Social Scientist
Partition Narratives
Author(s): Mushirul Hasan
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 30, No. 7/8 (Jul. - Aug., 2002), pp. 24-53
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3518150
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MUSHIRULHASAN*
PartitionNarratives'
Partitionwas the defining event of modern, independentIndia and
Pakistan,andit is hardlyan exaggerationto saythatpartitioncontinues
to be the defining event of modern India and Pakistan... Partition
[moreover]was and is a profoundlyreligiousevent for both sides...
and most of the agonyover religionthroughoutthe SouthAsianregion
is to a large extent traceableto it. Partitionis at the heartnot only of
the great regionalconflicts... [but] it is also an importantcomponent
or factor in a whole seriesof religious-cum-political
conflictsreaching
down to the presenttime... To be sure,partitionas a definingreligious
eventis not by anymeansthe only eventor conditionfor an appropriate
analysis and explanation of [these] great religious controversies
currentlytearingthe fabric of India'sculturallife, but ...it is, indeed,
one of the necessaryandcentraleventsor conditionsfor understanding
India'scurrentagony over religion.In manyways it is the core plot in
the unfoldingnarrativeof modern,independentIndia.
Gerald James Larson, India's Agony Over Religion
(New Delhi, 1997), pp. 182-3.
The Indian History Congress is a premier body of historians. It has
repeatedly affirmed its commitment to a 'scientific' and secular reading
of the past and taken the lead in producing a certain temper of mind,
a certain way of thinking and feeling about contemporary events and
their relation to the past and the future. Moreover, scores of historians,
who assemble every year in the month of December, have taken
unequivocal positions against the Emergency (1975), the vandalism
at Ayodhya on December 6 1992, and the recent attack on the
Christians. So often in the past they have offered refuge to persecuted
* Professorof History at
JamiaMilia Islamia,New Delhi
**PresidentialAddressat the 31st IndianHistory Congress,Bhopal,28-30 December2001
Social Scientist, Vol. 30, Nos. 7 - 8, July-August2002
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PARTITIONNARRATIVES
25
colleagues, and accommodatedthe liberal-leftstreamsof thought.
Long years ago, my father ProfessorMohibbul Hasan stood on
this platform as Presidentof the Medieval Indian History section.
Today, I salute his memory from the same platform. Educated in
Lucknow and London, he was a scholarpar excellence. During his
teachingcareerat the universitiesof Calcutta,Aligarh,JamiaMillia
Islamiaand Kashmir,he did pioneeringresearchon Tipu Sultan,on
medieval Kashmir, and on the Mughal Emperor, Babur. A
quintessentialliberal,he shunnedreactionaryand obscurantistideas
with utmost tenacity and consistency.Our home in Calcutta- 5 C
Sandal Street- offered refuge to a number of leading lights in the
communistmovement.
I am extremelygratefulto the office-bearersof the IndianHistory
Congress for giving me this opportunity, cherished by scores of
historians, to address such a distinguishedgathering. I learnt my
history at the feet of my teachersat the AligarhMuslim University,
some present in this hall. I acknowledge my debt to them on this
occasion. My friendsand colleaguesat the JamiaMillia Islamiatoo,
supportedme duringsome of my turbulentyearsin that university.I
am extremelybeholdento them.
At the beginningof this millennium,the greatideologicaldebates
between the proponentsof 'secular'and 'Muslim' nationalismsare
waning.A senseis abroadthat the Partitionstory,hithertodominated
by the grandnarratives,needsto be told differently.Attentionis drawn
to comparisonsacrossspace and time, to theoreticalissues of import
well beyondthe confinesof SouthAsia,andto partitionsrestructuring
the sourcesof conflictsaroundborders,refugeesand diasporas.There
is eventalk of the needfor new languagesin dealingwith the historical
traumasof the past, of rethinking'Partition'necessitatedby the shift
away fromthe highpoliticalhistories.Accordingto the Frenchscholar
Jean-LucNancy,the gravestandmostpainfultestimonyof the modern
world, the one that possibly involves all other testimoniesto which
this epoch must answer, is the testimony of the dissolution, the
dislocation, or the conflagrationof community.
Whateverthe approachandhowsoeverdiversethe interpretations,
the fact is that Hindu-Muslimpartnershipsexploded in the 1940s,
and the weakness of the secularideology - the emblemof the desire
to create a world beyond religiousdivisions- becameall too clear to
that generation. Their association with majoritarianism and
minoritismdiscreditedit, they were badly led and, at the moment of
greatperil,Hindu, Muslimand Sikhorganizationsprovedmore than
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26
SOCIALSCIENTIST
a match for the tepid enthusiasm of Congress' secular wing. The
CommunistPartyof Indianot only acknowledgedthe importanceof
the national question for politics, but also unequivocallyembraced
the principleof national self-determination.The idea was drummed
into the heads of the people without realizingits consequencesfor
the party itself, and the accentuationof the communalprocessat the
level of the masses. Finally,the colonial government'sconciliatory
policy towardsthe MuslimLeaguebore fruitduringthe secondworld
war, and stiffened Mohammad Ali Jinnah'sresolve to achieve his
Muslim homeland. It was the outbreak of war in September1939
that saved the League.Even as Linlithgowput federationinto cold
storage for the duration of the war, Jinnah set out to exploit the
Britishneed for the supportof the Indianpartiesfor the war effort.
When the war ended, the engine of communalpolitics could no
longer be put in reverse.This is what happened,in the words of the
Urdu writer,Ismat Chughtai(1915-1991):
Thefloodof communal
violencecameandwentwithall itsevils,butit
a
of
left pile living,dead,andgaspingcorpsesin its wake.It wasn't
onlythatthe countrywas splitin two-bodies and mindswerealso
divided.Moralbeliefsweretossedasideandhumanitywasin shreds.
Governmentofficersand clerksalong with their chairs,pens and
likethespoilsof war...Thosewhosebodies
inkpots,weredistributed
werewholehadheartsthatweresplintered.
Familiesweretornapart.
One brotherwas allottedto Hindustan,the otherto Pakistan;the
thehusband
motherwasin Hindustan,heroffspringwerein Pakistan;
was in Hindustan,hiswifewasin Pakistan.Thebondsof relationship
werein tatters,andin the endmanysoulsremainedbehindin Hindustan
whiletheirbodiesstartedoff forPakistan.
Pluralism,the bedrock of secular nationalism,could no longer
containhatred,religiousintolerance,andotherformsof bigotry.Some
of the anxietiesIndiansfacedwhile formulatingstrategiesfor political
survivalreappearedwith a forcethat could not have been anticipated
at the turn of the century.They came into sharpfocus only a decade
or so beforethe actualtransferof power.The League,the Akali Dal
and the Hindu Mahasabharejectedthe once seeminglyunassailable
pluralistparadigm,while religiousfundamentalists,who were at any
rate wary of the corrosiveeffects of secularideologies, turnedto the
creation of a Hindu state or an Islamictheocracy.The outcome was
a cataclysmicevent - India'sbloody vivisection. As the historian of
Islam pointed out, 'a few years after the exterminationcamps and
incendiaryand atomic bombs of the second world war seemed to
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PARTITIONNARRATIVES
27
haveconfirmedthe worst condemnationsIndianshad levelledagainst
materialistic modern west, modern India, Hindu and Muslim,
confrontedhorrorsof its own making'.
MohandasKaramchandGandhiwas the personmost sensitiveto
this reality, though his reactions scarcely figure in post-modernist
narrativeson partition. One almost gets a sense, in the writings of
many historians, of Gandhi's premature demise well before his
assassinationon 30 January1948. That beingthe case, it is important
to recoverGandhi'svoice, andattachsomeimportanceto his responses
in the discussionsover partitionviolence.
Althoughthe literaturecoveringhis last yearsis rich, it is hardto
comprehendhow and why a man, having dominated the political
scenefor threedecades,could do so little to influencethe Congressto
take firm and effective steps to contain violence. Even if this fact
illustratesGandhi'sdiminishingpolitical influence,we can still ask
why he became, as he told Louis Fischer,'a spent bullet', and what
turned him into 'a back number'.What led him to conclude that he
could not influence,muchless lead, Indiaon the eve of independence?
Why tell the Mahatmato shut up at a time when the nation'sunity
was at stake and the eruption of large-scale violence widely
anticipated?Was it because,as AcharyaKripalanipointed out, that
Gandhi had found no way of tackling the communalproblem, and
that 'he himself is groping in the dark'? This is an extraordinary
comment from a man who had himself displayed little political
sagacity duringhis long years in public life.
What is missing in such explanations is the sense of the great
ideologicalfissuredividingthe upperechelonsof the Congressparty
between popular support in its rank and file for partition, and
acquiescence in violence as an unavoidable consequence of the
communal rupture.It was, after all, G.D. Birla who had told A.V.
