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Q:

What did the Muslim League demand through its resolution of 1940?

A:
  • On 23rd March 1940, the Muslim League moved a resolution demanding a measure of autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas of the Indian subcontinent. However, this resolution mentioned neither partition nor Pakistan.
  • Sikandar Hayat Khan, the Punjab Premier and leader of the Unionist Party, who had drafted the resolution, declared in a Punjab assembly that he simply wanted a loose but united confederation with considerable autonomy for the confederating units.
  • The Muslim League was also vague about its demand for Pakistan in 1940. It demanded in its resolution that those areas where Muslims had a numerical majority, as in the north-western and eastern zones of India, ought to be grouped to constitute “Independent State”, wherein the constituent units would be autonomous and sovereign.
Q:

Why is Partition viewed as an extremely significant marker in South Asian history?

A:
  • The joy of India’s independence from colonial rule in 1947 was tarnished by the violence and brutality of Partition of India. Due to this event, thousands of people were killed, while the lives of many others got changed dramatically. Finally, there was unprecedented genocidal violence and migration.
  • India-haters in Pakistan and Pakistan-haters in India are both products of Partition. Many stereotypes were immensely strengthened because of 1947.
  • Partition generated memories, hatred, stereotypes and identities that still shape the history of people on both sides of the border. These hatreds have often manifested themselves during inter-religious conflicts, while communal clashes have kept alive the memories of the past violence.
  • The relationship between Pakistan and India has been profoundly shaped by the legacy of Partition. Communal perceptions on both sides have been built by conflicting memories of those tumultuous times.

 

Q:

What were Mahatma Gandhi’s arguments against Partition?

A:
  • Mahatma Gandhi was firmly opposed to the idea of Partition. During his speech at a prayer meeting in 1946, he was of the view that Hindus and Muslims of India were similar to each other in many different ways.
  • For Gandhiji, people of both communities belonged to the same soil, consumed the same food and water, and spoke the same language.
  • The same year, Gandhiji also expressed similar views in the journal Harijan, stating that Islam stood for the unity and brotherhood of mankind, not for disrupting the oneness of the human family.
  • In this context, Gandhiji firmly believed that the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan was un-Islamic and hence, sinful. Therefore, he felt that those who wanted to divide India were enemies of both Islam and India.
Q:

How did ordinary people view Partition?

A:
  • Survivors of the Partition of India spoke of the event through words such as “maashal-la” (martial law), “mara-mari’ (killings), and “raula”, or “hullar” (disturbance, tumult, uproar).
  • Many contemporary people spoke of killings, rape, arson, and loot that constituted Partition, sometimes using the term “holocaust”, meaning mass-scale destruction or slaughter.
  • Partition generated memories, hatreds, stereotypes and identities that still continue to shape the history of the people living on both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border.
  • Millions of people viewed Partition in terms of the suffering and the challenges of the times. For them, it meant more than mere constitutional division or just party politics of political parties like the Muslim League, the Congress and others.
  • For the people, Partition meant unexpected changes in life from 1946 till 1950 and beyond, all of which required psychological, emotional and social adjustments.
Q:

Why did people think of Partition as a very sudden development?

A:
  • The Muslim League was very vague about its demand in 1940, for Pakistan, which took place just seven years, after its formal demand for autonomous Muslim-majority areas. No one understood the significance of the creation of Pakistan, and how it would change people’s future lives.
  • During Partition, many migrants believed that they would return with return of peace. Initially, even Muslim leaders were not serious about raising the demand for a sovereign state of Pakistan.
  • Partition of India led to many sudden developments. Several people were killed, the lives of many others changed dramatically, cities changed, and there was unprecedented genocidal violence and migration.
  • Some 15 million moved across hastily constructed frontiers separating India and Pakistan, the boundaries between both countries officially unknown until two days after formal independence. People became homeless, having suddenly almost their entire property, separated from relatives, friends, houses, fields, fortunes and childhood memories.
Q:

How did women experience Partition?

A:
  • During Partition, many women were raped, abducted, sold, or forced to settle down to a new life with strangers. Deeply traumatised by their horrific experiences, some developed new family bonds in their changed circumstances.
  • But the Indian and Pakistani governments, believing them to be on the wrong side of the border, forcibly tore them away from their new relatives, and sent them back to their earlier families or locations.
  • The governments did not consult the concerned women, undermining their right to take decisions regarding their own lives. One estimate showed that about 30,000 women were recovered overall, in an operation that continued till 1954.
  • Simultaneously, ideas of preserving community honour came into play in this period of danger. This notion of honour drew upon a conception of masculinity, which was defined as the ownership of women (zan) and land (zamin), a notion of considerable antiquity in North Indian peasant societies.
  • It was believed that a man’s strength lay in his ability to protect his possessions, especially women and land, from being appropriated by outsiders. Quite frequently, conflict ensued over these two possessions. Women often internalised these values.
  • At times, when the men feared that their women – wives, daughters, sisters – would be violated by the enemy, they killed the women themselves to preserve their honour.
  • In both divided Punjab and Bengal, women and girls became the prime targets of persecution. Attackers treated women’s bodies as territory to be conquered. Dishonouring women of one community was seen as a way of dishonouring the community itself, and also a mode of taking revenge.
Q:

Why was British India partitioned?

