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the disadcantage of the partition of india
conflict between india and pakistan
PARTITION OF INDIA RESEARCH PAPER
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The Partition of India
"A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance." -Jawarhalal Nehru
14 August, 1947, saw the birth of the new Islamic Republic of Pakistan. At midnight the next day India won its freedom from colonial rule, ending nearly 350 years of British presence in India. During the struggle for freedom, Gandhi had written an appeal "To Every Briton" to free their possessions in Asia and Africa, especially India (Philips and Wainwright, 567). The British left India divided in two. The two countries were founded on the basis of religion, with Pakistan as an Islamic state and India as a secular one.
Whether the partition of these countries was wise and whether it was done too soon is still under debate. Even the imposition of an official boundary has not stopped conflict between them. Boundary issues, left unresolved by the British, have caused two wars and continuing strife between India and Pakistan.
The partition of India and its freedom from colonial rule set a precedent for nations such as Israel, which demanded a separate homeland because of the irreconcilable differences between the Arabs and the Jews. The British left Israel in May 1948, handing the question of division over to the UN. Un-enforced UN Resolutions to map out boundaries between Israel and Palestine has led to several Arab-Israeli wars and the conflict still continues.
Timeline
1600-British East India Company is established.
1857-The Indian Mutiny or The First War of Independence.
1858-The India Act: power transferred to British Government.
1885-Indian National Congress founded by A. O. Hume to unite all Indians and strengthen bonds with Britain.
1905-First Partition of Bengal for administrative purposes. Gives the Muslims a majority in that state.
1906-All India Muslim League founded to promote Muslim political interests.
1909-Revocation of Partition of Bengal. Creates anti-British and anti-Hindu sentiments among Muslims as they lose their majority in East Bengal.
1916-Lucknow Pact. The Congress and the League unite in demand for greater self-government. It is denied by the British.
1919-Rowlatt Acts, or black acts passed over opposition by Indian members of the Supreme Legislative Council. These were peacetime extensions of wartime emergency measures. Their passage causes further disaffection with the British and leads to protests. Amritsar Massacre. General Dyer opens fire on 20,000 unarmed Indian civilians at a political demonstration against the Rowlatt Acts.
The Partition of India led to millions of people displaced and marked as one of the largest mass migration ever over the world. August 15, 1947 was a very significant day for Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and many others. It marked the day of the British partition of India, and India won its freedom from colonial rule, ending nearly 200 years of British rule. This successful attainment of independence from colonial rule defined a narrative of religious nationalism, but also has led to displacement and violence between the two nation states of India and Pakistan. Once a peaceful union of Muslims and Hindus had become separated, whereas Muslims got Pakistan and Hindus got an independent India (Best et al, 2008). “The Other Side of Silence” (Butalia, 2000, pp.264-300) the oral testimony of a Punjabi woman Maya Rani, who was a child living in Pakistan during the Partition. Her testimony was crucial to understand the historiography of the event, because she was a witness of the impact of the Partition, but she was not directly involved in the violence that the emergence and independence of India that has brought.
...e about, the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress. These two parties had various disagreements, which lead to the Partition of 1947, which I believe was unavoidable. Before the Partition occurred the Rebellion of 1857 and various movements pushing for freedom took place, making a large impact on the history of India. In the end, after the partition occurred I believe that the violence and the hundreds of thousands of lives lost could have been avoided.
The Indian Independence Bill, which carves the independent nations of India and Pakistan out of the former Mogul Empire. The long-awaited agreement ended 200 years of British rule. The religious friction between Hindus and Muslims, which had delayed Britain’s granting of Indian independence after World War II, messed with Gandhi’s excitement. In the northern province of Punjab, (which was divided between Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan), hundreds of people were killed in the first few days after independence.
My initial reaction to the readings we discussed in the beginning of the semester was one of surprise. I came into the course with a basic understanding of partition, but I did not grasp the sheer magnitude of the demographic upheaval, and communal violence, that took place leading up to 1947. As we delved further into our research, I became acutely aware of how over simplified, and inaccurate my prior understanding of partition was. I have no memory of the conflict in India and Pakistan, the largest migration in human history, and the cause of over one million deaths, ever being brought up to me in educational setting; a fact that irked me as we read the stories of the victims of partition violence (Khan, 55).
The poorly-planned withdrawal of the British from its Indian ‘colony' left close to one million people dead and created chaos, hatred and violence that lasted over 50 years and forced Winston Churchill to condemn it as the ‘shameful flight.' These historical events complicated the histories of India, Britain and Pakistan because of the ill-informed partition program carried out by British authorities. The Shameful Flight covers the periods between the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942 and Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. In this book, Wolpert's thesis argues against the death of hundreds of thousands of people who died after the partition of India. For example, Wolpert believes that the catastrophe resulted from Mountbatten's rushed process of the nationhood in which the new border lines in the middle of Punjab and Bengal prompted murder, arson and violence that left over 10 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs displaced from their homes and over five hundred thousand dead.
