Partition of India
Encyclopedia
The Partition of India (Hindi
: हिंदुस्तान का बटवारा (Devanagari
) , Hindustani
: (Nastaliq) ) was the partition
of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign
states
of the Dominion of Pakistan
(later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
and the People's Republic of Bangladesh
) and the Union of India (later Republic of India
) on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively.
The partition of India was promulgated in the Indian Independence Act 1947
and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj
. The struggle between the new dominions of India and Pakistan which resulted from the partition displaced up to 12.5 million people in the former British Indian Empire, with estimates of loss of life varying from several hundred thousand to a million. The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of mutual hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues their relationship
to this day.
The partition included the geographical division of the Bengal province
of British India into East Bengal
, which became part of the Dominion of Pakistan
(from 1956, East Pakistan
, until independence
as Bangladesh
in 1971) and West Bengal
, which became part of India; and the similar partition of the Punjab province
into West Punjab
(later the Pakistani Punjab
and Islamabad Capital Territory
) and East Punjab
(later the Indian Punjab
, Haryana
and Himachal Pradesh
). The partition deal also included the division of Indian government assets, including the Indian Civil Service, the Indian Army
, the Royal Indian Navy
, the Indian railways
and the central treasury, and other administrative services.
In the aftermath of the partition, the princely state
s of India, that had been left alone by the Indian Independence Act 1947 to choose whether to accede to India or to Pakistan or to remain outside them, were all incorporated into one or the other of the new dominion
s, in all cases by the ruler signing to an instrument of accession
. The question of the choice to be made in this connection by Jammu and Kashmir led to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
immediately after the partition and other wars and conflicts between India and Pakistan since then.
, at the time the capital of the new state of Pakistan
, so that the last British Viceroy
, Lord Mountbatten
of Burma, could attend both the ceremony in Karachi and the ceremony in Delhi
. This is why Pakistan's Independence Day is celebrated on August 14 and India's on August 15.
The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka
in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress
. They complained that Muslim members did not have the same rights as Hindu members. 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 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, Jouhar
and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had till then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity, to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had begun to despair of the fate of minority communities in a united India and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress, of which he was once a member, were insensitive to Muslim interests.
The 1932 Communal Award
which seemed to threaten the position of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces catalysed the resurgence of the Muslim League, with Jinnah as its leader. However, the League did not do well in the 1937 provincial elections, demonstrating the hold of the conservative and local forces at the time.
Image:British_Indian_Empire_1909_Imperial_Gazetteer_of_India.jpg|1909 Provinces and Princely states of British India
Image:Brit IndianEmpireReligions3.jpg|1909 Prevailing majority Religions for different districts, Map of British Indian Empire.
Image:Hindu percent 1909.jpg |1909 Percentage of Hindus.
Image:Muslim percent 1909.jpg|1909 Percentage of Muslims.
Image:Sikhs buddhists jains percent1909.jpg|1909 Percentage of Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains.
Image:Prevailing languages impgazind1909.jpg|1909 Prevailing (Aryan) Languages (Northern Region).
Image:Population density impgazind1909.jpg |1901 Population Density.
that seemed to call for a separate Muslim 'nation'. However, the document was ambiguous and opaque, and did not evoke a Muslim nation in a territorial sense. This idea, though, was taken up by Muslims and particularly Hindus in the next seven years, and given a more territorial element. All Muslim political parties including the Khaksar Tehrik of Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition of India Mashriqi was arrested on 19 March 1940.
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 19th session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad
, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted:
Most of the Congress leaders were secularists
and resolutely opposed the division of India on the lines of religion. Mohandas Gandhi and Allama Mashriqi believed that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity. Gandhi opposed the partition, saying,
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 Nationalists and Indian Muslim nationalists. (Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by Hindu nationalist 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 Kolkata
(then "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.
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.
Some historians believe Jinnah intended to use the threat of partition as a bargaining chip in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu-dominated center.
Other historians claim 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
, a Hindu-majority country. Jinnah also fought hard for the annexation of Kashmir
, a Muslim majority state with Hindu ruler; and the accession of Hyderabad
and Junagadh
, Hindu-majority states with Muslim rulers.
The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There were several different political arrangements in existence: Provinces were ruled directly and the Princely States with varying legal arrangements, like paramountcy
.
The British Colonial Administration
consisted of Secretary of State for India
, the India Office
, the Governor-General of India
, and the Indian Civil Service. The British were in favour of keeping the area united. The 1946 Cabinet Mission
was sent to try and reach a compromise between Congress and the Muslim League. A compromise proposing a decentralized state with much power given to local governments won initial acceptance, but Nehru was unwilling to accept such a decentralized state and Jinnah soon returned to demanding an independent Pakistan.
The Indian political parties were:
Within British India, the border between India and Pakistan (the Radcliffe Line
) was determined by a British Government-commissioned report prepared under the chairmanship of a London
barrister
, Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Pakistan came into being with two non-contiguous enclaves, East Pakistan
(today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan
, separated geographically by India. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of British India, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.
On 18 July 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act
that finalized the arrangements for partition and abandoned British suzerainty
over the princely state
s, of which there were several hundred, leaving them free to choose whether to accede
to one of the new dominions. The Government of India Act 1935
was adapted to provide a legal framework for the new dominions.
Following its independence, Pakistan applied for membership of the United Nations
and was accepted by the General Assembly on 30 September 1947. The union formed from the combination of the non-Muslim provinces of British India with a large number of princely states assumed the name India, which automatically gave it the seat of the old India (a UN member since 1945) as a successor state.
, Chenab
, Ravi
, Beas
, and Sutlej
— consists of interfluvial doab
s, or tracts of land lying between two confluent rivers. These are the Sind-Sagar doab (between Indus and Jhelum), the Jech doab (Jhelum/Chenab), the Rechna doab (Chenab/Ravi), the Bari doab (Ravi/Beas), and the Bist doab (Beas/Sutlej) (see map). In early 1947, in the months leading up to the deliberations of the Punjab Boundary Commission, the main disputed areas appeared to be in the Bari and Bist doabs, although some areas in the Rechna doab were claimed by the Congress and Sikhs. In the Bari doab, the districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Lahore, and Montgomery (Sahiwal) were all disputed.
All districts (other than Amritsar, which was 46.5% Muslim) had Muslim majorities; albeit, in Gurdaspur, the Muslim majority, at 51.1%, was slender. At a smaller area-scale, only three tehsil
s (sub-units of a district) in the Bari doab had non-Muslim majorities. These were: Pathankot (in the extreme north of Gurdaspur, which was not in dispute), and Amritsar and Tarn Taran in Amritsar district. In addition, there were four Muslim-majority tehsils east of Beas-Sutlej (with two where Muslims outnumbered Hindus and Sikhs together).
Before the Boundary Commission began formal hearings, governments were set up for the East and the West Punjab regions. Their territories were provisionally divided by "notional division" based on simple district majorities. In both the Punjab and Bengal, the Boundary Commission consisted of two Muslim and two non-Muslim judges with Sir Cyril Radcliffe as a common chairman.
The mission of the Punjab commission was worded generally as:
Each side (the Muslims and the Congress/Sikhs) presented its claim through counsel with no liberty to bargain. The judges too had no mandate to compromise and on all major issues they "divided two and two, leaving Sir Cyril Radcliffe the invidious task of making the actual decisions."
Massive population exchanges
occurred between the two newly formed states in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,250,000 Hindus, Sikhs and Jews
moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. However the net flow of Muslims is from Pakistan to India. It means more Muslims in Pakistan have chosen to come and stay in India than Muslims in India have chosen to move to Pakistan.
About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab
accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West Punjab in Pakistan, 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to East Punjab in India; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind.
The newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000.
Lahore
and Amritsar
were at the centre of the problem, the Boundary Commission was not sure where to place them - to make them part of India or Pakistan. The Commission decided to give Lahore to Pakistan, whilst Amritsar became part of India. Some areas in west Punjab, including Lahore, Rawalpindi
, Multan
, and Gujrat
, had a large Sikh & Hindu population, and many of the residents were attacked or killed. On the other side, in East Punjab, cities such as Amritsar, Ludhiana, and Gurdaspur
had a majority Muslim population, many of whom were killed by the Sikhs and Hindus or emigrated.
was divided into the two separate entities of West Bengal
belonging to India, and East Bengal
belonging to Pakistan. East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan
in 1955, and later became the independent nation of Bangladesh
after the Bangladesh Liberation War
of 1971.
While the Muslim majority district of Murshidabad
was given to India, the Hindu majority district of Khulna
and the Buddhist majority Chittagong division was given to Pakistan by the award.
following Partition, as there were good relations between Hindu and Muslim Sindhis. At the time of Partition there were 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis, though most were concentrated in cities such as Hyderabad
, Karachi
, Shikarpur, and Sukkur
. However, because of an uncertain future in a Muslim country, a sense of better opportunities in India, and most of all a sudden influx of Muslim refugees from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh
, Bihar
, Rajputana
(Rajasthan
) and other parts of India, many Sindhi Hindus decided to leave for India.
