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Understanding Partition
”No, no! You can never be ours”
This is the third story the researcher related:
I still vividly remember a man I met in Lahore in 1992. He mistook me to be a Pakistani studying abroad. For some reason he liked me. He urged me to return home after completing my studies to serve the qaum (nation). I told him I shall do so but, at some stage in the conversation, I added that my citizenship happens to be Indian. All of a sudden his tone changed, and much as he was restraining himself, he blurted out.
“Oh Indian! I had thought you were Pakistani.” I tried my best to impress upon him that I always see myself as South Asian. “No, no! You can never be ours. Your people wiped out my entire village in 1947, we are sworn enemies and shall always remain so.”
(1) What did the person advice the researcher who met him in Lahore in 1992?
(2) How did the person react on knowing that the researcher was Indian?
(3) What did the Indian try to explain?
(4) Who was right and why? Explain.
The League’s resolution of 1940 demanded: that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions, which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the north-western and eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute “Independent States”, in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.
(1) Explain the background of the League’s Resolution of 1940.
(2) Explain the provision of the Resolution of 1940.
(3) What did Mohd. Iqbal say on this issues in his Presidential Address?
(4) Was the demand of the League reasonable? Comment.
(1) He urged me to return home after completing my studies to serve the qaum (nation).
(2) All of a sudden his tone changed, and much as he was restraining himself, he blurted out.
(3) The Indian tried to explain that he was a south Asian.
(4) The Indian was correct as for him all were equal on earth.
OR
(1) The background of the League’s Resolution: The congress had won majority in most provinces while he Muslim League had fared badly.
(2) The provision of the Resolution: Geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions, which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the north-western and eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute “Independent States”, in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.
(3) In his presidential address to the Muslim League in 1930, Mohd. Iqbal spoke of a need for a “North-West Indian Muslim state”. Iqbal, however, was not visualizing the emergence of a new country in that speech but a reorganization of Muslim-majority areas in north-western India into an autonomous unit within a single, loosely structured Indian federation.
(4) No, because India has accommodated the population of all religion since ages.
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How did ordinary people view Partition?
What were Mahatma Gandhi’s arguments against Partition?
Why is Partition viewed as an extremely significant marker in South Asian history?
Why was British India partitioned?
How did women experience Partition?
How did the Congress come to change its views on Partition?
Examine the strengths and limitations of oral history. How have oral-history techniques furthered our understanding of Partition?
Find out about the ethnic violence that led to the partition of Yugoslavia. Compare your findings with what you have read about partition in this chapter.
Name the writer of ‘Sare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Hamara’. What did he speak to the Muslim League in 1930 in his presidential address?
What did the Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal meant by “North West Indian Muslim State”?
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