Themes In Indian History Iii Chapter 14 Understanding Partition

The Muslim League passed an important resolution on 23 March, 1940. Through this resolution, the Muslim League demanded an autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas of the sub-continent. However it did not mention either partition of country or the creation of Pakistan. In fact, Sikandar Hayat Khan, the Punjab Premier and Leader of the Unionist Party, had drafted this resolution. Speaking in the Punjab Assembly on 1 March, 1941, he had opposed the creation of Pakistan. He was in favour of a loose confederation with a lot of autonomy for the units.

Many people considered the partition of India in 1947 as a very sudden development. Even the Muslims were not clear what the creation of Pakistan meant to them. They were also unaware how the creation of their own country might shape their lives in the future. Many people had migrated to the new country with the hope that they would soon come back as and when the peace prevailed in the region. Many Muslim leaders were even not serious in their demand for Pakistan. Many-a_times Jinnah used the idea of Pakistan to seek favours from the British and to block concessions to the Congress. In other words, the partition of the country took place so suddenly that nobody realised what had happened within a few days.

(a) The ordinary people viewed Partition in terms of the sufferings and challenges of the times. For them it was not a mere territorial division nor was it about the party politics of the Muslim League, Congress or other parties.

(b) For them, it meant the death of loved ones, the rape and abduction of their women and loss of property and wealth. It also meant being uprooted from their homes, transported to refugee camps and forced to start life afresh.

Mahatma Gandhi believed in religious harmony. He was a supporter of unity among various communities of the country. So he was deadly against the partition of India. He did not want the separation of the Muslims from the Hindus who had been living together for centuries. He used to say that the country could be divided over his dead body. He gave the following arguments against partition of India:

(i)    He stated that the demand for Pakistan mooted by the Muslim League was un-Islamic and sinful. Islam stands for the unity and brotherhood of mankind. So it cannot disrupt the unity of human family.

(ii)    According to Gandhiji, the protagonists of partition of the country were the enemies of both Islam and India.

(iii)    He considered partition as wrong. He was ready to be cut into pieces. But he was not ready to accept the partition of the country.

(iv)    He appealed to the Muslim League not to regard any Indian as its enemy. The Hindus and the Muslims belong to the same land. They have the same blood. They eat the same food and drink the same water. They speak the same language. They do everything with mutual consultation. So they cannot be separated from each other.

Indian partition is viewed as an extremely significant marker in South Asian history because of the following reasons:

(i)    This partition took place on the name of communities or religions. History has not witnessed such type of partition.

(ii)    First time in history, people of two countries moved across. Most of the Muslims of India crossed over to Pakistan and almost all Hindus and Sikhs came to India from Pakistan.

(iii)    Several hundred thousand people were killed. People began killing each other who used to live with each other with peace and harmony. Government machinery had no role in it.

(iv)    Innumerable women were raped and abducted. They had faced a number of problems.

(v)    People were rendered homeless, having suddenly lost all of their immovable and movable assets. They were separated from many of their relatives and friends as well.

British India was partitioned due to several factors and causes:

1.    Divide and Rule Policy of the British Government : According to most historians the root came of partition of British India was the British policy of divide and rule. The English did not like unity and mutual cooperation, brotherhood among the two major communities i.e. the Hindus and Muslims.

The British historians, journalists and writers propagated through their writings, literary works and speeches that the Hindus were enslaved by the Muslim invaders and had been exploited for years together.

2.    Role of communal parties and organisations: According to several historians and scholars that Muslim League was founded Dec. 1906 in Dhaka only to work in the interest and favour of the Muslims. When the Muslim League was putting demanded for more and more political rights of Muslims some of the Hindus also awakened in 1915. They founded Hindu Mahasabha. They demanded more political rights and representation in different government organisations for the Hindus. Later on the Sikh League was founded and Akali Dal also raised voice for the people of their own community. Definitely these political parties or organisations created directly or indirectly the feeling of separatism and isolation among different communities, sex and interest groups.

3.    Encouragement by the British Government : The Muslim League was encouraged by the British Government to press its demand for a separate state. They played the game of imperialism for disrupting and weakening the movement for independence.

4.    Responsibility of Iqbal and Jinnah : Historians cannot excused Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal who spoke about the need for a Muslim state in north west India as early as in 1930.

Similarly history cannot excuse Mohammad Ali Jinnah that he was mainly responsible for formation of Pakistan. Though he was a Gujarati lawyer like Mahatma Gandhi. Under his leadership Muslim league moved a resolution at Lahore demanding a measure of autonomy for the Muslim majority area and after that a new nation called Pakistan.

The impact of Partition of India on Indian women can be assessed in the following ways:

1. Historians and scholars have written about harrowing experiences of women in those violent days. Women were raped, abducted, sold, often many times forced to settle down to a new life with strangers in unknown circumstances. Wherever deeply traumatised by all they had undergone, some began to develop new family bonds in their changed circumstances. But India and Pakistan were insensitive to the complexities of human relationship.

2.    The Government of both countries, believing the women to be on the wrong side on the border, they know for them away from their new relations, and some back to their earlier families proclamation. The Government officials of both sides did not bother even to consult the concerned women, undermining their right to take decisions regarding their own lives.

3.    As far as number of women who suffered physically as well as mentally and emotionally were related with both of the communities the Muslims as well as Hindus. According to one estimate, 30,000 women were ‘recovered’ over all 22000 Muslim women in India and 8000 Hindu and Sikh women in Pakistan, in operation that ended as late as 1954.

4.    Women lasted their male family members because male died in larger numbers in the violence of rioting which took place between 1946-47 and even later on. Women had to console each other as they hear of the death of their family members.