Problems were further aggravated when incidents of violence instigated by Indian Muslim refugees broke out in Karachi and Hyderabad. According to the census of India 1951, nearly 776,000 Sindhi Hindus moved into India. Unlike the Punjabi
Hindus and Sikhs, Sindhi Hindus did not have to witness any massive scale rioting; however, their entire province had gone to Pakistan thus they felt like a homeless community. Despite this migration, a significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan's Sindh province where they number at around 2.28 million as per Pakistan's 1998 census while the Sindhi Hindus in India as per 2001 census of India were at 2.57 million.
led to the 1947 war between India and Pakistan in that region.
had a majority Hindu population; the Nizam wanted to accede to Pakistan or if that was not possible remain independent. However such a decision was unacceptable to India, so in 1948 Indian Armed Forces engaged those of the State of Hyderabad and ended the rule of Nizam, annexing the state into the Indian Union.
of the Madras Presidency
of British India, the whole of which transferred to the new Dominion of India. However, the islands had a substantial Muslim majority, causing Sardar Patel to fear that the new state of Pakistan might seek to lay claim to them, even though they were remote from all parts of Pakistan. The inhabitants of the islands were cut off from the mainstream of the country and only received confirmation of Indian Independence some days after 15 August 1947. Patel sent a Royal Indian Navy
ship to the islands to hoist the Indian national flag, aiming to thwart any attempt by Pakistan to seize the islands. Only hours later, vessels belonging to the Royal Pakistan Navy were sighted near the islands, but they retreated after seeing the Indian naval presence and the Indian flag flying.
The Partition was a highly controversial arrangement, and remains a cause of much tension on the subcontinent today. The British Viceroy
, Lord Mountbatten of Burma
has not only been accused of rushing the process through, but also is alleged to have influenced the Radcliffe Line
in India's favour since everyone agreed India would be a more desirable country for most. However, the commission took so long to decide on a final boundary that the two nations were granted their independence even before there was a defined boundary between them. Even then, the members were so distraught at their handiwork (and its results) that they refused compensation for their time on the commission.
Some critics allege that British haste led to the cruelties of the Partition. Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new border. It was a task at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was one of the largest population movements in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds:
However, many argue that the British were forced to expedite the Partition by events on the ground.
Law and order had broken down many times before Partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. After the Second World War, Britain had limited resources, perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. Another viewpoint is that while Mountbatten may have been too hasty he had no real options left and achieved the best he could under difficult circumstances. The historian Lawrence James concurs that in 1947 Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run. The alternative seemed to be involvement in a potentially bloody civil war from which it would be difficult to get out.
Conservative elements in England consider the partition of India to be the moment that the British Empire
ceased to be a world power, following Curzon
's dictum that:
Delhi received the largest number of refugees for a single city - the population of Delhi grew rapidly in 1947 from under 1 million (917.939) to a little less than 2 million (1.744.072) between the period 1941-1951. The refugees were housed in various historical and military locations such as the Purana Qila, Red Fort, and military barracks in Kingsway (around the present Delhi university). The latter became the site of one of the largest refugee camps in northern India with more than 35,000 refugees at any given time besides Kurukshetra camp near Panipat.
The camp sites were later converted into permanent housing through extensive building projects undertaken by the Government of India from 1948 onwards. A number of housing colonies in Delhi came up around this period like Lajpat Nagar
, Rajinder Nagar, Nizamuddin East
, Punjabi Bagh
, Rehgar Pura, Jungpura and Kingsway Camp
.
A number of schemes such as the provision of education, employment opportunities, easy loans to start businesses, were provided for the refugees at all-India level. The Delhi refugees, however, were able to make use of these facilities much better than their counterparts elsewhere.
) settled across Eastern India
and Northeastern India, many ending up in close-by states like West Bengal
, Assam
, and Tripura
. Some migrants were sent to the Andaman islands
where Bengali today form the largest linguistic group.
Hindu Sindhis found themselves without a homeland. The responsibility of rehabilitating them was borne by their government. Refugee camps were set up for Hindu Sindhis.
Many refugees overcame the trauma of poverty, though the loss of a homeland has had a deeper and lasting effect on their Sindhi culture. In 1967 Government of India recognized as Sindhi
as a fifteenth official language of India in two scripts.
In late 2004, the Sindhi
diaspora vociferously opposed a Public Interest Litigation
in the Supreme Court of India
which asked the Government of India
to delete the word "Sindh
" from the Indian National Anthem (written by Rabindranath Tagore
prior to the partition) on the grounds that it infringed upon the sovereignty of Pakistan.
In the aftermath of partition, a huge population exchange occurred between the two newly formed states. About 14.5 million people crossed the borders, including 7,226,000 Muslims came to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan. About 5.5 million settled in Punjab Pakistan and around 1.5 million settled in Sindh.
Most of those refugees who settled in Punjab Pakistan came from Indian Punjab
, Haryana
, Himachal Pradesh
, Jammu and Kashmir
and Rajasthan
. Most of those refugees who arrived in Sindh came from northern and central urban centers of India, Uttar Pradesh
, Bihar
, Madhya Pradesh
, Gujarat and Rajasthan via Wahga and Munabao
border, however a limited number of muhajirs also arrived by air and on ships. People who wished to go to India from all over Sindh awaited their departure to India by ship at the Swaminarayan temple
in Karachi
and were visited by Muhammad Ali Jinnah
, the founder of Pakistan.
The majority of Urdu speaking refugees who migrated after the independence were settled in the port city of Karachi
in southern Sindh and in the cities of Hyderabad
, Sukkur
, Nawabshah
and Mirpurkhas. As well the above many Urdu-speakers settled in the cities of Punjab
mainly in Lahore
, Multan
, Bahawalpur
and Rawalpindi
. The number of migrants in Sindh was placed at over 540,000 of whom two-third were urban. In case of Karachi, from a population of around 400,000 in 1947, it turned into more than 1.3 million in 1953.
Former President of Pakistan
, General Pervez Musharraf
, was born in the Nahar Vali Haveli in Daryaganj
, Delhi
, India. Several previous Pakistani leaders were also born in regions that are in India. Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan
was born in Karnal
(now in Haryana
). The 7-year longest-serving Governor and martial law administrator of Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan
, General Rahimuddin Khan
, was born in the pre-dominantly Pathan
city of Kaimganj
, which now lies in Uttar Pradesh
. General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
, who came to power in a military coup in 1977, was born in Jalandhar
, East Punjab
. The families of all four men opted for Pakistan at the time of Partition.
, over which there have been three wars, and the reasons for the wars have related only to the confusion over partition. There have been four Indo-Pakistani wars:
India and Pakistan have also engaged in a nuclear arms race
which has in recent times threatened to erupt into nuclear war.
The British-Tibetan border, winding as it did through the Himalayas, had never been definitively surveyed or marked. India, as the inheritor of a long stretch of the British borders, and the People's Republic of China
, which invaded Tibet, eventually clashed, leading to the 1962 Sino-Indian War
.
. Hindus remaining in Pakistan have been persecuted (see Hinduism in Pakistan
, 2006 Lahore temple demolition
and Communal violence in Pakistan). Similarly, Muslims in India have experienced repeated episodes of communal violence, such as the 2002 Gujarat violence
(see Communal Violence in India).
Integration of refugee populations with their new countries did not always go smoothly. Some Urdu speaking Muslims (Muhajir
s)who migrated to Pakistan have complained that they are discriminated against in government employment. Municipal political conflict in Karachi
, Pakistan's largest city, often pitted native Sindhis
against immigrants. Sindhi, Bengali
, and Punjabi
refugees in India also experienced poverty as they largely came empty handed. However, 50 years after Partition, almost all ex-refugees have managed to rebuild their lives.
All of the three nations resulting from the Partition of India have had to deal with endemic civil conflicts. Inside India, these have been largely due to inter-religious unrest and disruptive far left
forces. Civil unrest inside India includes:
The last example of unrest, the terrorism in Kashmir, is related to the ongoing Kashmir conflict
and relates to the both India and Pakistan.
Within Pakistan, unrest is mainly because of ethnicities, with Sindhis, Bengalis, Balochis, all vying for more representation within Pakistan and in some cases, the creation of an independent state.
s during and after Partition, India is still home to the third largest Muslim population in the world (after Indonesia and Pakistan). The current estimates for India (see Demographics of India
) are as shown below. Islamic Pakistan, the former West Pakistan, by contrast, has a much smaller minority population. Its religious distribution is below (see Demographics of Pakistan
). As for Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan, the non-Muslim share is somewhat larger (see Demographics of Bangladesh
):
India (2006 Est. 1,095 million vs. 1951 Census 361 million)
Pakistan (2005 Est. 162 million vs. 1951 Census 34 million)
Bangladesh (2005 Est. 144 million vs. 1951 Census 42 million)
Both nations have to a great extent assimilated the refugees.
Image:Old-muslim-couple1947.jpg|An aged and abandoned Muslim couple and their grand children sitting by the roadside on this arduous journey. "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on," wrote Bourke-White.
