NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

NUST INSTITUTE OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

ASSIGNMENT NO 1
PAKISTAN STUDIES (HU107)

Title: Analysis of the documentary

Submitted to: Mamm Umme Habiba

Submitted by: Saad Mehmood Abbasi (367780)

Section: BECE-21, Sec -C

Date of Submission: 13, December,2021

Topic: Analysis of the documentary “Partition the day India burned”

Points of Agreement:
Following are the points on which I agree after watching the documentary

 The film at the beginning describes the issues faced by both Muslims and Hindus during
migration. There is a lot of communal massacres during the migrations. 15 million were
displaced and more than million people died. The story is mostly told through the
testimony of people who lived through the time of partition. Roedad khan who was a
student at Forman Christian college Lahore rightly points out that “Both Hindus and
Muslims were at the grip of madness”. Many people die in the name of religion.

 The division of India is the only solution to the problems faced by Muslims. The dream
of United India falls apart after the Calcutta, Bihar, and Bengal riots. Som Anand who
lived in Lahore at the time of partition says that “Hindus had curious inhibitions”. Hindus
considered themselves superior to the Muslims and they considered Muslim’s
untouchable. Muslims were deprived of their rights. That’s why slogan of Muslim
homeland become very popular. This was also verified by the Muslim wrestler Zahoor
who tells that Muslims were not allowed to drink water directly from the Hindu taps in
Lahore.

 According to this documentary to which I agree is about Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi

vision for India was of a country where Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were treated equally.
He keeps the idea of Hindu-Muslim unity in mind even though he faced lot of criticism
for this. He wanted united India free from the British rule. He not only wanted united
India but a peaceful country where each person should have respect for the religion.
 Points of Disagreement:
Following are the points on which I disagree after watching the documentary

 This documentary is more biased towards British because there is a lot of focus on Lahore
but there is a little debate on many other parts of the Indo-Pak subcontinent such as
Calcutta Kashmir, Junagarh, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur district and Hyderabad. Rad
cliff gave many Muslims majority areas to India. Calcutta on the other hand held the main
industries which supported the economy of east Bengal had little mention in this regard.
Kashmir was another example which was a Muslim majority area which was geographically
connected to west Pakistan is given to India. Due to which Kashmir issue is still unresolved.

 In this documentary British’s trying to suggest that the inability of the Indians to govern
their country was the reason of partition, while seeds of partition were sown by the British
themselves. They systematically create hatred between the Hindus and Muslims during
their rule under divide and rule policy. This was done to prevent them from uniting against
the British. The documentary pits the three major religions of India (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs)
against each other and shoves the blame of partition on the shoulders of Indian politicians
and public. The role of British in creating the communal unrest is nowhere discussed. Also,
the hand of lord Mountbatten in this disaster is wiped clean, while in reality, his hands were
the one which drew the partition lines and sparked off the unrest among people.

 Another point on which I disagree is that the efforts of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah
were not shown properly like as that of Gandhi and Nehru and there are no discussions
about the 14 points of Jinnah and the cause of 14 points of Jinnah.