5.    At time, therefore, when the men feared that their women-wives, daughters, sisters would be violated by the “enemy”, they killed the women themselves. During partition, in a Sikh village, ninety women are said to have voluntarily jumped into a well rather than fall into “enemy” hands. On 13 March every year, when their “martydom” is celebrated, the incident is recounted to an audience of men, women and children.

Initially the Congress was against the partition of the country. But in March 1947, the Congress high command agreed to divide Punjab into two halves. One part would constitute of the Muslim-majority areas. The other part would include areas having Hindu-Sikh majority.

Many Sikh leaders and Congress men were convinced that partition of Punjab was a necessary evil. The Sikhs felt that if they did not accept the partition, they would be overpowered by the Muslim majorities. Then they would be dictated and controlled by Muslim leaders.

The similar principle was applied to Bengal. There was a section of Bhadralok Bengali Hindus. They wanted to retain political power with them. They were also apprehensive of the Muslims. As the Hindus were in minority in Bengal, they thought it prudent to divide the province. It would help them retain their political dominance. Thus Congress changed its perception about the partition of the country after adopting a pragmatic approach.

(a) The history of Partition has been reconstructed by the help or oral narratives, memoirs, diaries and family histories. These help to understand the problems faced by ordinary people during this harrowing time.

(b)    Oral sources help us to grasp experiences and memories in details. It enables historians to write vivid accounts of what people experienced during partition. It is impossible to extract this kind of information from government documents. Government documents deal with policy matters and may throw ample light on negotiations between the British and other major political parties. But it does not tell us about the day to day experiences of those affected by the partition.

(c)    Thus oral history of partition has helped to depict the experiences of those whose existence have been hitherto ignored, who are not rich or have been taken for granted.

(d)    However historians have felt that oral data lacks concrete details and the chronology they yield is not precise. Historians feel that oral accounts are concerned with tangential issues and that small individual experiences are irrelevant to the unfolding of the larger canvas of history.

(e)    With regard to events like the Indian partition and the German Holocaust there is a lot of information about the suffering that the people faces. By comparing statements, oral or written and by corroborating what they yield with findings from ether sources historians can weight the reliability of piece of evidence.

(f) Different types of sources have to be tapped for answering different types of questions and while government reports can tell us of the number of “recovered” women exchanged by both the countries but it is the women who will tell us about their suffering. But oral data on partition is not easily available. People may not want to talk about what are intensely personal experiences and may many not remember events with accuracy considering the time period which has lapsed.

(i) A major development in last phase of 20th century had been the break of Yugoslavia and the terrific violence that had accompanied it. It might be recalled that Yugoslavia emerged as an independent country or state at the end of First World War (1918).

(ii) During the Second World War (1939-45), the people of Yugoslavia waged a heroic war of resistance against the Nazi occupation.

(iii) Yugoslavia become a federation of six republics after the Second World War. Though ruled by the Communist Party, she had rejected Soviet control on it. Josip Broz Tito, who had led the Yugoslavian resistance against Nazi occupation and subsequently headed the government of Yugoslavia was, played the role of one of the main pioneers of the NAM (Non-Align Movement).

(iv)    At the end of 1980s, as an other communist ruled states in Europe, there was demand for the ending of the communist party’s exclusive control over the Government. By early 1990, non-communist governments had come to power in most of the republics of Yugoslavia.

(v)    In the meantime, many republics had started demanding independence. By early 1992, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina had declared their independence, and Serbia and Montenegro together formed the new state of Yugoslavia.

(vi) The declaration of independence by Bosnia-Herzegovnia has been followed by most tragic violence in which thousands of people have been killed. This republic is inhabited by Serbians, Croats and Muslims. The Bosnian Serbs, supported by Serbia, control a large part of Bosnian territory They are hostile to the idea of a multicultural independent.

(vii) A bloody war has been going on since 1992 between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims inspite of the presence of the UN Peace Force. The war against Bosnian Muslims has been described by some Serbian leaders as a war for ethnic cleaning. It is obnoxious terms which has been used to justify the extermination of one ethnic group by another.

Mohammad Iqbal, a great national Urdu poet wrote “Sare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Hamara.” He spoke in favour of need for north-west Indian Muslim state as an autonomous unit within a single, loose Indian federation in 1930.

Addressing a meeting of the Muslim League in 1930, Mohammad Iqbal visualized the need for a “North West Indian Muslim State.” He did not stress on emergence of a new state. He only wanted reorganization of Muslim-majority areas in north-western India. In fact, he wanted an autonomous state within the Indian federation.

The Cabinet Mission was sent to India in 1946 to fulfil the following objectives:

(i) It wanted to examine the demands made by the Muslim League.

(ii) It was to suggest a suitable political framework for an independent India.

The Muslim League rejected the Cripps proposals because these proposals had no reference to the League’s demand of Pakistan. Another objection of the Muslim League was that the Cripps’ proposals had to be accepted or rejected in full and that nothing contained there could be changed.

Although the Indian Independence Act of 1947 rejected the two nations theory, yet it accepted the partition plan. The country was divided into two dominion states -India and Pakistan. Bengal and Punjab were divided. Thousands of people migrated from one place to another. Unimaginable tragedies followed the partition days.

The negative consequences of the partition of India were bitter. Before and after the partition, there were riots in Bengal, Bihar, Bombay and Punjab. In a few months, about 50,000 people, Hindus and Muslims were killed and millions became homeless.

During the Second World War, the Cripps Mission had come to India in March 1942 to have talks with Indian leaders with a view to grant Dominion Status to India after the end of the War. The Mission failed due to the following reasons:
1.    It did not promise complete independence.