Alexander,memberof the CabinetMission,that 'in sucha big country
speciallywhen power is to be transferred,suchclashes (he referredto
10,000 deaths), however deplorable,'cannot be made impossible'.
Implicit in the same letter was the ominous warning: 'these riots,
however, have impressed one thing clearly on the minds of all
reasonablepeople that thus mutualkillingcannot help one side. This
is a game which both sides can play with disastrousresults. So I am
not taking a pessimisticview'.
Is it thenthe casethatthe otherwisewell-testedGandhianmethods
were now so out of place in the new politicalculturenurturedby the
Congress that it led the Mahatma to distance himself from the
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SOCIALSCIENTIST
Congress'decision to accept partition;or, do we see the balance of
power tilting againsthim from the time he suggestedthe dissolution
of the Congress'beforethe rot set (s) in further'?He had statedat the
CongressWorkingCommitteemeeting, which finally approvedthe
partitionplan, that he 'would have declaredrebellionsingle-handed
againstthe CWCif he hadfelt strongeror an alternativewas available'.
That he did not feel strongenoughto carryout his threatis a powerful
indictmentof the Congresspartyand its tall poppies.
Writerspoignantlydetail Gandhi'sheroicsin riot-tornNoakhali
in East Bengal and dwell on his fasts unto death in Calcutta that
beganin September1947 and 13 January1948, respectively.Butmost
pay scantattention,especiallyduringthis period,to his moraldilemma
resultingfrom the Congressparty'sdesire to achieve freedom at all
cost. It is fair to arguethat the colonial context, the complex legacy
of history,and the potentiallyexplosivelegacyof social and economic
inequalities between the two communities handicapped him.
Nonetheless,we also needto understandthe dialecticsof the partition
movement, and not so much the consequencesthat enfeebled the
Mahatma'sinitiativesto resolvethe Congress- Muslimimpasse,and
in the end, hastenedhis political death.
Doubtless, Gandhi did not have a ready-madeanswer to allay
Jinnah'sanxietiesor curbthe stridencyof Hindu militants.He could
not haveproduceda magicformulato extinguishthe flamesof hatred.
Yet, he still commanded the allegiance of millions across the
subcontinent, including the Muslim communities, to reconcile
competing political aspirations. Doubtless, he lacked the political
resourcesto preventpartitionin 1945-46, but the transferof power
may not have taken such an ugly and violent turn had his Congress
colleagues allowed him to wield his moral stick. With non-violence
being so very centralto his life-long mission, he had everyreason to
reaffirm its efficacy in the twilight of his career.Worn out by the
rigoursof an active publiclife, an ageingGandhihad everyreasonto
expect that his colleagues will provide him the space to pursue his
moralcrusadeagainstviolence.Darknessprevailed,but he still hoped
that the country would 'survivethis death and dance', and 'occupy
the moralheightthat shouldbelongto herafterthe training,however
imperfect,in non-violencefor an unbrokenperiodof thirty-twoyears
since 1915'. Violencehad engulfedthe country,and yet he hoped, as
he stated in Calcutta,that 'the goodness of the people at the bottom
will assertitself againstthe mischievousinfluence'.His goal was 'to
find peace in the midst of turmoil, light in the midst of darkness,
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hope in despair'.Pyarelaldescribesthis qualityof hope:'Byan almost
superhumaneffort of the will he was able in the midst of all this to
preservehis balanceand even his good humour...He seemedto have
accessto some hiddenreservoirof strength,optimism,joy and peace,
which was independentof other circumstances'.
Findingpeaceamidstturmoilbecamean integralpartof Gandhi's
inner quest, his inner journey that had a goal but no destination.
Pacifying enraged mobs was relatively simple, for the Gandhian
charismastill worked, as in Bihar,where his presencedid much to
reassurelocal Muslims. ButJinnah,as he had discoveredduringthe
course of his many previous encounters,was a hard nut to crack.
Allayinghis apprehensionsprovedto be a nightmarefor his political
adversaries.Meeting his demands was doubly difficult. With their
conflictingvisions and perspectivessurfacingduringtheirtalks in the
autumn of 1944 (the talks started on 9 September)and later, the
main stumbling block remainedJinnah'sinsistence on having his
'Pakistan',and Gandhi'smoralindignationat the veryidea of India's
'vivisection'. 'What made his [Jinnah's] demands even more
incongruous,' wrote Madeline Slade (Mira Behn), was that he
maintainedthat the Moslems as a separatenationalityhad the sole
rightto decide,in the areashe chose to describeas Moslem-majority
Provinces,whether to separatefrom India or not, regardlessof the
rest of the population which, except for the North-West Frontier
regions, formedonly a little less than half of the total population.
Gandhidid not expect to convertJinnahSahibto his creed, but
counted on his partycomradesto pay heed to his warnings.What, if
they had done so? The fact is that they did not. Though Jawaharlal
Nehru and VallabhbhaiPatel pressed his services to restore peace
and harmonyin the riot-strickenareas,they wilfully disregardedhis
views on crucial issues. Though the historian Sucheta Mahajan
laboriously attempts to prove otherwise, Gandhi was deeply hurt,
complaining to friends about his estrangement from those very
Congress leaders whose careers he had nursed assiduously.When
Pyarelaljoined Gandhiin December1947, barelysix months before
his death, he found him isolated from the surroundingsand from
almost everyone of his colleagues.Sometimeshe would ask himself,
'had India free no longer any need of him as it had when it was in
bondage'.A month before his assassination,he stated:
I knowthattodayI irritateeveryone.How canI believethatI alone
amrightandall othersarewrong?Whatirksmeis thatpeopledeceive
me.TheyshouldtellmefranklythatI havebecometoo old,thatI am
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no longerof any use and that I shouldnot be in theirway. If they thus
openly repudiateme I shall not be painedin the least.
The sun had set in Noakhali village and the rioters had retreated
to their den to prepare themselves for an early morning assault. While
the lathis were readied and the knives sharpened, a weary Mahatma,
leaning against his lathis that had stood him in good stead in his
political journeys, had to prove to the world that personal courage,
moral fervour, and commitment, more than formalistic ideologies,
could soothe violent tempers. He had demonstrated the force of his
methods in the past, but there was now a greater and more compelling
obligation to drive home this message across the country. He had
written to G.D. Birla from Srirampur:
It is my intentionto stay on herejustas long as the HindusandMuslims
do not becomesincerelywell-disposedtowardseach other.God alone
can keep man'sresolveunshaken.Good-byeto Delhi, to Sevagram,to
Uruli,to Panchgani- my only desireis to do or die. This will also put
my non-violenceto the test, and I havecome hereto emergesuccessful
from this ordeal.
In Noakhali, he would have said to his restless audience basking
in the morning sunshine that violence breeds more violence. Hatred,
he would have reiterated in his low and soft voice, betrayed weakness
rather than strength, generated fear, heightened anxieties, and created
insecurities. Gandhi told his companion, Nirmal Kumar Bose, 'I find
that I have not the patience of the technique needed in these tragic
circumstances. Suffering and evil often overwhelms me and I stew in
my own juice.' And yet the world outside the Congress arena listened
to only one man, eagerly awaiting the outcome of this belated but
extremely important mission. Never before had a political leader taken
so bold an initiative to provide the healing touch not just to the people
in Noakhali but to the warring groups across the vast subcontinent.
And yet, never before did so earnest an effort achieve so little. In
Noakhali, Gandhi wrote on 20 November 1946:
I find myself in the midst of exaggerationand falsity,I am unable to
discoverthe truth.Thereis terriblemutualdistrust...TruthandAhimsa,
by which I swearand which have, to my knowledge,sustainedme for
sixty years, seemsto show the attributesI have ascribedto them.
After Naokhali, Gandhi was caught up in the whirlpool of hatred,
anger and violence. Jinnah, on the other hand, steered his ship through
the rough currents seeking a secure anchorage. Riding on the crest of
a popular wave, he, the Quaid (leader), seemed oblivious to the human
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31
sufferingscausedby his cry for a Muslimhomeland(thoughhe signed
a statementwith Gandhi condemningviolence on 15 April 1947).
The one-time disciple of Dadabhai Naoroji, a staunch Home Rule
Leaguer,architectof the Congress- LeaguePact (December1916)
and SarojiniNaidu's ambassadorof Hindu - Muslim unity, firmly
rejected Gandhi's vision of a united India. 'By all canons of
internationallaw', the Lincoln'sInn-educatedbarristertold Gandhi
duringhis talks in earlySeptember1944, 'we are a nation.' 'Weare a
nation,'he reiterated,'withour own distinctivecultureandcivlization,
languageandliterature,artandarchitecture,namesandnomenclature,
sense of value and proportion,legal laws and moral codes, customs
and calendar,history and traditions,aptitudesand ambitions.'
