Full title: Was the violence of Partition 1947 caused by pre-existing communal conflict or by contingencies of decolonisation, i.e. long- or short-term factors?
By Niyaz Ahmed [Edited by Zoya Hassan & Carla Norman]
On 15 August 1947, India was free from British direct colonial rule that had lasted just over two hundred years. A monumental time not only for India and the newly formed Pakistan but also one of the most tumultuous and violent events in the twentieth century. The Partition, a two-nation theory that resulted in the division of British India into the two separate states of India and Pakistan, was the last-minute mechanism where official policy was made as events unfolded with key players like Mohandas Gandhi and Muhammed Ali Jinnah. The violence of 1947 that saw neighbours kill neighbours and millions of people killed or displaced was a surprise to many Indian leaders, but for the British it was inevitable. While it was clear that Britain did not actively plan to have a major influence in South East Asia after the loss of their empire, long term contingencies of decolonisation saw the British increase their “divide and rule” colonial tactics to ensure the inevitable fall of their empire would still be on their own terms. This essay will argue that the scale of the violence was unprecedented and was the tragic culmination of years of religious divide that had been initiated by the British colonialists at the turn of the twentieth century, rather than the short-term communal conflict that arose after the Second World War.
As to be expected, the violence of partition has been a subject of much academic interest and research since 1947, and a considerable number of studies have been conducted on what happened and the processes leading up to it. Even today, Indians and Pakistanis hold very different opinions on whether Pakistan was the product of historical accident, or historical necessity, allowing academics to separate historiographical categories of partition into Indian, Pakistani and British. Academics have also used sentiment to describe the seminal events of 1947. What is interesting is that survivors and witnesses of the violence of partition in 1947 are still alive today, providing a much needed and useful study of partition at a community level. While there are many shades of opinion and analysis within each of these types of study, this essay will focus on the interpretations of historians such as Ian Copeland and others.
The first part of this essay will focus on how the British created religious divides to cause contention within the multi-cultural communities. In the early twentieth century, utilising nationalism and religious sanctity, political ideologies that supported segregation of religious communities would gain momentum and the lack of action from British authorities saw extreme ideas prevailing at a communal level. The second section will focus on the partition of Bengal, highlighting it as a crude attempt to openly divide India into religious lines and conquer its ideals and how other British policies ensured all the “ingredients were in place for an ethnic cleansing”.[1] Additionally, this section will hope to understand why a western educated, secular Indian congress and non-practising Muslim like Jinnah would become the figureheads of a Hindu India and the future Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Through this, it will be easy to understand how these rivalries turned into communal tension. The third and final section will focus on the build-up to partition and the actions of British authorities during and after the Second World War that contributed to the violence of partition. The interwar period saw many changes in the independence movement and the acrimonious events that took place before partition were years in the making.
Historically, the Hindu population of India was always the largest with the Muslim population counting as the largest religious minority. In colonial India, this was no different and on average the Muslim population was at twenty-five per cent but scattered in different parts of India, an important fact to understand the violence of partition.[2] Under the previous Mughal rule and even in some parts of the British regime in India, coexistence between Hindus and Muslims was evident, including at times of political adversity such as the Indian rebellion of 1857 where both religious communities were involved in some sort of collaboration. By the turn of the century, however, the British were initiating the start of an apartheid where religious communities would now have to prove their loyalties to certain groups rather than to their local communities or neighbours. In particular, they fostered a sense of nationalism that would ensure a disconcerted effort in freeing India from colonial rule. Using religious divisions to ensure that the Hindus and Muslims would disagree with a course of action to do so, they attempted to conduct a colonial tactic that R. J. Moore would describe as “freedom without unity”.[3]
When the Indian National Congress (INC) held its first assembly in 1885, it seemed that India would be on the course to free itself from colonial rule. While laying its claim as an “all India” forum, it had many nationalist tendencies. Nationalism was a rather modern concept and a creation of European thought that promoted and justified nation-building surrounded by borders.[4] This was a result of the western education that many of its initial members had experienced who had asserted that only a nationalist organisation that conducted in dialogue with the colonial government would achieve the dream of a free India.[5] They attempted to do what the British had failed to do willingly, which was to unite the numerous languages, religions and provinces as one India. Despite the British initially becoming very sceptical with Sir John Strachey claiming confidently 'that men of the Punjab, Bengal, the North-West Provinces and Madras should ever feel that they belong to one great Indian nation, is impossible' in 1888, the rise of technology, bureaucracy and easy communication across India saw nationalism starting to become very popular with many Indians realising they have much in common.[6] When the British realised this, they helped turn the Congress into a democratic establishment full of upper-class Indians, to ensure something similar to what they had back home, ending the unification of ethnicities and create a system where the majority would rule. This would result in the problem of protecting minority rights, which Jinnah would champion and cause the divisions that would come in 1947.