2.    It rejected the Congress’s proposal for the formation of a national 
       government during the war.

Hindu Mahasabha : Founded in 1915, the Hindu Mahasabha was a Hindu party that remained confined to North India. It aimed to unite Hindu society by encouraging the Hindus to transcend the divisions of caste and sect. It sought to define Hindu identity in opposition to Muslim identity.

The name Pakistan or Pak-stan (from Punjab, Afghan Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan) was coined by a Punjabi Muslim student at Cambridge, Choudhry Rehmat Ali, who, in pamphlets written in 1933 and 1935, desired a separate national status for this new entity. No one took Rehmat Ali seriously in the 1930s least of all the League and other Muslim leaders who dismissed his idea merely as a student’s dream.

That union of states or provinces is called a federation in which powers are divided between union and states or central government and provincial governments by a written constitution. Both types of government side by side work separately. On the other hand confederation in modem political language refers to a union of fairly autonomous and sovereign states with a central government with delimited powers.

The Resolution passed by Muslim League at Lahore in 1940, demand 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 northwestern and eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute “independent states”, in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.

A political party representing the interest of landholders-Hindu, Muslim and Sikh-in the Punjab. The party was particularly powerful during the period 1923-47.

Secede means to withdraw formally from an association or organisation.
For example : A political party disassociates itself from National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or United Progressive Alliance (UPA) then its action will be called secede.

Tabligh Movement was started by Muslim community to promote conversion to Islam. The Shuddhi Movement was started by Hindu community to reconvert to Hinduism, persons who had been converted to other religions.

According to the contemporary observers and scholars the violent incidents, during the partition were like holocaust which meant destruction or slaughter on a mass-scale.

(i)  The Indians and the Pakistanis considered each other as enemies. There
      were attempts from both the sides to wipe out the entire population.

(ii) There were innumerable incidents of killing, rape, arson and loot.

(i) It had deepened the divide between different communities.

(ii) It has resulted in itner-community conflicts and communal riots.

(iii) It has created feelings of suspicion and distrust in the minds of the  
      people.

The separate electorates for Muslims, created by the British Government in 1909, shaped the nature of communal politics in the 20th century. It is evident from the following points:

(i)    The Muslims could elect their own representatives in designated
        constituencies.

(ii)    The communal politicians can use sectarian slogans to strengthen their
         position.

(iii)    They can favour the people belonging to their own religious groups.

The Muslims were annoyed with the Hindus because of (i) Music before mosque (ii) Cow Protection Movement (iii) Efforts of the Arya Samaj to bring back those Hindus who had converted to Islam Shudhi.

The Hindus were annoyed with the Muslims because of the rapid spread of tabligh (propaganda) and tanzim (organization) after 1923.

(i) The Congress had won an absolute majority in the province.

(ii) The Muslim League supported Landlordism whereas the Congress wanted to abolish it.

Some scholars see partition as a culmination of a communal politics that started developing in the opening decades of the twentieth century. They support that separate electorates for Muslims, created by the colonial government in 1909 and expanded in 1919, crucially shaped the nature of communal politics.
Separate electorates meant that Muslims could now elect their own representative in designated constituencies. This created a temptation for politicians working within this system to use sectarian slogans and gather a following by distributing favours to their own religious groups. Religious identities thus acquired a functional use within a modern political system and the logic of electoral politics deepened and hardened these identities.
Community identities no longer indicated simple difference in faith and belief; they came to mean active oppression and hostility between communities. However, while separate electorate did have a profound impact on Indian politics, we should be careful not to over emphasize their significance or to see partition as a logical outcome of their working.

There are many people in India who hate Pakistan. There are many people in Pakistan who hate India. Both the communities are the result of the partition of the country in 1947. Many a time some people in India are mistaken to believe that the Muslims of India are loyal to Pakistan. Their un-Indian and pro-Islam perception has many other objectionable views. For example, many people consider the Muslims to be cruel, communal and dirty. They are the progeny of the aggressors. On the other hand, the Hindus are kind, liberal, pure and the victims of aggressions.

R.M. Murphy, ajoumalist, has observed that there are many conservative people in the Pakistan. He stated that some Pakistanis felt that the Muslims were impartial, brave, nonvegetarian having belief in one God. But the Hindus are black, coward, vegetarian, believing in many gods and goddesses. Though some of the prejudices and perceptions are before the period of partition yet the events of 1947 encouraged and instigated these events. The historians criticize many ill-perceptions time and again. Even then, the voice of hatred does not calm down.

By oral history we generally mean the individual experiences of the people. The information about such individual experiences can be gathered by having interviews of the concerned people.

Merits : The main advantage of the oral history is that it can be helpful in enlivening the events occurred in the past. By this method, we can even know the experiences of the weak and the poor, who are often neglected in history.

Demerits : The main disadvantage of the oral history is that it is based on memoirs. It lacks credibility. It is unreliable.

Our view of oral history and Partition : When we adopt the method of oral history about the partition of the country, our knowledge is widened. In government, reports we get data and statistics. But they do not tell us about the trials and tribulations of the people. For example, we can know how many women were exchanged after the partition of the country between India and Pakistan but we cannot know how much sorrow and hardships those women suffered. Only the bearer knows where the shoe pinches. Only the distressed women can relate their tales of woes.

The Congress rejected the offer of the Muslim League to form a joint government because it had won an absolute majority in the United Provinces. Moreover, the Congress had rejected the Muslim Leagues proposal for the coalition government partly because the Congress wanted to abolish landlordism although the party had not taken any concrete steps in this direction. On the other hand, the Muslim League tended to support landlordism. Most importantly the Congress had not achieved any substantial gains in the “Muslim mass contact” programme it launched.