Thoughspokenfromthe commandingheightsof power,this was
small talk basedon ill-foundedtheoriesand assumptionsthat Jinnah
had himselfrepudiateda decadeago. Gandhidid not agree.He asked
Jinnahwhether or not they could agree to differ on the question of
two nations, and find a way out of the deadlock.Predictably,Jinnah
said 'no'. Whetherthis was a titanicclash of ideologiesis debatable,
but what is worth discussingis whether,in the politicalclimateof the
1940s, they could have acted differently.Wasthereeven the slightest
possibility of mediatingtheir differenceswithin or, for that matter,
outside the party structures?Werethey politicallyequippedto push
througha negotiatedsettlementagainstthe wishes of theirfollowing?
Evenat the risk of enteringthe realmof speculation,it is hardto
conceive the meetingof the two mindstakingplace at that juncture.
Even if that had happened,it is hard to visualize their capacity to
deliver.The pressuresfrom below, as indeed the exertions of their
senior leaders,were too strongfor reversingattitudesand strategies.
A groundswellof ruralPunjabisupportfor the Leaguewas in evidence.
In Bengal,the Leaguecapturedin the 1946 elections, 104 out of 111
seats in the rural areas. The great Calcuttakilling of August 1947,
followed by the violence that rocked Noakhali seven weeks later,
completedthe convergencebetweenelite and popularcommunalism.
With the Leaguesecuringadherentsin the countrysideand the urbanbased professionalclasses mountingtheir campaignsmasquerading
as defendersof the faith, Jinnah could ill-afford to backtrack.For
him, achieving'Pakistan'becamea matterof life and death.
Similarly,Gandhicould not single-handedlynegotiatea Hindu Muslimagreementwithoutincurringthe hostilityof his own Congress
colleagues. The Hindu Mahasabhaand the RSS, too, had burst on
the political scene with their Hindutvaideology.Having maintained
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their distance from the liberationstrugglesfor years, they emerged
out of the darkcorridorsto ensurethat Gandhiand the Congressdid
not yield to Jinnah'sdemands.G.B. Pantexpressedtheir sentiments,
and perhaps, also his own, to Mountbatten in May 1947: the
repercussionsof eventsin Punjaband BiharandBengalwerebeginning
to make themselves felt in U.P., and that he could not regard the
situation as entirelysatisfactory.They had gone out of their way in
U.P.to give the minoritiesmorethan a fair deal, but the Hinduswere
graduallybecomingopposed to such generoustreatmenttowards a
communitywhich was provingitself to be so brutaland vital in other
provinces.
As the new men - some having access to top Congressleadersarrived equipped with their heavy but coarse ideological baggage,
the Indianship beganits slow but inexorabledriftinto muddywaters
without its boatman.The captain,havingsafely steeredmany a ship
throughthe roughcurrentsin the past,saw nothingbut fireand smoke
aroundhim. ThoughNehru told Gandhithat 'we do often feel that if
you had been easier of access our difficultieswould have been less',
the Mahatma'sown belief, which he sharedat his prayermeetingon
1 April 1947, was that, 'no one listensto me any more...' True,there
was a time when mine was a big voice. Then everybodyobeyedwhat
I said, now neither the Congressnor the Hindus nor the Muslims
listen to me. Where is the Congresstoday? It is disintegrating.I am
crying in the wilderness.' Again, on 9 June, he conceded that the
general opinion, especially among the non-Muslims,was not with
him. That is why he decidedto step aside.
Gandhiwas not the only one to sensethe drift,the volatilepolitical
climate, and the unhinderedmovementtowardschaos and disorder.
As the war clouds dispersedand the Britishgovernmentbegantaking
stock of the situation, the rapid turn of events, rather than the
inexorablelogic of historythe Leagueinvokedto legitimizethe twonationtheory,caughtactivistsnapping.Liberaland secularideologies
receiveda beating:the untidy communalforces, on the other hand,
had a field day. The RSS,the Mahasabhaand the Leagueseized the
opportunity,deniedto them duringthe Quit India movementby the
rise of anti-colonialsentiments,to regroupthemselvesinto cohesive
entities. With the Congressrankand file dividedand dispirited,they
gained the space to intervene. The activities of Muslim National
Guards,the stormtroopersof the MuslimLeague,the swayamsevaks,
and the sword wielding Sikh jathasamply illustratethis. Eventually
they, the inheritorsof dividedhomelands,fouled the path leadingto
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the newly created capitals of free India and Pakistan- Delhi and
Karachi.
At the cross-roads of communal polarization, India became a
fertilegroundfor the idea of a dividedIndiato nurture.Most found,
willy-nilly, and that included powerful Congress leaders who had
untilnow paidlip serviceto the conceptionof a unitedIndia,partition
as the way out of the impasse.Patel had said: 'Franklyspeaking,we
all hate it, but at the same time see no way out of it.' The options, if
any, were foreclosed. The Congressagreedto partition because, as
Nehrustatedat the All IndiaCongressCommitteemeetingon 9 August
1947, 'there is no other alternative'.This was not an admission of
failure but a recognition of the ground realities that had moved
inexorablytowards the polarizationof the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh
communities.
For Jinnah,the real and ultimatechallengewas to translatehis
otherwisenebulousideaof a Muslimstateinto a territorialacquisition
that he could sell to his partnersin Punjab- termed by Jinnah the
'cornerstone' of Pakistan - Bengal and UP. When the Lahore
Resolution was adopted in March 1940, Jinnah's Pakistan was
undefined.He hesitatedplacinghis cardsout in the open not because
he feareda Congressbacklash,but becausehe could not predictthe
reactionsof his own allies in Punjab(the Muslim Leagueshowing in
the 1937 electionswas pitiful),the UnitedProvinces(UP),and Bengal.
Butonce the edificeof resistanceand oppositioncrumbled,especially
in Punjabafterthe deathsof SikanderHayat Khanand the Jat leader
Chhotu Ram (both had kept the PunjabUnionist Partyintact), and
popular support for the Pakistanidea gatheredmomentum,Jinnah
had no qualms in defininghis futurePakistan.His greateststrength
lay, a point underlined by David Gilmartin, in transcending the
tensions in the provincesand localitiesand directingMuslim politics
towards symbolic goals, even as he compromisedto build political
support. His 'genius' lay in forgingwhat in fact approximatedto a
marriageof conveniencebetweenthe professionalclassesof the Hindu
dominatedareas and the landlordsof the futurePakistanregions.
At everycriticalmomentafterthe resignationof the ministriesin
September1939, Jinnah'sgreatassetwas the government'sreadiness
to negotiatewith him as an ally ratherthan as an adversary.This had
not been the case earlier,though Nehru had pointed out that the
thirdpartycould always bid higher,and what is more, give substance
to its words. The Quit India movement(August1942) turnedout to
be yet another milestone. From that time onwards the League
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bandwagonrolled on, and Jinnahdevelopedthe habit of reminding
seniorBritishofficials- manyturningto himto takethe sweet revenge
from the Congress - of their obligations towards the Muslims.
Whenever he found them dithering or tilting slightly towards the
Congress,he, conjuringup the self-imageof a wounded soul, raised
the spectreof a civil war.
Words were translatedinto deeds on Direct Action Day on 16
August 1946. This ill-advisedcall did not exactly heal the communal
wounds, but provedto be, as was the undeclaredintention,Jinnah's
trumpcard.The Quaid, says AyeshaJalal,was forcedby the Muslim
LeagueCouncilto go for directaction;otherwisehe would haveswept
himselfaside.Whatremainsunexplainedis how this decision,besides
leading to the great Calcutta killing, sounded the death-knellof a
united India. If the resignationof the Congressministriesallowed
Jinnah to jump the queue and gain proximity to the colonial
government, direct action confirmed his capacity to call the shots
and create, with the aid of his allies in Bengal particularly,the
conditions for civil strife on a continental scale. H.S. Suhrawardy,
the Bengalpremier,ensuredthat this recklesscall paid off. Ironically,
the sameSuhrawardy,who toyedwith the impracticalidea of a united
Bengal in the company of a handful of tired bhadralok leaders,
accompaniedGandhito extinguishthe flames of violence in Bengal.