Image:Two-men-carrying-woman1947.jpg|Two Muslim men (in a rural refugee train headed towards Pakistan) carrying an old woman in a makeshift doli or palanquin. 1947.
Image:Young-refugee-delhi1947.jpg|"With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi." Margaret Bourke-White, 1947.
Image:Refugeetrain1.jpg|A refugee train on its way to Punjab, Pakistan.
Image:Train-to-pakistan-delhi1947.jpg|Train to Pakistan steaming out of New Delhi Railway Station, 1947.
Memoir:
Academic textbooks and monographs:
Articles:
Other links:
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
: हिंदुस्तान का बटवारा (Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
) , Hindustani
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
: (Nastaliq) ) was the partition
Partition (politics)
In politics, a partition is a change of political borders cutting through at least one territory considered a homeland by some community. That change is done primarily by diplomatic means, and use of military force is negligible....
of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
states
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
of the Dominion of Pakistan
Dominion of Pakistan
The Dominion of Pakistan was an independent federal Commonwealth realm in South Asia that was established in 1947 on the partition of British India into two sovereign dominions . The Dominion of Pakistan, which included modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, was intended to be a homeland for the...
(later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and the People's Republic of Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
) and the Union of India (later Republic of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
) on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively.
The partition of India was promulgated in the Indian Independence Act 1947
Indian Independence Act 1947
The Indian Independence Act 1947 was as an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan...
and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. The struggle between the new dominions of India and Pakistan which resulted from the partition displaced up to 12.5 million people in the former British Indian Empire, with estimates of loss of life varying from several hundred thousand to a million. The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of mutual hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues their relationship
Indo-Pakistani relations
Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained by a number of historical and political issues, and are defined by the violent partition of British India in 1947, the Kashmir dispute and the numerous military conflicts fought between the two nations...
to this day.
The partition included the geographical division of the Bengal province
Partition of Bengal (1947)
The Partition of Bengal in 1947, part of the Partition of India, was a religiously based partition that divided the British Indian province of Bengal between India and Pakistan...
of British India into East Bengal
East Bengal
East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly corresponded to the modern state of Bangladesh. Both instances involved a violent partition of Bengal....
, which became part of the Dominion of Pakistan
Dominion of Pakistan
The Dominion of Pakistan was an independent federal Commonwealth realm in South Asia that was established in 1947 on the partition of British India into two sovereign dominions . The Dominion of Pakistan, which included modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, was intended to be a homeland for the...
(from 1956, East Pakistan
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...
, until independence
Bangladesh Liberation War
The Bangladesh Liberation War was an armed conflict pitting East Pakistan and India against West Pakistan. The war resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, which became the independent nation of Bangladesh....
as Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
in 1971) and West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, which became part of India; and the similar partition of the Punjab province
Punjab (British India)
Punjab was a province of British India, it was one of the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to fall under British rule. With the end of British rule in 1947 the province was split between West Punjab, which went to Pakistan, and East Punjab, which went to India...
into West Punjab
West Punjab
West Punjab was a province of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955. The province covered an area of 160,622 km², including much of the current Punjab province and the Islamabad Capital Territory, but excluding the former princely state of Bahawalpur. The capital was the city of Lahore and the province...
(later the Pakistani Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
and Islamabad Capital Territory
Islamabad Capital Territory
The Islamabad Capital Territory is one of the two federal territories of Pakistan. It includes Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, and covers an area of 1,165.5 km² of which 906 km² is Islamabad proper...
) and East Punjab
East Punjab
East Punjab was the part of the Punjab region that went to India following the Partition of the Punjab Province of British India between India and Pakistan in 1947...
(later the Indian Punjab
Punjab (India)
Punjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...
, Haryana
Haryana
Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...
and Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...
). The partition deal also included the division of Indian government assets, including the Indian Civil Service, the Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...
, the Royal Indian Navy
Royal Indian Navy
The Royal Indian Navy was the naval force of British India. Along with the Presidency armies and the later British Indian Army it comprised the Armed Forces of British India....
, the Indian railways
History of rail transport in India
The history of rail transport in India began in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1849, there was not a single kilometer of railway line in India. By 1929, there were 41,000 miles of railway line serving every district in the country...
and the central treasury, and other administrative services.
In the aftermath of the partition, the princely state
Princely state
A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entitity of British rule in India that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy.-British relationship with the Princely States:India under the British Raj ...
s of India, that had been left alone by the Indian Independence Act 1947 to choose whether to accede to India or to Pakistan or to remain outside them, were all incorporated into one or the other of the new dominion
Dominion
A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...
s, in all cases by the ruler signing to an instrument of accession
Instrument of Accession
The Instrument of Accession was a legal document created in 1947 to enable each of the rulers of the princely states under British suzerainty to join one of the new dominions of India or Pakistan created by the Partition of British India.-Background:...
. The question of the choice to be made in this connection by Jammu and Kashmir led to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
The India-Pakistan War of 1947-48, sometimes known as the First Kashmir War, was fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four wars fought between the two newly independent nations...
immediately after the partition and other wars and conflicts between India and Pakistan since then.
India and Pakistan
Two self governing countries legally came into existence at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947. The ceremonies for the transfer of power were held a day earlier in KarachiKarachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, at the time the capital of the new state of Pakistan
Dominion of Pakistan
The Dominion of Pakistan was an independent federal Commonwealth realm in South Asia that was established in 1947 on the partition of British India into two sovereign dominions . The Dominion of Pakistan, which included modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, was intended to be a homeland for the...
, so that the last British Viceroy
Governor-General of India
The Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...
, Lord Mountbatten
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
of Burma, could attend both the ceremony in Karachi and the ceremony in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
. This is why Pakistan's Independence Day is celebrated on August 14 and India's on August 15.
Late nineteenth and early twentieth century
Dhaka
Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka Division. Dhaka is a megacity and one of the major cities of South Asia. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River, Dhaka, along with its metropolitan area, had a population of over 15 million in 2010, making it the largest city...
in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
. They complained that Muslim members did not have the same rights as Hindu members. 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 a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
-dominated subcontinent.
The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935. Iqbal, Jouhar
Maulana Mohammad Ali
Maulana Mohammad Ali Jouhar was an Indian Muslim leader, activist, scholar, journalist and poet, and was among the leading figures of the Khilafat Movement....
and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had till then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity, to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had begun to despair of the fate of minority communities in a united India and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress, of which he was once a member, were insensitive to Muslim interests.
The 1932 Communal Award
Communal Award
The Communal Award was announced by the British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald on 4 August 1932 to grant separate electorates to minority communities in India, including Muslims, Sikhs, and Dalit in India....
which seemed to threaten the position of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces catalysed the resurgence of the Muslim League, with Jinnah as its leader. However, the League did not do well in the 1937 provincial elections, demonstrating the hold of the conservative and local forces at the time.
Image:British_Indian_Empire_1909_Imperial_Gazetteer_of_India.jpg|1909 Provinces and Princely states of British India
Image:Brit IndianEmpireReligions3.jpg|1909 Prevailing majority Religions for different districts, Map of British Indian Empire.
Image:Hindu percent 1909.jpg |1909 Percentage of Hindus.
Image:Muslim percent 1909.jpg|1909 Percentage of Muslims.
Image:Sikhs buddhists jains percent1909.jpg|1909 Percentage of Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains.
Image:Prevailing languages impgazind1909.jpg|1909 Prevailing (Aryan) Languages (Northern Region).
Image:Population density impgazind1909.jpg |1901 Population Density.
1932–1942
In 1940, Jinnah made a statement at the Lahore conferenceLahore Conference
At the Lahore Conference of 1940, the idea of one/more independent Muslim state – Pakistan – was first raised by Mohammad Ali Jinnah....
that seemed to call for a separate Muslim 'nation'. However, the document was ambiguous and opaque, and did not evoke a Muslim nation in a territorial sense. This idea, though, was taken up by Muslims and particularly Hindus in the next seven years, and given a more territorial element. All Muslim political parties including the Khaksar Tehrik of Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition of India Mashriqi was arrested on 19 March 1940.
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 19th session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...
, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted:
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
and resolutely opposed the division of India on the lines of religion. Mohandas Gandhi and Allama Mashriqi believed that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity. Gandhi opposed the partition, saying,
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 Nationalists and Indian Muslim nationalists. (Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse
Nathuram Godse
Nathuram Vinayak Godse , from the city of Pune, India was a Hindutva activist and journalist, who was the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi. Along with his brother Gopal Godse and six other co-conspirators, he executed a plot to assassinate Gandhi.-Early life:Nathuram Godse was born in Baramati, Pune...
, 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
Direct Action Day
Direct Action Day , also known as the Great Calcutta Killings, was a day of widespread riot and manslaughter in the city of Calcutta in the Bengal province of British India...
of August 1946 in Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
(then "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
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
, the pressure increased to seek a political partition of territories as a way to avoid a full-scale civil war.
1942–1946
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, or as a member of a confederated India.