(a) Oral history also allow historians to depict the experiences of the poor and helpless. For e.g., that of the women of Thoa Khalsa or the middle class Bengalis widow bent double over road laying work in Bihar.

(b) However historians have felt that oral data lacks concrete details and the chronology they yield is not precise. Historians feel that oral accounts are concerned with tangential issues and that small individual experiences are irrelevant to the unfolding of the larger canvas of history.

(c) Different types of sources have to be tapped for answering different types of questions and while government reports can tell us of the number of “recovered” women exchanged by both the countries but it is the women who will tell us about their suffering. But oral data on partition is not easily available. People may not want to talk about what are intensely personal experiences and many may not remember events with accuracy considering the time period which has lapsed.

(a) Women underwent harrowing experiences during partition. These were raped, abducted and sold often many times over often they were forced to settle down to life with strangers in unknown circumstances. Deeply traumatized, many develop new family bonds in their changed circumstances.

(b) But no sooner did they do so, that both governments launched a programme to recover the women who had been abducted and forcibly married. Women were once again uprooted, torn away from their new families and sent back to their earlier locations. Further trauma awaited them when their erstwhile families refused to accept them and they were forced to takeout a penurious living in ashrams.

(c)    Both governments did not consult the concerned women, undermining their right to take decisions regarding their own lives. In all 30,000 women were recovered, 22,000 Muslim women and 800 Hindu and Sikh women.

(d)    The need and desire to preserve community honour (izzat) compounded women's suffering. Man's/community's honour depended on his/their ability to protect his/their possessions zan (women) and zamin (land) from outsiders.

(e)    Thus it was when men feared 'their' women-wives, daughters etc. would be violated by the enemy they killed the women themselves as happened in Thoa Khalsa. These ideas were also behind the Recovery programme. Women were thus treated as possessions dishonoured, raped and rescued at will and given no say in the matter.

(a) The history of partition has been reconstructed by the help of oral narratives, memoirs, diaries and family histories. These help to understand the problems faced by ordinary people during this harrowing time.

(b)    Oral sources help us to grasp experiences and memories in details. It enables historians to write vivid accounts of what people experiences during partition. It impossible to extract this kind of information from government documents. Government documents deal with policy matters and may throw ample light on negotitations between the British and other major political parties. But it does not tell us about the day today experiences of those affected by the partition.

(c)    Oral history also allow historians to depict the experiences of the poor and hapless, e.g., that of the women of Thoa Khalsa or the middle dass Bengali widow bent double over road laying work in Bihar.

(d) Thus oral history of partition has helped to depict the experiences of those whose existence have been hitherto ignored, who are not rich or have been taken for granted.

(e) Oral history helps us to understand the partition not as only a political event but a testimony about the different forms of distress that numerous people face.

After the turmoil of partition of the country in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi took the following steps to restore communal harmony in the country. All his efforts bore fruit in no time:

(i)    He believed in the path of non-violence. He was convinced that non-violence could change the heart of any person. So he moved from the village of Noakhali in East Bengal. Then he visited villages in Bihar. He also went to the slum-dwellers in Delhi and Calcutta. Everywhere he stopped Hindus and Muslims from killing each other. In fact he made a heroic effort to stop communal violence.

(ii)    Gandhiji assured protection to all the members of minority communities. In October 1946, he went to East Bengal where majority Muslims were killing the minority Hindus. He valiantly persuaded the local Muslims to guarantee safety of the Hindus.

(iii)    He acted as a mediator between the Hindus and the Muslims. He strengthened mutual trust and confidence between the Hindus and the Muslims.

(iv)    He exhorted the people of Delhi on 28 November, 1947 to protect all the Muslims. He also began his fast to bring about a change of heart. Many Hindus and Sikhs also observed fast along with Gandhiji. According to Maulana Azad, the effect of this fast was electric. He strengthened Hindu-Muslim unity even by sacrificing his life.

In other words, Gandhiji had a miraculous power. In all turmoiled areas, his arrival was as welcome as is the rain after a long and harsh summer.

(a) The Congress accepted the proposal of partition as a necessary evil. It felt that partition was the only way out of the chaos and anarchy caused by communal violence instigated by the Muslim League as a result of Direct Action.

(b) Due to the bitter experience of working together with the members of the Muslim League in the interim government, Congress members were convinced that a secular and democratic republic could beset up only after partition.

(c) Communal identities were consolidated by a host of other developments in the early twentieth century. During the 1920s and early 1930s tension grew around a number of issues. Muslims were angered by “music-before-mosque”, by the cow protection movement and by the efforts of the Arya Samaj to bring back to the Hindu fold (Shuddhi) those who had recently converted to Islam. Hindus were angered by the rapid spread of tabligh (propaganda) and tanzim (organization) after 1923.
In above circumstances communal hatred grew day by day and ultimately Pakistan was created.

After 1937, provincial elections were once again held in 1946. The results of these elections were as given below:

(i)     The Congress won all the seats in the general constituencies. It
         captured 91.3% of the non-Muslim votes.

(ii)    The Muslim League also got a spectacular victory in constituencies
        reserved for the Muslims. It won all the thirty reserved constituencies 
        in the centre. It got 86.6% of the Muslim vote.

(iii)   Out of the total of 509 reserved constituencies in all the
       provinces,the Muslim League won in 442 constituencies. In other words,
       the Muslim League was able to prove that it really represented the  
       Muslim community in India. It came up as the dominant party of the
       Muslims. It vindicated its claim that it was the only spokesman of the
       Muslims of India.