With nationalism, it would have seemed that there would be a wide effort by the Congress to unite the many ethnicities and religions together. As British and upper-class influence grew the INC, however, one of its foundational bases saw major resistance by hard-line secularists who had been exposed to western education. Social regeneration and a unification of communities was challenged by those who believed religion should have no part in politics, despite the vast history of religion in India.[7] After all, the “founder” of congress, A. O. Hume, was British and also promoted secular studies by translating books into Urdu and Hindi.[8] As a result, congress turned into an elitist organisation until the First World War. Despite this, at the same time, grassroot patriotic Indians within gained larger influence within the congress and turned to more militant ideas with the likes of Hindu politician Bal Ganghadar Tilak even proposing acts of civil disobedience foreshadowing Gandhi’s movement.[9] It was Tilak’s actions as an extremist faction of the INC that would popularise a nationalist Hindu ideology recalling mythologies of Hindu past to rebel against the British. Therefore, the British realised that its foundation marked the beginning of a new era in their relationship with the Indian people, an era in which their right to rule would be increasingly contested. Instead, it was their actions that would only spur nationalist sentiment and popularise the idea of an India split on religious lines. In 1904, Lord Curzon presented the idea to partition the province of Bengal. Further divisions would be created, and extreme ideas and groups used as an incentive to create a violent breeding ground.
The fear of unification of Hindus and Muslims in this time was very real for the British. The province of Bengal was at the forefront of the British’s intention in what they believed was the centre of Indian nationalism. With a population of seventy million people, they claimed to find the administration of the area difficult and divided it into largely Hindu western areas of Bengal that presently form the Indian states of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand; and the largely Muslim eastern areas of East Bengal and Assam. By dividing Bengal, the British ensured that the people of Bengal would be separated within religious lines and reduce the chance of any sort of cooperation.[10] Evidently, the elites of Bengal were not happy with this division and gave rise to the Swadesi movement where British goods were boycotted and the first open cases of violence where public buildings were bombed, armed robberies were staged and British officials were murdered by groups of young men. Soon the revolts garnered nationwide attention and some of the first examples of communal violence out of British policy came into action.[11] Furthering the divide, the Muslim community demanded a separate electorate that would protect the rights of the Muslim minority community. This resulted in the formation of All Indian Muslim League political party, the first official division of the Hindus and Muslims at the hands of the British. This was the start of the rise of Muhammed Ali Jinnah and the War and interwar period that would create a hotbed of violence that would erupt in 1947.
It was only until the outbreak of War that Indian patriotism started to grow and turn militant. Despite the work of Gandhi to promote nonviolent acts of disobedience, he still could not stop extremist factions of INC and other groups from gaining prominence. In particular, it was the British’s lacklustre attitude towards the Indian effort during the War that would play a large part in inciting hatred towards the British; a hatred that would often turn into violence. The Indians believed their service during the War was not met with political rewards, particularly the Sunni Muslim soldiers who had a conflict of loyalties after the Caliph of the Ottoman Empire had taken the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary.[12] Despite the Lucknow Pact of 1916 which asserted the Congress and Muslim League would work together for constitutional reform, the British actions after the war did not help their relationship with the Indians. The Government of India Act of 1919 saw some effort to bridge the gap, but in reality, only partial transfer of power took place.[13] More importantly, one of the most influential events that would only exasperate nationalist sentiment was the Amritsar Massacre of 1919.[14]
In particular, the Muslim response during the interwar period was a large and influential one with the Muslim league led by Jinnah solidified the division of rule. When they realised the independence movement would end with a Hindu majority rule, they knew that their rights would not be protected. Historically, hundreds of years of Muslim rule was favourable for the Muslims who could count on the Delhi Sultanate or the Mughal Empire for protection. With Muslim rule extinguished in the 1800s and past injustices at the hand of the British, they had to look at the alternative option.[15] The favoured approach was a two-nation state that was also championed by many other Hindi nationalist groups. Led by Jinnah and poet-philosopher Muhammed Iqbal, they wanted to create a sovereign state free from any harassment from a future Hindu government.[16]