Some historians believe Jinnah intended to use the threat of partition as a bargaining chip in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu-dominated center.
Other historians claim 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
Punjab region
The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
and West of Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
, including Assam
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
, a Hindu-majority country. Jinnah also fought hard for the annexation of Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
, a Muslim majority state with Hindu ruler; and the accession of Hyderabad
Hyderabad State
-After Indian independence :When India gained independence in 1947 and Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the British left the local rulers of the princely states the choice of whether to join one of the new dominions or to remain independent...
and Junagadh
Junagadh
Junagadh is the headquarters of Junagadh district in the Indian state of Gujarat. The city is the 7th largest in Gujarat. The city is located at the foot of the Girnar hills, 355 km south west of state capital Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad. The city is in western India. Literally translated,...
, Hindu-majority states with Muslim rulers.
The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There were several different political arrangements in existence: Provinces were ruled directly and the Princely States with varying legal arrangements, like paramountcy
Paramountcy
The doctrine of paramountcy is the legal principle that reconciles contradicting or conflicting laws in a federalist state. Where both the central government and the provincial or state governments have the power to create laws in relation to the same matters, the laws of one government will be...
.
The British Colonial Administration
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
consisted of Secretary of State for India
Secretary of State for India
The Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office...
, the India Office
India Office
The India Office was a British government department created in 1858 to oversee the colonial administration of India, i.e. the modern-day nations of Bangladesh, Burma, India, and Pakistan, as well as territories in South-east and Central Asia, the Middle East, and parts of the east coast of Africa...
, the Governor-General of India
Governor-General of India
The Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...
, and the Indian Civil Service. The British were in favour of keeping the area united. The 1946 Cabinet Mission
1946 Cabinet Mission to India
The British Cabinet Mission of 1946 to India aimed to discuss and plan for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership, providing India with independence under Dominion status in the Commonwealth of Nations...
was sent to try and reach a compromise between Congress and the Muslim League. A compromise proposing a decentralized state with much power given to local governments won initial acceptance, but Nehru was unwilling to accept such a decentralized state and Jinnah soon returned to demanding an independent Pakistan.
The Indian political parties were:
- All India Muslim League
- Communist Party of IndiaCommunist Party of IndiaThe Communist Party of India is a national political party in India. In the Indian communist movement, there are different views on exactly when the Indian communist party was founded. The date maintained as the foundation day by CPI is 26 December 1925...
- Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-IslamMajlis-e-Ahrar-ul-IslamMajlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam or Majlis-e-Ah'rãr-e-Islam , also known in short as Ahrar, was a conservative Sunni Muslim political party in Pakistan prior to the Partition of India...
- Hindu Mahasabha
- Indian National CongressIndian National CongressThe Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
- Khaksar Tehrik
- Unionist Muslim LeagueUnionist Muslim LeagueThe Unionist Muslim League, also known simply as the Unionist Party was a political party based in the province of Punjab during the period of British rule in India. The Unionist Party mainly represented the interests of the landed gentry and landlords of Punjab, which included Muslims, Hindus and...
(mainly in the Punjab).
Mountbatten Plan
The actual division between the two new dominions was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.Within British India, the border between India and Pakistan (the Radcliffe Line
Radcliffe Line
The Radcliffe Line was announced on 17 August 1947 as a boundary demarcation line between India and Pakistan upon the Partition of India. The Radcliffe Line was named after its architect, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who as chair of the Border Commissions was tasked with equitably dividing of territory...
) was determined by a British Government-commissioned report prepared under the chairmanship of a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
, Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Pakistan came into being with two non-contiguous enclaves, East Pakistan
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...
(today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan
West Pakistan
West Pakistan , common name West-Pakistan , in the period between its establishment on 22 November 1955 to disintegration on December 16, 1971. This period, during which, Pakistan was divided, ended when East-Pakistan was disintegrated and succeeded to become which is now what is known as Bangladesh...
, separated geographically by India. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of British India, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.
Indian Independence Act 1947
The Indian Independence Act 1947 was as an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan...
that finalized the arrangements for partition and abandoned British suzerainty
Suzerainty
Suzerainty occurs where a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary vassal state some limited domestic autonomy. The dominant entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is called a...
over the princely state
Princely state
A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entitity of British rule in India that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy.-British relationship with the Princely States:India under the British Raj ...
s, of which there were several hundred, leaving them free to choose whether to accede
Instrument of Accession
The Instrument of Accession was a legal document created in 1947 to enable each of the rulers of the princely states under British suzerainty to join one of the new dominions of India or Pakistan created by the Partition of British India.-Background:...
to one of the new dominions. The Government of India Act 1935
Government of India Act 1935
The Government of India Act 1935 was originally passed in August 1935 , and is said to have been the longest Act of Parliament ever enacted by that time. Because of its length, the Act was retroactively split by the Government of India Act 1935 into two separate Acts:# The Government of India...
was adapted to provide a legal framework for the new dominions.
Following its independence, Pakistan applied for membership of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and was accepted by the General Assembly on 30 September 1947. The union formed from the combination of the non-Muslim provinces of British India with a large number of princely states assumed the name India, which automatically gave it the seat of the old India (a UN member since 1945) as a successor state.
Geography of the partition: the Radcliffe Line
The Punjab — the region of the five rivers east of Indus: JhelumJhelum River
Jehlum River or Jhelum River , ) is a river that flows in India and Pakistan. It is the largest and most western of the five rivers of Punjab, and passes through Jhelum District...
, Chenab
Chenab River
The Chenab River چنRiver' آب) is a major river of Jammu and Kashmir and the Punjab in Pakistan. It forms in the upper Himalayas in the Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, India, and flows through the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir into the plains of the Punjab, Pakistan...
, Ravi
Ravi River
The Ravi is a trans-boundary river flowing through Northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. It is one of the six rivers of the Indus System in Punjab region ....
, Beas
Beas River
The Beas River is a river in the northern part of India. The river rises in the Himalayas in central Himachal Pradesh, India, and flows for some 470 km to the Sutlej River in the Indian state of Punjab....
, and Sutlej
Sutlej
The Sutlej River is the longest of the five rivers that flow through the historic crossroad region of Punjab in northern India and Pakistan. It is located north of the Vindhya Range, south of the Hindu Kush segment of the Himalayas, and east of the Central Sulaiman Range in Pakistan.The Sutlej...
— consists of interfluvial doab
Doab
A Doab is a term used in India and Pakistan for a "tongue" or tract of land lying between two confluent rivers...
s, or tracts of land lying between two confluent rivers. These are the Sind-Sagar doab (between Indus and Jhelum), the Jech doab (Jhelum/Chenab), the Rechna doab (Chenab/Ravi), the Bari doab (Ravi/Beas), and the Bist doab (Beas/Sutlej) (see map). In early 1947, in the months leading up to the deliberations of the Punjab Boundary Commission, the main disputed areas appeared to be in the Bari and Bist doabs, although some areas in the Rechna doab were claimed by the Congress and Sikhs. In the Bari doab, the districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Lahore, and Montgomery (Sahiwal) were all disputed.
All districts (other than Amritsar, which was 46.5% Muslim) had Muslim majorities; albeit, in Gurdaspur, the Muslim majority, at 51.1%, was slender. At a smaller area-scale, only three tehsil
Tehsil
A Tehsil or Tahsil/Tahasil , also known as Taluk and Mandal, is an administrative division of some country/countries of South Asia....
s (sub-units of a district) in the Bari doab had non-Muslim majorities. These were: Pathankot (in the extreme north of Gurdaspur, which was not in dispute), and Amritsar and Tarn Taran in Amritsar district. In addition, there were four Muslim-majority tehsils east of Beas-Sutlej (with two where Muslims outnumbered Hindus and Sikhs together).
The mission of the Punjab commission was worded generally as:
Each side (the Muslims and the Congress/Sikhs) presented its claim through counsel with no liberty to bargain. The judges too had no mandate to compromise and on all major issues they "divided two and two, leaving Sir Cyril Radcliffe the invidious task of making the actual decisions."
Massive population exchanges
Population transfer
Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion...
occurred between the two newly formed states in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,250,000 Hindus, Sikhs and Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. However the net flow of Muslims is from Pakistan to India. It means more Muslims in Pakistan have chosen to come and stay in India than Muslims in India have chosen to move to Pakistan.
About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab
Punjab region
The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West Punjab in Pakistan, 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to East Punjab in India; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind.
Punjab
The Indian state of East Punjab was created in 1947, when the Partition of India split the former British province of Punjab between India and Pakistan. The mostly Muslim western part of the province became Pakistan's Punjab Province; the mostly Sikh and Hindu eastern part became India's East Punjab state. Many Hindus and Sikhs lived in the west, and many Muslims lived in the east, and the fears of all such minorities were so great that the partition saw many people displaced and much intercommunal violence.Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
and Amritsar
Amritsar
Amritsar is a city in the northern part of India and is the administrative headquarters of Amritsar district in the state of Punjab, India. The 2001 Indian census reported the population of the city to be over 1,500,000, with that of the entire district numbering 3,695,077...
were at the centre of the problem, the Boundary Commission was not sure where to place them - to make them part of India or Pakistan. The Commission decided to give Lahore to Pakistan, whilst Amritsar became part of India. Some areas in west Punjab, including Lahore, Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
, Multan
Multan
Multan , is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan and capital of Multan District. It is located in the southern part of the province on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about from Islamabad, from Lahore and from Karachi...