(iv)  In these elections, only a few people enjoyed the right to vote. The
       voters were just 10 to 12% of the total population. Similarly only one
       percent voters enjoyed the right to vote for the Central Assembly.

(i) India fought a long-drawn war to attain its freedom. After the Second World War, the British Government was so weakened that it was impossible for her to control all the colonies. So in 1946, the British Government declared that it wanted to end its rule in India. It sent a Cabinet Mission to India for this purpose. This Mission proposed to call the Constituent Assembly and constitute an Interim Government.

(ii) As soon as the Interim Government was set up, the Muslim League raised its demand for Pakistan. So there were communal riots at many places like Bengal, Bihar and Bombay. Under these circumstances, Lord Mountbatten placed his proposal for the division or partition of the country. All accepted this proposal.

At last India was partitioned on 15 August, 1947. Since then, India is an independent country.

A three-member Cabinet Mission visited India in March, 1946. Its purpose was to examine the demand of the Muslim League for the creation of Pakistan. It also wanted to suggest a suitable political framework for independent modem India. It toured the whole country for three months. At last it made the following recommendations:

(i)      It suggested a loose three-tier confederation for India.

(ii)     It also suggested a weak central government having control only on
         foreign affairs, defence and communications.

(iii)    It retained provincial assemblies but categorised them into three
         groups for the elections to Constituent Assembly. Group-A was for the
         Hindu-majority provinces. Group-B had Muslim-majority provinces of
         the north-west. Group-C also had Muslim-majority provinces of the
         north-east including Assam.

(iv)    All groups of provinces would also have regional units. They would
         also be empowered to set up intermediate-level executives and
         legislatures of their own.

Different kinds of sources to know about the political career of Gandhiji and the history of the national movement : There are many different kinds of sources from which we can reconstruct the political career of Gandhiji and the history of the nationalist movement.
(i)    Public voice and private scripts : One important source is the writings and speeches of Mahatma Gandhi and his contemporaries, including both his associates and his political adversaries. Speeches, for instance, allow us to hear the public voice of an individual while private letters gives us a glimpse of his or her private thoughts. Conversely, the fear that a letter may get into print often prevents people from expressing their opinion freely in personal letters. Mahatma Gandhi regularly published in his journal Harijan, letters that others wrote to him. Nehru edited a collection of letters written to him during the national movement and published a bunch of old letters.
(ii)    Framing a Picture : Autobiographies similarly give us an account of the past that is often rich in human detail. But here again we have to be careful of the way we read and interpret autobiographies. We need to remember that they are retrospective accounts written very often from memory. They tell us what the author could recollect.
(iii)    Through police eyes : Another vital source is government records, for the colonial rulers kept close tabs on those they regarded as critical of the government. The letters and reports written by policemen and other officials were secret at the time but now can be accessed in archives.
If you see the fortnightly reports for the period of the Salt March you will notice that the Home Department was unwilling to accept that the Mahatma Gandhi’s actions had evoked any enthusiastic response from the masses.

(iv)    From Newspapers : One more important source is contemporary newspapers, published in English as well as in the different Indian languages, which tracked Mahatma Gandhi’s movements and reported on his activities, and also represented what ordinary Indians thought of him.

These ideas shaped what was published and the way events were reported. The accounts that were published in a local newspaper would be different from the report in an Indian nationalist paper.   

(i) Gandhiji was a great champion of humanism, communal harmony and Hindu-Muslim unity. Gandhiji was totally against the partition of India. He used to argue that partition will be done on his dead body. Mahatma Gandhi knew that his was “a voice in the wilderness” but he nevertheless continued to oppose the idea of Partition. We come to know this fact through Gandhiji speech delivered on 7 Sept. 1946 at a prayer meeting. According to his thought Islam does not favour partition of human beings but it always had stood for unity and brotherhood.

(ii) When Gandhiji was touring communal riots effected areas of Bengal, Bihar and other regions even then he was having ideas in his mind that communal riots are temporary and unity will prevail in the country.

(iii) Amidst all this turmoil one man's valient efforts at restoring communal harmony bore fruit. The 77-years old Gandhiji decided to stroke his all in a bid to vindicate his lifelong principle of non-violence and his conviction that people’s hearts could be changed.

(iv) Gandhiji believed in power of nonviolence, love, truth and power convincing the people. He were from the villages of Noakhali in East-Bengal (present day Bangladesh) to the village of Bihar and than to Calcutta and Delhi in a heroic efforts to stop Hindu and Muslim keen each other. Gandhiji ask the people every effort should be made by the people of both the communities to protect and care everywhere the minority community.

(v) Unfortunately Gandhi had to accept partition because several prominent leaders of Congress like Jawahar Lal Nehru, Sardar Patel and other ask Gandhiji that if he would not accept partition than the communal forces will spread the riots in each and every part of the country and ultimately India would be divided not only two parts but several parts. Therefore Gandhiji at last accepted the partition of the country with a very heavy and painful hearts.

The death of Gandhiji and reaction of the people :

(a) At his daily prayer meeting on the evening of 30 January, 1948, Gandhiji was shot dead by a young man. The assassin, who surrendered afterwards, was a Brahmin from Pune named Nathuram Godse, the editor of an extremist Hindu newspaper who had denounced Gandhiji as “an appeaser of Muslims”.

(b) Gandhiji’s death led to an extraordinary outpouring of grief, with rich tributes being paid to him from across the political spectrum in India, and moving appreciations coming from such international figures as George Orwell and Albert Einstein.

(i) When negotiations were begun again in 1945, the British agreed to create an entirely Indian central executive council, except for the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, as a preliminary step towards full independence.