Meanwhile, the colonial government-the'third party' - nursed
its wounds. Bruisedand batteredby the impact of world war II, it
had little or no interestin curbingviolence. As the sun finally set on
the empire,the imperialdreamwas over.It was time to dismantlethe
imperialstructuresand move to the safety of the BritishIsles. 'Your
day is done', Gandhihad written.The British,havingreadthe writing
on the wall, had no desireor motivationto affect a peacefultransfer
of power.Havingbandiedroundtheview thatHindu-Muslimviolence
resultedfrom a civilizationalconflict between Islam and Hinduism,
they now put forwardthe thesis that it could not be contained once
Pakistanbecameinevitable.PenderelMoon, the civil servant,argues
that the holocaustin Punjabwas unavoidablewithout a Sikh-Muslim
settlement,and that 'by the time LordMountbattenarrivedin India
it was far too late to save the situation'.H.V. Hodson makes similar
assertions.There is little reason to subscribeto their thesis: Sudhir
Ghosh, the young executivefrom the Tatafirm, rightlytold Stafford
and the Governorsay that this kind
Cripps:'If the Governor-General
of killingand barbarity[followingthe DirectActionDay] is inevitable
in the presentcircumstancesof ourcountry,I look uponthat argument
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35
as an excuse put forwardby men who have failed to do their duty.'
Wavell had stated in early November 1946 that 'the long-term
remedyandthe only one whichwill reallyimprovemattersis of course
an improvementof relationsbetweenthe two communities'.Such a
view offeredto the governmentthe escaperoute.Accordingto Moon's
own testimony,'you couldn'tprevent[Hindu-Muslimconflict], 'but
you might if you were sufficientlyprompt and on the spot at the
time, preventit from assuminga very serious form'. The fact is that
the administratorswere unpreparedto risk Britishlives being lost at
a timewhen theirdeparturefromIndiawas all butcertain.Quickening
their retreat from civil society, they sought the safety of their
bungalows and cantonments.While large parts of the country were
aflame, they played cricket,listenedto music, and read Kipling.For
the most part, the small boundaryforce in Punjab stayed in their
barracks,while trainloadsof refugeeswere being butchered.
It is debatable whether this was 'a creation-narrative,an epic
founding myth, of sheer agony over religion'. There is no denying,
however,that in the historiesof imperialrule,the retreatof the British
administration,once the source of Curzonianpride, was an act of
abjectsurrenderto the forcesof violence.'Wehavelost,' wroteWavell,
'nearly all power to control events; we are simply running on the
momentumof our previousprestige.'Whenthe deadcountwas taken,
the people paid the price - and that too a heavy one - for the
breakdownof the law andordermachinery.Eventually,a beleaguered
Congress governmentfaced with a civil-war-likesituation, cleared
up the debrisof death and destruction.
The colonial thesiswas, as indeedits more recentendorsementin
certain quarters,based on false assumptions,for neither then nor
now does the 'clashof civlisations'theorycarryconviction.If anything,
the causeof extensiveviolencehad its roots in the structuredimperial
categoriesdesignedto differentiateone communityfromanother.The
categories thus created were translated into formal political
arrangements.So that the issue at handis not to questionthe motives
or the intentions behindthe constitutionalblueprint- for these are
by now well establishedin secondaryliterature- but to assess the
consequencesof carvingout specialreligiouscategoriesand extending
favours to them on that basis. As David Page puts it:
In the consolidationof politicalinterestsaroundcommunalissues,the
Imperialpowerplayedan importantrole. By treatingthe Muslimsas a
separategroup, it dividedthem from other Indians.By grantingthem
separateelectorates,it institutionalizedthat division.This was one of
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SOCIALSCIENTIST
the most crucial factors in the development of communal politics.
Muslim politiciansdid not have to appeal to Muslims.This made it
very difficultfor a genuinenationalismto emerge.
Again, concludes Page succinctly,
With each stage of devolution, Indian was set against Indian, caste
against caste, community against community.But as each area of
governmentand administrationwas ceded to Indian control, it was
followed by demandsfor moreconcessions.Ultimately,even the Raj's
closest allieswere only alliesfor a purpose.In 1947, the Rajwithdrew,
cedingits dominantpositionto thosewho hadtriumphedin the electoral
arena.But the final act of devolutionwas also a final act of division.
II
Murder stalks the streets and the most amazing cruelties are indulged
in by both the individual and the mob. It is extraordinary how our
peaceful population has become militant and bloodthirsty. Riot is
not the word for it - it is just sadistic desire to kill.
Jawaharlal Nehru to Krishna Menon, 11 November 1946.
Nobody knows how many were killed during Partition violence.
Nobody knows how many were displaced and dispossessed. What
we know is that, between 1946 and 1951, nearly nine million Hindus
and Sikhs came to India, and about six million Muslims went to
Pakistan. Of the said nine million, five million came from what became
West Pakistan, and four million from East Pakistan. In only three
months, between August and October 1947, Punjab, the land of the
great five rivers, was engulfed in a civil war. Estimates of deaths vary
between 200,000 and three million. An anguished Amrita Pritam
appealed to Waris Shah 'to speak from the grave' and turn the page
of the book of love.
Today there are corpses everywhere and the Chenab is filled with
blood,
Somebody has mixed poison in all the five rivers,
The rivers we use to water our fields.
G.D. Khosla, an enlightened civil servant, describes the colossal
human tragedy involving, according to his estimate, the death of
400,000 to 250,000 persons. Appearing in the shadow of
Independence and Partition, his book offers an overview of the
sequence, nature, and scale of the killings. For this reason, it is of
invaluable documentary importance, and useful for many events that
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37
took place on the eve of the transferof power. A work of this kind
can hardly be scintillating, though it captures the trauma of a
generationthat witnessed unprecedentedbrutalities,all in the name
of religion.
For one, stern reckoningbelies the claim aired in certaincircles
that Partitionviolence has remainedoutside the domain of critical
scrutiny.The issue is not the sophisticatedapproachor interpretation
(the subalternstudiessiege of the existingcitadels of knowledgehad
yet to begin), but the overridingconcernwith violence. Publicmen,
social scientists,especiallyhistorians,writers,poets, and journalists
shared this concern, in equal measure,and, contraryto Gyanendra
Pandey'scontention, representedviolence, pain and strugglein such
a way as to reflect the present-daylanguageof historicaldiscourse.
Thiswas trueof historiansat Aligarh,Allahabad,Patnaand Calcutta,
and exemplified by, among others, KrishanChandar(1913-1977),
RajinderSinghBedi(1910-1984), SaadatHasanManto (1912-1955),
the enfant terribleof Urduliterature,and othercreativewritersboth
within and outside the progressivewriters'movement.In fact it was
their preoccupationwith mob fury and its brutalexpressionthat led
firstgenerationsocialscientiststo pin responsibility,identifythe 'guilty
men' of the 1940s, place them in the dock, and ask them to account
for their public conduct. Hence we see the makingsof public trials
with the aim to discoveringnot so much the genesis of Pakistanbut
the factorsleadingto the violentconflagration.Implicitin this concern
is a sense of moral outrage, an unmistakable revulsion towards
violence, the fear of its recurrence,and, at the sametime, the hope of
its being preventedin free India and Pakistan.'Perhaps',concludes
Khosla,
Thereare somewho will takewarningfromthis sad chapterin our
to guardagainsta repetitionof theseevents.So
historyandendeavour
areallowedto poison
as
and
sectarianism
narrowprovincialism
long
the mindsof the people,so long as thereare ambitiousmen with
corruptioninsidethem,seekingpowerandposition,so longwill the
peoplecontinueto be deludedandmisled,as theMuslimmasseswere
deludedandmisledbytheLeagueleadersandso longwilldiscordand
disruptioncontinueto threatenourpeaceandintegrity.
Anothernoteworthypoint, as evidentfrom Khosla'sportrayal,is
that violence in not celebrated(as was done by the Serbsand Croats
in Bosnia-Herzegovina)but decriedin the narrativesI have accessed.
Doubtless, there is a great deal of fuming and frettingover Jinnah's
call to observe'deliveranceday' afterthe Congressministriesresigned
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SOCIALSCIENTIST
in September1939, and angerand indignation,as in Pakistan,over
the Boundary Commission Award. Doubtless, such episodes are
recountedto reinforceargumentsin favour of, or in opposition to,
the demand for a Muslim nation. And yet Hindu-Muslim-Sikh
violence and its perpetratorsare not valorized except in polemical
literature.Violence is, in fact, not only condemned but is so often
attributed- often as a means to disguise the collective guilt of a
community- to anti-socialelements, unscrupulouspoliticians, and
religiousfanatics.
It is worth reiteratingthat the 'heroes'in the partitionstory are
not the rapists, the abductors,the arsonists, the murderersand the
perpetratorsof violence, but the men and women - living and deadwho providethe healingtouch. The silverliningis that, it is they who
emerge,in the twilight of Delhi, Lahore,Calcuttaand Dhaka, as the
beacon of hope in riot-torncities; and it is their exemplarycourage,
counterpoised to the inhumanityof the killers, that is celebrated.