They began to divide the native Muslims and the native Hindus, they wanted to create a religious conflict between the two. They took advantage of the conflict that they had and used that as an excuse to help them be “stable”. In 1857, Britain finally conquered India; native Muslims and native Hindus began to fight. The great conflict was called the Sepoy Mutiny, this was the result of a rumor, it was said that the Indians that worked with the Britain army had done wrong by their religion. As said before, the British had purposely separated the Hindus and the Muslims; they have different beliefs, the Muslim don’t eat pork, and the Hindu worship the cows. The Sepoy Mutiny was the biting of a greased cartridge, which was either covered in cow or pig fat. The beginning of an uprising commenced with the killing of all Europeans, at the end 200 Europeans had died. Great Britain had allowed too much death of their “own”, so they took control of the situation. Another example of imperialism, was when the Dutch and Britain try to take over South Africa. The Dutch had begun placing trade post for slaves for many years, and had been living in South Africa for over
...ate, was cut divided into two in the western region by the newly established border. Major tensions have persisted among both Muslim and Sikh communities for years, which directly suffered most from the violence and land loss resulting from partition.
of Bengal. This gave the foreigners effective control of administration. The Marathas, the Sikhs and ...
During the Cold War, many regional conflicts occurred and were noted as the significant battles which later led to decolonization. One of the regional conflicts were India and Pakistan fighting for their independence. In 1947, India was released under Great Britain’s control and gained its independence. However, the country was divided between Muslims and Hindus, which share different religions. Muslims wanted church and state to become unified while Hindus wanted a separation of these two establishments. Since these two ethnic groups disagreed, it was difficult to create a new government. Therefore, India was divided into two nations: India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims. Hindus and Muslims were racing to the border in order to get to their nation state which led to killing 500,000 people due to rioting. Although, Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian National Congressman, wanted to obtain peace between these two religions. Pakistan refused the H...
Gandhi was pissed and so he withdrew from public life once again. Just them in 1935 the British gave the Indians a great amount of rights but they were not happy.
The investigation evaluates the reasons India was partitioned in to two countries. It also assessed the significance of the conflicts that aroused after the independence and the partition of India. In order to evaluate the reasons the country was partitioned, the investigation examined each of the research sources from the opposing viewpoints of India and also Pakistan. In this investigation, the sources for the reasons the country was partitioned include “State Formation” by Jayita Ray and “Muslims” by Irfan Omar. In order to evaluate the conflicts that aroused after the independence and the partition, the investigation evaluates the sources that have the most significance of the conflict between India and Pakistan. The sources include the sources stated above and also “Pakistan and India” by Stephen P. Cohen. Sources used in this investigation are web sources from Tennessee electronic Library (tntel.info).
By the year 1857 the British had established complete political control of India. As Western education was introduced and missionaries eroded Hindu society resentment among Indian people grew and it was joined by unease among the old governing class when the British decided to formally abolish the Mughal Empire.
The most threatening conflict between Hindus and Muslims is the province of Kashmir. This is where the decision to divide India into India and Pakistan seems to have been a terrible mistake. Kashmir, which is the only Muslim majority city in India, lies between the divided India and Pakistan. After India’s independence in the 1940’s, Kashmir had to choose to either unite with India or Pakistan. The Prince of Kashmir chose India but Pakistan invaded the province soon after and have occupied part of Kashmir since then. Controversy still surrounds the province today because naturally, Muslims want to control it. While many Muslims relocated to Pakistan and the Hindus to India, half of the Muslim population was left in India and their relations did not improve after being partially separated.
Martial law was declared in Amritsar after April 15th. “The shadow of Amritsar has lengthened over the fair face of India”.7 As the result of this massacre millions of moderate Indians from patient and loyal supporters of the British raj turned into nationalists who would never again place trust in British “fair play.” It thus marks the turning point for a majority of the Congress’s supporters from moderate cooperation with the raj and its promised reforms to revolutionary noncooperation. “The political instability made it very difficult for him to stay in Punjab much longer after the Amritsar massacre. He says, ‘I arrived in India in November, 1885, and was posted to Lahore, the capital of the Punjab. I left Lahore and the Punjab for good in May, 1919.’”8 Liberal Anglophile leaders, such as Jinnah, were soon to be displaced by the followers of Gandhi, who would launch, a year after that dreadful massacre, his first nationwide satyagraha (“devotion to truth”) campaign as India’s revolutionary response. Gandhi started a new campaign of non-co-operation in the following year. On August 1 1920 he wrote a letter to the viceroy to return the medal that he had been awarded for his magnificent services in the South Africa war. In this way he expressed his frustration against the British Raj. In response to Gandhi’s non-co-operation all people surrendered their titles, foreign goods were boycotted and there was a
BROWN, Judith M. Modern India: the Origins of an Asian Democracy. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985