(ii)    Provincial elections were again held in 1946. The Congress swept the general constituencies, capturing 91.3 per cent of the non-Muslim vote. The League’s success in the seats reserved for Muslims was equally spectacular: it won all 30 reserved constituencies in the Centre with 86.6 percent of the Muslim vote and 442 out of 509 seats in the provinces.

(iii)    In March 1946, the British Cabinet sent a three members mission (called Cabinet Mission) to Delhi to examine the League’s demand of creation of Pakistan and to suggest a suitable political framework for free India. The Cabinet Mission toured the country for three months and recommended a loose three-tier confederation. India was to remain united.

(iv)    It was to have a weak central government controlling only foreign affairs, defence and communications with the existing provincial assemblies being grouped into three sections while electing the Constituent Assembly : Section A for the Hindu-majority provinces, and Section B and C for the Muslim-majority provinces of the north-west and the north-east (including Assam) respectively.

(v)    Initially all the major parties accepted this plan. But the agreement was short-lived because it was based on mutually opposed interpretations of the plan. The League wanted the grouping to be compulsory, with Sections B and C developing into strong entities with the right to secede from the Union in the future.

(vi)    The Congress wanted that provinces be given the right to join a group. It was not satisfied with the Mission’s clarification that grouping would be compulsory at first, but provinces would have the right to opt out after the constitution had been finalised and new elections held in accordance with it.

(vii)    After withdrawing its support to the Cabinet Mission plan, the Muslim League decided on “Direct Action” for winning its Pakistan demand. It announced 16 August 1946 as “Direct Action Day”. On this day, riots broke out in Calcutta, lasting several days and leaving several thousand people dead.

(viii)    Amritsar district became the scene of bloodshed later in the year when there was a complete breakdown of authority in the city. British officials did not know how to handle the situation: they were unwilling to take decisions, and hesitant to intervene.

(ix)    Problems were compounded because Indian soldiers and policemen came to act as Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs. As communal tension mounted, the professional commitment of those in uniform could not be relief upon. In many places not only did policemen help their coreligionists but they also attacked members of other communities.

1. Jinnah and his Muslim League were very happy over the Congress ministries resignation in November 1939. They celebrated December 22,1939, as a day of deliverance from the Congress rule. The Muslim League also asked the British Government to examine afresh the entire constitutional problem of India. Besides, it demanded a commitment from the government that it will not make any declaration regarding the future constitution of India without the consent of the Muslim League leaders.

2.    The League organised its session at Lahore in March 1940. It was presided over by M.A.Jinnah. Addressing his followers, Jinnah said that the Hindus and the Muslims were “two distinct nations and that their interest were not common.”

3.    However, what was most disturbing was the Pakistan Resolution. It was adopted as a solution to the communal problem by the Muslim League under M.A. Jinnah’s presidentship on March 23, 1940. This resolution demanded a sovereign and independent Pakistan for the Muslims. According to it, all the Muslim majority areas in the North-Western and North-Eastern regions of India would form Pakistan. These areas were North-West Frontier Province, Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab and Bengal.

4.    Almost a decade ago (December 29,1930) similar views had been echoes by Muhammed Iqbal at the All India Muslim League Conference at Allahabad. He had declared that the solution to the communal problem lay in the amalgamation of Punjab, Sind, North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan into a single Muslim state. Some Muslims studying at Cambridge (England) had also been attacked by the idea of a Muslim state. Their leader was Rehmat Ali. He had prepared a plan for the establishment of Pakistan as early as in 1933.

(i) Mahatma Gandhi wished to see that day again when Hindus and Muslims would not take any decision without consulting each other.

(ii) According to Gandhi, the demand for partition is un-Islamic because Islam stands for the unity and brotherhood of mankind. People who wanted to divide India into warring groups were actually the enemy of Islam and India.

(iii) Mahatma Gandhi said that his voice was in the wilderness because at this time the entire country was caught in communal frenzy, but Gandhi was against communal hatred and the partition of the country.

(i)    The Sikh youth had run amuck during the Partition days of India. He persuaded a massacring crowd to let him take away a young beautiful Muslim girl. They got married and lived happy for some days but some social workers and police try to recover that lady. They began to track down the couple.

(ii)    The social workers and police wanted to recover Muslim girl because they thought that marriage of Sikh youth and a Muslim girl was illegal and not allowed by society and Islamic rules. That was unlawful marriage. The situation was created by Partition and that was not a marriage allow by the parents of the both (Sikh youth and the Muslim girl)

(iii)    As for the relation between both, the Muslim girl and the Sikh youth were normal. As we can see relation between a couple normally married. They had got married, and slowly fell in love with each other.

Gradually memories of women parents, who had been killed, and her former life faded. They were happy together, and a little boy was bom. The life was disturb by social worker and police. He ran away with his wife to Calcutta where in a pit the lady delivered her second baby. The Sikh youth assisted her with his own hand during the time of delivery but he could not dare to take his wife to hospital as he was so afraid that social worker and police take away her.

(iv)    The social worker and police made inquiries in the Sikh’s home-district of Jalandhar and reached Calcutta. When the delivery was over in a sugarcane field. The next day she (i.e. mother, a Muslim girl) ran high fever, and in three days she was dead.

(i)    Through this incident, the researcher wants to tell us that the   environment at the time of partition was full of doubt and suspicion. Whether Indian and Pakistan, the people had become very selfish.

(ii)    During the period of partition, the Hindus had massacred the Muslims and the Muslims had massacred the Hindus. The people of both the communities had fled from the villages. Because of this, Indians and Pakistanis had become the sworn enemies of each other.

(iii)    The man whom the researcher met at Lahore was a Pakistani. He thought that the researcher was a Pakistani studying abroad. He wanted that the researcher should complete his studies and return to Pakistan to serve his motherland. But the researcher told him that he was not a Pakistani but an Indian. As he heard this, his tone changed.