KhushdevaSingh, a medical doctor who saved many Muslim lives,
kept repeatingto himself as he returnedfrom Karachiafter visiting
Pakistanin 1949:
Loveis strongerthanhatred,love is farstrongerthanhatred,love is
far strongerthanhatred,loveis farstrongerthanhatred,andlove is
farstrongerthanhatredat anytimeandanywhere.It wasa thousand
timesbetterto loveanddie,thanto liveandhate.
In the seculariseddiscoursestoo, the tendencyis to invoke those
who, regardlessof their standingin the political spectrum,fostered
inter-communitypeace. It will not do to ignore the fact that Nehru,
Azad and Rajaji,occupyingthe secularsite, capturetheirimagination
far more than their detractors.Whateverone might say, this bears
some relevance to the support for a secular polity and the
marginalizationof, at leasta decadeafterindependence,the communal
forces.
Even at the risk of oversimplification,I concludeby arguingthat
the generaltenor of the literaryand politicalnarratives,both in India
and Pakistan, is to emphasize that partition violence sounded the
death-knellof those highmoralvaluesthat wereessentialcomponents
of Hinduism, Islam and the Sikh faith. Naturally,the definition of
such values, rooted in diversetraditions,varied. But the consensus,
though unstated and unstructured,is to invoke diverse religious,
intellectual,and humanisttraditionsto serve the crying need of the
hour - restoration of peace and inter-communitygoodwill. Thus
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PARTITIONNARRATIVES
39
Nanak Singh,the Punjabiwriter,invokesGuruGobindSinghto lend
weight to his moralisticplea for communalamity (he had ordained:
everyone of the humankindis sameto me;AmritaPritam,the Punjabi
poet, vividly recalls the dark nights on the train and the images of
death and destructionwhich Haji WarisShah had seen in Punjabat
the end of the eighteenthcentury,with the butcheryand rape that
accompanied Partition;KamadeviChattopadhyaya(d. 1990) and
ArunaAsafAli (1909-1996) invokethe compositetraditionto lament
how the birth of freedom on that elevated day - 15 August 1947 did not bringIndia'any suchennoblingbenediction';the Delhi-based
writer and social activist, BegumAnis Kidwai (1902-80) pleads in
her book In the Shadow of Freedom:
We havelivedthroughthe times.An epoch has come to a close and my
generationhaseitherretiredto theircornersor is preparingto leave
thisworld.Throughout
thispieceof writing,I canonlysaythisto the
youngergeneration:
Lookat me if youreyescantakea warning
Listento me if yourearscanbearthetruth.
Buildersof tomorrow,keepawayfromthatchaliceof poisonwhich
we drankand committedsuicide.And if you build anew on the
foundationsof morality,strength,dignity,andsteadfastness,
you will
be esteemed.
For scores of writers, social activists and publicists,secularism,
in the senseof anti-communalism,was a deeplyheld faith, an integral
face of nationalism, a value to be upheld even during the difficult
days of August 1947 and thereafter.One of them, the writer Attia
Hosain who preferredlivingin Londonratherthan going to Pakistan,
recalledyears later:
EventsduringandafterPartitionareto this dayverypainfulto me.
And now, in my old age, the strengthof my rootsis strong;it also
inthedeeper
causespain,becauseit makesonea 'stranger'
everywhere
areaof one'smindandspiritexceptwhereone wasbornandbrought
up.
III
Living as I was in a mixed Hindu-Moslem region, where the two
communitieshad dwelt togetherfor centuriesand wherethe Moslem
peasants were, if anything, better off than the Hindu peasants, all
that talk had, for me, a most unhealthy ring.'
Mira Behn, The Spirit's Pilgrimage, p. 262.
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SOCIALSCIENTIST
PenderelMoon (1905-1987) joined the I.C.S. in 1929. Prior to his
resignationin 1944 to join the BahawalpurState, he had served in
Punjabfor fifteenyearsfromAssistantto DistrictMagistratein Multan,
Gujratand Amritsar.He played an active role in Punjabaffairs. In
1945, he submitteda noteto StaffordCrippscontendingthatthegeneral
supportof the Muslimsfor Pakistanmeantthat 'the emphasison the
unityof Indiawhich has hithertocharacterisedofficial utterancesand
official thought [was] no longer opportune'. The disadvantagesof
divisionand the advantagesof unitywere doubtlessgreatbut 'it is no
use crying for the moon'. It should be Britain's'workinghypothesis'
that 'to come down on the side of Pakistanis likely to be the right
decision'.Jinnahwas now strong enough to block all constitutional
progressexcept on his own terms.However,if the Pakistanprinciple
wereconceded,he mightwelcomearrangementsfor collaborationwith
Hindustan.'The concessionof Pakistanin name would be the means
for approximatingmost nearlyto a unitedIndiain fact.' Again,among
the Congressleaderswererealistswho would recognizethat:'AnIndia
unitedotherwisethan by consent is an Indiadividedab initio.'
Around the same time, his other concern found tangible expression
in his efforts to persuade the Sikhs 'to throw in their lot with their
brethren in the Punjab and take their place in the new Dominion or
State of Pakistan'. In return for this, the Muslims, so he believed,
would offer considerable concessions to the Sikhs to make them feel
secure in Pakistan. He discussed his proposals with Ismay, Chief of
Staff to Mountbatten (March-November 1947), who arranged a
meeting of the two Sikh leaders, Giani KartarSingh and Sardar Baldev
Singh, with Mountbatten. But their encounter turned out to be a
damp squib. Moon was bluntly told that, 'all the emphasis at the
interview was on concessions to be obtained from the Union of India
and not from Pakistan'. At the end of June 1947, Moon proposed the
realignment of boundaries that would establish the province of east
Punjab with the strongest possible Sikh complexion. Ismay and
Mountbatten were sympathetic to his views, but as Ismay commented,
'things have now gone much too far for HMG to be able to take a
hand'.
The earlier part of Moon's book, first published in 1961, traces
political events in India and Punjab from 1937 until their tragic
denouement ten years later. The second half, starting roughly from
chapter five, is confined to the disturbances occurring from the end
of August 1947 onwards in the Bahawalpur State, a territory
immediately adjacent to Punjab. These chapters are quite instructive.
'When the clash came,' writes Moon in Divide and Quit,
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41
my position in Bahawalpur was like that of a battalion commander in
an obscure outlying sector of the field of battle. But during part of the
preceding ten years I had held a staff appointment which gave me an
insightinto the movementand massingof forcesleadingto the conflict
in which I was subsequentlyinvolved.Thus,to changethe metaphor,I
endedby playinga smallpart in a tragedythe preparationfor which I
had long watched moving to theirappointedbut unpurposedend.
The scale of the work necessitated extreme condensation, and
the treatment of certain themes is very slender and the material
elementary, though most readers may find new points made on
Bahawalpur. The text is explicit and concise, and the plan simple and
clear. The intrinsic value of Divide and Quit lies in a senior British
civil servant telling the story as it unfolded itself to him at the time. It
can be read either as an observant record of the most complex periods
in modern Indian political history, or as an account of a senior civil
servant on the threshold of old age.
All this said, and with the respect due to a learned man who also
edited Wavell's journal, the author has not much to add to earlier
conclusions about the genesis of Pakistan, the Cabinet Mission, or
the Mountbatten plan. Besides, he is by no means a neutral observer.
Many of his categories, Tapan Raychaudhuri points out, reflect the
colonial stereotype. And yet one hopes that, used with necessary
caution, this book will be of help for scholars and teachers alike.
IV
The year Penderel Moon died, Anita Inder Singh, an Oxford graduate,
published her absorbing account of the years 1936 to 1947. There is
much that is refreshingly new and interesting. At a time when some
of the old debates relating to partition are being revived, it is worth
revisiting The Origins of the Partition of India for a corrective to
certain misplaced suppositions, and for gaining fresh insights. For
example, it is worth considering her thesis that the demand for a
Muslim nation was proclaimed from above, and 'so it held no great
significance or effect on the divisions among Muslim politicians in
the majority provinces before 1945-46'. There is, furthermore, merit
in her argument that the elections of 1945-46 provided the League's
opponents with an opportunity to defeat it, but they failed to rise to
the occasion. True, the result of the election (Muslim League won 70
per cent of the Muslim votes) gave a boost to the partition movement
- the political unification and solidification of the Muslim community.
Yet the extent of this unification, adds Inder Singh, 'need not be
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SOCIALSCIENTIST
exaggeratedinto a communalmandatefor a sovereignPakistan'.This
requireselaboration.
Nehru's perceptionof the election campaignruns contraryto
the weight of evidencemarshalledby severalhistoriansof partition.
