Understanding Partition (India Sundered Muslims Fragmented)- Separation, Not Liquidation !

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Yuvraj Krishan (born 1922), M.A., LL.B is a scholar of Indology-Indian History, Religion, Philosophy and Art. He has published over 150 research papers on these topics in journals of standing in India and abroad.

He had served in Government of India for over 35 long years-in the Indian Railways, Indian Admin- istrative Service, and the Audit and Accounts Department from where he retired as Dy. Comptroller and Auditor General of India in 1980. He was a member of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission from 1988 to 1995.

He has published four books: Audit in India's Democracy; The Buddha Image: Its Origin and Development; The Doctrine of Karma: Its Origin and Development in Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jaina Traditions; Ganesa, Unravelling an Enigma.

This book brings out with clarity the growth of separatist movement in India leading to her partition. Muslim separatism was fathered by Sheikh Sirhind (16th-17th Century), nourished by Walliullah (18th Century) and perpetuated by madrassas. The ideology of separatism found political expression in the two-nation theory of the Muslim League: Pakistan movement was able to win mass support by creating the phobia of Muslim minority persecution in Hindu majority provinces.

The Cripps and the Cabinet Mission Plans virtually conceded Pakistan though concealed be- hind the deceptive facade of a Union of India, which would, truly speaking, have been a Confederation. The plans also planted a 'fissile element' in India in the form of "lapse of paramountcy" which could have prevented the integration of the princely States with India.

Simultaneously Wavell formulated the "principle of parity" between the Hindus and Muslims. 'Parity' was the official sanction to the two-nation theory. Again Wavell also manipulated the induction of Muslim League in the Interim Government in October 1946 in spite of the fact that the Muslim League had launched 'Direct Action' (jehad) in August and publicly proclaimed that it had no intention to work it. The infighting within the Interim Government made the spectre of civil war and a total breakdown of administration a grim reality. These circumstances made the acceptance of Partition by the Congress an act of political prudence.

भूताऽर्वकयने रागद्वेषवहिष्कृता स्वेयस्येव Bhutarthakathane rāgadveşabahişkītā stheyasyeva

The historian (narrator of past events) should be like a judge, free from affection and ill-will.

Rajatarangini (1.7) of Kalhana*

The year 1947 is a year of profound importance in the history of India and of the world. Two revolutionary events took place in India in that year firstly, India attained freedom from British rule, marking the end of colonialism and a major reverse for imperialism; and secondly, India underwent territorial dismemberment, described.

Inoffensively as Partition. This book does not deal with the first, India's freedom movement and the withdrawal of the British from India.

Partition was on the basis of majority / minority areas of Hindu and Muslim population: Muslim majority areas were constituted into a new and independent State of Pakistan consisting of two units - Western and Eastern Pakistan, the latter later become independent Bangladesh.

This book does not deal with the fundamental and underlying causes of the Divide, division and conflict between the two communities - Hindus and Muslims - nor with the long term factors - 'historical malice', separate electorates, reservation and weightage of seats in legislatures and in services for minorities, which created in them a vested interest of maintaining their separate identity. It does not deal with the factors which possibly alienated the Muslims from the Hindus such as the opposition of the Congress to the formation of a Muslim majority province of East Bengal in the first decade of the last century, or of the province of Sind by separating it from the Bombay Presidency, or to the grant of provincial autonomy to the North-West Frontier region before 1935 or the aggressive missionary Arya Samaj movement for reconversion to Hinduism (shuddhi) of converts to Islam and Christianity in the same period. The purpose of the book is rather limited : to understand the immediate causes of Partition including the historical roots of the ideology of separatism which found expression in the two-nation theory. It also seeks to correct the distortions which historians have introduced in assessing the policies of the parties - the British rulers, the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League and of the actions of their leaders Wavell and Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Sardar Patel and M.A. Jinnah.