
• Atlee ( British Prime Minister) wanted Britain
to withdraw by June 1948.
• It was hoped a deadline would push the
parties into agreement.
• Churchill predicted violent civil war if Britain
withdrew.
 Lord Mountbatten
• Developed a good relationship with Gandhi
and Nehru
• Did not have a good relationship with Jinnah
who felt that Mountbatten favored the Indian
National Congress
• After some time, Mountbatten became
convinced that a united India was impossible
 Mountbatten Plan June 1947

• He soon realised that violence

was spreading, the sides were
too divided and partition of
India would have to happen.
 Mountbatten’s Reasons for Two States
1. His first weeks in India showed him the gulf between
Hindus and Muslims could not be bridged.---riots in
Punjab and the North-West Province
2. Gandhi’s fasts and pleas could not stop the religious
violence
3. He realized that the violence of 1946 had left bitter scars
on the population.
4. Realized the Indian National Congress and Muslim
League would not agree on how to handle one state---
result in chaos
5. Realized that independence should be as soon as
possible and suggested August 28, 1947
 The Mountbatten Plan
June 1947

 There were to be two separate states. ( India and

Pakistan)
 Pakistan was to be made up of two parts in the North
West and North East separated by 1000 miles.
 The Punjab and Bengal with their small Muslim
majorities were to be divided and parts given to each
State.
 The Muslim majority parts were to be given to
Pakistan.
 Mountbatten Plan
• India would be made up of the old Raj ( British
controlled India).
• The Princely States could decide which
country they joined.
• Most decided to join India.
• The big problem was KASHMIR – A Muslim
majority state with a Hindu Ruler.
 Mountbatten Plan
• Mountbatten had provided for the separate
state that the Muslim League had been
demanding but had not given them all of the
Punjab or Bengal.

• The date for withdrawal was brought forward

to 15th August 1947. ( 2 months later –
rushed?)
 Congress and Gandhi Reactions
• Congress, led by Nehru, accepted Partition
would have to happen because of the violence
unity might unleash.
• Gandhi was very disappointed. His dream of a
free, united, secular India had disappeared.
• Gandhi spent his time leading up to
Independence trying to calm tensions
between Muslims and Hindus.
 Pair Activity

•What do you think

about the Mountbatten
Plan and why?
How Was Partition Handled?
 Indian Independence Act
June 1947
• Mountbatten’s plan was passed by the British
parliament.
• It gave dominion status to both states.

• A boundary commission was set up to decide

where the border dividing the Punjab and
Bengal should go.
 British Plan for Partition
• The British left much of the groundwork for India to
figure out.
• The British created the border between India and
Pakistan.
• Government facilities were to be split equally,
which did not happen.
• Individual communities could decide for themselves
which country they wanted to live in.
Englishman Cyril Radcliffe
draws the boundaries

-Historian Lucy Chester

 The Boundary Commission
• A boundary commission was set up
to draw up the borders in the Punjab
and Bengal.
• Cyril Radcliffe, a British civil servant,
was the chairman and had the final
say after getting advice from Muslim
and Hindu members.
 Boundary Commission Problems
• Radcliffe had never been to India.
• He knew no-one in India.
• The British thought this would make him
unbiased.
• He had to work with out of date maps
and census figures.
• He had to produce a report in 37 days.
 Mistakes
• The new borders went through
villages, farms and even houses.
• Millions of Hindus or Muslims were
left on the wrong side of the border.
• They would not publish details of the
new borders until after
Independence, this increased
tensions.
 Mistakes: Effects
• Pakistan: Provinces of Sind, Baluchistan,
North-West Frontier, West Punjab, and East
Bengal
• This means that East Pakistan was separated
by the rest of Pakistan by 1000 miles of Indian
territory
• Resulted in:
– 5 million Muslims in India
– 5 million Hindus in Pakistan
– Sikhs being ignored
 Mistakes: Effects
• Uttar Pradesh: the heartland of Indian Muslims
was not included in Pakistan
• 90% of the subcontinent’s industry and taxable
income base remained in India including the
largest cities
• The economy of Pakistan was chiefly agricultural.
• Pakistan only received 17.5% of the former
government’s financial assets.
• Once the army was paid for, there was no money
left of economic development.
 Pair Activity
• What is the message of the political
cartoon?
• How can you tell?
• Identify three examples from the
history of the partition that support
the message of the political cartoon.
 When did the Partition occur?
The Partition occurred on August 14, 1947 and
August 15, 1947.
 Basic Maps of the Partition

These two maps show how India was divided after gaining independence from the
British in 1947. The first shows India under British rule, before the partition. The
second shows how the region was divided after gaining independence and the
breakaway of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from West Pakistan (Pakistan today)
in 1971 through the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Effects
 Effects
• During the split from India, there was a mass
migration of over 15 Million.
• The Muslims were going to Pakistan as the
Hindus were leaving for India.
• The creation of Pakistan was tumultuous,
resulting in chaos, riots, deaths & crimes
against humanity.
• This deepened the rift between Muslims
and Hindus.
 Migrations
• Based on the 1951 census of displaced
persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan
from India.
• And 7, 249, 000 Hindus and Sikhs went to
India from Pakistan.
• All of this happened IMMEDIATELY after the
partition.
 Migrations
• About 11.2 million or 78% of the population
transfer took place in the West, especially in
the Punjab region.
• 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West
Punjab in Pakistan.
• 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from
Pakistan to East Punjab in India.
Partition of India in 1947 left 2/3 of Sikh lands in Pakistan, forcing
migration of 2 million Sikhs.

©2011 PRENTICE HALL | Pearson Education, Inc. | Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
Refugee Trains in India 1947
 Violence with Partition
• The Indian army and police were unable to
control the violence and many did not want to
anyway.
• Nehru and Jinnah appealed for peace but no
one listened.
• There was terrible violence between Sikhs and
Muslims in Muslim controlled Pakistan.
 Violence

• Partition left both India & Pakistan devastated socially &

economically.
• Some of the atrocities committed between the Muslims & Hindus
were widespread rape, pillaging & murder, bordering on genocide.
• This included the bombing of trains of immigrants by Hindus and
even filling trains full of the dismembered bodies & sending them
across the border into Pakistan.
 Violence
 Some left by choice others were driven out by
gangs who wanted to push out members of
the other community.
 Violent mobs started killing and attacking
people, some villages were totally wiped out
streets were lined with dead bodies.
 Violence
• 600, 000 people were killed in Punjab alone
• It is estimated that another one million people
were killed
• 12 million people were left homeless
• Thousands were raped
Men, women and children who died in
the rioting were cremated on a mass
scale. Villagers even used oil and
kerosene when wood was scarce.