The key factor he highlighted in his exchanges - one that was
suppressedby the eventualtriumphof the League- is the favourable
Muslim responseto the Congresscampaign.In November 1945, he
told VallabhbhaiPatel:'I want to repeatthat the recentelectionwork
has been a revelationto Congressworkersso far as the Muslim areas
are concerned. It is astonishing how good the response has been.
Have we neglectedtheseareas!Wemustcontesteveryseat.'He shared
this assessment with Azad, referring in particular to the
'extraordinarilyfavourableresponsefrom the Muslimmasses'in the
Meerut division.
Did Nehruexaggeratethe pro-CongresssentimentamongMuslims
at that juncture?I believe he did. Was his enthusiasmmisplaced?If
not, what went wrong? Is it the case that the Congressdeliberately
and systematicallyavoided reachingout to the Muslim masses with
the aim of weaning then away from the League?If so, why? Is it
becausethey felt that it was a no-win situationwith Jinnah,or is it
that they were pressuredby Hindu communalistgroups to let the
Muslims stew in their own juice?Or,possibly,the Congressstrategy
was dictatedby the single-mindedpurposeof facilitatingthe speedy
transferof powerto two sovereignnations.The pointis not to attribute
blame but to recognizethe dilemmas and predicamentsof a party
that was, besidesbeinghorizontallyandverticallydivided,caughtup
in its own quagmire.
Nehru explained the League'ssuccess in the 1946 elections to
officials activelyhelpingthe Leaguecandidates,and to the Congress,
which was continuallyunder ban and in prison duringthe past five
years,givingthe Leaguea fielddayto pursueits propaganda.Sarvepalli
Gopal has pointed out that the Congress was ill preparedfor the
elections. Though popular among the masses, its party machinery
was out of gear,many of its supportersamong the narrowelectorate
- about 30 per cent of the adultpopulation- had not beenregistered,
and its leadersat everylevel were tired, unenthusiasticand pullingin
contrarydirections.I have arguedelsewherethat the Congresscould
have made some additionalgains if it had put up Muslim candidates
in the general and urban constituencies,and if its nominees in the
Muslim urbanconstituencieswere chosen with greatercare.
Acceptingoffice afterthe electionwas the last straw- 'the greatest
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PARTITIONNARRATIVES
43
tacticalmistake'committedby the Congress.It was clearfromJinnah's
statementsthat the Leagueministersenteredthe Governmentnot to
work it out but becausethey fearedthat they would be weakened if
they kept out. Hence Jinnah'sstatement on 14 November that his
ministerswere 'sentinels',who would watch Muslim interests.
In his seminal essay, Asim Roy places the writings of Stanley
Wolpert, R.J. Moore and Inder Singh in the category of 'orthodox
historiography'.He regardsAyeshaJalal, on the other hand, as the
principaladvocateof the revisionistpositionon Pakistanandpartition
in relation to Jinnah and the League(The Sole Spokesman.Jinnah,
the MuslimLeagueand the Demandfor Pakistan,Cambridge,1985).
What then is the dividing line between the conventional and the
revisionistpositions?Asim Roy's answeris: 'On both chronological
and thematicgroundsthe LahoreResolutionof 1940 clearlyemerges
as the divide between the two distinctinterpretativeapproaches.'
Studentsof high politics may well discoverthat InderSinghand
Jalalcomplementeach other,thoughthis view may not go down well
with the authors themselves.The former provides us with the big
picture,focusingon the nationalarena.Jalalexploresthe happenings
in the provinces,linkingthemjudiciouslywith all-Indiapolitics.Unlike
Inder Singh's uncomplicated narrative, there is, in The Sole
Spokesman, a much fascinating and complex discussion of the
extraordinaryconfiguration of forces in Punjab and Bengal, and
readers have therefore found stimulation, as well as opinions to
question, in this highly interpretativeaccount. In sum, both these
books have earned their place on the college and university
bookshelves,and in the homes of the historical-mindedreader.
InderSingh'sinterpretationsare based on wide-rangingsources;
in fact, the factual and interpretativecontents of certainportions of
her book are impressive.Jalal'ssource base is less broad-based,and
yet this does not inhibither magisterialanalysis.At the same time, it
constrainsher abilityto negotiatewith the Congressstory,and to tie
up loose ends in describingthe political domain outside Jinnah, in
particular,and the Leaguecirclesgenerally.This is a majoromission,
for the story of the Congressdoes not merelyrest on a few hotheaded
individualsout to wreckJinnah'splans, and ultimately,presideover
the liquidationof the Muslim communitiesin the subcontinent.It is
also the story of Gandhi,Nehru, and Azad and KhanAbdulGhaffar
Khan,the symbolsof pluralnationhood,andof a powerfulmovement
- with its high and low points - embracingmany sections of the
society, includingMuslims. Betweenthe two distinct phases - from
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SOCIALSCIENTIST
the benignpolitics of petition untilthe swadeshimovementin Bengal
to sustained agitation - lie a rich variety of ideas and movements.
Even if the Congresscareerended ingloriouslyduringthe dark days
of partition,it is still a compellinghistoricalnecessityto decipherthe
Congress script afresh, account for the flaws in its mobilization
strategies, and point to the inconsistencies in its conception of
secularismand pluralnationhood.
Together with the works of Jalal and Inder Singh, the book
Preludeto Partition:TheIndianMuslimsand the ImperialSystemof
Controlforms a naturalunity.David Page, an Oxford graduatelike
InderSingh,examinesthe period from 1920 to 1932 when political
interests were consolidated around communal issues and Muslim
attitudeswere framedtowards the eventualwithdrawalof imperial
control.Beforethe Montagu-ChelmsfordReforms(Actof 1919) came
into operationin 1920, cross-communalalliancestook place,notably
in Punjab and Bengal, but dyarchy foregrounded communal
antagonismand deepenedinter-communityrivalries.Page proceeds
to explain how and why disparate communities came to regard
Pakistanas a commongoal in the 1940s. Evenwith his broadcanvas,
he probes deep into the political alignmentsin Punjab, a Muslim
majorityprovince.He argueshow the PunjabiMuslimstook the lead
in working against responsible government at the centre, and
extracted,underthe termsof the CommunalAward(1932), a major
concession-controlof theirown provinceunderthe new constitution.
He profilesMian Fazl-iHusainto illustratehow he and otherPunjabi
Muslim leaders came to lead 'Muslim India' in the complex
constitutional arrangementsthat resulted in the Act of 1935, and
how their perspectivematteredduringthe fatefulnegotiationsof the
1940s.
When published in 1982, Prelude to Partition was a major
breakthrough.Its author travelledthrough the dark alleys to make
sense of the nitty-gritty of power politics in the provincesof British
India. Unlike some of his predecessors,he was not swept by the
rhetoric of Islam skilfully used by the Pirs of Punjaband Sind, to
legitimizethe predominanceof one group over the other.Doubtless
religiousboundariesexisted and communitarianconsciousnesscame
into play in the publicarena,butits impactwas felt onlywhen political
and economic interestsconflicted but not otherwise; and they did
not conflictmarkedlybeforethe introductionof reformsin the 1920s.
In this way, Page introduces a nuanced discourse round imperial
policies,and theirprofoundimpacton elite groupsand theirchanging
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PARTITIONNARRATIVES
45
political alignments.The very nature of those alignmentsand their
shifting characterlies at the heart of his explanation for the rise of
Hindu-Muslim antagonism. Concurringwith the view that wellestablishedtraditionsof Muslimpoliticalthought(he does not discuss
the role of the AryaSamaj)andthe socio-economicdisparitiesshaped
communalconsciousnessin the localities, Page arguesthat, if these
streamsof thought and consciousnessfed into the river of all-India
politics, the imperialsystem was like a series of dams, divertingthe
waters to left and right to suit its own purpose.Structuresmay not
tell the whole story but they tell an importantpart of it.
A great deal more has appearedsince the publicationof Prelude
to Partition. David Gilmartin,Ian Talbot and IftikharMalik have
traversedthe muddyterrainin Punjabto unfold vital aspects of its
polity and societyon the eve of the transferof power;PremChoudhry
and Nonica Datta deal with complex issues of identity politics in
southeastPunjab,the latterfocusingon theJatsandtheiridentification
with the Arya Samaj;SarahFD. Ansari uncoversthe world of the
pirs of Sind to reveal how their influenceproved decisive in helping
to swing the supportof the province'sMuslims behindthe League's
Pakistandemand.JoyaChatterjee;SuranjanDas, Tajul-IslamHashmi,
Tazeen Murshid, Harun-or-Rashid,Asim Roy and Yunus Samad
reflect on aspects of Bengalpolitics and society and, in the process,
raise new questionsthat remainedunansweredby historiographyin
the 1970s and 80s. Their interventionsoffer insights, open up new
vistas of research,and enhancethe value of studyingthe region and
the locality.