, and Gujrat
Gujrat
Gujrat is a city in Pakistan. It is the capital of Gujrat District and the Gujrat Tehsil subdivision in the Punjab Province. People living in Gujrat refer to themselves as Gujratis, which sometimes leads to confusion with people from the Indian state of Gujarat which adjoins Pakistan...
, had a large Sikh & Hindu population, and many of the residents were attacked or killed. On the other side, in East Punjab, cities such as Amritsar, Ludhiana, and Gurdaspur
Gurdaspur
Gurdaspur is a city in the state of Punjab, situated in the northwest part of the Republic of India. It is located in the center of and is the administrative head of Gurdaspur District. It was the location of a fort which was famous for the siege it sustained in 1712 from the Mughals...
had a majority Muslim population, many of whom were killed by the Sikhs and Hindus or emigrated.
Bengal
The province of BengalBengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
was divided into the two separate entities of West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
belonging to India, and East Bengal
East Bengal
East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly corresponded to the modern state of Bangladesh. Both instances involved a violent partition of Bengal....
belonging to Pakistan. East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...
in 1955, and later became the independent nation of Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
after the Bangladesh Liberation War
Bangladesh Liberation War
The Bangladesh Liberation War was an armed conflict pitting East Pakistan and India against West Pakistan. The war resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, which became the independent nation of Bangladesh....
of 1971.
While the Muslim majority district of Murshidabad
Murshidabad district
Murshidabad district is a district of West Bengal in eastern India. Situated on the left bank of the river Ganges, the district is very fertile. Covering an area of 5,341 km² and having a population 5.863m it is a densely populated district and the ninth most populous in India...
was given to India, the Hindu majority district of Khulna
Khulna District
The district of Khulna consists 10859 mosques, 680 temples, 81 churches, 15 Buddhist temples and 9 tombs.-Places of interest:*The Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world. The royal Bengal tiger inhabits the area; it is said that seeing the tiger enables a person to understand what a...
and the Buddhist majority Chittagong division was given to Pakistan by the award.
Sindh
Hindu Sindhis were expected to stay in SindhSindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
following Partition, as there were good relations between Hindu and Muslim Sindhis. At the time of Partition there were 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis, though most were concentrated in cities such as Hyderabad
Hyderabad, Sindh
is the second largest city in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is the seventh largest city in the country. The city was founded in 1768 by Mian Ghulam Shah Kalhoro upon the ruins of a Mauryan fishing village along the bank of the Indus known as Neroon Kot...
, Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, Shikarpur, and Sukkur
Sukkur
Sukkur, or Sakharu , formerly Aror and Bakar, is the third largest city of Sindh province, situated on the west bank of Indus River in Pakistan in Sukkur District. However, the word Sakharu in Sindhi means "superior", which the spelling of the city's name in Sindhi suggests is the origin of the...
. However, because of an uncertain future in a Muslim country, a sense of better opportunities in India, and most of all a sudden influx of Muslim refugees from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, Bihar
Bihar
Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, Rajputana
Rajputana
Rājputāna was the pre-1949 name of the present-day Indian state of Rājasthān, the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area. George Thomas was the first in 1800 A.D., to term this region as Rajputana...
(Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
) and other parts of India, many Sindhi Hindus decided to leave for India.
Problems were further aggravated when incidents of violence instigated by Indian Muslim refugees broke out in Karachi and Hyderabad. According to the census of India 1951, nearly 776,000 Sindhi Hindus moved into India. Unlike the Punjabi
Punjabi people
The Punjabi people , ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ), also Panjabi people, are an Indo-Aryan group from South Asia. They are the second largest of the many ethnic groups in South Asia. They originate in the Punjab region, which has been been the location of some of the oldest civilizations in the world including, the...
Hindus and Sikhs, Sindhi Hindus did not have to witness any massive scale rioting; however, their entire province had gone to Pakistan thus they felt like a homeless community. Despite this migration, a significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan's Sindh province where they number at around 2.28 million as per Pakistan's 1998 census while the Sindhi Hindus in India as per 2001 census of India were at 2.57 million.
Jammu & Kashmir
The Princely state of Kashmir and Jammu had a majority Muslim population; Muslims were 80 percent of whole state. The Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India at the outbreak of violence. This Kashmir conflictKashmir conflict
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, the northwesternmost region of South Asia....
led to the 1947 war between India and Pakistan in that region.
Hyderabad
The Hyderabad StateHyderabad State
-After Indian independence :When India gained independence in 1947 and Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the British left the local rulers of the princely states the choice of whether to join one of the new dominions or to remain independent...
had a majority Hindu population; the Nizam wanted to accede to Pakistan or if that was not possible remain independent. However such a decision was unacceptable to India, so in 1948 Indian Armed Forces engaged those of the State of Hyderabad and ended the rule of Nizam, annexing the state into the Indian Union.
Laccadive Islands
Under the British, the Laccadives, later to be renamed the Lakshadweep Islands, formed part of the Malabar districtMalabar District
Malabar District was an administrative district of Madras Presidency in British India and independent India's Madras State. The British district included the present-day districts of Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Malappuram, Palakkad , and Chavakad Taluk of Thrissur District in the northern part of...
of the Madras Presidency
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
of British India, the whole of which transferred to the new Dominion of India. However, the islands had a substantial Muslim majority, causing Sardar Patel to fear that the new state of Pakistan might seek to lay claim to them, even though they were remote from all parts of Pakistan. The inhabitants of the islands were cut off from the mainstream of the country and only received confirmation of Indian Independence some days after 15 August 1947. Patel sent a Royal Indian Navy
Royal Indian Navy
The Royal Indian Navy was the naval force of British India. Along with the Presidency armies and the later British Indian Army it comprised the Armed Forces of British India....
ship to the islands to hoist the Indian national flag, aiming to thwart any attempt by Pakistan to seize the islands. Only hours later, vessels belonging to the Royal Pakistan Navy were sighted near the islands, but they retreated after seeing the Indian naval presence and the Indian flag flying.
Perspectives
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
, Lord Mountbatten of Burma
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
has not only been accused of rushing the process through, but also is alleged to have influenced the Radcliffe Line
Radcliffe Line
The Radcliffe Line was announced on 17 August 1947 as a boundary demarcation line between India and Pakistan upon the Partition of India. The Radcliffe Line was named after its architect, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who as chair of the Border Commissions was tasked with equitably dividing of territory...
in India's favour since everyone agreed India would be a more desirable country for most. However, the commission took so long to decide on a final boundary that the two nations were granted their independence even before there was a defined boundary between them. Even then, the members were so distraught at their handiwork (and its results) that they refused compensation for their time on the commission.
Some critics allege that British haste led to the cruelties of the Partition. Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new border. It was a task at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was one of the largest population movements in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds:
However, many argue that the British were forced to expedite the Partition by events on the ground.
Law and order had broken down many times before Partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. After the Second World War, Britain had limited resources, perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. Another viewpoint is that while Mountbatten may have been too hasty he had no real options left and achieved the best he could under difficult circumstances. The historian Lawrence James concurs that in 1947 Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run. The alternative seemed to be involvement in a potentially bloody civil war from which it would be difficult to get out.
Conservative elements in England consider the partition of India to be the moment that the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
ceased to be a world power, following Curzon
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC , known as The Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and as The Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman who was Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary...
's dictum that:
Delhi Punjabi refugees
An estimated 25 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs (1947–present) crossed the newly drawn borders to reach their new homelands. These estimates are based on comparisons of decadal censuses from 1941 and 1951 with adjustments for normal population growth in the areas of migration. In northern India - undivided Punjab and North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) - nearly 12 million were forced to move from as early as March 1947 following the Rawalpindi violence.Delhi received the largest number of refugees for a single city - the population of Delhi grew rapidly in 1947 from under 1 million (917.939) to a little less than 2 million (1.744.072) between the period 1941-1951. The refugees were housed in various historical and military locations such as the Purana Qila, Red Fort, and military barracks in Kingsway (around the present Delhi university). The latter became the site of one of the largest refugee camps in northern India with more than 35,000 refugees at any given time besides Kurukshetra camp near Panipat.
The camp sites were later converted into permanent housing through extensive building projects undertaken by the Government of India from 1948 onwards. A number of housing colonies in Delhi came up around this period like Lajpat Nagar
Lajpat Nagar
Lajpat Nagar is an affluent suburb of the South Delhi district of Delhi. It is named in honor of Lala Lajpat Rai, also known the Lion of Punjab, and is today most known for the Lajpat Nagar Central Market...