(i) The background of Muslim League’s Resolution of 1940 was infact its wrongly created idea in leader's mind of this party that there are two nations in India the Hindus and the Muslims. The leaders of this party had wrong notions that after the Independence of the country the interest of minority Muslims will not safe and they will dominated by the majority of Hindus. This party wanted autonomy for Muslim majority areas of the subcontinent. In short, wether we accept or not but communalism or divide and rule policy of British Government was the root case in the background of the League Resolution of 1940.
(ii) The Muslim League Resolution of 1940 passed at Lahore 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 northwestern and eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute “Independent states”, in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.
(iii)    The Urdu poet Mohd. Iqbal in his presidential address to the Muslim League in 1930 stressed a need for a “North East Indian Muslim state”. Iqbal however was not visualizing the emergence of a new country in that speech but a re-organisation of Muslim-majority areas in north western India into an autonomous unit within a single, losely structured Indian federation.
(iv)    The demand of the Muslim League was not legally because majority of the people did not like the division of the country based an religion or two nations theory propagated later on by the Muslims League. Infact the Muslim have been living in this country in some parts even since 18^th century. India was ruled by Muslim Sultans or emperors and several times by Hindu kings or rulers. Most of them believe and favour secularism.

Even during the freedom struggle from the days of First War of Independence 1857 upto 1947 Hindus and Muslims both struggle for country's independence against the British rule.

This value is true as historians have discovered numerous stories of how people helped each other during the partition.

The values one needs to instill and nurture to avoid hatred are:

(i)Respect for all religions equally.

(ii)Tolerance.

 (iii)Kindness and compassion.

Gandhiji was the most influential and revered of all the leaders who participated in the freedom struggle, that characterization is not misplaced.

 (i) Mahatma Gandhi non-cooperation initiatives in Champaran, Ahmedabad and kheda had instilled nationalistic fervour in every Indian.

 (ii) On 12th March 1930- Gandhiji began the march from his ashram at Sabarmati towards the ocean where he reached after three weeks, making a fistful of salt and thereby breaking colonial salt law. Salt March was notable for at least three reasons. First, it was this event that brought Gandhiji to world attention. The march was widely covered by the European and American Press.

 (iii) Gandhi had launched the major movement against the British which was “Quit India”. It was genuinely a mass movement, bringing into its ambit hundreds of thousands of ordinary Indians.

 (iv) He “appealed to the Sikhs, the Hindus and the Muslims to forget the past and not to dwell on their on their sufferings but to extend the right hand of fellowship to each other, and to determine to live in peace”.

 (v) At the initiative of Gandhi, India remained a democratic secular State where all citizens enjoy full rights and are equally entitled to the protection of the state, irrespective of the religion to which they belong.

 (vi) After working to bring peace to Bengal, Gandhi shifted to move on to the riot-torn districts of Punjab. He was equally concerned with the sufferings of the minority community in Pakistan.

(vii) He trusted that “the worst is over” that Indians would henceforth work collectively for the “equality of all classes and creeds, never the domination and superiority of the major community over a minor, however insignificant it may be in numbers or influence”.

 (viii) Gandhi had fought a lifelong battle for a free and United India.

 (ix) When the country was divided, he urged that the two parts respect and befriend one another.

 (x) To that end British Government convened a series of Round Table Conferences in London. First meeting was held in Nov 1930 without any pre-eminent political leader in India, thus rendering it an exercise in futility. When Gandhiji was released from jail in Jan 1931, many meetings were held with the Viceroy and it culminated in the ‘Gandhi Irwin Pact’ by which civil disobedience would be called off and all prisoners released and salt manufacture allowed along the coast. Gandhiji represented the congress at Second Round Table Conference at London. The conference in London was inconclusive, so Gandhi returned to India and resumed civil disobedience.

OR

 The harrowing experiences of ordinary people during the period of partition of India:

 (i) Several hundred thousand people were killed and innumerable women raped and abducted.

 (ii) Millions were uprooted, transformed into refugees in alien lands.

 (iii) In all probability, some 15 million had to move across hastily constructed frontiers separating India and Pakistan.

 (iv) They were rendered homeless, having suddenly lost all their immovable property and most of their movable assets.

 (v) Separated from many of their relatives and friends as well.

 (vi) Torn asunder from their moorings, from their houses and from their childhood memories.

 (vii) They were stripped of their local or regional cultures.

 (viii) They were forced to begin picking up their life from scratch.

 (ix) The bloodbath continued for about a year from March 1947 onwards.

(x) Partition generated memories, hatreds, stereotypes and identities that still continue to shape the history of people on both sides of the border.

Some scholars see Partition as a culmination of a communal politics that started developing in the opening decades of the twentieth century.

(i) They suggest that separate electorates for Muslims, created by the colonial government in 1909 and expanded in 1919, crucially shaped the nature of communal politics.

(ii) This created a temptation for politicians working within this system to use sectarian slogans and gather a following by distributing favours to their own religious groups.

(iii) Religious identities thus acquired a functional use within a modern political system; and the logic of electoral politics deepened and hardened these identities. Community identities no longer indicated simple difference in faith and belief; they came to mean active opposition and hostility between communities.

(iv) During the 1920s and early 1930s tension grew around a number of issues. Muslims were angered by “music-before-mosque”, by the cow protection movement, and by the efforts of the Arya Samaj to bring back to the Hindu fold (shuddhi) those who had recently converted to Islam.

(v) Hindus were angered by the rapid spread of tabligh (propaganda) and tanzim (organisation) after 1923.

