The Partition Of India And Pakistan

August 15th was marked as the date for the formation of the two independent countries India and Pakistan. The ceremony which took place for the transfer of power was held in Karachi which was made the capital of the newly formed nation (Pakistan) and the reason behind holding the ceremony was so that the viceroy at that time of the partition of India was Lord Mountbatten who could then easily attend the ceremonies of both the nations. Thus this lead to the formation of two separate entities and thus lead to Pakistan celebrating its independence day on the 14th of august followed by India celebrating it on the 15th.

In the year 1906 the All India Muslim league was formed in the district of Dhaka and this league was formed by a group of Muslims. Who thought that they were not given equal rights and power in the nation as much as the Hindu majority which was the Indian national congress. The Muslims believed that they were not given the rights in the nation, thus wanted to make certain changes among the Muslim league the first person to have brought up the topic was Allama iqbal who in his presidential address said that they required a formation of a new nation separately for the Muslims and the reason behind this demand was the same thing about the Muslims feeling that they were not given the equal rights which they deserved and thus wanted the partition to happen as they felt that they will not be granted their rights in a Hindu dominated country. The Muslim league then by 1935 when their demand was approved thought that they needed a well reputed Muslim who would lead their this mission and turn it into success thus they thought of making Mohammad Ali Jinnah the leader of their mission who once was the guy who was involved in the peace treaty between the two nations (India and Pakistan) thus they urged him to head the Muslim project and thus he stared to lead the mission from the front. Mohammad Ali Jinnah started to argue with many of the important parties including the congress party of which once before he was a part of and he argued for the less of interest shown towards the demands of the Muslim party and fought for them being a minority and raised the issue of the partition.

By the year 1940 Mohammad Ali Jinnah who was the leader of the Muslim party had put forward his statement at the Lahore conference asking for a complete different nation and for the partition of India , the letter that Jinnah had written was quite vague and not that clear about the demand for a different territory and thus it was not given that much of importance in the start. Later on after like seven years the idea of Jinnah regarding about the partition was given importance and thought about by the Muslim parties and specially by the Hindu parties( like the Hindu Mahasabha). Thinking about the partition all the Muslim parties also thought that there was no point in the partition of India due to many reasons and some Muslim parties like the Khaksar Tehrik of Allama Mashriqi were completely against and opposed this idea of the partition. Even the Hindu parties were against the partition and thought that it was much better if the there would be peace settled amongst the Hindu and Muslims. During the 1937 during a meeting of the Hindu Mahasabha there was this one speaker who was Mr veer Savarkar who stated that India can be cannot be considered as an homogenous or an identical nation but on the contrary there are two main nations within it which consist of the Hindu and Muslims. There were these secularists who were a part of the congress in India and thus were totally against the partition of the nation on the lines of religion. Great leaders at that time like Mohandas Gandhi and Allama Mishriqi stated that they did not want the partition to happen and that the both parties the Hindu and the Muslims should just live in peace and not disrupt the nations harmony. There was another statement of Mohandas Gandhi who stated that “My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God.” Following Ghandi’s footsteps his followers and he himself tried to retain the Muslims in the congress party form leaving but by the year 1930 many of the Muslim activist left the congress which in a way acted like a catalyst and angered the Hindu nationalist and the Indian Muslim nationalist. Soon after the partition Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated by the one of the Hindu activist whose name is Nathuram Godse and he shot Gandhi for his reason that he thought that during the partition of India Gandhi was just trying to comfort the Muslims interest on the cost of all the Hindus. The political leaders from both the sides also initiated allot of controversies that lead to allot of destruction and violence like the riots which took place in Calcutta in august in the year of 1946 and thus as the civil war broke down it destructed many of the territories within the nation like majorly the Bengal issue which later lead into the partition that took place within it, this was done in a way to avoid the war which was breaking out within the two parties.

By the year of 1946 the demand of the definition of Pakistan as a separate nation was so flexible that the it could have been assumed that it already was a separate nation. Some of the historians believed that Jinnah who was the leader of the Muslim party who had initiated the partition of India, used this partition as an excuse or a key to attain more independence for the Muslim dominated areas which lied in the western region which were in the Hindu dominated regions.