, Rajinder Nagar, Nizamuddin East
Nizamuddin east
Nizamuddin East is an upscale residential colony in Delhi, India. It is located on Mathura Road and is home to Humayun's Tomb, one of Delhi's most famous monuments. It is considered to be one of New Delhi,s greenest and most peaceful residential colonies...
, Punjabi Bagh
Punjabi Bagh
Punjabi Bagh is one of the prominent and well-developed localities of Delhi, India. It also is one of the three subzones of West Delhi.It is one of the most popular, posh & costliest places in Delhi....
, Rehgar Pura, Jungpura and Kingsway Camp
Kingsway Camp
Kingsway Camp officially known as Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar , since 1970, is a historic area located in North Delhi, near Civil Lines and Delhi University. It starts from Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar Chauraha , and has residential areas like Hudson Lines and Outram Lines. Localities like Dhaka Village,...
.
A number of schemes such as the provision of education, employment opportunities, easy loans to start businesses, were provided for the refugees at all-India level. The Delhi refugees, however, were able to make use of these facilities much better than their counterparts elsewhere.
Refugees settled in India
Many Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis settled in the Indian parts of Punjab and Delhi. Hindus migrating from East Pakistan (now BangladeshBangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
) settled across Eastern India
East India
East India is a region of India consisting of the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Orissa. The states of Orissa and West Bengal share some cultural and linguistic characteristics with Bangladesh and with the state of Assam. Together with Bangladesh, West Bengal formed the...
and Northeastern India, many ending up in close-by states like West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, Assam
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
, and Tripura
Tripura
Tripura is a state in North-East India, with an area of . It is the third smallest state of India, according to area. Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh on the north, south, and west. The Indian states of Assam and Mizoram lie to the east. The capital is Agartala and the main languages spoken are...
. Some migrants were sent to the Andaman islands
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
where Bengali today form the largest linguistic group.
Hindu Sindhis found themselves without a homeland. The responsibility of rehabilitating them was borne by their government. Refugee camps were set up for Hindu Sindhis.
Sindhi language
Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan that is spoken by the Sindhi people. In India, it is among 22 constitutionally recognized languages, where Sindhis are a sizeable minority. It is spoken by 53,410,910 people in Pakistan, according to the national government's Statistics Division...
as a fifteenth official language of India in two scripts.
In late 2004, the Sindhi
Sindhi people
Sindhis are a Sindhi speaking socio-ethnic group of people originating from Sindh, a province Formerly of British India, now in Pakistan. Today Sindhis that live in Pakistan belong to various religious denominations including Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Christianity...
diaspora vociferously opposed a Public Interest Litigation
Public interest litigation
In Indian law, Public Interest Litigation OR जनहित याचिका means litigation for the protection of the public interest. It is litigation introduced in a court of law, not by the aggrieved party but by the court itself or by any other private party...
in the Supreme Court of India
Supreme Court of India
The Supreme Court of India is the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal as established by Part V, Chapter IV of the Constitution of India...
which asked the Government of India
Government of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
to delete the word "Sindh
Sindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
" from the Indian National Anthem (written by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
prior to the partition) on the grounds that it infringed upon the sovereignty of Pakistan.
Refugees settled in Pakistan
Most of those refugees who settled in Punjab Pakistan came from Indian Punjab
Punjab (India)
Punjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...
, Haryana
Haryana
Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...
, Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...
, Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the...
and Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
. Most of those refugees who arrived in Sindh came from northern and central urban centers of India, Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, Bihar
Bihar
Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh , often called the Heart of India, is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and Indore is the largest city....
, Gujarat and Rajasthan via Wahga and Munabao
Munabao
Munabao is a village in the Barmer district in Rajasthan in India bordering Pakistan.- Transport :In February 2006, the two nations reopened the railway line, the Thar Express that used to connect Rajasthan in India with Sindh in Pakistan...
border, however a limited number of muhajirs also arrived by air and on ships. People who wished to go to India from all over Sindh awaited their departure to India by ship at the Swaminarayan temple
Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Karachi
The Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Karachi is a Hindu temple that belongs to the NarNarayan Dev Gadi of the Swaminarayan Sampraday and is the only Swaminarayan temple in Pakistan. The temple is notable for its size and frontage, over on the M. A. Jinnah Road in Karachi city...
in Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
and were visited by Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a Muslim lawyer, politician, statesman and the founder of Pakistan. He is popularly and officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam and Baba-e-Qaum ....
, the founder of Pakistan.
The majority of Urdu speaking refugees who migrated after the independence were settled in the port city of Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
in southern Sindh and in the cities of Hyderabad
Hyderabad, Sindh
is the second largest city in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is the seventh largest city in the country. The city was founded in 1768 by Mian Ghulam Shah Kalhoro upon the ruins of a Mauryan fishing village along the bank of the Indus known as Neroon Kot...
, Sukkur
Sukkur
Sukkur, or Sakharu , formerly Aror and Bakar, is the third largest city of Sindh province, situated on the west bank of Indus River in Pakistan in Sukkur District. However, the word Sakharu in Sindhi means "superior", which the spelling of the city's name in Sindhi suggests is the origin of the...
, Nawabshah
Nawabshah
Nawabshah , or Shaheed Benazirabad, is a district in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is headquarter of Shaheed Benazir Abad District...
and Mirpurkhas. As well the above many Urdu-speakers settled in the cities of Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
mainly in Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, Multan
Multan
Multan , is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan and capital of Multan District. It is located in the southern part of the province on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about from Islamabad, from Lahore and from Karachi...
, Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur , located in the province of Punjab, is the twelfth largest city in Pakistan. The city was once the capital of the former princely state of Bahawalpur. The city was home to various Nawabs and counted as part of the Rajputana states...
and Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
. The number of migrants in Sindh was placed at over 540,000 of whom two-third were urban. In case of Karachi, from a population of around 400,000 in 1947, it turned into more than 1.3 million in 1953.
Former President of Pakistan
President of Pakistan
The President of Pakistan is the head of state, as well as figurehead, of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Recently passed an XVIII Amendment , Pakistan has a parliamentary democratic system of government. According to the Constitution, the President is chosen by the Electoral College to serve a...
, General Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
, was born in the Nahar Vali Haveli in Daryaganj
Daryaganj
Daryaganj, also called Darya Ganj , is a neighbourhood of Delhi inside the walled city of Shahjahanabad . The "darya" refers to the river Yamuna which was just outside the walled city...
, Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
, India. Several previous Pakistani leaders were also born in regions that are in India. Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan
Liaquat Ali Khan
For other people with the same or similar name, see Liaqat Ali Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan was a Pakistani statesman who became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Defence minister and Commonwealth, Kashmir Affairs...
was born in Karnal
Karnal
Karnal is an important city and the headquarters of Karnal District in the Indian state of Haryana.Karnal is said to have been founded by the Kauravas in the Mahabharata era for the king Karna, a mythological hero and a key figure in the epic tale...
(now in Haryana
Haryana
Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...
). The 7-year longest-serving Governor and martial law administrator of Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan
Balochistan (Pakistan)
Balochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...
, General Rahimuddin Khan
Rahimuddin Khan
Rahimuddin Khan Afridi is a retired four-star general of the Pakistan Army who was the fourth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee from 1984 to 1987. He was also the longest-serving Governor and martial law administrator of Balochistan, from 1978 to when he resigned in 1984...
, was born in the pre-dominantly Pathan
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
city of Kaimganj
Kaimganj
Kaimganj, also rendered as Qaimganj , is a city in Farrukhabad district in the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh. Qaimganj is connected to all the villages of north India by roads and Railway network...
, which now lies in Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
. General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq , was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator and the sixth President of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988...
, who came to power in a military coup in 1977, was born in Jalandhar
Jalandhar
Jalandhar is a city in Jalandhar District in the state of Punjab, India. It is located 144 km northwest of the state capital, Chandigarh...
, East Punjab
East Punjab
East Punjab was the part of the Punjab region that went to India following the Partition of the Punjab Province of British India between India and Pakistan in 1947...
. The families of all four men opted for Pakistan at the time of Partition.
India and Pakistan
Since Partition, with the riots and killings between the two religious communities, India and Pakistan have struggled to maintain normal relations. One of the biggest debates occurs over the disputed region of KashmirKashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
, over which there have been three wars, and the reasons for the wars have related only to the confusion over partition. There have been four Indo-Pakistani wars:
- Indo-Pakistani War of 1947Indo-Pakistani War of 1947The India-Pakistan War of 1947-48, sometimes known as the First Kashmir War, was fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four wars fought between the two newly independent nations...
: Pakistani backed tribals-army i.e. Khyber RiflesKhyber RiflesThe Khyber Rifles is a para-military force forming part of the modern Pakistan Army's Frontier Corps. Dating from the late nineteenth century the regiment provided the title and setting for a widely read novel, King of the Khyber Rifles....
and troops invaded the princely statePrincely stateA Princely State was a nominally sovereign entitity of British rule in India that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy.-British relationship with the Princely States:India under the British Raj ...
of Kashmir by the request of its people, which had just acceded to India by the decision of its ruler, Hari Singh, despite the fact it had a Muslim majority who want to join Pakistan. The United Nations established a stalemate and asked for fresh Referendum which was halted by Indian Government still yet.
