PartitionManan Ahmed

manan@uchicago.edu

Thursday, April 9, 2009

What is the Partition?

- DISPLACEMENT: 12 to 14 million people left their homes to take up residence across the border.- VIOLENCE: Anywhere from 500,000 to 1.5 million reportedly perished from communal violence during the mass migration.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

A Shorter Timeline1930

Muhammad Iqbal endorses the vision of a “separate” homeland for Muslims in India.

1940Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the All India Muslim League, declares his “Two Nation Theory”

19457 May: End of Second World War5 July: General Election held in Britain15 Dec: Central and Legislative Elections held in India

194611 Jan: Muslim League celebrates “Victory Day”16 May: Cabinet Mission puts a federal solution for India. It is rejected by Muslim Leaguemid Oct: Violent clashes across Northern India between Hindus and Muslims

194720 Feb: Attlee declares that British intend to grant independence to India by 1948March: Widespread riots in Punjab.May: Violence in Lahore, Delhi.3 June: The plan to partition the subcontinent is agreed and made public1 July: Partition Council formed.1-10 July: Riots in Lahore, Calcutta.8 July: Radcliffe arrives in India to draw up the borders.14 Aug: Independence in Pakistan15 Aug: Independence in India

Thursday, April 9, 2009

[[3]] Muslim India Within India

[[3a]] Communalism in its higher aspect, then, is indispensable to the formation of a harmonious whole in a country like India. The units of Indian society are not territorial as in European countries. India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages, and professing different religions. Their behaviour is not at all determined by a common race-consciousness. Even the Hindus do not form a homogeneous group. The principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India without recognising the fact of communal groups. The Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim India within India is, therefore, perfectly justified. The resolution of the All-Parties Muslim Conference at Delhi is, to my mind, wholly inspired by this noble ideal of a harmonious whole which, instead of stifling the respective individualities of its component wholes, affords them chances of fully working out the possibilities that may be latent in them. And I have no doubt that this House will emphatically endorse the Muslim demands embodied in this resolution.

[[3b]] Personally, I would go farther than the demands embodied in it. I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.

Muhammad Iqbal’s Presidential Addressto the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League

Allahabad, 29 December 1930

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_1930.html

Thursday, April 9, 2009

[23]] It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders; and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality; and this misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond the limits and is the cause of more of our troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literature[s]. They neither intermarry nor interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects [=perspectives?] on life, and of life, are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, their heroes are different, and different episode[s]. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other, and likewise their victories and defeats overlap. 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.

Whereas under the plea of unity of India and one nation which does not exist, it is sought to pursue here the line of one central government, when we know that the history of the last twelve hundred years has failed to achieve unity and has witnessed, during these ages, India always divided into Hindu India and Muslim India. The present artificial unity of India dates back only to the British conquest and is maintained by the British bayonet, but the termination of the British regime, which is implicit in the recent declaration of His Majesty's Government, will be the herald of the entire break-up, with worse disaster than has ever taken place during the last one thousand years under the Muslims. Surely that is not the legacy which Britain would bequeath to India after one hundred fifty years of her rule, nor would Hindu and Muslim India risk such a sure catastrophe.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s Presidential Addressto All-India Muslim League

Lahore, 1940.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_jinnah_lahore_1940.htmlThursday, April 9, 2009

A Longer View: The Mughal State

Thursday, April 9, 2009

A Longer View: The British Raj

Thursday, April 9, 2009

A Longer View: 1857 & 1923

Thursday, April 9, 2009

A Longer View: 1857 & 1923

Thursday, April 9, 2009

A Longer View: 1857 & 1923

Initially the area was broken into three Mandates:Palestine under Britain, Mesopotamia under Britain, Syria under France.But in the 1920s Syria and Palestine were subdivided, Syria into the countries of Syria and Lebanon, Palestine into the countries ofJordan and Palestine. Also, Kuwait was kept separate from Mesopotamia.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

India & World War II Two and a half million Indian citizens in uniform during the war.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Partitions After WWII

Korea, Germany, India, Palestine

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Margaret Bourke-White (and published in LIFE).

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Margaret Bourke-White (and published in LIFE).

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Margaret Bourke-White (and published in LIFE).

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Partition, Remembered.

The Oral History Project of the Citizens Archive of Pakistan was officially launched on June 16th, 2008. Since then, over sixty volunteers have donated their time and energy to record over one

hundred and fifty personal stories of the partition generation of Pakistan. In addition to these first person testimonials and eye-witness accounts, CAP has also collected over one hundred old

maps, videos, and twenty thousand photographs that have been scanned to create the nation’s first centralized historical database.

http://www.citizensarchive.org/Oral%20History%20Project.html#

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Thursday, April 9, 2009