Partition

The independence day of India was a day which was meant to be a day
to celebrate but on the other hand the country was ruthlessly
partitioned. Into India and Pakistan. Between. August 1947 to March
1948 approximately 4 and a half million Hindu and Sikhs were forced
to migrate from Pakistan to India and 6 million Muslims must move in
the opposite direction.. It was believed that approximately 10 million
people were displaced. The division was not only very painful but
also very difficult to decide and implement.

But why did the partition happen? What were the reasons behind it? If
you ask people about the partition, they must have different exciting
stories to tell which are neither documented nor true. There are many
rumours to be debunked, but let's keep the stories aside and talk about
the documentative history of what has actually happened...

On 14 -15 August 1947, not one but two nation States came into
existence that is India and Pakistan. This was a result of partition of
British India into India and Pakistan. The decision of partition was
made month before this,The king of Britain approved the plan partition
when he approved the Indian independence act and even before this,
on 3rd June 1947 Louis Mountbatten announce the plant partition over
the radio which is also known as the Mountbatten plan

In the end, there were only two famous leaders that were completely
against the partition, one of them was Mahatma Gandhi and the other
one was Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan who is also known as the Frontier
Gandhi. Other Congress leaders like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and
Jawaharlal Nehru had accepted the offer of partition on 3rd June itself.

After seeing the discussions held among the leaders Gandhiji decided
to meet Mountbatten on 1ST April 1947 as he was very much
desperate to avoid a partition and he was ready to offer the position of
prime minister to Jinnah. Mountbettan then approached Nehru and
came to know that Jinnah had already rejected the offer to become the
prime minister of independent India and for him the situation was too
new to understand as he had become the viceroy in March 1947 itself

People says that cause of partition was that hindus and Muslim can not
coexist or the cultures of Hindu and Muslims were so different that
they couldn't remain united, the people believe that the Muslim rulers
were all cruel and the Hindu rulers was historically all against the
Muslims. The wars fought in the Indian subcontinent for centuries
were based on religion but none of this is true. No doubt that Muslim
invaders were cruel rulers like but it is really true that most of the
battles between rulers of that time wasn't because of religion and they
stemmed from greed for power.

If we look back in the history, there are many Hindu as well as Muslim
poets who were in favour of the unity among the two community,
poets like Amir khusro has written a lot about the unity. Moreover if
you look back in the revolt of 1857, it is known as the landmark which
clearly shows a unity among the two community

Partition can be traced back from the revolt of 1857 itself, after the
revolt, the British officer had openly criticised the viceroy, that's why
he was demoted from his rank later he resigned from job and wrote his
famous poem “old man's hope” as if he was trying to the rouse Indians
to demand a country of their own.....

Indian National Congress became a central organisation for Indian

nationalism and demanded that Indians should be given greater share
in the government... The viceroy then was Dufferin, he wasn't bothered
by congress but soon realised that their activities were a threat to the
British raj and as a result he adopted techniques to smother the
influence of Congress. He roused the elite class to withdraw their
patronage from the INC.

He considered taking help of the loyal Pro British people, one of them
was the educationalist Syed Ahmed Khan. he urged people to stay
away from Congress and he also started talking about the two nation
theory and told people that Muslims were in danger by claiming that
Hindu would start to agonise the Muslims once the British leave. He
had post for the modern education of Muslims in 1875 and established
a college that is now known as the Aligarh Muslim University. His
agitation and speeches had very severe consequences, as by the early
1900s, a section of Elite Muslims in the country believed in this two
nation theory very strongly. All India Muslim league was found. As
the British already wanted to fan the divide and rule policy. They
supported this all India Muslim league. They demanded separate
electorates for the Muslim from viceroy Minto. The Congress as well
as Mohammed Ali Jinna was opposing it.in the light of Separate
electorate the British saw another opportunity of using divide and rule
and they approved the separate electorates. Separate Electorates to
Muslims meant that there would be some reserved seats where only
muslim candidates would contest election and only muslim voters to
vote in that election. This reform is also known as the Morley minto
reforms. The British passed similar representation to the sikhs,
Europeans and Anglo Indians as well. This led to a small section of
Hindus starting to feel paranoid and they started feeling that nothing
was being done for them. Similar to the all India Muslim league a
Hindu league was formed and it was named the Akhil Bhartiya Hindu
mahasabha which was founded by Madan Mohan Malviya. On one
hand Muslims believed the Muslims are endangered narrative and on
the other hand some Hindu started to fear that the Hindu's are
endangered. Due to this game of fear, religious riots started happening
between the Hindu's and Muslim and it give fuel to the idea of divide
and rule by the British. Hence it became easy for them to partition
country

Talking about the consequences of partition, there were killings and

atrocities on both sides of the border. Womens but brutely raped,
children were abducted and killed, in many instances women were
killed by the own family members to preserve the family owner. Many
children were separated from their parents, minorities on both sides of
the border left their home and often secured temporary shelter in
refugee camps. Between 5 to 10 lakh people were killed in partition
related atrocities

By Kartikey Gupta

Law Student

GGSIPU

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