The Partition of 1947

Photo courtesy: abro

Main questions• What was the Partition• Why did the Partition of India occur?• What were its major consequences? • How did it affect relations between

ordinary citizens? How did it change their everyday existence?

• Did it fulfill the promises it made to the people who now became “Indians” and “Pakistanis”

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More questions… • Is Kashmir a consequence of the

Partition? • Given the history of Partition, is

peace possible in South Asia? • Is it ‘simply’ history? Or does it affect

us today?

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August 15, 1947• India achieves independence

and incorporates West Bengal and Assam

• Pakistan is created; incorporates East Bengal (the East Wing, or East Pakistan) and territory in the northwest (the West Wing, or West Pakistan);

• Jinnah becomes governor general of Pakistan; Nehru, the PM of India

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The Map: Territory & Community

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What was the Partition?

• Violence and dislocation

• Erasure of history, creation of new history

• A negotiated political arrangement

• ‘The Partition of India’ or the “Independence of Pakistan?”

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Why did the Partition occur?

• British design? What did the British have to gain from it? What would have happened if they left it intact? (Note: a very similar question is raised now re: Iraq and Afghanistan)

• Orientalist understandings• Divide and rule• Negotiations between the ruling classes• Communal conflict• Incompatibility of cultures?

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Iqbal: Two Nation theory• First articulated in the Presidential

address to the All India Muslim league in 1930 by Allama Iqbal, the famous poet, philosopher and politician.

• Argued that the aspirations of two different communities, especially when one was a minority, and the other a majority, could be addressed within one state

• Was in disagreement with both Nehru and Gandhi

• In India’s nationalist discourse this came to be known as Muslim separatism.

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Savarkar and Hindutva

• Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was the President of the Hindu Mahasabha

• Advocated the idea of Hindu Rashtra and supported the two-nation theory

• His famous article “Who is a Hindu?” argued that more than a religion, Hindus were ethnically and territorially connected to India

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Impact and Aftermath• Large-scale communal slaughter• Women were used as instruments of

power both by the Hindus and the Muslims

• 15 million refugees • Division of of Punjab and Bengal,

divisions claimed the lives of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs alike.

• Creation of a Muslim majority state

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Kashmir: What is at issue?• Self-determination and independence• Secularism versus religion as a basis

for states• Territory• Dislocation and loss of lives• Identity

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Kashmir timeline• 1925: Hari Singh ascends the throne of

Kashmir • August 1947: he is asked to “choose”

between India and Pakistan – he remains undecided. Mountbatten suggests plebscite, which has never been held.

• October 1947: Jammu and Kashmir was attacked by militants from the Northwest. Hari Singh signed an Instrument of Accession (in return for military support from India).

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Kashmir timeline(2)1947-48 First Indo-Pak War 1949: Hari Singh was asked to hand

over Kashmir to Sheikh Abdullah1971-2 Bangladesh and Indo-Pak war1972: Simla agreement and Line of

Control 1989: Armed resistance to Indian rule

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Kashmir Today• Call for Independence from India• Presence of Indian army• Institutional failure• communal politics• Instability in Pakistan• Militancy• Possible scenarios• But questions remain…

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Kashmir …

• Can another negotiated settlement create a community?

• What does the Partition experience tell us?

• Is religion a good basis for creating communities?

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Dawn of Freedom (August 1947)Faiz Ahmed Faiz,

translated by Agha Shahid Ali“These tarnished rays, this night-

smudged light –

This is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom, we had set out in sheer longing, so sure that somewhere in its desert the sky harbored a final haven for the stars, and we would find it.

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We had no doubt that night’s vagrant wave would stray towards the shore that the heart rocked with sorrow would at last reach its port.…

Friends, come away from this false light. Come, we must search for that promised Dawn”.

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