We all know that Colonial India was partitioned in 1947 and while some would call it "The Year of the Lion", the others would call it "The Year of the Rat". It affected hundreds of millions of human lives. But since then very little thought has been given to the reasons, the circumstances and the consequences of Partition for all the people of the sub continent ever since.
Many think it began when the Indian Hindu nationalist movement of the early 1900s refused to represent the interests of Indian Muslims. World War 2 had been a bitter struggle for life and death of the United Kingdom, India's imperialist masters at the time and their Indian colony was assured of independence as a reward for their support to defeat the AXIS Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan). Not all the political parties in India supported the war effort. All India Congress Party under the leadership of Mr. MK ("Mahatma") Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru were conspicuously opposed to the continuing British rule over India and had become an obstacle. There had been widespread civil disobedience across the country, particularly in Maharashtra, UP and Bihar. However, All India Muslim League, the party claiming to speak for all the Indian Muslims remained neutral.
With long memory and a spirit of vengeance the British decided to leave India but only after partitioning it between the Muslims and the Hindus It's true that this widened a rift until, as independence from the British Empire drew near, it was impossible for them to share a single nation. And so the partition of British colonial India into the free nations of India and Pakistan occurred but did not solve the problem; Hindus and Muslims are still at loggerheads -- through their nations -- the focal point of the strife being the disputed territory of Kashmir... The freedom movement that was to result in India's partition had its tangible start when the Englishman Allan Hume helped a group of Indians start the Indian National Congress in 1885. At first it worked as a lobbying group and did not challenge British control of the government. But in the early 1900s a more radical faction emerged within it, led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, whose aim was independence. The Indian National Congress also had socialist leanings. In 1906 a crucial split took place; the few Muslim delegates in the Indian National Congress left, and a group called the Muslim League was formed. There are three significant reasons why the Muslim nationalist movement emerged in 1906, later than the Hindu movement. Muslims, because they had their own religious schools, were less quickly influenced by western thought, which was an important characteristic of the leaders of the revolutionaries. Secondly, the Muslims in the Indian National League were becoming alienated by the increasing Hindu nationalism that accompanied the radicalization occurring there. Thirdly, and perhaps the catalyst that brought the others to the surface, was a dispute that occurred 1905-1911 in Bengal. In 1905, The British restructured the provincial borders in a manner that gave Muslims a majority in one of the districts, raising a great Hindu outcry that brought about a reversal of that decision in 1911. Consequently, from 1906 there were two parties working for independence: the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. In 1915, Mohandas Gandhi arrived in India. He had a law degree gained in England, experience in nonviolent protests gained working in South Africa, and the leadership and strength of character and morals to mobilize the general Hindu public for the independence cause. The pressure he and his followers exerted caused the British Parliament to pass the Government of India Act in 1935. It gave Indians a legislative law-making body. However, the British Viceroy had veto power and the British were still the de facto rulers of India. The Hindus were not satisfied with this, and neither were the Muslims. In the popularly elected Indian legislature, the minority Muslims had little power or representation, and Hindu rule infuriated them. In spite of the peacemaking attempted by Gandhi, for many Hindus in the freedom movement, there was no room for Muslims, and during the period of the Indian National Congress' limited rule, the Muslims were submitted to degradations such as being barred from building new mosques. This was the final break between Hindus and Muslims. From now on, in the negotiations with the British the Muslim League would settle for nothing less than a separate Muslim state. In 1939 international events intervened with the start of World War II. India's English viceroy, Victor Alexander John Hope, declared India's entrance on the side of the Allies without consulting the Indian or Muslim political parties. The Indian National Congress responded by quitting its power in India's government. They tried to use the war to force the issue with the British, demanding immediate independence. The British offered independence at the end of the war You are invited to recall those days and if you were born after 1947 or have no clear memory, then please ask those who were well aware of what was happening then. The best people to set the PEOPLE'S record straight are the elderly in our communities, our parents and grandparents and anyone else who can narrate truthfully and as objectively as possible, as to what happened before, during and after the partition of India. Personal stories like witnessing burning properties, abduction and rape of girls, killing of people, ambushes and the long convoys and their arrival at new and unfamiliar places, the modes of travel and escape, are all important to be recorded for posterity. We should not have to live under the remorse that "they scattered and vanished like the ants when floods devastate their colony."
Give the people the chance to tell the others of their personal experiences and memories of that fateful year when MILLIONS were uprooted from their ancestors' territory.
According to the British plan for the partition of British India, all the 680 "Princely States" were allowed to decide which of the two countries to join. With the exception of a few, most of the Muslim-majority princely-states acceded to Pakistan while most of the Hindu-majority princely states joined India. However, the decisions of some of the princely-states helped to shape the Pakistan-India relationship considerably in the years which followed...e.g Junagadh dispute; Kashmir dispute; wars; territorial disputes etc etc...and so Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained by a number of historical and political issues... Britain when it withdrew, it divided the subcontinent between India and the supposedly 'Muslim' state of Pakistan. The convulsions of partition saw Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs slaughter one another on an unprecedented scale. Today right wing forces are stirring up divisions between Muslims and Hindus..so use your own Intellect and power of reason...why do you have to even fight? makes no sense... Divide and rule The main instruments of British rule in India were the army and the civil service. They controlled the means of coercion and they collected and allocated resources. The Indian army was vital for both internal and external reasons. It policed a vast area, stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to China. Without the Indian army, and the Indian revenue that sustained it, the British government would not have been able to maintain its position east of Suez and the status of 'great power' would have been seriously undermined. The repeated deployment of Indian troops outside India gives an idea of this. Indian troops were used in China in 1839, 1856 and 1859; Persia 1856; Ethiopia in 1867; Afghanistan in 1878; Egypt in 1882; Burma in 1885; Nyasaland in 1893; and the Sudan and Uganda in 1896. Between 1838 and 1920 the Indian army was used outside India on 19 different occasions. During the First World War the Indian Army supplied one million troops. For the Second World War it supplied 2 million...and when they lost their "Jewel" they made sure that the divide you all in such a manner that you keep on fighting and killing each other forever.... However nobody seems to consider this factor..why? --- On Tue, 3/6/12, Mohammad Asghar <msa7011@yahoo.com> wrote:
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad on Islam, Pakistan and politics. Please read his interview at the following link. Thanks. Mohammad Asghar
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