What is interesting though is that despite Jinnah being a figurehead of the national movement at the time, like many other congress leaders he was heavily influenced by western political thought. This reflected on his stance in creating a democratic Muslim state, rivalling the khilafat movement who wanted to unite Muslims under a world Islamic rule centred in Turkey. After it ended in 1924, Jinnah became the sole representative for Muslims and leader of the Muslim League working with the INC in the early 1920s. Nevertheless, during the interwar period, the complications of working through a democratic system was not working for both the Congress and League due to the system’s shortcomings that could be exploited by the British or communal leaders. In the 1920s, by creating an official divide, Hindu and Muslims practises were being heavily scrutinised by their counterparts causing further division and conflict.[17] This was further aggravated by the so-called British neutrality stance which called for all religions to protect their own interests, becoming less tolerant for other ritual rites, a core component of western democracy.[18] Furthermore, Jinnah himself was being undermined by the very system he sought to promote. Challenged by the INC, who started to use Hindu rhetoric and supporting the Hindu Mahasabha group, and the rise of communal violence, he struggled to initially bridge the Hindu-Muslim divide. As a result, he became discouraged by politics but would later use similar tactics in the 1930s to encourage a separate Islamic state when he did return.[19]
The turning point was the elections of 1936-7 which further aggravated the divide, making it official and providing extremist communal groups a chance to mobilise. It furthered the Hindu-Muslim divide by officially marking the political parties’ detachment from each other and leading the parties to become political rivals rather than a unification against British rule. The Government of India act in 1935 allowed direct elections in major provinces which would provide the foundation for setting up a “Federation of India”. During the winter of 1936-37, the provincial elections were held in British India when the INC came to power in eight out of eleven provinces while the League were unsuccessful in forming government in any one of them.[20] This was a pivotal moment in communal relationships, a factor that had been building since the British first started to realise the realities of decolonisation. In the years leading up to the Second World War and after the elections the Muslim community felt the first instances of Hindu majority rule that was discriminatory and everything they had feared.[21] Therefore, Jinnah’s intentions had changed. His intentions to be a relevant voice in the conversation for unitary All India front had now changed, and he was fully committed to a separate state along with the assertion that Hindu and Muslim unity was now only a distant memory.[22] When Congress resigned in December 1939 the League took the opportunity to address the public during the War. In the absence of the INC, the League bound the parties to the religions they were associated, and this publicity only led the public to associate their conflict with a religious one.
British interference in this matter also aggravated the matter at a communal level. Its declaration to go to war against Germany, thousands of Indian soldiers were sent to the frontline. In 1942, the British promised the Congress self-government and full status in the British commonwealth if they fully cooperated in the War. INC representative Nehru and Gandhi, however, rejected it calling it “a post-dated check on a crashing bank”.[23] The ensuing campaigns from Gandhi’s side and the League ensured anti-British sentiment would translate into political unrest that would spread all over India. In 1940, the negotiations led by Linlithgow famously failed. Despite claiming that Britain must stay in India for many years and was sceptical of a post-war agreement, he attempted to make a proposal that would give Dominion status to India after the War but was rejected on the notion that neither the League nor the Congress would gain anything from it.[24] Passive resistance soon followed and nearly 23,000 Indians were convicted for taking part.[25] Furthermore, when Gandhi formed the Quit India Movement, the British imprisoned the entire leadership of Congress and kept most of them in jail till the end of the war secluding them from the masses while the Muslim League freely spread their message furthering the division. It was clear that the action of Churchill’s government only strengthened the Indian committees’ resolve for the independence of India rather than a half-hearted concession. With this sentiment, however, the rivalry between Hindus and Muslims, especially at a communal level remained.
In the words of Yasmin Khan, the violence of partition was clearly a “routine, timetabled and systematic ethnic cleansing”.[26] With the end of the war came a new British government led by Clement Atlee who had backed Indian Independence for years. Therefore, policies made during the War that had caused all this strife were now left behind and sped up. Despite this, their actions were not forgotten. British actions and contingencies of decolonisation since the turn of the century were now resulting in full-blown violence. When the 1946 elections saw a clear divide between the Hindu and Muslim provinces, violence erupted in what was the start of many more killings to come. Now violence became a call for freedom, not only from the British but from their religious counterparts but majority of the participants were extremist gangs that had the support of many right-wing leaders. Incensed from years of British policies that had created the religious divide, violence erupted around India, particularly in Calcutta where both Muslims and Hindus suffered.[27] In all the chaos, the British rushed to leave India trying to absolve themselves from the impending tragedies. For instance, amongst all the killings A. O. Hume, a magistrate from Varanasi was more worried about “assisting in the passing of a great empire” and that the scene unfolding in India was due to the depravity of Islam and Hinduism.
