Partition of India

The partition of India was the process by which British dependencies and treaty states in the Indian subcontinent were granted independence in the 1940s. The divisions resulted in the creation of four new independent states—India, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Pakistan (including modern-day Bangladesh)—and sowed the seeds for later conflicts between India and Pakistan.

Background of the partition

Seeds of partition

The seeds of partition were sown long before independence, in the struggle between various factions of the Indian nationalist movement, and especially of the Indian National Congress, for control of the movement. Muslims felt threatened by Hindu majorities. The Hindus, in their turn, felt that the nationalist leaders were coddling the minority Muslims and slighting the majority Hindus.

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The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the mainstream, secular but Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. A number of different scenarios were proposed at various times. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer/philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that he felt a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated subcontinent. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935. Iqbal, Jauhar and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had despaired of Indian politics, particularly getting mainstream parties such as the Congress (of which he was once a member) to be sensitive to minority priorities. (He went on to become known as the Father of the Nation, with Pakistan officially giving him the title Quaid-e-Azam or "Great Leader". See A 'Secular' Jinnah?). At the 1940 AIML conference in Lahore, Jinnah made clear his commitment to two separate states, a position from which the League never again wavered:

Related Topics:
All India Muslim League - 1906 - Indian National Congress - Allama Iqbal - Hindu - Mohammad Ali Jinnah - Father of the Nation - A 'Secular' Jinnah? - 1940 - Lahore

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: "The Hindus and the Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature . . . To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state."

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However, Hindu organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha, though against the division of the country, were also insisting on the same chasm between Hindus and Muslims. In 1937 at the open session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted:

Related Topics:
Hindu Mahasabha - Savarkar

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: "India cannot be assumed today to be Unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main - the Hindus and the Muslims."

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Many of the Congress leaders were secularists and resolutely opposed the division of India on the lines of religion. The extremely influential Mahatma Gandhi, popular among the Hindu majority, was both religious and irenic, believing that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity. He opposed the partition, saying,

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: "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."

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For years, Gandhi and his adherents struggled to keep Muslims in the Congress Party (a major exit of many Muslim activists began in the 1930s), in the process enraging both Hindu and Muslim extremists. (Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by Nathuram Godse, who believed that Gandhi was appeasing Muslims at the cost of Hindus.) Politicians and community leaders on both sides whipped up mutual suspicion and fear, culminating in dreadful events such as the riots during the Muslim League's "Direct Action Day" of August 1946 in Calcutta, in which more than 5,000 people were killed and many more injured. As public order broke down all across northern India and Bengal, the pressure increased to seek a political partition of territories as a way to avoid a full-scale civil war.

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Right until 1946, the definition of Pakistan as demanded by the League was so flexible that it could have been interpreted as a sovereign nation Pakistan, or as a member of a confederated India. A few historians believe that this was Jinnah's doing and that he intended to use Pakistan as a means of bargaining in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu dominated center.

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Many other experts believe that Jinnah's real vision was for a Pakistan that extended into Hindu-majority areas of India, by demanding the inclusion of the East of Punjab and West of Bengal, including Assam, all Hindu-majority country. Jinnah also fought hard for the annexation of Kashmir, and the accession of Hyderabad and Junagadh, Hindu-majority states with Muslim rulers. Such political devices bring into question Jinnah's Two-Nation Theory by his interest in areas with heavy Hindu populations.

Related Topics:
Punjab - Bengal - Assam - Kashmir - Hyderabad - Junagadh

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State of affairs before the partition

The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There were several different political arrangements in existence:

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• Provinces ruled directly
• Princely States with varying legal arrangements

Main political players

Political groupings

• British Colonial Administration
• British Raj
• Secretary of State for India
• India Office
• Governor-General of India
• Indian Civil Service
• Indian National Congress
• Hindu Mahasabha
• All India Muslim League
• Unionist Muslim League (mainly in the Punjab)

Personalities

• Mahatma Gandhi, Leader of the Indian National Congress and the wider national freedom movement
• Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, considered the "Iron Man of India," Gandhiji's right-hand and Congress Party leader
• Jawaharlal Nehru, popular icon and leader of the Congress Party
• Lord Louis Mountbatten, Viceroy of the Emperor of India
• Mohammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the All India Muslim League
• Liaquat Ali Khan, Jinnah's right-hand man
• Allama Iqbal, leader of AIML who coined the idea of Pakistan
• Subhash Chandra Bose