Some other great thinkers laid their thoughts forward stating that the true vision behind Jinnah’s idea of the partition was to create a separate nation “Pakistan” which would enter into the Hindu majority regions. Some of the demands that Jinnah also had was relating to the annexation of different regions to Pakistan were of the west Bengal, the east Punjab, part of Hyderabad and the region of junagadh to be a part of Pakistan. Jinnah also was very much interested in the annexation of the state of Kashmir and mainly because it is a Muslim dominated state with a Hindu ruler.

The Indian political parties were:

• All India Muslim League,
• Communist Party of India,
• Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam,
• Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari,
• Hindu Mahasabha,
• Indian National Congress,
• Khaksar Tehrik, and
• Unionist Muslim League (mainly in the Punjab).

The partition 1947

The division of the two countries was done according to the plan which was known as the Mountbatten plan and the partition done in the supervision of the British and also the line which was drawn between the two countries was name the Radcliffe line after a London lawyer. On 18 July 1947, the British passed the Indian independence act that finalized the partition arrangement. The government of India act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the two new dominions. Following partition, Pakistan applied for membership of the united nation, which was accepted by the General Assembly on 30 September 1947. The union formed from the combination of the Hindu states assumed the name India which automatically granted it the seat of British India (a UN member since 1945) as successor state.

The states affected majorly due to the partition:

• Punjab
• Bengal
• Sindh
• Kashmir
• Lakshadweep

Punjab:

The year of 1947 marked the development of the state of Punjab, which eventually got disrupted due to the partition of India. The state of Punjab originally when it was united was anyways divided into two regions as the western part of Punjab was a majority of the Muslim community and then the eastern part of Punjab consisted of the majority of the Sikhs and Hindus but due to the partition of India, the state was left to face the riots by both the communities and thus the creation of two parts of Punjab. The western part which had a majority of Muslims was divided and given to Pakistan and the eastern part was retained by India and kept within its territory. Even when the partition was done within the state of Punjab there were a significant number of Hindus and Sikhs who lived in the majority of Muslims within the western part and same goes with those Muslims who lived in the eastern part dominated by the Hindu category, this partition of the state thus brought many of the Muslim and Hindus who were caught up in the opposite parts to create riots and disrupt the harmony within the state of Punjab .

Bengal:

Like the division we saw in the state of Punjab the state of Bengal had a very similar outcome which resulted the state to be divided further into two district parts, the east Bengal and the west Bengal. The west Bengal was retained by India and kept in its territory and the east Bengal was taken away by Pakistan and was name as the “east Pakistan”. The East Pakistan was later landed up becoming an independent nation which was called Bangladesh and this was done during the Bangladesh liberation war which was fought. While Muslim majority districts of Murshidabadh was given to India, Hindu majority district Khulna the Buddhist majority Chittagong division was given to Pakistan by the award.

Sindh:

The situation that occurred in this state was that the sindhis were told to reside in India itself as it was seen that the sindhis community did not have any such kind of a conflict when it came to Hindu and Muslim, this decision of the sindh community residing in India made many of them in Pakistan or the ones who were thinking of goin to Pakistan think that there was much of a risk involved by going to Pakistan due to the uncertain future of the newly developed country and thus since their community did not have any problem as such in India they all decided to stay back in India, this further lead to an increase in the number of the Pakistani refugees who wanted to come and reside in India.

Kashmir:

The conflict within this state was that the state was as usual divided into a hindu majority and muslim majority, with the hindu having a majority in Jammu and the muslims having their majority in Kashmir. This division of the the two communities broke of into riots and thus lead to the ruler of the state to accede to India due to the immense violence. This issue did not just have the violence in form of riots but also lead to the 1947 war of the two countries India and Pakistan.

Lakshadweep:

These are a bunch of islands toward the south of India and they main guy who is to give credit to make these islands a part of India and give the integration with the republic of India is Mr Sardar Patel, who after the partition realised and laid emphasis on the islands and thought that the inhabitants of the islands did not know anything about the partition until after the August 15th. Sardar Patel thought that the islands that are there towards the south are far from Pakistan but yet they would try to claim the land and make it theirs by giving the Muslim majority as a reason. Thus Sardar Patel sent a navy ship to the islands of Lakshadweep to hoist a Indian flag there and make the territory in India’s favour. Once the mission was successful there were Pakistani vessels which were tracked near the islands which did obviously went back to Karachi as they had seen the Indian flag mounted on the islands.