With regional and local studies attractinggreaterattention, the
all-Indiapictureis increasinglyout of focus.The role of majorpolitical
actorsis, likewise,eclipsedby the foregroundingof regionaland local
brokersin the world of politics. The answerlies not in the reversalof
existinghistoricaltrendsor in the tendencyto ignoreor rubbishother
people's work, but in a judicious mixing of the multiple levels at
which partitionstudiescan best be studied,analysedand integrated.
This exercisemay proverewardingin the long run,especiallybecause
some post-modernistscholarsin the west are beginningto seek new
avenuesfor self-expression.
v
A major lacuna in existing accounts is the absenceof major studies
on the United Provinces(UP), a regionthat nurturedthe ideology of
Muslim nationalism.Unlike Punjab,Sind, and Bengal, UP did not
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46
SOCIALSCIENTIST
havethe advantageof numbers.It did not haveleadersof Fazl-iHusain
or FazlulHaq'sstaturewho could, on the strengthof theirrespective
constituencies, bargain with the colonial governmentfor political
concessions. Unlike Punjab, with its powerful landed gentry
concentratedin the western districts,UP did not have so large and
unified a landlordcommunitythat could make or breaka coalition.
And unlike the vast peasant communities in Bengal that were
mobilized around Islamic symbols from the days of the Faraizi
movement to the khilafat-non-cooperationcampaigns,the Muslim
peasantry in UP was scarcely mobilized, even during the khilafat
movement,on purelyreligiouslines.Someelementof religiousrhetoric
came into play, but that too coalesced, though sometimes uneasily,
with peasant grievances resulting in a partnershipbetween local
khilafat committeesand the kisan sabhas. Even at the height of the
Pakistancampaign, with its religious symbolizm, the towns rather
thanthe villagesremainedthe foci of mobilization.'Thereis no doubt,'
wrote Nehru on the eve of the 1946 elections, 'that as a rule city
Muslims are for the League.' He added, however, that in UP and
Bihar the Momins (chiefly the weaving class) and the Muslim
peasantrywere far more for the Congressbecause they considered
the Leaguean upperclass organizationof feudal landlords.
What is equallynoteworthy- a point that may be of some help in
locatingthe areasand directionsof futureresearch- is the role of the
religious leadershipin minimizingthe impactof the Muslim League
campaign. Unlike Punjab,Sind, and Bengal, the major segment of
the Muslim divines, headed by the ulama of Deoband, the Jamiyat
al-ulama and the Shia Political Conference,hitched their fortunes
with the Congress. The Firangi Mahal ulama in Lucknow were
divided;their influence in Muslim politics had at any rate steadily
dwindledafterthe khilafatcampaignpeteredout. The Barelwiulama,
too, were scarcely united: for example, Shah Aulad-e Rasul
MohammadMiyanMarahrawiandthe Barkatiyapirsfirmlyopposed
the Muslim League,though not on seculargrounds.It is not without
significancethatregardlessof theirpositions,none of the ulamawhose
livesUshaSanyalhas studied,left for Pakistan.One hasto look beyond
the 'personalexigencies',i.e. insecurity,uncertainty,and sheerdanger
to life at the time, and turn to the many ambivalences that
characterizedthe decision,both beforeand afterpartition,to remain
in Hindustanor to leave for the so-calledMuslim haven.
During the 1946 elections, the Hapur-born(in Meerut district)
Syed Manzar Hasan (b. 1934) canvassed for the Muslim League
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without knowing that soon he would leave India.He, whose father's
maternalgrandfatherhad taken part in the 1857 revolt, did indeed
leave for Pakistan.He recalledhis arrival:
There, underthe shadeof peepaltreesin the school yard,we chanted
Hindi hain ham vatan hai sara jahan hamara [We are Indians;the
entireworld is ours]. Later,afterI'd migratedto Pakistan,I asked my
schhol mates, 'what did you chant on 14 August?'I'd guessedright:
they had chantedMuslimhain ham vatan hai sarajahan hamara[We
areMuslims;the entireworldis ours].Whata finepoet he [Mohammad
Iqbal] was. God bless him! He served two warring powers equally
well. Anyway,we'd becomePakistanisovernight,but somehowit was
hardto get rid of the feelingof being strangersin this new countryof
ours.
So what explains UP's decisive role in the making of Pakistan?
The Paul Brass-Francis Robinson debate has run its full course, and
it is time to pay special attention to the dialectics of ideology and
material interests in UP, the ideological stormcentre of the Pakistan
movement. It is no good harping on the 'distinct differences between
Hindus and Muslims', the inherited traditions of Muslim thought
and Islamic culture that were supposedly incompatible with
democracy and secular nationalism, or the ideology of the Mughal
ruling class culture grounded in the Mughal inheritance and the
common assumptions of a divinely revealed faith. What we need is a
comprehensive social and economic profile of Muslim groups and
how the perceived threat to their predominance in the 1930s, rather
than essentialized image of Islam and its followers, influenced the
political classes to make their choices.
In this context, three points are salient. First, the Congress agrarian
programme and the responses of the Awadh taluqdars; second, the
middle class perception of the Congress ministry in UP, and the
insecurities generated by some of its policies; and finally, the concern
over future social alignments in a federal polity with adult franchise.
The fear of being overwhelmed by the masses had prompted Jinnah
and the Muslim League to reject the Nehru Committee report in 1928.
The same anxiety gripped the Muslim elite once the process of
devolving power to India was consummated in the Act of 1935. The
symbols of Islam, howsoever evocative, played a limited role in
translating their anxieties into forging a coalition with the Muslim
League. At best, they served as a catalyst to, rather than the cause of,
the UP Muslims' drive to secure their homeland.
Some answers may still lie in what, Lance Brenann described, as
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SOCIALSCIENTIST
'Illusionsof Security';some in the manipulationof symbolsof Muslim
unity and Hindu Muslim separatenessby an elite concerned with
preservingits political privileges;and some in the fears engendered
by the rising tide of aggressiveHindu nationalism.In Legacy of a
Divided Nation, I analysedthe Pakistanmovementitself in terms of
group interests,delineatedthe politicalcontext in which the Muslims
were encouragedto develop separatelyby the colonial authorities,
and pointed out nationalist narratives that rested on mistaken
suppositions. I argue that prior to 1947 it was possible for fervent
advocates of Indian nationhood to thwart majoritarianism and
minoritismthrough organizedcampaignthat Nehru always talked
of but hardlyever translatedinto practice.My prescriptionfor the
discoursefreefrom
Congress- to evolvean independent/autonomous
the colonial narratives;to discardcommunalcategories,the mainstay
of religiousmobilization;to ignorethe Muslim elite'sself-imageand
perceptions,and act unitedlywith the socialistandcommunistgroups
to erode the ideological foundation of the Hindutva and Islamist
forces.
This did not happen. The Congress, with its eye fixed on the
transfer of power, muddled through to occupy the commanding
heights of state power on 15 August 1947. The pace of change
outwittedthe left forces,whichcouldhaveotherwiseput up a people's
front. Lack of ideological coherence,combinedwith their mistaken
assumptionsabout the Muslim Leaguemovement,reducedthem to
political impotence.To discerna democraticcore in the demandfor
Pakistanwas a huge miscalculation.'Who killed India?'asked the
left-wing writer Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. Among others, 'India was
killed by the CommunistPartyof India which providedthe Muslim
separatists with an ideological basis for the irrtational and antinational demand for Pakistan. Phrases like "homeland",
'Nationalities", "self-determination" etc. were all ammunition
suppliedby the Communiststo the legions of Pakistan.'
VI
Setting out an agenda for the future historianof partition is not an
easy proposition. The literaturethat has appearedduring the last
decade or so points to the possibilities of charting new territories,
and breaking free from the boundaries defined by partition
historiography.Using fiction to portray the other face of freedom,
and introducing poignant and powerful gender narratives has,
likewise, triggeredlively discussionsthat go far beyond the limited
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terrain explored during the last few decades. When artfully
undertaken,invoking popular memories, too, shifts the burden of
the argumentoutsidethe familiarrealmof elite manoeuvresand high
politics to local specifitiesand personaland familytraumas.It is this
- the interplayof emotionswith the societalforcesbeyondthe control
of an individual or family - that lends both a human and realistic
touch to partitionstudies.
