By Elton Gomes
“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.” India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech in August 1947 marked the birth of India – a new country that would no longer be under British rule. A country teeming with energy. A country that paid the price of partition. British India was divided into India and Pakistan 71 years ago. Nehru’s words might have instilled confidence and hope in the future, but the future was to be grim and would witness one of the largest mass migrations culminating in communal violence.
The plan for independence
In India, the independence movement began in 1857. Early advocates of independence led militant uprisings against the British. But leaders of the Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, fought for more rights for Indian with regards to civil service and land ownership.
Starting from the 1920s, Mahatma Gandhi became established as the leader of the Indian independence movement. Gandhi’s staunch beliefs in civil rights and non-violence became an inspiration to many. In 1942, the Quit India movement was launched, but Britain was leading the battle against Nazism during the Second World War with the help of 2.5 million Indian troops. Britain promised to grant independence once the war was over. After the Battle of Britain, Gandhi said that he would not support India’s self-rule out of the ashes of a decimated Britain.
By the end of the war, Britain’s empire was weakened and it was unable to fend the overwhelming demand for independence. The Congress party as well as the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, dominated elections.
Amidst a grim climate of increasing communal tensions and pressure from Jinnah, who was of the opinion that Muslims should have their own state, the Mountbatten Plan was hastily conceived. The plan divided British India along religious lines. India received its independence at the cost of becoming a Hindu-majority nation.
The aftermath of Partition
Partition triggered riots, mass casualties, and caused utter mayhem during the migration process. In search of safer territory, Muslims began heading towards Pakistan, while Hindus and Sikhs headed towards India.
When a journalist asked Britain’s last viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, whether he foresaw any mass transfer of population? Mountbatten replied in the negative: “Personally, I don’t see it.”However, estimates of the death toll after Partition range from 200,000 to two million. Many people lost their lives after being killed by members of other communities of their own families. Contagious diseases sweeping across the refugee camps was another killer. It is estimated that up to 100,000 women were raped or abducted.
Punjab was the epicentre of this violence, but considerable killings were also reported in Bengal, Sindh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Kashmir, and other places. Lahore and Amritsar were wrecked beyond recognition. Clearing the wreckage in Amritsar took more than five years. More than 600 refugee camps operated all over independent India. The issue of the princely states, particularly those in Kashmir, remained unresolved.
Indo-Pakistan relations
The Partition remains important as a moral reference point existing in popular memory in India and Pakistan. It is difficult to say how long will it take for both countries to reconcile with each other. An article in Al-Jazeera claims that both nations should inculcate an educated imagination in their children, so that they can make better understand the past and how it is shaping the present. The article states that “the partition cannot be forgotten, but it needs to be understood.”
Elton Gomes is a staff writer at Qrius
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