With the rushed border lines created by Cyril Radcliffe, a respected lawyer who had not even been to India before, the British passed the Indian Independence Act of 1947.[28] Faced with the impending reality of this arbitrary borderline, Indian groups and parties were bitterly torn among themselves about what to claim and what to relinquish and on what basis. Following the partition of Bengal and Punjab, a horrific period of intense communal violence and population transfer that was not foreseen by any of the Indian leaders as the extremist groups took advantage of the vacuum of power. Common people were forced to pick between India and Pakistan and were all worried for their futures. Despite the unconfirmed borders, thousands decided to move to Pakistan and all of India’s infrastructure would be under immense pressure. The ambivalence of the borders exasperated the potential for more violence and the need to “cleanse our home areas” now became a fight for loyalties. The violence was designed to eliminate and drive out the opposing ethnic group that were not loyal to their local communities. In all the years of negotiations, policies and protest the elites of India and the British had failed to keep their most valuable asset happy: the people.[29]
In conclusion, it was clear that the violence of partition was a result of long-term British neglect of its rule in India. When global events caused the British to rethink their empire, they clearly made many mistakes with India. The violence of 1947 was too large scale for it to be a short-term consequence, rather factors such as the World Wars played a big part in India’s independence. As discussed in the essay, the British were scared of cooperation between Hindus and Muslim, as such a unification would be very difficult to manage in an event of a full-scale independence movement. Therefore, British policies such as the Partition of Bengal, which was also discussed extensively, were the first instances where they actively sought to divide India on religious lines. Through the formation of religious specific committees, which were endorsed by western-educated Indians, throughout the interwar period saw nationalism gain momentum and further divide solidify. This would also show limitations of secular democratic rule where the majority rules and minority rights uncertain. The final steps were the inevitable fall of the empire after the Second World War. Changes in government, global circumstances and the economy saw a rushed attempt to leave India in what directly caused the death of thousands of people. To put it metaphorically, it was clear that Britain had left as a negligent midwife who ensured the two nations of India and Pakistan were to be born in blood.
Footnotes
[1] Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India And Pakistan (Yale: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 128. [2] Joydeep (2014), “Why India And Pakistan Were Separated?”, MyIndia, <https://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/politics/why-india-and-pakistan-were-separated> [Accessed 1st April 2020]. [3] R. J. Moore, ‘The Problem of Freedom with Unity: London’s India policy, 1917-47’, in D.A. Low (ed.), Congress and the Raj: facets of the Indian struggle, 1917-47 (London: Heinemann Educational, 1977), p. 375. [4] Ian Copland, India 1885-1947: The Unmaking of an Empire (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2001), p. 36. [5] Copland, India 1885-1947, p. 37. [6] Copland, India 1885-1947, pp. 37-38. [7] Copland, India 1885-1947, p. 39. [8] Deeksha Bhardwaj (2019), “AO Hume, ‘Father’ of Indian National Congress who was distrusted by the British & Indians”, The Print, <https://theprint.in/theprint-profile/ao-hume-father-of-indian-national-congress-who-was-distrusted-by-the-british-indians/246141/> [Accessed 2nd April 2020]. [9] Copland, India 1885-1947, pp. 42-43. [10] M. R. A Baig, “The Partition of Bengal And Its Aftermath”, The Indian Journal of Political Science, 30/2 (1969), p. 115. [11] “Partition of India”, Cultural India, <https://learn.culturalindia.net/partition-of-india.html> [Accessed 3rd April 2020]. [12] Copland, “India 1885-1947”, p. 45. [13] Moore, ‘The problem of freedom with unity’, pp. 380-381. [14] K.L Tuteja, ‘Jallianwala Bagh: A Critical Juncture in the Indian National Movement’, Social Scientist, 25/1-2 (1997), p. 25. [15] Firas Al Khateeb, Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilisation from the Past, (London: C. Hurst & Co., 2017) p. 258. [16] Khateeb, Lost Islamic History, p. 259. [17] Copland, India 1885-1947, p. 57. [18] Copland, India 1885-1947, pp. 57-58. [19] Ayesha Jalal, and Anil Seal, ‘Alternative to Partition: Muslim Politics between the Wars’, Modern Asian Studies, 15/3 (1981), p. 432. [20] “Partition of India”, Cultural India,<https://learn.culturalindia.net/partition-of-india.html> [Accessed 4 April 2020]. [21] Copland, India 1885-1947, p. 62. [22] Ian Talbot, The Partition of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 418. [23] John Merrimen, A History of Modern Europe: Volume Two (London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), p. 1161. [24] Moore, ‘The Problem of Freedom with Unity’, p. 388. [25] Moore, ‘The Problem of Freedom with Unity’, p. 390. [26] Khan, The Great Partition, p. 131. [27] Khan, The Great Partition, p. 68. [28] Khan, The Great Partition, p. 105. [29] Khan, The Great Partition, p. 127.
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