A:
  • One reason for the Partition of India could be Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s theory that Hindus and Muslims in colonial India were two separate nations, a theory which could be emphasized by highlighting events related to medieval history.
  • Historians believe that the events of 1947 were intimately connected to the long history of Hindu-Muslim conflict throughout medieval and modern times.
  • Some scholars see Partition as a culmination of a communal politics that had started developing in the early twentieth century. They suggest that separate electorates for Muslims, which was created by the colonial government in 1909 and expanded in 1919, shaped the nature of communal politics.
  • Separate electorates meant that Muslims could now elect their own representatives in designated constituencies. This tempted politicians working within this system to use sectarian slogans and gather a following by distributing favours to their own religious groups. Religious identities now had a functional use within a modern political system; and the logic of electoral politics deepened and hardened these identities.
  • Community identities now no longer meant simple differences in faith and belief; they now meant opposition and hostility between communities. Hence, separate electorates had a profound impact on Indian politics
  • During 1920s and early 1930s, communal tension also grew around several other issues. Muslims were angered by “music-before-mosque”, by the cow protection movement, and by the Arya Samaj’s efforts to bring back to the Hindu fold recent converts to Islam. Simultaneously, Hindus were angered by the rapid spread of Islamic propaganda and organisation after 1923.
  • As middle-class publicists and communal activists built more solidarity within their respective religious communities, mobilizing people against other communities, riots spread all over India. Every communal riot deepened communal differences, creating disturbing violent memories.
Q:

Examine the strengths and limitations of oral history. How have oral-history techniques furthered our understanding of Partition?

A:
  • Oral narratives, memoirs, diaries, family histories, first-hand written accounts – all help to understand the trials and tribulations of ordinary people during Partition.
  • Millions viewed Partition in terms of sufferings and challenges they faced. For them, it meant unexpected alterations in life, requiring psychological, emotional and social adjustments. Memories and experiences shape the reality of an event.
  • Oral sources help one to grasp detailed experiences and memories. They provide richly textured, vivid accounts of what happened to people during such events. They also allowed broadening of boundaries of their discipline by exploring experiences of the poor and the powerless.
  • Thus, the oral history of Partition successfully explores experiences of men and women whose existence was once ignored, taken for granted, or mentioned only in passing.
  • Yet, many historians dismiss oral data as it lacks concreteness and imprecise chronology. They argue that the uniqueness of personal experience makes generalisation difficult: large pictures cannot be built from micro-evidences, and one witness is no witness.
  • Historians also link oral accounts with tangential issues, believing that small individual experiences are irrelevant to the unfolding of larger historical processes.
  • However, with regard to events like Partition in India, there is no dearth of testimony about the different forms of distress that numerous people faced. By comparing statements, oral or written, by corroborating what they yield with findings from other sources, and by being vigilant about internal contradictions, historians can weigh the reliability of given evidences.
  • If history must give presence to the ordinary and powerless, then the oral history of Partition is not to be concerned with tangential matters. The experiences it relates are central to the story, so much so that oral sources should be used to check other sources and vice-versa.
Q:

How did the Congress come to change its views on Partition?

A:
  • Initially, the Congress was against Partition of the country on communal lines. Leading Congress leaders, especially Mahatma Gandhi, had emphasized on the need for secularism and Hindu-Muslim unity.
  • Contrary to the Muslim League’s perception, which viewed itself as the sole representative of all Muslims in India, a large section of nationalist Muslims, including Maulana Azad, supported the Congress.
  • However, in the provincial elections of 1946, the Muslim League won spectacularly in the Muslim-reserved constituencies. Simultaneously, the Congress swept the general constituencies, which were largely non-Muslim.
  • This was a spectacular victory for the Muslim League, which by now had established itself as the dominant party for Muslims, vindicating its claim as the sole political representative of Indian Muslims.
  • In 1946, the British government sent a Cabinet mission to suggest a suitable political framework for a free India. It recommended a loose three-tier confederation, with Section A for Hindu-majority provinces, and Sections B and C for Muslim-majority areas in north-west and north-east areas respectively. This was eventually rejected by both the Congress and the Muslim League.
  • After the rejection of the Cabinet Mission’s proposals, Partition became almost inevitable, with most Congress members accepting it as tragically unavoidable.
  • In March 1947, the Congress high command agreed to divide the Punjab into Muslim majority and Hindu-Sikh majority areas. It also wanted a similar case for Bengal.
  • Simultaneously, many Sikh leaders and Congressmen in Punjab, who feared Muslim majoritarianism, felt Partition to be a necessary evil.
  • Similarly, some bhadralok Bengali Hindus, who wanted to remain in power, felt that they would be swamped by Muslim majority. To escape this, they felt Partition to be the sole solution.
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