Realisticallyspeaking,however,gender narrativesand personal
and collective memoriescan at best enrichpartitiondebatesand not
constitutean alternativediscourseto the existingones. Oralinterviews
can only go that far;they cannot be a substitutefor archivalresearch,
especiallybecausethey are conductedover spaceand time by writers
who have an agendaof theirown. Historians,too, havetheir agenda,
but their script can be read and interpreteddifferently.The same
cannot be said of gender narratives and other accounts, often
contrived, of pain and suffering.In 1995, I put together a cultural
archiveof first-handinformation,experiencesand impressionsin a
two-volume anthology to underlinethe other face of freedom. The
effort has been intellectuallyrewarding.At the same time, I realize,
more so afterthe proliferationof recentpartitionliterature,that our
preoccupationwith pain and sorrowthat resultedfrom partitionhas
doubtlesslylimited our understandingof many other crucial areas,
includingthe political and civic fault-linesrevealedthen-fault-lines
of religion, gender,caste and class that still run throughour lives.
All said and done if one is located in South Asia - the issue of
location is so centralto the post-modernistdiscourseas illustratedby
the polemical and personalized Aijaz Ahmad - Public Culture
encounter- it may not be easy displacingthe dominantintellectual
discourses.Whether this can or should be done is not the issue at
hand. The reality,one that I have no special claims of knowing, is
that SouthAsianreaderseverywhere- from colleges and universities
to the platformof the IndianHistory Congress- still earnestlydesire
to know a lot more about the triangularnarrative,with the British,
Congressand the Leagueoccupyingcentrestage.Its segments,on the
other hand, arouse limited interest. One may want to change such
concernsandreadinghabits(you can'tbe doingthat fromthe vantage
point of Columbia, Chicago or Baltimore),though at presentmost
readersin SouthAsia do not pay heedto the historian'spleato eschew
preoccupation with national leaders and national parties. Most
studiously follow who said what at the national level, and at what
juncture.We can fault them for that, but they nonethelesswant to
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fathom how a slight slant in a statementor a twist in an event - for
example, the abortive talks over the Congress-Muslim League
coalition in UP - changed,in their self-perception,the course of the
subcontinent'shistory.
Though sensitizedto alternativediscourses,most people in the
subcontinentdiscuss not so much the high price for freedomor the
enormityof the tragedyin 1947, butthe factorsleadingto the country's
division. They want to know about the intractablestubbornnessof
one or the other leader,and make sense of the ill-fatedtalks in Delhi
andSimla.In short,theywish to unfoldthe greatdramabeingenacted,
with the spotlight on their 'heroes'and the 'villains'.They want to
learn how the principalactors - Gandhi,Nehru, Patel and Azad on
the one side, and Jinnah, Linlithgow,Wavell and Mountbatten on
the other - fared duringthe negotiations.Uppermostin their mind
arethe questions:Wheredid theyfalterandwheredid theygo wrong?
What, if they had said this and not that? What, if they had taken
recourseto this or that particularaction?Consequently,they follow
the moves and countermovesof the 'major'actorsperformingon the
grand Indian stage to satisfy both plain and simple curiosity,or to
reinforce ideas inherited from family and friends, and school and
college textbooks. This may or not be bad news, but that is how it is.
While searching for answers and explanations, some give up
midway. Others are more persistent. But most, perhaps, end up
echoing the views of GeorgeAbbell,privatesecretaryto the last two
Viceroys,who told the historianDavidPage:'I was in Indiafor twenty
years and I didn'tmanageto get to the bottom of it and you certainly
won't in three'.Yetthe dialoguebetweenthe historianand his reader
must go on. In the words of Ali SardarJafri (d. 2000), who himself
wrote creativelyon partition:
Guftagubund na ho
Baat se baat chale
Subh tak shaam-e-mulaqaatchale
Hum pe hansti hui yeh taron bhariraat chale
Keepthe conversationgoing.
One word leadingto another,
The eveningrendezvouslasting till dawn,
The starrynight laughingdown with us.
Hon jo alfaaz ke hathon mein haimsung-e-dushnaam
Tanzchhalkaeinto chhalkayakarenzahr ke jaam
Teekhinazreinho turshabru-e-khamdaarrahein
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Bun pade jaise bhi dil seenon mein bedaarrahen
Bebasi harf ko zanjeerba-pa kar na sake
Koi qaatil ho magarqatl-e-navakar na sake
Though we hurl our stones of abuse,
Pass aroundpoisoned cups brimmingwith taunts,
Gaze steely-eyedat each other;none of this matters.
Though we are helpless,just keep our heartswarm and beating.
Don't let words be stifledwith helplessness.
Don't let voice be murdered.
Subh tab dhal ke koi harf -e-wafa aayega
Ishq aayega basad lagzish-e-paaayega
Nazreinjhukjaayengi,dil dhadkenge,lub kaanpenge
Khamushibosa-e-lubbulnke mahakjaayegi
By dawn some word of love is bound to emerge.
Love will be victorious,it surelywill.
Our heartswill stir,mouthstremble,and eyes well with tears.
Silencewill perfumelike a kiss.
And will resoundwith the sound of openingbuds.
Sirfghunchoanke chatakneki sada aayegi
Aur phir hurf-o-navaki na zaroorathogi
Chashm-o-abrooke ishaaroanmein mahabbathogi
Nafrat uth jjayegimehmaanmuravvathogi
No need then for talk,
When eyes glow with love.
Hate will leave forever,
Givingway to affection.
Haath mein haath liye, saarajahaansaath liye
Tohfa-e-dardliye pyaar ki saughaatliye
Regzaaronse adavat ke guzarjaayenge
Khoon ke daryaonse hum paar utarjaayenge
Holding hands;with the world in our hands,
Bearingthe gift of love and pain,
We shall cross the desertsof hate,
And ford the riversof blood.
VII
At the beginningof this millennium,the gulf separatingIndia and
Pakistan, widened by four wars and by the after-effectsof the 11
Septemberattack on the WorldTrade Centrein New York and the
Pentagonin Washington,seems unbridgeable.As Pakistanstruggles
to define its national identity,sections in India, though enjoyingthe
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SOCIALSCIENTIST
fruits of secular, parliamentarydemocracy, continue to harp on
Partition's'unfinishedagenda'. The pot is kept boiling. During the
Babrimasjid-Ramjanumbhumi
dispute,the popularslogan - Babar
ki santan,jao Pakistan- (childrenof Babur,the firstMughalemperor,
go to Pakistan)reflectedthe deep-seateddistrustof Muslim loyalty
to the IndianStateand theirimaginaryaffinitywith Pakistan.Today,
the unending turmoil over Kashmir,the worsening Indo-Pakistan
relations, and the resurgence of Islamist ideas and trends are
convenientlyattributedto partition'sunfinishedagenda.
Even Gandhi'sassassinationhas acquiredsinister overtones as
the tiger growls in Maharashtraand the Mahatma is vilified and
NathuramGodsehailedas the saviourin Gandhi'sown Gujarat.'The
politics of the assassination was this contest on the terrain of
nationhood-the contestations have not abated over the years, they
are fiercer.'The moreDavid Pagebecameassociatedwith SouthAsia,
the morehe realizedthat the battleoverits historyis farfromfinished;
it was almost as contested in 1998, as it was in 1947.
For the historianslocated in SouthAsia thereis no escape route:
they have to whet the appetiteof theirreaders.Though it may take a
long time for the scarsto be healed, it is importantto sensitisethem
to partition as the defining moment in South Asian history,and, in
the words of IntizarHusain, 'the great humanevent which changed
the historyof India'.The Lahore-basedUrduwritergoes a stepfurther.
The agonyof India'spartition,he suggests,could be lessened-perhapsby exploiting the event'spotentialcreativity:'to salvagewhateverof
that [pre-partition]culture, if only by enacting it in literature.To
preservea memory,howeverfugitive,of that culturebeforetime and
history have placed it beyond reach.'
Puristsin the world of academiamay choose to stay out of these
disputations,but this will not do. Partition'simpacton the individual
and the collective psyche of the two nations is too deep-seatedto be
wished away. Both as a metaphor,an event and memory,it has to be
interpretedand explained afresh in order to remove widely-held
misconceptions.Thisis both a challengeand a necessity,andits indeed
a theme where the historian'scraft must be used deftly. As I write
these lines, I know that this is easier said than done. The only hope
lies in what Mirza AsadullahKhanGhalibwrote long ago:
of rituals;
My creedis oneness,my beliefabandonment
Letall communities
dissolveandconstitutea singlefaith.
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Today, a professionalhistorian is faced with the uphill task of
setting the record straightby challengingmany of the colonial and
'nationalist'assumptions.The realchallengeis to popularizehistorians
as creativeperformersechoingthe collectiveexperiencesof our people.
For this and other reasons, the liberal-lefthistorians will need to
changetheirrole, moreso when historyis beingmademoreaccessible
and immediateby politicaland religiousorthodoxieswhose principal
project is to colonize the minds of the people. They can no longer
wait and watch and allow the initiative to be wrested by the
protagonistsof conservativenationalism.
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