Some scholars see Partition as a culmination of a communal politics that started developing in the opening decades of the twentieth century.

(i) They suggest that separate electorates for Muslims, created by the colonial government in 1909 and expanded in 1919, crucially shaped the nature of communal politics.

(ii) This created a temptation for politicians working within this system to use sectarian slogans and gather a following by distributing favours to their own religious groups.

(iii) Religious identities thus acquired a functional use within a modern political system; and the logic of electoral politics deepened and hardened these identities. Community identities no longer indicated simple difference in faith and belief; they came to mean active opposition and hostility between communities.

(iv) During the 1920s and early 1930s tension grew around a number of issues. Muslims were angered by “music-before-mosque”, by the cow protection movement, and by the efforts of the Arya Samaj to bring back to the Hindu fold (shuddhi) those who had recently converted to Islam.

(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.

i. Abolishing social dogmas

ii. Respecting rights of the minority community.

iii. Granting them privileges, Equality, Social justice.

iv. Integration into mainstream and creating opportunities for them.

The distinctive aspects:
i. Oral testimonies help to understand the trials and tribulations of ordinary people during partition.

ii. Official or government documents provide only political aspects

iii. Partition was viewed as a time of suffering, challenge and unexpected alterations in the lives of people.

iv. Oral accounts help us to grasp experiences and memories in detail.

v. They give a description of the experiences of women and even children

vi. It enables historians to write richly textured, vivid accounts of what happened to people at the time of partition.

vii. It allows historians to broaden the boundaries of their discipline. It shows the lived experiences of the poor and the powerless.

viii. It also succeeds in exploring the experiences of those men and women whose existence till now has been ignored.

OR

Events that led to the Partition:

i. Certain policies of the British encouraged communal divisions. Separate electorates for Muslims given by the British in 1909.

ii. Encouragement to formation of Muslim League.

iii. Govt. of India Act 1919 expanded communal electorates.

iv. Communal Developments from the 1920s

v. Tabligh and Shuddhi movements caused conflicts

vi. Cow protection movement, music before mosque.

vii. In 1940, in the Lahore session, the Muslim League place their demand for autonomous province with Muslim majority.

viii. 1937 elections/ results of the subsequent refusal of Congress to form a coalition government with Muslim League.

The reasons:

(i) This ambiguous resolution never mentioned partition or Pakistan.

(ii) In fact Sikandar Hayat Khan, Punjab Premier and leader of the Unionist Party, who had drafted the resolution was himself opposed to a Pakistan.

The reasons:

(i) There was a very short time-Just seven years between the first formal articulation of the demand for a measure of autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas of the subcontinent and Partition.

(ii) Many who migrated from their homelands in 1947 thought they would return as soon as peace prevailed again.

(iii) Initially, even Muslim leaders did not seriously raise the demand for Pakistan as a sovereign state.

(iv) No one knew what the creation of Pakistan meant, and how it might shape people’s lives in the future.

i. British adopted a policy of divide and rule and encouraged communal politics in India.

ii. Scholars have conflicting views regarding the long history of Hindu- Muslim conflict throughout medieval and modern times.

iii. Encouragement to formation of Muslim League.

iv. Separate Electorate for Muslims given by the British in 1909.

v. Govt. of India Act 1919 expanded communal electorate.

vi. Development in 1920s. – Tabligh, Tanzim and Shuddhi movement, music before mosque.

vii. Opinion of Iqbal.

viii. 1937 election results

ix. Jinnah’s two nation theory.

x. In 1940 in the Lahore session, the Muslim League placed their demand for autonomous province with Muslim majority.

xi. Aim of the Muslim League was to establish an autonomous state in the north western and eastern parts of India.

xii. Indian National Congress began the Quit India Movement but the Muslim League did not support it.

xiii. The proposal of the Cabinet Mission was first accepted by the Muslim League and the Congress but soon the Muslim League rejected it and refused to take part in the Interim Govt.

xiv. The Muslim League organized the ‘Direct Action Day’.

xv. Eruption of communal violence in 1946.

xvi. Mountbatten Plan endorsed a separate nation for Muslims and partitioned India.

xvii. Hindu Muslim riots after partition of India.
(ANY EIGHT)

(14.1) Teaching of Buddha and Mahavira compiled by:

(i)Buddha’s teachings were compiled by his followers at a council of elders or senior monks.

(ii)Mahavira’s teachings were also recorded / compiled by his disciples.

(14.2) The queen tried to convince her husband to renounce the world by saying that:

(i)If the whole world and all its treasures was his , he would not be satisfied, all this would not be able to save him.

(ii)After his death he will have to leave all things behind.

(iii)Only dhamma can save him.

(iv)She said that she dislike the world as a bird dislike the cage.

(v)She wanted to live like a nun without offspring, without desire, without the love of gain and without hatred.

(ANY TWO)

(14.3) The principles of Jainism:

(i)The entire world is animated: even stones, rocks and water have life. Non-injury to living beings, especially to humans, animals, plants and insects, is central to Jaina philosophy.

(ii)In fact the principle of ahimsa, emphasized within Jainism, has left its mark on Indian thinking as a whole. According to Jaina teachings, the cycle of birth and rebirth is shaped through karma.

(iii)Asceticism and penance are required to free oneself from the cycle of karma. This can be achieved only by renouncing the world;

(iv)Monastic existence is a necessary condition of Salvation.

(v)Jaina monks and nuns took five vows:

1. To abstain from killing, ( Ahimsa)
2. Stealing ( Asteya)
3. Truth ( Satya)
4. To observe celibacy (Brahmacharya)
5. To abstain from possessing property. (Aparigraha)