- Indo-Pakistani War of 1965Indo-Pakistani War of 1965The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. This conflict became known as the Second Kashmir War fought by India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir, the first having been fought in 1947...
: Pakistani-backed guerrillas invaded Indian administered Kashmir. India is generally believed to have had the upper hand when a ceasefire was called. Whereas Pakistan believe its air-superiority over army and navy against India in the war to be key achievement and future success if war continues.
- Indo-Pakistani War of 1971Indo-Pakistani War of 1971The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military conflict between India and Pakistan. Indian, Bangladeshi and international sources consider the beginning of the war to be Operation Chengiz Khan, Pakistan's December 3, 1971 pre-emptive strike on 11 Indian airbases...
: After India announced support for the Bengalis in East PakistanEast PakistanEast Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...
, Pakistan launched air strikes against India. India eventually captured 13,000 square kilometres of Pakistan's territory (which it later returned by International pressure). East Pakistan was partitioned from West Pakistan through the creation of BangladeshBangladeshBangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
.
- 1999 Kargil Conflict: Pakistani troops and militants invaded Indian administered Kashmir during the winter when high mountain posts were unoccupied. India recaptured all territory lost with heavy damage and called more army from New Delhi to defeat Pakistan Army of Kashmir Sector.
India and Pakistan have also engaged in a nuclear arms race
Arms race
The term arms race, in its original usage, describes a competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation...
which has in recent times threatened to erupt into nuclear war.
The British-Tibetan border, winding as it did through the Himalayas, had never been definitively surveyed or marked. India, as the inheritor of a long stretch of the British borders, and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, which invaded Tibet, eventually clashed, leading to the 1962 Sino-Indian War
Sino-Indian War
The Sino-Indian War , also known as the Sino-Indian Border Conflict , was a war between China and India that occurred in 1962. A disputed Himalayan border was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role. There had been a series of violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan...
.
International
Violence between Hindus and Muslims did not end with the Partition. Bengali Hindus and Muslims alike were massacred in the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities1971 Bangladesh atrocities
Beginning with the start of Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971 and continuing throughout the Bangladesh Liberation War, there were widespread violations of human rights in East Pakistan perpetrated by the Pakistan Army, with support from local political and religious militias, especially...
. Hindus remaining in Pakistan have been persecuted (see Hinduism in Pakistan
Hinduism in Pakistan
Hinduism is the indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent, including Pakistan. However since the independence of Pakistan in 1947 as a Muslim majority nation, Hindus have had a much smaller numerical presence there...
, 2006 Lahore temple demolition
2006 Lahore temple demolition
The 2006 Lahore temple demolition refers to false reports of a Hindu temple called Krishna Mandir located in Wachhowali, Rang Mahal, in the city of Lahore in Pakistan on May 27, 2006 by regional officials...
and Communal violence in Pakistan). Similarly, Muslims in India have experienced repeated episodes of communal violence, such as the 2002 Gujarat violence
2002 Gujarat violence
The 2002 Gujarat violence describes the Godhra train burning and resulting communal riots between Hindus and Muslims. On 27 February 2002 at Godhra City in the state of Gujarat, the Sabarmati Express train was attacked by a large Muslim mob in a conspiracy. But some authentic sources deny the claim...
(see Communal Violence in India).
Integration of refugee populations with their new countries did not always go smoothly. Some Urdu speaking Muslims (Muhajir
Muhajir
Muhajir or Mohajir is an Arabic word meaning immigrant. The Islamic calendar Hejira starts when Muhammad and his companions left Mecca for Medina in what is known as Hijra. They were called Muhajirun...
s)who migrated to Pakistan have complained that they are discriminated against in government employment. Municipal political conflict in Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, Pakistan's largest city, often pitted native Sindhis
Sindhi people
Sindhis are a Sindhi speaking socio-ethnic group of people originating from Sindh, a province Formerly of British India, now in Pakistan. Today Sindhis that live in Pakistan belong to various religious denominations including Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Christianity...
against immigrants. Sindhi, Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
, and Punjabi
Punjabi people
The Punjabi people , ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ), also Panjabi people, are an Indo-Aryan group from South Asia. They are the second largest of the many ethnic groups in South Asia. They originate in the Punjab region, which has been been the location of some of the oldest civilizations in the world including, the...
refugees in India also experienced poverty as they largely came empty handed. However, 50 years after Partition, almost all ex-refugees have managed to rebuild their lives.
All of the three nations resulting from the Partition of India have had to deal with endemic civil conflicts. Inside India, these have been largely due to inter-religious unrest and disruptive far left
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
forces. Civil unrest inside India includes:
- Civil conflict in the Seven Sister StatesSeven Sister StatesThe Seven Sister States also called "Paradise Unexplored" is a name given to the contiguous states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland & Tripura in northeastern India. These states cover an area of about 250,000 sq. km. or about 7 percent of India's total area. They...
of northeastern India - Naxalite unrest in Andhra PradeshAndhra PradeshAndhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
(IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
) - The SikhSikhA Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
separatist movement of the 1980s which has since become almost nonexistent. - Islamist separatistTerrorism in KashmirThe insurgency in Kashmir has existed in various forms. Thousands of lives have been lost since 1989 due to the intensification of both the insurgency and the fight against it....
movement in Jammu & Kashmir resulting in the ethnic cleansingEthnic cleansingEthnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
of Kashmiri HinduHinduHindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
s and massacres against Hindus such as the ones in WandhamaWandhama massacreThe 1998 Wandhama massacre refers to the murder of 23 Kashmiri Pandit Hindus in the town of Wandhama in the Muslim-majority Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on 25 January 1998. The victims included four children, nine women and 10 men...
and KaluchakKaluchak massacre2002 Kaluchak Massacre refers to an incident on 14 May 2002 near the town of Kaluchak in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir when three terrorists attacked a tourist bus from the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and killed 31 people.-The Massacre:...
. It has been found with enough evidence that the Pakistani government and its intermediaries have tacitly backed and armed these militants
The last example of unrest, the terrorism in Kashmir, is related to the ongoing Kashmir conflict
Kashmir conflict
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, the northwesternmost region of South Asia....
and relates to the both India and Pakistan.
Within Pakistan, unrest is mainly because of ethnicities, with Sindhis, Bengalis, Balochis, all vying for more representation within Pakistan and in some cases, the creation of an independent state.
- In 1971, Bangladesh Liberation WarBangladesh Liberation WarThe Bangladesh Liberation War was an armed conflict pitting East Pakistan and India against West Pakistan. The war resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, which became the independent nation of Bangladesh....
and the subsequent Indo-Pakistani War of 1971Indo-Pakistani War of 1971The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military conflict between India and Pakistan. Indian, Bangladeshi and international sources consider the beginning of the war to be Operation Chengiz Khan, Pakistan's December 3, 1971 pre-emptive strike on 11 Indian airbases...
which led to further partition of Pakistan. - The Mohajir movement in PakistanPakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and riots in KarachiKarachiKarachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million... - The Balochistan conflictBalochistan conflictThe Balochistan conflict is an ongoing conflict between Baloch nationalists and the Government of Pakistan over Balochistan, the country's largest province...
in Pakistan
Current religious demographics of India proper and former East and West Pakistan
Despite the huge migrationMigration
Migration, Migratory behavior, or Migratory may refer* Gene migration, a process in evolution and population genetics* Animal migration, the travelling of long distances in search of a new habitat...
s during and after Partition, India is still home to the third largest Muslim population in the world (after Indonesia and Pakistan). The current estimates for India (see Demographics of India
Demographics of India
The demographics of India are inclusive of the second most populous country in the world, with over 1.21 billion people , more than a sixth of the world's population. Already containing 17.5% of the world's population, India is projected to be the world's most populous country by 2025, surpassing...
) are as shown below. Islamic Pakistan, the former West Pakistan, by contrast, has a much smaller minority population. Its religious distribution is below (see Demographics of Pakistan
Demographics of Pakistan
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Pakistan, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
). As for Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan, the non-Muslim share is somewhat larger (see Demographics of Bangladesh
Demographics of Bangladesh
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Bangladesh, including population density, ethnicity, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
):
India (2006 Est. 1,095 million vs. 1951 Census 361 million)
- 80.5% Hindus (839 million)
- 13.10% Muslims (143 million)
- 2.31% Christians (25 million)
- 2.00% Sikhs (21 million)
- 1.94% Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and others (20 million)
Pakistan (2005 Est. 162 million vs. 1951 Census 34 million)
- 98.0% Muslims (159 million)
- 1.0% Christians (1.62 million)
- 1.0% Hindus, Sikhs and others (1.62 million)
Bangladesh (2005 Est. 144 million vs. 1951 Census 42 million)
- 86% Muslims (124 million)
- 13% Hindus (18 million)
- 1% Christians, Buddhists and Animists (1.44 million)
Both nations have to a great extent assimilated the refugees.
Image:Old-muslim-couple1947.jpg|An aged and abandoned Muslim couple and their grand children sitting by the roadside on this arduous journey. "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on," wrote Bourke-White.
Image:Two-men-carrying-woman1947.jpg|Two Muslim men (in a rural refugee train headed towards Pakistan) carrying an old woman in a makeshift doli or palanquin. 1947.
Image:Young-refugee-delhi1947.jpg|"With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi." Margaret Bourke-White, 1947.
Image:Refugeetrain1.jpg|A refugee train on its way to Punjab, Pakistan.
Image:Train-to-pakistan-delhi1947.jpg|Train to Pakistan steaming out of New Delhi Railway Station, 1947.
Artistic depictions of the Partition
In addition to the enormous historical literature on the Partition, there is also an extensive body of artistic work (novels, short stories, poetry, films, plays, paintings, etc.) that deals imaginatively with the pain and horror of the event.See also
- British East India CompanyBritish East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
- British India
- List of Indian Princely States
- Indian independence movementIndian independence movementThe term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
- Pakistan MovementPakistan MovementThe Pakistan Movement or Tehrik-e-Pakistan refers to the historical movement to have an independent Muslim state named Pakistan created from the separation of the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, partitioned within or outside the British Indian Empire. It had its origins in the...
- East BengalEast BengalEast Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly corresponded to the modern state of Bangladesh. Both instances involved a violent partition of Bengal....
- History of BangladeshHistory of BangladeshThe history of Bangladesh as a nation state began in 1971, when it seceded from Pakistan. Prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947, modern-day Bangladesh was part of ancient, classical, medieval and colonial India....
- History of IndiaHistory of IndiaThe history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from...
- History of PakistanHistory of PakistanThe 1st known inhabitants of the modern-day Pakistan region are believed to have been the Soanian , who settled in the Soan Valley and Riwat almost 2 million years ago. Over the next several thousand years, the region would develop into various civilizations like Mehrgarh and the Indus Valley...
- Indo-Pakistani War of 1947Indo-Pakistani War of 1947The India-Pakistan War of 1947-48, sometimes known as the First Kashmir War, was fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four wars fought between the two newly independent nations...
- India (disambiguation)India (disambiguation)India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia.India may also refer to:- Politics :* Former Union of India , the Republic of India before the adoption of its constitution- Geography and culture :...
Further reading
Popularizations:- Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre: Freedom at Midnight. London: Collins, 1975. ISBN 0-00-638851-5
- Zubrzycki, John. (2006) The Last Nizam: An Indian Prince in the Australian Outback. Pan Macmillan, Australia. ISBN 978-0-3304-2321-2.
Memoir:
- Azad, Maulana Abul KalamMaulana Abul Kalam AzadMaulana Abul Kalam Muhiyuddin Ahmed was an Indian Muslim scholar and a senior political leader of the Indian independence movement, who lived from 11 November 1888 – 22 February 1958. He was one of the most prominent Muslim leaders to support Hindu-Muslim unity, opposing the partition of India on...
: India Wins Freedom, Orient Longman, 1988. ISBN 81-250-0514-5
Academic textbooks and monographs:
- Ansari, Sarah. 2005. Life after Partition: Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh: 1947—1962. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 256 pages. ISBN 019597834X.
- Butalia, UrvashiUrvashi ButaliaUrvashi Butalia is an Indian feminist and historian. She is the Director and Co-founder of Kali for Women, India's first feminist publishing house....
. 1998. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 308 pages. ISBN 0822324946 - Chatterji, Joya. 2002. Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932—1947. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. 323 pages. ISBN 0521523281.
- Chester, Lucy P. 2009. Borders and Conflict in South Asia: The Radcliffe Boundary Commission and the Partition of Punjab. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719078996.
- Gilmartin, David. 1988. Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. 258 pages. ISBN 0520062493.
- Gossman, Partricia. 1999. Riots and Victims: Violence and the Construction of Communal Identity Among Bengali Muslims, 1905-1947. Westview Press. 224 pages. ISBN 0813336252
- Hansen, Anders Bjørn. 2004. "Partition and Genocide: Manifestation of Violence in Punjab 1937-1947", India Research Press. ISBN 9788187943259..
- Ikram, S. M. 1995. Indian Muslims and Partition of India. Delhi: Atlantic. ISBN 8171563740
- Kaur, Ravinder. 2007. "Since 1947: Partition Narratives among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi". Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195683776..
- Page, David, Anita Inder Singh, Penderel Moon, G. D. Khosla, and Mushirul Hasan. 2001. The Partition Omnibus: Prelude to Partition/the Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947/Divide and Quit/Stern Reckoning. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195658507
- Pal, Anadish Kumar. 2010. World Guide to the Partition of INDIA. Kindle Edition: Amazon Digital Services. 282 KB. ASIN B0036OSCAC
- Pandey, Gyanendra. 2002. Remembering Partition:: Violence, Nationalism and History in India. Cambride, UK: Cambridge University Press. 232 pages. ISBN 0521002508
- Raja, Masood AshrafMasood Ashraf RajaOriginally from Pakistan, Dr. Masood Ashraf Raja is an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Literature and Theory at the University of North Texas and the editor of Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies, a journal that he founded in 2009...
. Constructing Pakistan: Foundational Texts and the Rise of Muslim National Identity, 1857–1947, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19547811-2 - Raza, Hashim S. 1989. Mountbatten and the partition of India. New Delhi: Atlantic. ISBN 81-7156-059-8
- Shaikh, Farzana. 1989. Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860—1947. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 272 pages. ISBN 0521363284.
- Talbot, Ian and Gurharpal Singh (eds). 1999. Region and Partition: Bengal, Punjab and the Partition of the Subcontinent. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 420 pages. ISBN 0195790510.
- Talbot, Ian. 2002. Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 216 pages. ISBN 0195795512.
- Talbot, Ian. 2006. Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar. Oxford and Karachi: Oxford University Press. 350 pages. ISBN 0195472268.
- Wolpert, Stanley. 2006. Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 272 pages. ISBN 0195151984.
- J. Butler, Lawrence. 2002. Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World. London: I.B.Tauris. 256 pages. ISBN 186064449X
- Khosla, G. D. Stern reckoning : a survey of the events leading up to and following the partition of India New Delhi: Oxford University Press:358 pages Published: February 1990 ISBN 0195624173
Articles:
- Gilmartin, David. 1998. "Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History: In Search of a Narrative." The Journal of Asian Studies, 57(4):1068-1095.
- Jeffrey, Robin. 1974. "The Punjab Boundary Force and the Problem of Order, August 1947" - Modern Asian Studies 8(4):491-520.
- Kaur Ravinder. 2007. "India and Pakistan: Partition Lessons". Open Democracy.
- Kaur, Ravinder. 2006. "The Last Journey: Social Class in the Partition of India". Economic and Political Weekly, June 2006. www.epw.org.in
- Mookerjea-Leonard, Debali. 2005. "Divided Homelands, Hostile Homes: Partition, Women and Homelessness". Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 40(2):141-154.
- Morris-Jones. 1983. "Thirty-Six Years Later: The Mixed Legacies of Mountbatten's Transfer of Power". International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs), 59(4):621-628.
- Nasim YousafNasim YousafNasim Yousaf is a scholar, historian and intellectual. He comes from a famous family of the Indian sub-continent and is a grandson of the pre-eminent Allama Mashriqi . He is also a nephew of globally recognized social scientist Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan Nasim Yousaf is a scholar, historian and...
. 2011 "Lessons from India's Partition", http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/3770.cfm - Nasim YousafNasim YousafNasim Yousaf is a scholar, historian and intellectual. He comes from a famous family of the Indian sub-continent and is a grandson of the pre-eminent Allama Mashriqi . He is also a nephew of globally recognized social scientist Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan Nasim Yousaf is a scholar, historian and...
. 2011 "Lessons from India's Partition", http://kashmirmonitor.org/07042011-ND-lessons-from-indias-partition-7919.aspx - Spear, Percival. 1958. "Britain's Transfer of Power in India." Pacific Affairs, 31(2):173-180.
- Talbot, Ian. 1994. "Planning for Pakistan: The Planning Committee of the All-India Muslim League, 1943-46". Modern Asian Studies, 28(4):875-889.
- Visaria, Pravin M. 1969. "Migration Between India and Pakistan, 1951-61" Demography, 6(3):323-334.
External links
Bibliographies:- Select Research Bibliography on the Partition of India, Compiled by Vinay Lal, Department of History, UCLA; University of California at Los Angeles list
- http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/Lib/man08par97.htmlA select list of Indian Publications on the Partition of India (Punjab & Bengal); University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
list] - South Asian History: Colonial India — University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
Collection of documents on colonial India, Independence, and Partition - Indian Nationalism — Fordham UniversityFordham UniversityFordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...
archive of relevant public-domain documents
Other links:
- Clip from 1947 newsreel showing Indian independence ceremony
- Through My Eyes Website Imperial War Museum - Online Exhibition (including images, video and interviews with refugees from the Partition of India)
- A People Partitioned Five radio programmes broadcast on the BBC World Service in 1997 containing the voices of people across South Asia who lived through Partition.